The American blogosphere is beginning to notice the UK election.

At Jerome Armstrong’s MyDD, 68 per cent of readers say they would back the Liberal Democrats if they had a vote in the UK election. Armstrong comments on Labour bringing in consultants from the John Kerry campaign:

If Tony Blair is inviting the Kerry consultants over to give him advice, he’s halfway home to being ousted. And in fact, the best thing for the Lib Dems (which is whom most of us here are rooting for) is for the Conservatives to do surprisingly, even shockingly well at beating Labour.

Will the Tories regain power only with the help of the Lib Dems? I doubt that, but having the Liberal Democrats be the kingmaker would be, among other beneficial actions, a great way for the UK to get out of Iraq.

Others on the “reality-based” side of the U.S. blogosphere are sticking with Tony Blair, though.

New Donkey promises to blog about the election “semi-regularly between now and May 5”.

Although he’s “not happy with the moral and intellectual support that Blair has provided not just to George W. Bush‘s foreign policies, but to Bush himself”, NewDonkey wants to see a Labour victory because:

on every key issue facing his country, our country, and the world, Tony Blair has an abundance of exactly what virtually all U.S. Democrats say a party of the center-left should have: a clear, articulate vision; a values-based progressive message that does not ignore collective security or cultural issues; and a full agenda for shaping change in the interests of most people, especially those with no privilege or power, even in places like Africa. He is also, of course, one of the few twenty-first century survivors among the wave of center-left politicians who won striking victories throughout the West in the 1990s, consigning, or so it seemed at the time, Reagan-Thatcher style conservative politics to the dustbin of history. And to the extent that left-leaning Labour activists (and their U.S. counterparts) with various issues with Blair hope Gordon Brown succeeds him as P.M. during a third term, let me add that I think Brown is a potentially great leader as well, and shares Blair’s New Labour vision more than a lot of observers realize.

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Ezra Klein** has some stronger words:

… I’ve no reason to believe that Blair’s support for Iraq was anything but sincere. Some backed the war on gut, anti-tyranny grounds, and right or wrong, their convictions led them. Blair seems to be one of these. But he’s destroying his government and derailing his agenda by refusing to admit the mistake, and he’s isolating himself from ideological allies by allowing the Iraq War to define him. Now maybe it’ll just lead to a Liberal Democrats-Labour hook-up, something I’d find defensible if not necessarily ideal. But in any case, by weakening himself, he’s hastened the end of the Labour project. …

Markos Moulitsas Zúniga posts about Blair’s “Bush” Problem and says he “can’t wait to get out there</a>.” What&rquo;s that all about? Is Kos working for a campaign?