It's only 50 days to go until the Iowa caucaus, and according to media reports, Hillary Clinton has had a bad week in the states. I take that with a pinch of salt - her debate performance last week was marred by a bad answer right at the end that left her open to attack and she has been accused of planting questions during campaign visits, but she is still twenty-odd points ahead in national polls, and leading in all the early primary states (check out this great Slate magazine polling site for further details). At the moment at least, it all smacks of people desperately trying to fill up column inches without a huge amount to go on.

But it also coincides with a new development in the Hillary campaign which at least implies they are concerned about being attacked - the fact hub. This is a rapid response website, trailed in the Fix column. It is an interesting use of the 'net, as it pushes one of the mediums biggest assets - speed - to the fore. However, it is also very top-down (for example, although it looks very like a blog, there is no commenting facility on it). For this reason, I wonder if it is a model that could be transfered to Britain well, on the grounds that it would not fundamentally compromise the hierarchical nature of our parties? For example, it is possible to imagine rapid response videos being put in response to party election broadcasts, overdubbed with "corrections" or with statements being questioned.