DATELINE: Austin, Texas

So tonight is George W. Bush’s final State of the Union speech then, which the former Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich decided to mark by trying to impeach the President. The wag. Sadly he has just announced he is postponing this bit of political fun for a little while longer.

Either way, Kucinich is not like other candidates. He was the only Democratic candidate who denounced the immorality of the Iraq war from the outset, who tried to shout down the Patriot Act and Guantanamo, called for a genuinely not-for-profit healthcare system, and supported the right to gay marriage. He infamously claims to have once seen a UFO, and on the day of the New Hampshire primary he told our friends at Harvard H-Bomb that young people ought to “love themselves”. Aww.

Hanging out at Kucinich’s non-victory party in Jillian’s Sports Bar in Manchester, New Hampshire a couple of weeks ago, there was little doubt that this bold, passionate man was only really in the race to help shape the debate. “When I am President”, he kept saying, but his supporters all knew the reality. Kate, a Manchester local and Kucinich fan, had walked into the voting booth that morning planning to vote for John Edwards, who eventually finished third.

“I was all ready to tick the Edwards box. But then I thought ‘well, if I’m going to vote for someone who’s not going to win, I may as well vote for the one guy who actually represents my views.’”

A lot of Americans see Kucinich as being slightly to the left of Leon Trotsky, but he’s really quite the liberal, in the English sense of the word. Indeed he was once lauded in The Guardian newspaper as the kind of politician who’d be better off abandoning the staunchly centrist Democratic party, relocating to Islington, and signing up as an archetypal north London Labour MP. And given that his wife Elizabeth is English, why not do just that?

The Kucinich New Hampshire party could easily have been a good old-fashioned London Labour Party bunk-up, looking around the room. There were earnest young men in suits that didn’t fit them properly, a few corduroy-clad grad students, a smattering of pierced eco-vegans, and, the predominant demographic, friendly middle aged faces sticking out of horrifying multi-coloured woolly jumpers.

So what about it? Time to get Dennis and Elizabeth to cross the Atlantic to save Labour from itself, surely? His staunch defence of civil liberties, and ideological (not opportunist) opposition to unilateral invasions of middle eastern countries could give Brown’s government the moral compass it needs to return the Labour vessel to calmer waters.

Once Kucinich’s speech was over, he descended the small stage in the back-room at Jillian’s to thank his rag-tag army of New Hampshire activists. The throng around Elizabeth was smaller, however, so I respectfully shuffled into a position alongside a guy who wanted her autograph, despite being nearly 70 in age (“she’s just so glamorous,” he said, like a school-boy standing on the red carpet). When he had had his turn I walked up and explained myself, mentioning London, and our blog, and the insanity of the campaign trail.

“So have you ever thought about taking Dennis back home to England, getting him involved in the Labour Party over there? Helping Gordon out a little?”

She smiles slightly sheepishly at my question.

“Actually,” she says, leaning in as if to impart a secret, “I’m a Conservative back home”.

“Really?!” I say, forgetting my polite awe, unable to contain my consternation. Dennis Kucinich is seen as redder than red out here, and now his wife is telling me she’s a Tory.

“Yeah, well you know how it is.” I look at her blankly. I’m not sure that I do. “Well, you know: right-wing in Britain is like left-wing over here. It’s so different.”

“So will you really vote for David Cameron in 2010?” I ask, slightly tetchily.

“Oh, I don’t know, I guess so. Maybe Liberal Democrat actually.”

I thanked Elizabeth, still slightly confused, and wandered back to our blogger enclave next to the free chips and dips. English politeness had come to my rescue at the last minute; after all, it wouldn’t have been very good form to have started lambasting Kucinich the Cameroonian at her husband’s New Hampshire party. Goddamn it I was tempted though.