From this distance, the US presidential election looked, as the Americans themselves might put it, like a no-brainer, writes David Adams.
The incumbent, George W. Bush, had "stolen" the previous election and was, to the liberal eye at least, a warmongering Christian fundamentalist, opposed to abortion, gay rights and stem-cell research. His opponent, John Kerry, was . . . well, it's hard to say exactly what he was, except that he wasn't George W. Bush, and that fact alone, you would have thought, should have been enough to sweep him into the White House on a tidal wave of support.
However, the American electorate - or 59 million of them - didn't quite see it like that. And, I must admit, after taking a closer look at some of the issues, I'm not sure I still do either.
For a start, the abortion debate wasn't nearly as clear-cut as I had imagined it to be; it wasn't simply about whether or not a woman should have the right to choose. Already, in the US, abortion legislation goes beyond that which pertains in Britain.
Though illegal in Northern Ireland, abortion in the rest of the UK is lawful up to the 24th week of pregnancy; but only in circumstances where two doctors state that to continue with the pregnancy would present a risk to the physical or mental health of the woman or her existing children.
Beyond 24 weeks it can only be undertaken if the woman's life is in danger or if there is foetal abnormality. Though incidents are rare, in the US an abortion can legally be performed at any time during the full nine months of pregnancy.
Pro-choice activists there, who align themselves with the Democratic Party, are looking to stretch boundaries even further with legalisation of partial-birth abortions (where the child is born alive and then dispatched by doctors) and the removal of the right of parents to be informed if a minor seeks an abortion.
Though pro-choice, I certainly couldn't support anything that went much beyond current UK legislation. And, as a parent, I can barely imagine any responsible adult voting to allow under-age children the right to abortion without parental knowledge and consent.
Neither is stem-cell research banned in the United States: the arguments revolve around, on the one hand, a perceived lack of adequate research funding from government and, on the other, fears that such research may merely be a cover for the further development of eugenics.
Likewise the gay marriage debate. It wasn't about banning same-sex union but, rather, the American electorate in 11 states were, in effect, voting on whether or not they agreed with a decision by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts to confer full marital status on such a union. (Though, in fairness, the debate could hardly have escaped attention in the remaining states.)
Apparently, Bush has said that he personally has no problem with recognising same-sex union but argues that the true definition of marital status, in his view, remains the union between a man and a woman.
So, on the abortion issue I would have sided with the Republicans; on stem-cell research, after a deal of heart-searching, I would probably have opted for the Republican position again; and, on conferring full marital status on same-sex union, I would have supported the Democrats.
Which leaves the war in Iraq where, try as I might, I just couldn't put my finger on any real, tangible difference in the positions of the two candidates. Neither, I suspect, could a large chunk of the US electorate, who presumably then decided their best bet was to stick with the devil they know.
Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic, looking down from the imaginary heights of a "more enlightened" western European culture and with supreme arrogance, many politicians, media commentators and almost the entire chattering class scoffed at, and even berated, the American electorate for choosing to return Bush to the White House.
But I wonder, in similar circumstances and given the emotive issues just outlined, whether the electorates in this part of the world (Ireland and the UK) would have voted any differently from the people of the United States. Somehow, I seriously doubt it.
In fact, we probably wouldn't have got much beyond the abortion issue before a majority decided to go with the candidate who opposed any changes to existing legislation. On moral issues like abortion, gay marriage, eugenics and even the death penalty, our electorates tend to be every bit as "unenlightened" as their American cousins.
With the highest electoral turnout (61 per cent) since 1968, it looked for a while as though Kerry would indeed sweep into the White House. However, what wasn't immediately clear, but soon became so, was that many of those extra voters were of Scots-Irish descent and they were, true to type, prepared to vote contrary to economic interests in favour of their moral viewpoint.
For the Scots-Irish and many other like-minded Americans, the presidential election was indeed a no-brainer, but not quite in the way many of us imagined.