Emily Maitlis: Democrats’ dodgy dealing could be another blow to Hillary Clinton

Between the chaos of one US convention, the Republicans in Cleveland, and the next, the Democrats in Philadelphia, lay 10 hours of open road and another picture of America.

I drove it with a film crew from Newsnight, taking in rolling pastures and barren industrial wasteland. What unites them is that they are the highly prized electoral battleground that could decide the next election.

Our first stop was the tiny Amish town of Volant. My cameraman pulled over to show me the meticulously hand-tied bundles of wheat.

They use no electricity, no cars, no machinery — their way of life hasn’t changed for centuries.

Even though they dislike being photographed they generously invited us onto their land, happy for us to film. As I looked behind me a row of tiny spectators gathered to watch our camera at work.

Twelve Amish children standing on a hay wagon — the smallest just seven months old and already wearing the Amish bonnet, the eldest, her 12-year-old sister, guarding her in her arms, eyeballing me in silence.

It is easy to get sentimental about a people who seem so out of kilter with modern life.

They are largely immune to the febrile political climate that has engulfed this country. They rarely vote. But here’s the strange thing: this lifestyle — which predates globalisation — has become a sort of curious blueprint for those Americans who now feel left behind by the speed of change.

Their self-sufficiency — call it sovereignty, even — can seem rather appealing to a nation that keeps on being told it is no longer great.

Concerns about globalisation voiced by Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are often traced back to the crash of 2008.

But of course their roots grew decades ago when all the heavy industry left the Rust Belt towns — less than an hour away from Volant.

Alequippa — our next stop — used to be at the vanguard of steel manufactuing — the factories along its river bank at one time employing more than 150,000 people.

Now there’s nothing left. The streets are deserted. The businesses are shut.

On his porch watering scorched busy lizzies I found Phil Byren, a long-time resident. He’s too young to remember the steel mills but he heard stories of the time the city was great from his mum and grandma.