US election: Welsh roots in race to the White House

Ann Romney, wife of Mitt, has played up her Welsh heritage during the US presidential race, but the Republican challenger is far from the first candidate with a strong Celtic connection through his family.

President Barack Obama has a more distant Welsh link, several generations distant on his mother's side.

As Dr Steve Hewitt, a senior lecturer in American and Canadian studies at Birmingham University, explains to Vaughan Roderick, several previous presidents, from Jefferson to Lincoln, had Welsh roots.

First, they discussed how the 2012 election is notable for the absence of a candidate who is defined as a "wasp," or white Anglo-Saxon Protestant.