Observations from America

Not too much in the American press about the election - pretty straightforward "Blair won" stories on the front pages of the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times (the New York Times didn't even lead with the story, instead pushing North Korea's nukes to prime position). Slate's "In the Papers" section sums up the general tone by calling it a "desultory win by Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labor party." Not much on Iraq or impact in the States. I had to look to the British Guardian, whose "American Dispatch" section (written in Washington, DC) included this interesting observation:

Karl Rove watched the early returns trickle in on a big screen at the British embassy last night, and then when the shape of result began to emerge, he donned a red rosette and walked away.

It was a suitably ambivalent gesture for George Bush's ever-present political mastermind. In the United States over recent years, the symbolism of the colour red has become the opposite of its meaning everywhere else in the world. It signifies conservative, patriotic, gun-owning, evangelical, Republicanism.

Interestingly, most of the points in this piece concern not Blair, but Michael Howard and Gordon Brown:

"Real Republicans will be looking at how Michael Howard does," said a conservative justice department official last night. "The White House still hates Howard, for some reason, mostly because of some inappropriate things he said about the war at some inopportune times. So they're happy about Blair but what they're not thinking about is that they'll get Gordon Brown."

By that same calculation, the Democrats could equally boast it was a good result for them. Their traditional Labour allies had held on to power but with such a reduced majority that Blair, the president's friend, is a lame duck bound to hand over power to Brown, who has remained far closer to the Democrats than the prime minister.

"For the Democrats, this is a win because it makes Gordon Brown prime minister down the line," said EJ Dionne, a liberal political commentator with the Washington Post.

Charlie Cook, a leading US political analyst was not so sure it would be seen that way on Capitol Hill. "If you ask most Democrats in Congress who Gordon Brown is, they're not going to know," he said.

"They're going to have mixed feelings about this, and for the same reason, I really couldn't tell you who the White House is really backing."

I'm note sure what this all means. But it's got nothing to do with Iraq.