IT WAS a political mea culpa refreshing in its candour. “Let’s first talk about energy,” he said. “I know many of you feel that I was too slow to act during the energy crisis. I got your message and I accept that criticism.”

After the electricity shutdown which blacked out the whole of America’s northeast last week, you might be forgiven for thinking that it was President Bush who was confessing. He, too, has been getting the blame for his impotence in the face of the worst power cut the nation has known.

The words were, in fact, Governor Gray Davis’s opening shot in a recall election which is almost certain to see him driven from office. Although the Republicans, with their maverick candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger, look likely to benefit from the recall in two weeks, the President may have a sneaking sympathy for the hapless Mr Davis.

Each of the past ten days has brought a disaster to the President’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. Until the night of the blackout the general wisdom held that unless there was another major terrorist outrage and so long as the American economy continued to recover steadily, the President would be re-elected easily next year. But the days in the dark may have changed all that.

The war on terrorism is real to Americans in a way that it is not to Europeans. But while the threat of terrorism makes foreign policy more important than before, it is still not high on the list of things which most worry Americans when they vote.

What could unseat Mr Bush is far closer to home. Consider the blackout. It was not the terrorist attack sequel which all America has been dreading since September 11, but it felt very much like it. Having congratulated themselves on how calm they were, New Yorkers asked each other some pertinent questions.

The first was: if a simple glitch (or a real-life Homer Simpson) could close down the whole of the northeast for four days, what damage could a well-planned terrorist attack do to America’s antiquated electricity grid? Another question, asked in the candlelight, was: did close links between the Bush Cabinet and the big energy companies contribute to the mess?

It is no secret that the Administration’s energy policy was agreed in a backroom deal between the CEOs of the big energy companies and their old mucker, Dick Cheney, the Vice-President. What remains secret is exactly what they agreed and how it will affect consumers.

While the northeast was stumbling around in the dark, the President was fundraising in California alongside Mr Cheney. The pair wisely decided not to intervene in the governor’s recall race, fearing that becoming embroiled in a debate about energy price-fixing in California would backfire.

The road to economic recovery is proving long and flat, with indicators of good times ahead balanced by signs suggesting there is no end in sight to the bad times. Americans, used to having plenty of money in their pockets, feel that they have been rubbing along the bottom for long enough.

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