WASHINGTON — The British prime minister is visiting Washington this week, but his most important meeting may not occur in the Oval Office: Gordon Brown is planning to meet Thursday with each of the three U.S. presidential candidates, an effort to obtain a firsthand judgment of how U.S. policies may change come January.
With President Bush in his final months in office, Brown is hoping to lay a foundation for closer ties with the next president, bolstering both transatlantic links and his own stature, analysts say.
“Bush is largely irrelevant,” said Peter Kellner, president of the YouGov polling firm in Britain. “But if the news comes across that McCain, Clinton and Obama all take this guy seriously, whether it’s on the Middle East, climate change or the credit crunch, that would be a success.” The Washington Post
