The dreary steeples of divisive, passion wracked issues - Faith, Right to Life, Intelligent Design / Creationism - have, this week, punched their way in to the American Presidential campaign. How serious are the citizens of that innovative, ideologically restless, sincere Republic going to take these as meat and drink electoral issues? Surely, it's the economy that matters ? The daily affects of a see-sawing economy, the inching nearness of personal bankruptcy, job loss, involuntary mortgage default, homelessness: are n't these the things that truly matter?

I'm not an American (other side of the pond), but I am unashamedly an Amerophile; I've lived there, (briefly worked there too), visited all but six states; deep-dived repeatedly into it's compelling culture, it's history, and it's lively, never still political debates - I feel I have credentials. It's smacks of temerity, I realise, but I think I've a more developed understanding of the US that many, or even most, have. In a certain sense, I feel I have a stake, like a non-voting shareholder at the company annual general meeting.

The board needs a shake-up - it needs flatly, Barack Obama and Joe Biden as Chief Exec and Vice-Chairman of USA Inc. What matters (as it does here in UK Plc) is n't angry debates on abstractions or the promotion of ideological certainties - it's the economy, that's where everyone is feeling the pinch.

Yet, Sarah Palin's abrupt irruption into the presidential race has shifted attention away from that to, heart-felt no doubt, but bitterly contended and that's without a doubt, abstract issues. Certainty of the type she propounds fogs debate. Promoting fixed moral viewpoints and flamboyantly self-celebrating that one does are irreconcilable with the duties of Chief Executive, especially so in the heat, dust, and throbbing tension of the present economic climate.

I understand the concept of exemplar; that the president sets the tone for the nation; it's been said too that the President is more a High Priest sacredly tending the flame of American-ness, looking into the flames to divine the sentiments of the nation. The current economic and social landscape merits a moderate, deliberate, collaborative tone. Obama's methodology in a nutshell. No other way exists than that in order to harness the physical and intellectual energies of every US citizen to get to grips with the topic de nos jours - a tanking economy. The Democrats have read the runes. This is not the time for conviction based politics.