Whatever happens or fails to happen between Sinn Féin and the DUP in coming months, both will be watching the developments in a faraway story. As the possibility emerges of a President Kerry, his likely attitude to "the Irish peace process" has focused some minds already, and made them cross, writes Fionnuala O Connor.
The man has managed to annoy both unionists and nationalists in advance of making it to the White House. He allegedly "erroneously blamed" the DUP for holding up restoration of the Stormont arrangement and failed to consult "key Irish-Americans" before the Democratic convention.
But then the only American involvement that ever pleased people across the board in Belfast was that of Senator George Mitchell. Sent first by Bill Clinton as his "economic envoy", he attained sainthood by virtue of chairing hours of filibustering and nit-picking, in one forum after another.
He was too courteous, some said, the only fault they could find in someone whose behaviour was a reproach to some of those in front of him.
There was more to it than that, not least a backroom team of Capitol Hill-trained researchers and fixers, so skilled they were a pleasure to watch. The Mitchell smile was another thing to see; pearly, expensive, making his deep brown middle-eastern eyes sparkle, lighting up the wastes of Stormont.
The smile wasn't just a natural attribute: it signified the practised, inexhaustible lobbying of a veteran Senate manager.
In the end it worked even with Ian Paisley, who hollered abuse about the Kennedy clan's friend, as he dubbed Mitchell in advance of meeting him, but eventually admitted that the American had good manners.
The Mitchell package came wrapped in optimism, the "can do" spirit so foreign to Northern politics of the old school. In many minds, George Mitchell's personality subverted mindsets that made even the semblance of agreement impossible.
Having helped break the mould, he left a useful example. The Good Friday breakthrough - illusory though much of it may have been, signed up to with varying degrees of commitment and comprehension - came about because of a conjunction of political movement and deal-making personalities from outside Northern Ireland: Mitchell, the early Blair, Bill Clinton, Bertie Ahern and Mo Mowlam. Early Blair was another one with the "can do" touch, now only a memory - as it may also be for Bertie Ahern.
But the essence of American intervention is pragmatism, here as elsewhere.
Post-Mitchell, Trimble unionists banged their heads on one envoy after another, demanding in advance that the new emissary demonstrate anti-republicanism, professing to see pro-unionist sympathy in first Richard Haass then Mitchell Reiss, but becoming disillusioned with dismaying speed.
Like their masters, envoys from Washington have no innate sympathies. Whatever works is good. Or whatever might work, given the will and ability to think beyond traditional loyalties.
So Bill Clinton challenged unionist belief that only Irish republicans got a sympathetic hearing in Washington and opened doors for loyalist ex-paramilitaries.
Richard Haass, George Bush's first man in, became a bit of an evangelist for integrated education. He allegedly shouted, some say swore, at Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. There was a deterioration in relations with Ulster Unionism.
Haass said unionists had to prove their willingness to work power-sharing, that it wasn't only up to the IRA to move. Having wished him into office, unionists long before he left wanted him replaced, and hailed Mitchell Reiss as a new broom.
And what happens? Inside months, after meeting Irish-American activists to reassure them that the Bush administration will continue to "support the peace process", the new man e-mails Father Sean McManus, long-in-the- tooth lobbyist of deep green hue, to divulge his read on Orange marches.
The essence lay in the first line: "Obviously, the idea is to provoke, intimidate and champion their 'superiority'."
Defenders of Orangeism as cultural heritage are still demanding that he should "clarify his position". But Dr Reiss's position is alarmingly clear, which is a lamentable quality only in a diplomat.
Although he apparently arrived in the job with breathtakingly frank assessments of the main players, the clumsiness of the McManus e-mail should surely be the exception in his term of office.
Various elements of Irish-American activism are mustering to push the Kerry camp into developing expertise on Northern Ireland.
On the model of the past, they'll buy it in when and if their man makes it to the White House, having done the minimum necessary along the way to massage the indefinable, unquantifiable Irish-American vote.