Every great political campaign rewrites the rules; devising a new way to win is what gives campaigns a comparative advantage against their foes.

What Obama is saying is simple: The United States has become Too Big To Fail.

Memories of the last nine years have turned Ground Zero from a site of horror, to a reminder of grief, to an occasion for ludicrous artistic posturing - and now to something very close to parody.

There's no light at the end of the tunnel in the Republican message, no promise of better things to come. There's only the present stagnation, followed by a slow decline.

This has always been the way of presidential politics. The president rises above the fray while his surrogates go on the attack. They throw the spears and fling the mud; he sits upon the throne.

Pop culture is a reflection of social change, not a cause of social change.

I've worked as someone's deputy, and now it's time for me to run something. It's time for me to run my own shop.