English Language FAQ

In US politics, 'to move the needle' is to significantly change the opinion polls in the direction of your candidate. 

The American political system has three centres of power. These are the President and the two chambers in the American Congress the -  Senate  and the  House of Representatives .  'The House' - also sometimes known simply as Congress - is the bigger body. This is because multiple congressmen are elected at a local level while the Senate is restricted to a hundred members. Two senators are elected from each of the fifty US states.  Though individual states vary substantially in population size, each has equal representation. The intention of the founders was to ensure that the larger states did not dominate the legislature. Who makes the law? All laws must originate in Congress. They the must pass up through the Senate and then be approved by the President. This is to ensure that legislation comes directly from local representatives, though the increasing use of presidential 'executive orders'  has been controversial in this regard. The legality of any...

What is the electoral college? US presidential elections are not decided by  the  popular vote  (counting the number of votes obtained nationally for each candidate).  Each voter  votes for a state representative to allocate a vote for the president and vice president in what is called an  electoral college . Delegates States send delegates to the electoral college according to the state vote - with 48 out of 50 using a 'winner takes all system'. Only in Maine and Nebraska are the delegates allocated proportionally. The number of delegates sent to the electoral college is allocated according to the population of the state. Thus the largest delegations come from the most populous states: New York, California and Texas. What is a swing state?

American presidential elections follow a fixed timetable in a system that has its origins in the American Constitution.

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.   Mr Micawber in Charles Dickens David Copperfield (1850) The ' fiscal cliff ' is the phrase used by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to describe the situation US economy will face in January 2013 if political agreement is not reached in Washington. At that time a series of tax rises (the expiration of the 'Bush tax cuts') and spending cuts (part of a previous agreement) will take effect. As things stand the Democrats - including the freshly re-elected President - are refusing to cut expenditure on programs like Medicare. They insist on tax rises for 'the super rich' or 'millionaires and billionaires' as it expressed in electoral rhetoric. Both sides are hemmed in by the 'debt ceiling' - a legal limit to the amount that can be borrowed - and the a previous agr...