It’s about trust. That’s why John Kerry is the man of the moment

I LIVED about a year of my life in America. About half of that time was spent on the east coast, and half on the west, mainly in Seattle.

It isn't possible to spend so much time anywhere without coming away with memories, and mine are principally of a decent, warm-hearted and hospitable people.

Americans are trusting and generous, open to change in ways that we find hard to recognise. They do things differently there, in all sorts of ways.

For instance, although racism still lives in parts of the United States, many Americans are colour-blind, virtually unaware of the skin colour and racial identity of their neighbours.

Their culture of work and effort is radically different to ours it often comes as a terrible shock to Irish people who go to work in the States that holidays don't come with the job: You have to earn them. No holidays at all in the first year, maybe a week's holidays in the second, and it takes a full career to get up to three weeks. And when the job disappears, you move on, get another, and don't expect to be permanent and pensionable anywhere.

It's often said that the great majority of Americans don't have passports. Perhaps if we had a country as rich and diverse, as open to exploration, with so much to offer, we wouldn't bother with passports either. The corollary of the no-passports thing, of course, is that most Americans are imbued with a deep sense of patriotism. We tend to sneer at that, but when you encounter it in America, it is frequently an admirable thing to see.

American patriotism tends not to be chauvinistic or jingoistic, but is instead rooted in a strong belief in their own country as an icon of freedom and opportunity.

A lot of that changed after 9/11. Fear and anxiety crept in. A puzzled view of the world "why do they hate us so much?" gave way to anger. And that anger has divided America ever since.

After 9/11, I wrote here that no rational person could oppose the war on terror, and especially the American decision to hunt down Osama bin Laden.

The invasion of Afghanistan was a logical extension of that decision, and had it resulted in the capture of bin Laden, the world would have cheered.

Even as it was, it does appear that the rooting out of the Taliban and the slow beginnings of a more democratic future for Afghanistan were positive consequences. What was remarkable about that invasion, apart from its logical justification, was the degree of popular support from within the country. A resistance that had held out against the might of the Soviet Union for years; that had, in effect, handed Russia its own Vietnam; crumbled like a house of cards. That can only have happened because the people wanted it to happen.

Afghanistan, it is now clear, was what Bush had to do. Iraq was what he wanted to do.

The invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein was the primary agenda item for the people who surround George Bush from the very beginning. There is little doubt that they trumped up the evidence to justify the invasion. But these are not people who rely on evidence in the first place. The determination to go into Iraq was based on a theory of American supremacy, a theory that is almost entirely contradictory to the American notion of patriotism. In order to justify an attack aimed at establishing American control, a war of aggression had to be justified in terms of security and better defence.

The decision to go to war, and the conduct of that war, will now be vindicated by the outcome of today's election. Or will it? In trying to anticipate who will win, I think it is worth asking the question would George W Bush have been elected if 9/11 had happened before, rather than after, the last US election?

My colleague Terry Prone wrote here yesterday that John Kerry lacked a USP, or unique selling point. And of course she's right. But in American presidential politics, there is only one USP. They have to trust you, they have to feel safe in your hands. And in order for that to happen, they have to like you.

Look at Reagan. Look at Clinton.

On the other hand, look at Carter they didn't trust him because he made a botch of rescuing American hostages at a crucial moment. Look at Ford they didn't trust him because they came to see him as a dope. Look at George W's father they didn't trust him because they didn't like him. Look at all the elections since Watergate. Trustworthiness and likeability are the keys to winning.

In the last election, the good ol' boy beat the stiff-necked policy nerd. And then 9/11 happened. We all remember the horror of it. But many also remember the fear, the indecision, that seemed to characterise George W's initial response. Of course, the act was got together in a day, the forces were galvanised, the country closed ranks around a president who had seemed timid and uncertain, almost cowardly, at first but who has ever since made a virtue of his resolve. If they had seen that initial reaction before his first presidential election, would people have forgiven and forgotten? I doubt it.

And that, in a sense, is what makes this election different from all previous post-Watergate elections.

In this election, trust will be paramount as in the previous ones. Above all, people want to feel safe in the hands of their president, perhaps even more so than at any previous time.

When things are easy, people are more content to trust the man they wouldn't mind having a beer with. When things are hard, people want to know that there is someone there who really knows what he is doing. The psychology of any electorate is the same the world over. It is the circumstances of the day that dictate the relationship they want to have with their leaders.

Sometimes the electorate looks for the kind of relationship that exists between mature adults.

Sometimes the electorate wants to have fun they go for someone who can inject glamour or excitement or even a bit of risk into politics.

Sometimes the electorate wants the kind of relationship that we have with a trusted father, a wise uncle, a figure of good and decent authority.

(I'm not in any sense minimising the intelligence or sophistication of any electorate when I say that. But look at the choices we've made ourselves in the past Charles Haughey one day, Garret Fitzgerald the next and look at the background circumstances against which we've made those choices, and you'll see what I mean).

This is a time in America when there is real doubt about their place in the world, a real pull between an American patriotic instinct which is essentially non-aggressive and a war that is all about control and aggression. In any time of doubt, it is the wiser uncle to whom people turn, rather than the more dashing brother.

And that, in the end, is why John Kerry will just win.