I deplore the level of discourse in Australian politics so much that I tend to turn to other countries for my political fix. I am living out my antipodean needs by proxy, and that proxy is the United States.

The US is a deeply flawed democracy. At the national level, the Congress and the President tend not to work well together, making sound public policy a fraught area. The Supreme Court has been sometimes left in the position of having to rule on matters that probably should be legislated in Congress, if only the latter could get its act together. Joined-up-government it is not, though perhaps the framers of the Constitution wanted it that way. Nobody gets the Crown all to themselves and if they ever do, there are others to snatch it from their head.

I was going to say that the Westminster System tends to work better but then I look at Australia and the level of mediocrity at the top and wonder-maybe not. Yes, there is a lot of policy framing and legislative action most of the time, but the level of debate is so infantile and predictable as to denigrate the process. Reasonably, people switch off.

At the moment, The Republican Party is entering the period of debating that pressages the primaries. It is an interesting time for the politically minded even if the rhetoric is tired and deeply conservative. I watched the opening debates and was impressed by the quality of the candidates, even though I agreed with little that they said.