The US Presidential Election: Campaign Diary

ARE YOU a US voter sick of George Bush, but who finds Bill Clinton too smarmy and Ross Perot simply off the wall? If so, do not despair. There are 20 other candidates running for the White House, offering something for the most idiosyncratic tastes.

Leading the way is the anti-government Libertarian Party's Andre Marrou - like the Big Three, on the ballot in all 50 states, and greatly miffed he was not invited to the debates this month. Next come Lenora Fulani of the mystic- socialist New Alliance party, an option in 39 states, and John Hagelin of the Natural Law party, on the ballot in 28. Then there is anti-tax crusader Howard Phillips in 23 states, and even that celebrated jailbird, Lyndon H LaRouche Jr ('it's a terrible inconvenience, running a presidential campaign from prison', he confided the other day) who is none the less on the ballot in 18 states. And so on down through a gamut of prohibitionists, socialists, and almost everything under the sun except Communists. Finally, if the choice is still too demanding, there's always the Apathy Party's Jim Boren. Trouble is, he only bothered to get his name down in Arizona. That's apathy for you.

BELIEVE it or not, the Clinton menage of Bill, Hillary, daughter Chelsea and their cat Socks may be about to join the ranks of America's homeless for a couple of months. At the moment the Clinton residence is of course the Governor's mansion in Little Rock. But if he wins on Tuesday, he will surely have to resign the Arkansas governorship to work full-time on the transition, so that little perk will vanish. Right now, the Clintons have no home of their own, other than a half-share in a modest flat already occupied by Hillary's parents. So where would the First Family-elect go, until the big move to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC on 20 January? Conceivably, his successor, Lt Governor Jim Tucker could do the decent thing and wait, or perhaps the city fathers of Little Rock could lay on a temporary grace-and-favour residence for the interim.

Meanwhile, candidates are queuing up for the site of a future 'Summer White House' in Arkansas, Bill Clinton's Kennebunkport. The latest of them is the Governor's boyhood home of Hot Springs, where the Chamber of Commerce has begun a secret search for suitable presidential housing.

COVERING the Bush campaign is a high-risk occupation these days. Not that the President has ever had much time for the pundits, 'You know who I mean, those guys on TV paid dollars 500 an hour to tell you how to think.' More recently, too, posters urging voters to 'Annoy the media, re- elect Bush-Quayle', have become familiar props at every presidential rally.

Now, however, supporters are taking out their frustrations on the travelling press corps physically. One photographer had his pony- tail yanked by an irate Bushie, another reports being assaulted by an old woman who jabbed him repeatedly with a US flag. So explosive is the mood that Mr Bush has had to urge calm: 'Put the travelling reporters down as good guys and leave them alone - it's those talking heads who come on national television and tell us we don't have a chance to win.'

On the other hand, more cheering news for the media from Ross Perot. No longer will we have to hack it around the country on commercial flights to catch his pearls of wisdom. The old boy belatedly is laying on a press plane. Maybe the great conspiracy theorist is mellowing at last. Or perhaps he just wants to bug us.

MIXED news for Governor Clinton on the endorsements front. From London comes word of a poll showing he has the backing of a majority of MPs - more Tory rebels. Closer to home though, he has predictably failed to gain the endorsement of his state's biggest newspaper, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. 'There is something almost inhuman in his smoother responses that sends a shiver up the spine,' it wrote. 'It is not his compromises that trouble, so much as the suspicion he has no great principles to compromise.'

Yesterday brought hint of another subtle personality change by the man the Democrat-Gazette dubs 'a chameleon'. For the first time, I saw him wearing glasses. A search, one wonders, for that elusive presidential gravitas?