I’ve spent much of the last year on the front line of one of the most contentious presidential nomination contests in memory—without moving from my London desk. I have been part of something historic: the first great political battle to take place in cyberspace.

For many in Britain, blogging, especially political blogging, is a bit of a disappointment. Many of our political sites are tacked on to party websites, or are simply online versions of established media outlets. They tend to be either controlled, conformist and rather dull, or unmoderated rants, the kind of online graffiti rightly parodied by Private Eye.

The US offers a glimpse of something different—how the internet can transform news and opinion. It is ten years since the Drudge Report broke the Lewinsky scandal. These days, American sites like Talking Points Memo, Politico and (as Andrew Keen described in the August issue of Prospect) the Huffington Post regularly scoop the conventional media by hours, or even days.