US Politics Analysis: Why Obama Has the Edge So Far --- Campaign Finance and the State of the Election

Samuel L. Jackson's pro-Obama "Wake the F*** Up, America"

The latest pro-Romney "attack ad" by the SuperPAC American Crossroads

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Next Wednesday, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama will meet in the first of three campaign debates.

Opinion varies as to how critical the debates are in persuading undecided voters to support a candidate, but the cold fact is that in this campaign they are the last chance for Romney to turn around Obama's momentum. The President is currently leading by margins, especially in the battleground states, that have him as a 4-1 favourite –-- 80% probability --- to retain the White House.

The reasons for Romney's disappointing performance are many, but one that is not receiving the attention that it deserves is that conservatives have not yet been able --- as many feared after the Supreme Court decision of 2010 --- to swamp the Obama campaign with a series of negative ads drowning out the voice of the Democratic incumbent. There is time for that change, especially if big donors are encouraged by Romney's performance in the first debate to pour in last-minute millions, but money has not yet shifted the fundamentals in this race.

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US Politics and Tax Cuts: Sanders' Remarkable 8 1/2-Hour "BernieBuster" Challenges Republicans...and Obama

Despite some hostile immediate reactions from progressives, including a non-binding resolution by the House Democratic Caucus that they would not even consider voting on the deal unless it was amended, Obama appeared to have won the argument within his party by Sunday.

But a remarkable piece of political theatre that took place on the floor of the Senate on Friday has energised opposition within some circles to the compromise. At 10:24 a.m., Bernie Sanders, the 69-year old Independent senator form Vermont, began a speech criticising the compromise as a “bad deal” for Americans. Eight and a half hours later, without eating or even sitting, Sanders concluded what became instantly known as the #filibernie on Twitter, where the speech trended Number 1 worldwide on Friday afternoon. While he was speaking the filibernie.com and berniesandersisstilltalking.com websites sprung up, and at the former the whole speech is still available on video with the comment: "Because somewhere on the internet this deserves to be looping forever...."

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