Today's election for the post of governor of California may not appear relevant to politics in this country. The issues revolving around next month's possible election here seem a long way from the glitz and glamour of politics on America's west coast.
But although the political issues are different, sections of both electorates share a similar undercurrent of political and cultural insecurity. It is that insecurity which may have a major bearing on both elections.
In the aftermath of September 11 much of middle America mirrors the current confusion in Ulster Unionism. Terrorism shattered the USA's insularity. Up to then US wars were fought away from the American mainland. Apart from German sabotage in 1917 and high altitude balloons with explosives from Japan in the 1940's, Americans had not been under foreign threat at home since Rostrevor's General Ross burned the White House on behalf of the British in 1814.
In the same way that the extension of republican violence from its traditional border location to downtown Belfast brought unionism an increased sense of insecurity, Osama Bin Laden shattered America's political comfort by reducing its distance from danger.
Just as our weather maps on local TV used to show the six counties as an island with an apparent coastline along the border, a US TV weather channel recently devoted 10 seconds each to Canada and Mexico under the heading of international weather. For many Americans the US is still an island.
This political insecurity is displayed most clearly in the US today through the use of the national flag. While Americans have always demonstrated a greater public allegiance to their flag than many Europeans – in schools and in front gardens, for example – they also use it more recently as a statement of political defiance.
This 'not-an-inch' stance in the aftermath of terrorism at home is similar in many ways to some unionists flying the Union Jack in defiance of what they have seen as a republican threat to their heritage.
Of course flag flying here is not restricted to unionists. The relationship between flags and territory is nowhere more obvious than, for example, in the lighthearted inter-county rivalry of the GAA. But the siege mentality in the US more accurately parallels Unionists fears of the political unknown.
Both are often misunderstood by a rapidly changing world, which they in turn misunderstand. Many Americans cannot appreciate the unpopularity of their foreign policy in places like the Middle East. Although they have been the targets of violence, the outside world does not always share their sense of being victims. In that respect the similarity to unionism is striking.
Americans, being that bit more demonstrative than us, have brought displays of defiance to a new level. It would be unusual to find a European equivalent of what looked like a middle ranking executive pushing his way through the early morning Manhatten rush, with papers in one hand, a covered coffee in the other and an enamel US flag in his lapel.
The doors of an up-market department store carry stickers urging us to work together for the future. Uncertainty is everywhere. It is that same uncertainty which unionists have increasingly faced since the Good Friday Agreement guaranteed them permanent partition but an end to their monopoly of political power.
In California Arnold Schwarzenegger is seen as an antidote to uncertainty – someone who personifies a political aspiration, not through debate or political argument but by being a totem pole with charisma. Middle America, like unionism, has been led too often by coloured cloth. Flags are fine but they too are a substitute for force of reason.
Maybe George Bush has gone for too much force and not enough reason. His foreign policy of kicking ass is in difficulty because he kicked the wrong ass for the wrong reason. Now his troops are on the receiving end – causing more in security at home. David Trimble's continuing challenge is to define not his enemies, but his friends.
Neither election will resolve insecurity. (Indeed in this country insecurity may even prevent the election). That challenge will take strong and honest political leadership to overcome uncertainty, replace conflict with confidence and make the insecure at ease with the wider world.
If David Trimble achieves it first he may well offer to share its lessons with our American friends. They so generously brought reason and enlightenment to our situation which had lacked both for so long.
Like election analysis, sharing political wisdom may yet become a two-way, trans-Atlantic process.
