National security will not be the decisive factor in whether Obama wins a second term, but it will influence swing voters who traditionally value stability over the uncertainty of new leadership.

FORBES: Obama Helping Voters Feel 'Secure'

But it would be sad if settling scores were the decisive factor in the outcome of a dispute where real issues are at stake, like the need to scrutinise the way all Western agencies do business with dictators.

ECONOMIST: America and the UN: A matter of honour | The

Obama carried North Carolina by only fourteen thousand votes and, many analysts say, must carry it again to win in 2012, so turnout could be a decisive factor.

NEWYORKER: State for Sale

The author dismisses the more traditional explanations about why the industrial revolution began in Britain such as an abundance of coal or the insatiable demands of the Royal Navy concluding, instead, that it was England's development of the patent system that was the decisive factor.

ECONOMIST: Why it started in Britain