Male nerd wandering round America is a respected politician (5,9)
I believe the answer is:
elder statesman
'politician' is the definition.
(elder statesman is a kind of politician)
'male nerd wandering round america is a respected' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'male' could be 'man' (man is a kind of male) and 'man' is present in the answer.
'america' could be 'states' (the United States) and 'states' is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'elder' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for elder statesman that I've seen before include "Wise old politician" , "veteran politician - with 17d" , "member with gravitas" , "Experienced politician" , "Perhaps Clinton" .)