Imagine a rock concert at the NEC, the massing loyal hoards, intense anticipation, and the promise of your favourite act topping the bill at the end of the night. Combine that with all the colour of tribal rivalry of the Villa Blues derby, add a little politics, and you have a US National Convention.

Here in St Paul Minnesota I’m attending the Republican National Convention as an official observer from the Conservative Party. In 2010 I may have the honour to chair the Conservative Party conference when we come back to Birmingham, so I’m keen to see how different an American Convention is from anything we know in the UK.

All of the pundits here, and most of the media predict an overwhelming victory in November for Senator Barack Obama. The most eloquent candidate since John Kennedy, Obama has become a pioneer in new campaign techniques, mastering modern media and the internet. And most of the media and all of the pundits hold it as a self evident truth that the Republican candidate, Senator John McCain, will be beaten into a cocked hat.

America has the most unpopular president in history, a challenged economy, and a war that has claimed thousands of American lives far from home. So the incumbent Party should lose. Shouldn’t it?

Well, from what I see here, I’m not so sure. John McCain is no George W Bush. This convention is working clearly to set McCain apart from the current President. They showed decisiveness over Hurricane Gustav by cancelling the first day and focusing attention on the Gulf coast states. And they are straining every sinew to portray McCain as a man who has put his country first for the whole of his life. Last night on the floor of the convention, speaker after speaker spoke of John McCain’s strength of service. Former Senator Fred Thomson gave the finest valediction I ever heard portraying McCain as a maverick, and yet an all American hero. Perhaps the loudest roar of the night came when we were told how when McCain was being tortured by the North Vietnamese during his five years as a Prisoner of War, even when his arms were broken he remained defiant refusing to give the names of fellow air force officers when asked, and giving, instead, the names of the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers football team.

So McCain is an American hero. But that won’t be enough to win the presidential election. He has to get the votes of tens of thousands of undecided voters in the battleground states. The places to watch come November are, for the Republicans, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Win there, and McCain will be in the White House. For Obama, the focus will be on Virginia and North Carolina. If the Democrats win those it will be game over.

And then there is the choice of vice-presidential candidate. Last week Barack Obama had made the extraordinary decision to keep Hilary Clinton off the ticket, selecting in her place the experienced but spiky Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. Here in St Paul die hard Republicans are wearing badges deriding “Obama bin Biden”. It personal all of a sudden.

Its personal because McCain has selected a woman who even last week almost no one had heard of. Sarah Palin is Governor of Alaska, where she has been effective reducing waste and taking a salary cut as a good example of government reform. Suddenly, after Palin was announced as the v-p candidate, we’re told that her 17 year old daughter is pregnant, and that she will marry the 18 year old father of her child. Is the Republican Party up in arms? Heck no. They are celebrating the selection of a “hockey Mom”, and moose burger eating former beauty queen who has none of the beltway baggage of Washington DC, and who reflects the issues that so many American families now face. Sure she’ll be a heartbeat away from the presidency, but Republican delegates here get incensed if you suggest that their own wives and mothers, or women from across America could not break through the glass ceiling and serve as President of the United States.

Republican delegates here get incensed if you suggest that their own wives and mothers, or women from across America could not break through the glass ceiling and serve as President of the United States.

On Wednesday night Sarah Palin gave one of the freshest, most genuine speeches any Convention has ever heard. She lit up the 10,000 delegates with a speech of grace, passion and hometown American charm. She left me, and everyone else in the hall and across America in no doubt that McCain has been a maverick in picking someone few had heard of, but proven in picking a truly exceptional woman, mother, chief executive and friend. Some challenge that she will find it tough to look after her family and carry out the office of vice-president. The former Mayor of New York dealt with that one clearly stating that no one would dare say that to a man, so why is it relevant for a woman? And how right he is.

Much of the Convention is spent with a series of short presentations from congressmen and others extolling the service of John McCain. Unlike a British party conference, there is little political debate. But there is some, and arguably the Republicans are setting the agenda for the reform they say is so badly needed. Top of that agenda is energy security. Americans suddenly recognize that fuel prices are rising, and with the polls still close, the cost of winter heating fuel being bought in the Autumn could be e defining factor in the election. The polls here now tell us that the main issues in this election are energy, the economy, the war, and immigration, in that order. TV ads playing on every station show business and mostly Republican candidates arguing for the development of new energy technology. Just across the border in Canada lie some of the largest gas reserves in the world, and with the US determined to become self sufficient in oil and not dependent on fuel from the Middle East, new sources of supply are high in the public mind.

Rather uncomfortably, last night, many of the speakers made comments on faith and politics, and on the coming legal challenge to the 35 year old laws on abortion. There remains a faction in the Republican Party that puts God first, then Nation, and then family. But what younger Republicans are trying to focus on here is an assurance that the Party has changed already, and the McCain represents a new face of real America. A young US congressman said to me this morning that two years ago in the disastrous midterm elections that “the entire Republican leadership in Congress was fired due to corruption, leadership, and incompetence.” He commended the British Conservatives telling me that the Republicans have to regroup and rebrand just as we have done, and seize a new agenda that defines the changing Nation.

So tonight its back to the Convention amongst more than ten thousand Delegates, Alternate Delegates, and guests, held in what is normally the home of the Minnesota Wild ice hockey team. But the big event is tomorrow. The newly anointed son, John McCain will speak, the ticker tape will fly, red-neck Texans in big cowboy hats will holler and wave, balloons will fall, and chants of “U S A, U S A” will ring out around the hall. And the election campaign will be underway. Will McCain win? Its closer than you may think. Based one what I see here, whilst some are resigned to their fate, the Republicans are determined to do everything to retain the White House, and keep setting the Agenda.

This article appeared in The Birmingham Post on 5th September 2008