FOUR years ago I flew out to America to campaign for the Democrat presidential candidate, John Kerry. This year's race for the White House is set to be even more interesting and even more important in terms of the huge global challenges facing humankind.

It is always instructive to watch the American political process. The recent inclusion of Sarah Palin on the Republican ticket as Vice Presidential nominee has certainly electrified the political debate.

The Alaskan State Governor, a gun-loving, moose-shooting, professed Christian, anti-abortion, creationist has certainly got the political commentators and the candidates into a bit of a tizz, to put it mildly.

It is when you see such a political package put together and presented as a part of the race to be the next President and Vice President of the United States of America that you suddenly realise just how different this country is from the USA.

If the American polls are to be believed, the McCain-Palin ticket stands a reasonable chance of being the winning team in the forthcoming elections.

In America, few mainstream politicians, Democrat or Republican, are prepared to take on the gun lobby.

An estimated 45% of Americans across the political spectrum go to church each Sunday and fewer than 15% have passports.

In many ways, America is still the land of the wide open spaces, the frontiers values, and the land of the constitutional right of militia men to bear arms.

In Europe, the attitude to guns is entirely different. The hunters and shooters are a small minority in Europe and there is widespread public concern about guns held by individuals and no political support for the carrying of firearms in public or for their use by individuals to shoot burglars, muggers and the like as there is in America. Here firearms are seen as a danger or potential danger to the public and not as an individual constitutional right to purchase and to use as we please.

In America, the National Rifle Association has wrapped itself in the metaphorical flag and the Constitution and claims to be the voice of the people. It is very well funded and politicians are not prepared to take it on.

The only large-scale groups standing against it are the women's groups seeking restrictions on the sale and use of guns.

The UK equivalent is the Countryside Alliance and behind them the fluffily named British Association for Sport and Conservation. They claim to be the voice of the countryside and lobby Government on behalf of the gun owners and shooters. However, unlike America, opinion polls in the UK show that over 70 per cent of the population is against killing for sport by shooting.

In this country, if a political figure was a gun-toting creationist that refused to accept climate change as a man-made phenomenon they would be immediately dismissed by the electorate as bonkers. But, in America, it could help to propel John McCain into the White House.

The USA might be the most powerful country in the world, but, if its political process leads to the election of a duo who are so unsuitable to hold high office, the cause of worldwide democracy will be brought into disrepute.

There is a lot riding on Barack Obama's bid for the White House. If he fails, the consequences could be catastrophic.