Stuart Elliott in America.

As the battle for the American presidency enters the home stretch -- no column about the US elections is complete without at least one analogy to horse racing -- this may be a good time to share some insights into the process.

With the two principal candidates for the White House neck and neck -- whoa, there's another -- political advertising will flood American media outlets from now through Election Day on 7 November. But as Bush and Gore become as heavily promoted as packaged-good brands like Coke, very few of those ads are being created by traditional agencies.

Rather, American politicians typically turn to consultants based in Washington D.C., who specialise in pitches for local, state and national candidates, to sell themselves to voters. Most of those consultants limit themselves to working for either Democrats or Republicans, although some switch sides depending on who will pay them more, er, who will take more principled stands on the issues.

For instance, one strategist, Mark McKinnon, used to work at helping elect Democratic candidates but is now backing Bush, the Republican standard-bearer. (Another tradition of political columns is to include hoary terms such as "standard-bearer".)

Occasionally, presidential candidates will seek advice from Madison Avenue advertising professionals, who form ad hoc agencies separate from the ones that employ them in their day jobs. For example, in 1984 Phil Dusenberry and Hal Riney started the Tuesday Team to produce commercials supporting the re-election of President Ronald Reagan.

The relationship between the people who create political ads and those who create non-political ads can best be compared to the relationship between, well, Republicans and Democrats.

Madison Avenue executives ...