Despite the denials of responsibility from both parties, a variety of forces including money, the Citizens United Supreme Court Decision, the Gerrymandering of both safe Republican and Democratic Congressional Districts have resulted in the public's general distrust of Washington.

The sequester was a legislative tool designed to scare the Congress into doing its job. It clearly seems to have failed to produce this result. If it goes into effect, the sequester means across the board cuts in every agency of federal government with no ability to control what is cut and what is not.

Will it have thrills and spills of a NASCAR race? Or will it have the numbing predictability akin to watching partisan paint drying?

She will be 73 years old at the end of the next presidential term of office, and should she decide to run, her age is likely to be one of the main talking points.

This is a growing problem for all centre-right parties throughout the democratic world. People like the benefits of a larger state but don't want to have to pay for it (leading to moments like the now legendary 'Keep Your Government Hands Off My Medicare' Tea Party placard). You don't need to be an economic genius to understand that if you spend more while making less, you're going to run into debt problems eventually. And it's a problem the Republicans better come up with better answers to in 2016 if they want the White House back.

My faith in Obama was justified. We won again - and I don't mean just Obama, the Democrats or the people who voted for him. I truly believe that every man, woman and child - no matter what colour their skin, ancestry, faith or sexual orientation - has won something from the re-election of Barack Obama as the President of the United States.

Since starting to watch the election coverage over a range of different news channels on Tuesday evening I've listened to a lot of analysts try to suggest many different things, the most outrageous of all being Obama's second term will be that of a lame duck president. This is highly unlikely although how much social and domestic change takes place in the US over the next four years is open for debate. What is certain is that Obama will continue to pursue the economic policies of the last four years and that's where the continuity comes in.

Living in the UK, I'm more aware of what's happening in politics from Saudi Arabia to Russia, from Japan to France. Perhaps that's why I'm so fretful about what will happen if Mitt Romney is elected today. I see the attitudes espoused by him and Paul Ryan and wonder what the hell happened over there, that this team - with their retro view of America uber alles and scarily dismissive view of women's autonomy - are seen as the kind of people Americans want in charge.

Democracy depends on rational, mature decisions and should not be shaped by unconscious, gut responses. But the polarization in US politics is such that this is probably a vain hope and race may be the trump card in the final result.

With Barack Obama poised to win re-election tommorow, here's what the political world will wake up asking come Wednesday morning.

YouGov's final survey in America shows Barack Obama ahead in enough states to secure a second term as President, but by a narrower margin than in his first victory four years ago.

As much as I see Obama as a disappointment, I still feel he would be the lesser of two evils. And, many voters will see it the same way.

It strikes me - this is an impression not a scientific conclusion - that Obama wants to be president less desperately than does Romney.