Say it today. Please.

Today America gives it's verdict on George Bush and his war in Iraq. It gives it's verdict on the man who has claimed unprecedented powers never before claimed by any American president.

On the campaign trail Bush made his final appeal to the voters:

"Our principles are the principles of the majority of the people in this country," he said at a rally in Arkansas.

"We're going to win this election because we're right on the big issues.

Torture is not an American principle. And it is for this reason, and a myriad of others, that the US should reject Bush and his immoral philosophy.

There have been the inevitable stories about Republicans closing the gap, but seriously, when you begin a campaign that far behind, the gap simply has to close at some point; but that does not mean that victory is going to be in the hands of the Republicans. The polls still make dire reading for the GOP, they are simply not as dire as they were a month ago.

A USA Today/Gallup poll published yesterday gave the Democrats a seven point edge, leading the Republicans by 51% to 44%. But that was down from a 13-point margin two weeks ago. The USA Today poll also showed Democrats struggling to win all six seats they need to take control of the Senate.

A poll from the Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press on Sunday showed a steeper erosion in the Democratic lead, with the party polling 47% and the Republicans 43% among likely voters, compared to an 11-point gap two weeks ago. And an ABC/Washington Post poll showed Republicans cutting into the 14-point lead the Democrats held two weeks ago, reducing their advantage to six points.

It is typical of the media that the leading story is the closing of the gap rather than of the Democratic lead. In all of the polls quoted above the Dems still lead by a considerable margin.

What is undeniable is that support for Bush is haemorrhaging, with even his neo-con buddies falling over themselves to put distance between Bush and his war in Iraq and their previous support for both.

It is said that governments lose elections rather than challengers win them, and that may be just as well for the Democrats who have failed to find any unified message other than that they are not Republicans.

But in today's climate that is actually enough to justify victory.

Bush and Cheney's claims that the war in Iraq is going well are as delusional as the power Bush now claims for the executive is tyrannical. The Democrats could have ran on a message of "This man must be stopped" and they would have found ringing support throughout the planet.

It's always very hard at the time of an American election for someone like myself, living thousands of miles away, to gauge the mood of the country.

I can only offer my American cousins the viewpoint of one of America's allies overseas.

We desperately need America back. The America that we grew up admiring. The place that we longed to visit.

A country that stood for freedom and democracy and human rights.

There is no way most Americans can fathom the levels of despair and shock we have felt as we witnessed Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. The profound disappointment as we watched a Republican Congress hand a US President the power to torture. The numbed horror as we watched the removal of Habeas Corpus as a fundamental human right within the American legal system.

The world needs America. For if we lose America as a bastion of all that is good then we are left with nothing.

That is why this election is so important, not only to the residents of the USA, but to the rest of us all around the planet.

Bush now claims that the values he espouses are the values of the majority of people in the United States.

I do not believe that to be true. I cannot believe that is true.

Our profound wish is that we can be given back the America of values that we all so admired.

The power to bring this about lies in the hands of the American people. From the Mother Country I can send only this impassioned plea: Stand up for the values that made your nation great. Send a clear message around the planet that torture is not an American value.

For your sake, and for ours, stop this man from devaluing a reputation that your nation took decades to build and which he has besmirched in such a shockingly short period of time.

Abu Ghraib is not an American value. Guantanamo Bay is not an American value. Torture is not an American value.

Now all we want is for Americans to stand up and say this.

Say it today. Please.

tag: Republican, mid-term, elections, November, American values, principles, Bush