This US poll isn't about vision: it's the money, stupid

It's easy to understand how US elections bamboozle commentators from this side of the pond: everything about them is bigger, louder, shinier and faster than our own pitiful and apathetic shows of hands. And the 2008 election is already being flagged as a climacteric in the affairs of the Republic. Obama is talked up as a mighty wind of change that will sweep all before him; Clinton, while accepting the heavy mantle of "competence", nonetheless presents herself as a thorough repudiation of bad old Bush.

But perhaps because I'm an Anglo-American myself, I'm never altogether taken in by all the hype. I wonder quite how much Brits really understand the extent to which US elections depend on a culture, not of reason, but emotion; and on a counting, not of votes, but of campaign donations. The best description of American campaigning still seems to me to be Kafka's, in his novel Amerika. Kafka brilliantly captures the razzamatazz of US electioneering - and yet he never set foot on the continent. For what he understood intuitively is that this is showbusiness, while all successful American political stars tend either to be demagogues or the puppets of sectional interests.

I'm not convinced Hillary Clinton possesses the vision to transcend her sectional interests - but nor do I believe Obama's undoubted vision will carry him beyond his own.

Don't be fooled. Much may be made of Obama's stand against the Iraq war, but it's still the economy that counts, unless you're a stupid idealist. Forty per cent of the electorate cite it as the most important issue, against 20 per cent for Iraq.

Rather than watching the polls, it's better to watch the donations. There are terrific levels of disclosure in the US system: with a few keystrokes you can find out that, as of last quarter, Bill Gates donated equal (small) amounts to both the Obama and Clinton campaigns. Let's see who Gates ups the ante on after Super Tuesday, let alone any of the other moguls who control the heights of the US economy.

It is the genius of American electioneering to present the political process as a naked encounter between candidate and voter. But the reality is that the man or women who would be emperor is wearing at least two sets of clothes. Make no mistake: everything may change - but it'll still be business as usual.