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What an interesting autumn of politics lies ahead. Here, the Labour party conference kicks off in a week while ministers re-run the Mutiny on the Bounty and, in the States, the final reckoning for Obama and McCain.

BBC4’s series about American politics last night featured the 1972 Robert Redford film, The Candidate, which looks incredibly prescient about the way politics has evolved in the UK. In it, a fundamentally good bloke with honest convictions gets absorbed into the business of winning elections, complete with the “style over content” manipulation of voters that Gordon Brown probably wishes he’d picked up from Tony Blair. Telling indeed is the final scene when, on realising he’s won, Redford’s character turns to his campaign manager, pleading: “What do we do now?” So much for the manifesto, then.

Meanwhile, in the US presidential race, a clear distinction has emerged between the candidates’ strategies. Michael Tomasky’s blog in The Guardian explains how McCain’s campaign is focused on winning the “news cycle”, in other words, attacking Obama through adverts and generating stories in the mainstream media. Obama, conversely, is concentrating on grass roots politics by having a greater number of local offices than his opponent in every state, registering voters and building support in advance of November 4.

These contrasting approaches seem to illustrate some of the tensions between old and new media tactics; whether it’s better to have the traditional media on your side or get through to people directly, as in the social media world.

Question is, will it work? As one of the campaign managers in The Candidate says to a bemused Redford: “We know this is all bullshit, but at least they’re believing it.”