US hopefuls give campaign a personal touch

If you've ever felt like the build-up to a general or local election is going on for ever, the chances are you wouldn't have enjoyed living in Iowa for the last few months.Thursday night saw voters in the mostly rural US state cast the first meaningful votes of the country's elections by taking part in the first caucus of the season, signalling the start of a race for the White House which will only get more fevered as the final vote on November 4 gets closer.But in reality, the jostling for position, fund-raising and criss-crossing of the country in search of vital votes began months ago.

Given how high the stakes are, it's hardly suprising. With candidates spending more than 100 million dollars each on their campaigns, they're leaving nothing to chance.And though the electoral system in the USA is as convoluted and incomprehensible to outsiders as they come, the tight margins could be a forerunner for our own General Election come 2009 or 2010.

The USA's image as a bastion of democratic purity has been tainted by scandal in the last two elections. Few will forget the recounts and farce of the 2000 presidential election, where George W Bush won despite failing to win the popular vote.Four years later Vietnam veteran John Kerry was defeated in part because a campaign to cast doubt on his outstanding military record.

Many believed the Bush administration's master of the dark arts, Karl Rove, was responsible.This time round though, the old guard has been replaced (Hillary Clinton and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani aside) by a bunch of largely unknown candidates, and the race is wide open.

A case in point was back in December, when Democratic hopeful Barack Obama joined talk show host Oprah Winfrey in a series of rallies across three pivotal states.In the next few days Obama's staff were busy contacting as many of the thousands of attendees as they could to make sure of their voting intentions. In the lead-up to the Iowa caucus, volunteers trudged through the snow of a mid-Western winter to put promotional hangers on residents' doors.One Iowan resident interviewed by reporters was able to play messages from staff representing all the Democratic candidates left on his answer phone, asking whethern he would be turning out on the day.

Election time in the UK seems almost quaint in comparison.Those aiming for our votes limit themselves to a few photo opportunities or a visit from a prominent party official, but conscious of our voters' suspicion of grandiose displays they shy away from overt displays of electioneering.The high-intensity campaigning from the US hopefuls might sound desperate - but I can't help but think it would have been nice for some of the prospective MPs to have lavished that kind of attention on my house when the UK chose its leader in 2005.What do you think of the techniques employed in the US elections? Should our voting system be more like theirs?