The new American technique of negative campaigning, combined with the old American system of primary contests, is making the process of selecting the candidate damaging to his chances of subsequent election.As the front runner, Howard Dean has come in for more stick than any of the others and this week objected to being treated as a pin cushion. Their difficulty is that Tony Blair is totally identified with George Bush over Iraq, which has now become the defining and most divisive issue in the domestic politics of both countries. Yet they can hardly be seen to support a US President who has torpedoed UK foreign policy priorities, from the Kyoto Protocol to agreement on fair trade.Nor is there any prospect of Tony Blair achieving a meeting of minds on progressive politics with anyone in a US administration that is slashing tax on the wealthiest and paying for it by equally savage cuts in assistance to the most vulnerable. If it were not for the Iraq war, the clear interests of the British government would lie in the election of any of the rival candidates queuing up to challenge George Bush. Any of them offers the possibility of a return to a multilateralist framework in foreign policy and a resumption of a progressive dialogue on domestic policy.At present, though, the contest between those rivals threatens to damage the chances of any of them succeeding.

He spoke out in opposition to Bush’s war when most of his rivals were voting for it in Congress.I have a suspicion that Number 10 is not looking for the same quality in the Democratic candidate. The key to his popularity and to the enthusiasm of his supporters is simple. His lead over his rivals may be narrowing, but that should not obscure his phenomenal achievement in coming from nowhere to front-runner. Even now, he is still ahead in the polls, has more volunteers than any of his rivals, and has by far the biggest campaign fund.In contrast to the vast war chest of the Presidentfrom big corporate business, Howard Dean’s funds are the product of thousands of small citizens, making modest donations through the internet.

But over in London, Tony Blair insisted until the last minute that no decision had been made and the inevitable launch of the invasion by the White House was a reluctant response to a real and urgent danger.Downing Street’s hope is that Iraq will fade as a political issue after Lord Hutton publishes his report in a couple of weeks, but the reality is that the US Presidential election may keep it a matter of controversy all the way to polling day in November.Certainly that will be the case if Howard Dean becomes the Democratic candidate. According to his former Treasury Secretary, George Bush was from the start of his presidency saying about an Iraq invasion, “Go find me a way to do this”. What made the intervention of Paul O’Neill sensational was the corroboration from a member of the inside circle of what many on the outside had long suspected.For Number 10, the implications are deeply uncomfortable. In itself, this was not news to anyone who had followed closely the long right- wing lobbying for war on Iraq. Well not exactly to the polls, but Democratic voters will go to village halls to caucus over their candidate, not unlike Labour selection committees in the days before one member, one vote.It is also a more pointed question after a week in which the biggest political story stateside was the revelation by Paul O’Neill, George Bush’s former Treasury Secretary, that the conquest of Iraq had been Topic A for the Administration from day one. While there can be no harm in having an open mind, this is most definitely territory where the suggestion that there is some easy and pain-free remedy is to hold out false hope.. Just who will Number 10 be rooting for in the American race to the White House? A relevant question as the shift in our strategy on Iraq from containment to invasion revealed that regime change in Washington can have a bigger impact on British foreign policy than any debate at Westminster.