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Barack Obama's visit to Europe has provoked many observers to note that the US presidential candidate is even more popular abroad than he is in America itself; were the whole world to vote for its most powerful figure, it is said, there would be no contest. But we don't get to vote: we can only watch in fascination.Indeed, starved of entertainment at home, British political junkies have seized on the US election like a new season of The West Wing: Obama's resemblance to Matt Santos, the fictional young senator on whose election as president the series ended, has already been widely noted....But what is important here is not the divide between the US and the rest of the world so much as the gulf between the political class internationally and the great mass of people who might or might not vote.Take the inhabitants of Dennistoun or Shettleston in Glasgow, who will be asked on Thursday to vote in a by-election of dubious significance to themselves. The interested parties must of course convince themselves, if nobody else, that the election is of vital importance to the constituency and its people, but as a whole the political class will merely watch with detached fascination to see how the exotic denizens of Glasgow East vote, and - crucially - how the result affects national politics....