Democrats will be voting against Bush, not for Kerry

They will walk naked through a snowstorm to vote against the President

The Berkshires in western Massachusetts are only about 100 miles from Manhattan, and from the 21st century. It is a region of green hills and endless woods, interspersed by little towns with wide streets and clapboard houses. The pace of life is easy; the whole place seems to belong to an earlier, gentler America.

Yet there have been changes. Clapboard houses are bought up by rich liberal New Yorkers as weekend cottages, while quite a few struggling family farms have at last enriched their owners, when sold off for golf courses. All this has had a political impact. Before a Republican presidential candidate carries the Berkshires, there will be an ice age in hell.

This is not just due to inward migration by affluent liberals. Many local services are run by simple-lifers and tree-huggers who hate everything which they think that George Bush stands for. So I had an amusing exchange in our local bookshop. Identifying me as British, the owners offered condolences: how could a nice fellow like Tony Blair support this dreadful President? "Only good thing he's done,'' said I, and a predictable argument ensued. If the bookstore's inmates had been on the Palme d'Or jury which lauded Michael Moore, they would only have had one reservation. Was Mr Moore tough enough on Mr Bush? These were likeable people and not uncultivated, if a bit trendy-pseudy, but their language about the President much exceeded in violence anything which he has said about Saddam Hussein.

They were also, as I pointed out, vehemently racist. The racism was directed against the one group in America whom it is still possible to be applauded for abusing, the white, male, protestant Republicans of the southern states who provide Hollywood directors with an endless supply of villains.

I was assured that apart from voting to sustain a cretinous criminal in the White House, these trailer-park trash were only interested in incest, in dressing up in white sheets to burn crosses and in dreaming of the good old days when segregation was backed by lynch law. We have all heard Northern Italians say: "Dopo Roma, Africa'' - and in extreme cases, "Dopo Firenze". But that is usually done with irony. The divisions in America are far more extreme. There was no irony in the way in which these charming, civilised New Englanders were describing the plain people of the old South.

Nor are such attitudes restricted to the Berkshires, which is why the Republican strategists ought to be a little concerned. It will not merely help John Kerry to pile up even bigger majorities in already safe districts. A lot of Democrats in marginal states hate George Bush with the same intensity. Come the first Tuesday in November, they will walk naked through a snowstorm to vote against him. But can he inspire an equal passion in his own supporters? If not, he could just lose.

In 2000, I thought that Mr Bush would win, and by a reasonable margin. I had only one moment of doubt, to which I should have given more weight. It was in the Brandywine Valley in southeastern Pennsylvania. Most of the people I spoke to were tribal Republicans, but they did not seem that engaged. Indeed, they were amiably surprised that a visiting Brit should take such an interest in their politics. Mr Bush lost Pennsylvania by 5 percentage points. If he could carry it this year, his re-election would be virtually certain. But I doubt whether the Republicans of Brandywine are as strongly committed as the Democrats of Massachusetts.

There is more likely to be self doubt. It took a surprising amount of time for the Abu Ghraib photographs to have an impact in middle America. For a few days, people did not seem to care. Then, in John Prescott's words, the plates moved. Certainly, a lot of Americans started throwing crockery at the President. They had been made to feel bad about themselves and did not enjoy it.

President Bush has plenty of time to recover. There are several months for American voters to realise that the economy is recovering rapidly, as is the labour market. Up until the New Year, some Republicans were afraid of a jobless recovery. That is not happening; Americans are rapidly returning to the days when anyone who wanted a job could find two of them.

There are also rumours about John Kerry's private life, which have gained credence even in New York liberal circles. It may be that the girls, if they exist, will keep quiet. It may also be that these days, even Americans who insist on eating freedom fries will take a French attitude to adultery, and refuse to care. But Mr Kerry's wooden demeanour may not help him to extricate himself from sexual embarrassments.

Predictions at this stage invite derision. But I would hazard a wager that the race will be close right to the end, and that it could even be decided by the hang of a chad. If I were a Republican pollster, I would be concerned that their haters are much more het up than ours are. Nor is it easy to see how Mr Bush could put that right. This is going to be one of the most exciting elections in modern political history.