The campaigning period for the 2008 presidential elections has hardly started but the media in the United States already work at full speed to keep track of every movement of the presidential candidates. The top issue coming to the fore again and again is of course the Iraq war and the candidates’ opinions on the War Strategy. Another issue is the health care problem in the United States, although Democrats are found to be tackling this issue far more often than Republicans are.

Although, besides covering O.J. Simpson and his robbery and earlier this month Britney Spears and her Las Vegas performance, the United States press and media is already very much occupied with the campaigns and the upcoming elections, the rest of the (Western) world does not seem to be very interested in the presidential candidates yet. Major newspapers and opinion-makers such as the French Le Monde, the German Der Spiegel or the British BBC or The Guardian do not dedicate any attention at all to the developments in the U.S. campaigning period.

Perhaps it’s just too early, or perhaps there are bigger things happening in the world these days than the premature speeches of U.S. presidential candidates. It will be interesting to see when the international press starts to become involved in the coverage of the (run-up to) the US 2008 elections and what they will have to say about the candidates, their ideas and campaigns.