Supporters of Barack Obama rally on Westminster bridge in London on Saturday.

Jonathan Wald
CNN London Producer

“You know Obama’s the equivalent of Gordon Brown?” a young voice behind me asked.

“Well, he sort of is,” a younger voice replied.

As the London Underground train jiggled about on its way to Heathrow airport on my way back to the U.S., I turned to find two boys in hooded tops. They looked about 14 years old.

“He must have been off his head picking Palin,” one of the boys sniggered about McCain a couple of minutes later.

“Yeah, but she helps him and she hurts him, doesn’t she?” the other said.

An elderly Indian woman, who was eavesdropping alongside me, nodded her head in agreement.

I hadn’t even boarded the plane to New York and anticipation of the U.S. Presidential election was already thick in the air, an ocean away from the States.

Never before have I experienced such interest and awareness in a U.S. election - neither in the U.S. in 2004, nor in the U.K. during previous American elections.

In 2000, some parts of the media found both candidates uninspiring, renaming them Gush and Bore.

In 2004, the Iraq war helped to increase turnout and revive interest overseas.

Now, even more people around the globe — young and old, all creeds and colour, in America and outside it – know the candidates and care about the result.

And some of the unlikeliest characters, including two teenagers on the London Underground, are following every step and misstep along the way to the November 4th vote.

If this was the mood in the UK, what must it be like in the U.S.?