Americans talked about the war, terror and how Kerry had to be better than Bush. Or, as a bumper sticker put it, "Clinton screwed an intern. Bush is screwing the whole country"
My job was to sell books, not talk politics, but the temptation was irresistible. My tour itinerary through America read like a one-woman polling endeavour: 13 cities in three weeks, radio and print interviews, bookshops, lecture platforms, media escorts, airports, planes, hotels, bars, taxi drivers. All it took was a few choice questions, and wherever I went the conversations rolled: the war, terror, the White House, the passion of Jesus Gibson and the fall of Martha Stewart. The first pleasure was to be talking to Americans rather than America. The second was that they have no problems with direct questions. Or answers.
Halfway through (Boston, New York, Washington, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Iowa City, Minneapolis), a consensus was emerging that went something like this: we've got no business being in Iraq, Saddam had nothing to do with Bin Laden, Gibson's a sadist, Martha Stewart's taking the rap for the Enron/WorldCom guys and - whoever he may be - Kerry's gotta be better than Bush. Or, to put it in the words of a bumper sticker spotted at a parking lot in Chicago: "Clinton screwed an intern. Bush is screwing the whole country." Even the pro-life, pro-death-penalty Catholic (always a theologically pesky dilemma) I met on the bus to Iowa City was steaming: "We don't have real democracy in this country. It's just all the same party based on money. We gotta shake it up - that's why I'm going for Nader. Again."
Before we get too excited, it's worth remembering that like tends to attract like, especially in political matters, and that a book tour, particularly one promoting a historical novel exploring the dangers of fundamentalism during the Renaissance, is not designed to bring out the conservatives. My in-other-ways-gruelling promotion schedule didn't include any invitations from right-wing shock-jock shows and not one of those 13 cities I visited was south of the Mason-Dixon Line. I should also admit that by the end of week two, when I was deep into the shopping-mall belt of the Midwest, my polling enthusiasm suffered a distinct blip. This was around Omaha, Nebraska, where I got hopelessly trapped in a family hotel over the spring break weekend with so many dangerously overweight children and their parents that I began to feel like a Lilliputian. That same weekend, the news that obesity was fast overtaking smoking as the country's leading killer coincided with the release of a set of new TV ads targeting the overweight; one of them showed office employees coming across a double chin lying by the copier. The next day, USA Today carried a piece reporting concern that some fat people might be offended by the ads. Luckily, they won't even have to get up to switch channels, just do it by remote.
On the West Coast, the search for Republicans continued. Not that Seattle or San Francisco could ever be rich pickings, and book authors don't go to LA, apparently. "Nobody reads in that town," said my publicity director. "It's official." But I did root out a single card-carrying Bushman - my media escort in San Francisco. He was rampantly pro-war, but turned out to be dangerously iffy on the banning of gay marriage, because two of his best male friends had just adopted a three-year-old from central America and he was convinced that they'd make great parents.
The same day as we argued the toss on Iraq, a Methodist church court in Washington state debated the fate of a lesbian minister who had come out to her congregation. Soon after, the court found in favour of her sexuality being compatible with her vocation. Given the power of the Christian right in politics, it's easy to forget the voice of liberal Christianity within American life. Many of the most fervent critics of Bush I met were churchgoing Christians as well as Democrats. When I pushed them on why they weren't using their liberal Christianity as a political weapon to balance the right, they argued passionately that church and state must remain separate, which they viewed as one of America's most important founding principles.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, none of them had seen Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, either. Given that Republicans and Democrats are slugging it out in the non-fiction lists with bestsellers on both sides, George Bush will no doubt be reassured that in the movie theatres Gibson's fundamentalist vision of suffering and sacrifice is racking up true-blue believers in record numbers. (Though, like elections in Florida, you can always inflate numbers by repeat attendance.)
Still, the more Bush suffers the slings and arrows of political fortune, the more his followers can find biblical parallels to help him. One night, sleepless in Seattle - sorry, but book people do watch movies - I found myself hooked on a God station where a charismatic young preacher was retelling the story of Daniel as a parable of consistency under threat. "So remember, folks: when all around revile you and demand that you change your mind, you just hold strong to your belief and in the end God will promote you."
With luck, by November that may be George W's only hope.
Sarah Dunant was on tour for her novel The Birth of Venus, available in the UK in paperback from Virago
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