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Mr Obama's problems were partly structural. An incumbent must defend the realities and compromises of government, while a challenger is freer to promise the earth, details to follow.

Old regimes fall to revolutions not when they resist change, but when they attempt reform yet dash the raised expectations they have evoked.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

George Bush senior picked Dan Quayle, whom many treated harshly as a figure of fun who could not spell "potato".

The Senate, so George Washington is reputed to have told Thom­as Jefferson, is a saucer into which legislation is poured to cool it down. But the Founding Fathers, alas, did not specify just how cold they wanted their tea or their laws to be.

The biggest number (15%) went to the Five-Star "movement" of a co­median, Beppe Grillo, whose web-fired campaign denounces all parties and promises not to ally with any of them. Mr Grillo is alarmingly thin on policies and wants a referendum on leaving the euro. Some call his movement the "anti-party"; others the "Fuck Off party". We all know what to do, we just don't know how to get re-elected after we have done it.

Democracy in America does not come cheap. The election cy­cle that has just limped to its exhausted conclusion cost around $6 billion — a new record, as in every new presidential cycle.

America's vice-presidency, one of its occupants once asserted in an oft- bowdlerised remark, is "not worth a bucket of warm piss".

"Latinos are Republicans," Ronald Reagan is supposed to have said. "They just don't know it yet."

Plato warned that democratic leaders would "rob the rich, keep as much of the proceeds as they can for themselves and distribute the rest to the people".

Officials would prefer you to be born, live, work, pay taxes, draw benefits and die in the same place, travel on one passport only, and bequeath only one nationality to your offspring.

Otto von Hasburg, 97, liberated from court etiquette, can call someone an "idiot" if he wants, instead of "your excellency". He was a technicolour politician in a monochrome landscape.

Public urinators rule the London streets.

CASA-CE, a new group headed by Abel Chivukuvuku, a former Unita man, is one of several being allowed to run for the first time, and may take votes from Unita.

Gerge McGovern promised swingeing cuts in the defence budget, an end to the war in Vietnam, an amnesty for draft-evaders, uni­versal health care, a guaranteed job for every American and an in­come above the poverty line for every American household. Bright- eyed young volunteers stuffed envelopes for him; Hollywood stars turned out for him; Simon and Garfunkel sang. To no avail. Richard

Nixon won 49 states; he won Massachusetts and the District of Co­lumbia. His name became a byword for Democratic disaster.

Air conditioning reshaped American politics, by enabling the migration of Republican pensioners to the Sun Belt. That helped break the long­standing Democratic lock on southern politics. America uses more elec­tricity for cooling than Africa uses for everything.

In 2008, we changed the guard. This year we must guard the change.

America comes to believe that it has wings. Then, Icarus-like, it soars too close to the sun and the wings melt.

The world is a competitive place. Britain is trying to run with its shoelaces tied together.

Houston was elected president of Texas five months later and in 1845 it be­came the 28th and largest of the United States of America. Alaska, the 49th state, is even larger. But, as some say in Texas, just wait 'til the ice melts.

If one compares Castro's lodgings with the White House, Buck­ingham Palace or the Elysee Palace, it would be fair to conclude that their residences are unpretentious.

Dr Gloor has found that, in Western countries at least, non-violent pro­test movements begin to burn out when the upbeat tweets turn nega­tive, with "not", "never", "lame", "I hate", "idiot" and so on becoming more frequent. Abundant complaints about idiots in the government or in an ideologically opposed group are a good signal of a movement's decline. Complaints about idiots in one's own movement or such infelicities as the theft of beer by a fellow demonstrator suggest the whole thing is almost over. Condor, then, is good at forecasting the course of existing protests. Even better, from the politicians' point of view, would be to pre­dict such protests before they occur.

The difference between Barack Obama, leader and Barack Oba- ma, campaigner is in the sleeves. When Mr Obama speaks as the president — sober, calm, head of a nation — he tends to encase them in a suit jacket. When he speaks as a candidate — fiery, en­thusiastic, figurehead of a party — he loses the jacket and rolls up his shirtsleeves.