The culture wars and the acrimony that fundamentalist beliefs can bring have clearly boosted McCain's Presidential campaign; mark that down to one thing - the 'Palin effect'.

How long before that slips into the general political lexicon alongside the '....gate' suffix that usually gets fastened on to the end of whatever scandal or humiliation some politico either side of the pond finds themselves in.

I am worried that this election, which looked Obama's to lose for months - he was (and still is to my European eyes) streets ahead of any other rival, Democrat or Republican - could actually be lost.

Shrewd in his thinking, magnificent in his diction, clear in his outlook, focused on what needs to be done, and alert to the pressing issues of the day: an obviously ailing economy; the looming threat of foreclosure or job loss, or both, that so many Americans wake up with and go sleep to; wars that no longer seem winnable, or certainly popular (if, of course, any war could ever be popular); widening inequalities of wealth and opportunity. Things that matter; they matter to me, remember the adage: "when America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold".

And yet today, a scarce seven days since the Republican convention, everything has changed. It's an election now likely to be fought in the trenches, or as today's Guardian put it, 'the killing grounds', of abstract issues, of value judgements. America, as I've written earlier is an ideologically restless country - but right now it's the specifics of the moment (jobs, mortgages, the economy, war) that have to be fought over in the public domain and not lifestyle concepts.

The Republican Elephant is in the room; no longer ignored either, its very visible and busily being talked about. Democrats, remember James Carville's slogan ? "...it's the Economy..." You need to wrest attention back from the pachyderm and quickly.