The joke goes ? one man said Senator John Kerry raised $50 million in three months for his US presidential campaign. His friend replies, big deal, Kerry made $500 million in a few seconds by saying "I do".

This political joke was just part of the warm-up act by Fred Barnes, the well-known talking head and editor of the Weekly Standard, who was the lunch time speaker at an insurance conference this week.

Mr. Barnes, a well-known commentator and analyst of the American political landscape, spoke to the mainly US and Bermudian audience at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess as part of the PLUS conference on "The Bermuda Perspective".

A witty and accomplished speaker, his pro-Bush and anti-Kerry rhetoric went down a storm with the US audience with their finger on the pulse of US politics.

He spoke of the war in Iraq, from where he had just returned, and told the audience the reasons why it had been a good idea for the US to go in, despite the change in mood of the American public who no longer seemed to back the president as fully.

And he rated US president George W. Bush on a six point scale, and said that he believed Bush came out better than most people would think, with effective communication as he was clear on his message (if a bit dull and repetitive), with good political skills, good organisational ability as well as what he dubbed "emotional intelligence" which he termed as self discipline and avoiding distractions.

Mr. Barnes said that the main point he did not score well on was cognitive ability, and an ability to soak up information and use it and pointed to Bush not reading the press as a symptom of this.

But when it came to the upcoming presidential race, he said that the outcome was not cut and dried, and anything could happen.

"The future in politics is never a straight line projection of the present," he said, adding that events got in the way of the best laid plans.

And he pointed to the two world wars, the Kennedy assassination, the Oklahoma city bombing and the September 11 attacks as unforeseen events that changed the course of history.

Mr. Barnes said that the upcoming election would be won depending on whether the electorate wanted a "September 10" person or a "September 12" person.

He explained that the September 10 person, like Senator John Kerry, thought that although the events of September 11 were tragic, they did not change everything. The way to tackle the problem was law enforcement and better intelligence, and stick with traditional allies

A September 12 person was, he said, someone who was deeply affected by the bombings and thought that the world was forever changed as a result ? i.e. president Bush. And because of this the US may have to act in ways that may aggravate its traditional allies.

"Six months ago there was no doubt that the public would vote for the September 12 person," said Mr. Barnes.

"Now I am not so sure if it will be a September 10 or September 12 person. And it is a pretty stark choice between the two."