42 Hours that is, as we'll be waking up to hear the news of the H&H by-election result. Predicted (sensibly) to be down on general election turn out, with worries of the message being lost to more Northern by-elections, it is still vitally important that the process takes place. Of course, as I've said recently, it isn't the beginning and certainly isn't the end of the issue.

The excellent news is that someone decided, obviously reading the collective minds of liberals standing against the legislation, that a less biased poll was needed of the public. So thank you to the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust who have commissioned a poll that shows that when only slightly informing the public during questioning drops the level of support for 42 day legislation to around 23%.

I've been added as one of a handful of bloggers helping out at Liberal Conspiracy with their daily "NetCasts", and Thursday (for now at least) is my day in the sun. You can check out my offerings on the last 24 hours best blogs over at Liberal Conspiracy.

However I also wanted to mention a few blogs here that didn't quite make it in to my list of 6 or 7 items, and intend to do so each week here (if the quality of articles is out there!).

Lib Dem Voice - Mark Pack questions the way the Tories are picking their next Henley MP. Read the comments for the wider argument about how the Lib Dems do it too!
Political Betting - In an issue obviously close to Mike's heart, he wonders why it's taken so long to get the transparency needed for a controversial Ken Livingstone poll.
Alisdair's Blog - Get past the garish header and you have a 15 year old that manages to sound sensible on the subject of the new cluster bomb treaty.
Dizzy Thinks - Dizzy takes a look back at the websites of the main political parties as far back as before the 1997 general election. How times have changed...

You can also click below to continue reading and see the full list on this site if you so wish!

According to the Times the answer is emphatically no. If you enjoy a government that slaps itself on the back for any minor achievement and backs itself up at every pitfall, a government that criminalises our children and refuses to undertake previously promised constitutional reform, and a government that refuses to help pensioners out of the same rut that they were in a decade ago on fuel pricing while overspending on the irrelevant and economy sapping event otherwise known as the Olympics, then perhaps you'll be happy to hear that Miliband (David kind) is planning in "secret" to run for PM when the opportunity arises...backed by every sheriff of Nottingham that currently resides in power.

I'm trying something new here, not sure if it's going to work as well as intended but here it is. Read more for the transcript of this movie.

Since Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton spat their dummies out at the latest democratic debate there has been a lot of talk about how the campaign has changed. The fact that Obama seemingly wanted to play it as "the nice guy" was shattered this week when he lowered himself to Clinton's level and she beat him with experience. Analysts are now asking what should Obama should do next?

There is seemingly a lot of scratching of heads going on over why Obama is still clinging to as much of the nice guy persona as he can. Certainly if he is truly "that nice" then it potentially affects his credibility to be the commander in chief, but if he is just holding back it makes him a poor strategist. Or does it?

With all the fuss at the moment being focused on South Carolina you'd be forgiven for thinking, as I did, that it is the next on the trail. In fact it is Michigan next, though only really for the Republicans, then Nevada before stopping off at South Carolina. So what's the deal here? I can understand Michigan falling off the map for many liberal reporters as the democrats have punished the state by saying no delegates can go to national conference on their behalf, but Nevada is there and crying out for attention, and being the western most state so far it is also an interesting insight into another geographical demographic.

Perhaps the reason is that it is another round of caucuses rather than easier to report on primaries, or perhaps it is because Clinton has generally enjoyed a double figure lead over Obama, but all of that has suddenly changed. A poll on the CNN site shows that far from the 20+ point leads Clinton had through late 2007, a December poll finds her less than 10 points ahead. Fast forward to this weekend and polls are actually starting to say that Obama is in the lead, albeit just by a nose.

It was a night where Obama should have had a "crushing" victory, but in the end Clinton won by a comfortable yet still close 3 points. The media is now playing it's fickle game and the weakest of the journalistic tendencies this side of the pond is showing through with vast exaggerations over the life of the Obama campaign. One woman last night reported quite heavily on the "feeling" that Obama is now just fighting a lost cause, the night before she would have no doubt have been talking about the feeling of Obama being in the White House this time next year. The polls were read all wrong, too many people jumped on the large lead Obama had on Clinton without really ever letting the public know that almost a third of the voters were as yet undecided. The hype machine had built up and, as invariably happens, mistakes in interpretation were made that potentially damaged a candidates campaign through building him up too high.

But what can we learn from a little more of a factual stage of the process? There are now two polls based on the people that actually voted in each of the two states that have held Democratic events, and the rest of this post is going to go someway in to seeing if we can see if there are any emerging trends in the voting mindset of the public of America, what area's each of the main two need to make more of an impact on in South Carolina and Nevada, and what is hurting them most.