He'll do

The BBC has a bit of a problem with bias. Do you remember the Guardian's Operation Clark County?

In the run up to the US presidential election, the left-wing paper identified the area as a vote-swingers hotspot. Under Operation Clark County, it began a letter-writing campaign which aimed to give people outside the US a say in the election. The project set up its readers as pen pals with American voters, to press home the international ramifications of a vote for Republican George Bush or Democrat John Kerry.

It did not quite have the intended result.

In 2000, Al Gore won Clark County by 324 votes. And since Ralph Nader received 1,347 votes, we can assume Gore's margin would have been larger without Nader on the ballot. On Tuesday George Bush won Clark County by 1,620 votes. The most significant stat here is how Clark County compares to the other 15 Ohio counties won by Gore in 2000. Kerry won every Gore county in Ohio except Clark. He even increased Gore's winning margin in 12 of the 16. Nowhere among the Gore counties did more votes move from the blue [Democrat] to the red [Republican] column than in Clark. 

Anyway the genius responsible for Operation Clark County is now an editor on the BBC's Newsnight.