Is Romney “stretching the truth”?
With just a week and a half to go before real voters have their chance to have their say on who should be the candidates in the 2008 White House Race there’s an enormous amount of fabulous material that gives a real flavour of the race and is unlike almost anything that we experience here.

So as the build up continues I plan to do a daily round-up of some of the articles and videos that I’ve been impressed with – the first one a super-charged TV clash with Romney spokesman Kevin Madden over whether his man is stretching the truth.

To me this looks pretty serious for Romney and has prompted me to put more on rivals John McCain and Mick Huckabee.

How “third party groups” are influencing the campaign
ABC News has been putting a lot of focus on the so-called third party groups which are not attached officially to any of the campaign teams but are spending millions of dollars trying to influence the outcome.

One that shows the complexity is a campaign by a trade union attempting to undermine Obama while at the same time appearing to support John Edwards. It is in fact pro-Hillary.

Check the story and the video.

How the Christmas ads look
The former Clinton advisor in the early years and the man who helped UKIP to their 2004 successes in the Euro Elections here, Dick Morris was involved in this interesting review of the candidates special messages for Christmas. I find the lighting in Huckabee commercial that apparently shows a cross behind him quite spooky.

A taste of Obama’s stump speech
There’s a great article on the Real Clear Politics site describing the evolution of Obama’s stump speech – his standard performance that he makes many time a day as he moves from one location to another. It’s quite powerful and is one reason why my main money in the Democratic race stays on him.

This is well worth reading.

The latest betting prices (Sunday 1740)
Hillary continues to remain a firm favourite on Betfair for the Democratic nomination. She’s on 0.54/1 with Obama at 2.35/1 and John Edwards on 16.5/1.

In the GOP race it’s Giuliani on 2.3/1; Romney 2.9/1 and both McCain and Huckabee at 5.8/1

Have you seen or read anything that’s interesting – please put a link in the thread below.

Mike Smithson