DURING our federal election, mercifully now over, the complaint was often heard that it was boring. There was also a lot of whinging about the length of the campaign - a marathon two months!
If you thought that was long, take pity on Americans. Their election will officially begin at the end of next week when the Democrats gather in Philadelphia to nominate Hillary Clinton.
It won't end until the first week of   November. But of course their election has really been going on since   January when Iowa held its caucuses. In fact it's actually been going on even longer than that. The first candidates' debate for the Republican hopefuls was held here in Cleveland last   August. Think of that next time you hear someone complaining about the length of an Australian election campaign. 
And if this year's US presidential election is anything to go by, we should be grateful that our elections are so boring. We hear a lot of talk in Australia about how nasty and partisan our politics have become - but we don't have a thing on the Americans. At the Republican National Convention this week, one of the prime-time speakers was New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
Christie is a blunt instrument. When he went after Marco Rubio in primary debates it was nighty night for the Florida senator. On Tuesday night he took the stage and went after Hillary Clinton.
His accusations are beside the point - though it is worth mentioning that they were all obsessions of the conservative movement rather than the public - what was interesting was the way he framed them: as an indictment. For each "charge" Christie would ask the crowd how they found Clinton, to which they chanted: "Guilty!" and "lock her up!" It was mesmerising, but also a little frightening. When did it become normal to demand the incarceration of your opponents in US political life? The indictment of the former prime minister is something we wouldn't get too excited about in, say Pakistan or Thailand ... but the USA?
My first thought on hearing Christie's speech was to feel a little smug. Whatever the shortcomings of our politicians in Australia, at least they don't go round trying to jail each other. And then I thought of Tony Abbott's Trade Union Royal Commission and I didn't feel so smug, especially when I recalled he had been prepared to junk decades of political convention by handing the Cabinet papers of the previous government to his pointless Royal Commission into the home insulation fiasco.
Still for all that, there was, as far as I could recall, no point in the past few months when Bill Shorten or Malcolm Turnbull suggested the other should be jailed.
Donald Trump's acceptance speech on Thursday spoke to an angry electorate. Immigrants have taken our jobs. Trade agreements have taken our jobs. China is stealing intellectual property. Crime is rising. The message was that Trump is a man - no, the only man - who can turn it around.
"Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it. I have seen first-hand how the system is rigged against our citizens," Trump said.
Leaving aside the Messianic elements of his speech, it is striking how similar his pitch - economic protectionism with a promise to do something about immigration - is to our Pauline Hanson's.
The difference between our countries - one of the differences - is that although Hanson is in the Senate, there's no chance she will end up in the Lodge, whereas there's a chance Trump could end up in the White House.
JAMES CAMPBELL IS A SUNDAY HERALD SUN COLUMNIST james.campbell@news.com.au@J_C_Campbell