That our elections are decided by a small number of voters in marginal seats?
However, Labour also did badly in marginal seats, which will decide the colour of the next government.
Rumour has it that Mr Brown is privately polling in important marginal seats.
That has a number of advantages for ministers, not least that there are few Labour marginal seats anywhere near.
For the gap between Labour and Tory Britain widened on May 6th, thereby reducing the number of marginal seats.
Instead of focusing their energies just on marginal seats, parties now have to scour the whole region in search of votes.
He also urged the committee to look at spending by national parties in marginal seats, rather than just the local candidate's spending levels.
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Patrick Mercer must also hope that the initiative doesn't backfire, and round on Tory MPs in marginal seats like him at the next election.
Jeff Duncan of the Save Our Scottish Regiments campaign said it will take on Labour in key marginal seats in next year's expected General Election.
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But talks were abandoned in October 2007 as parties clashed over Labour's trade union funding and Conservative donor Lord Ashcroft's funding of Tory candidates in marginal seats.
Their most serious limitation, however, is that elections are lost and won in marginal seats, and the national mood is not a good guide to what happens there.
The Lib Dems hope that in Labour-held Bristol West, which is one of the few three-way marginal seats, an affluent, well-educated and left-leaning electorate will desert Labour over the war.
The Conservative strategy for the next election involves defending its 40 most marginal seats, whilst also targeting the 40 seats held by other parties which the party thinks are most winnable.
Importantly, he runs Tory campaigns in critical marginal seats.
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What this means is that the usual strategy of pouring resources into the small number of marginal seats that can swing an election one way or the other is of little use.
However, by 1992, Britain's anti-Tory voters had embraced strategic voting with a vengeance, with Liberal Democrat and Labour supporters each opting for the party best placed to dislodge the Tories in marginal seats.
The Tory party's strategy at the boundary review - as a party - was to reduce the number of safe Tory seats so their votes were more evenly spread among more, winnable marginal seats.
The current system also increases the importance of the 100-150 marginal seats where most campaigning is concentrated, and electoral reformers argue that it means the voters in the remaining 400 seats are regarded as irrelevant.
Like an ageing family pet, Rover is fit only for putting down, but the government is afraid of 6, 000 jobs going at the Longbridge plant on the outskirts of Birmingham, surrounded by Labour-held marginal seats.
Nevertheless, psephologists say they do have to up their game if they want to win some of those target marginal seats they have lost to Labour and the Liberal Democrats, like Harrow West and Solihull.
Defeat at the next election, the likely loss of many centrist MPs with marginal seats, and the party's reliance on union money (74% of donations in the first half of 2008 came from organised labour) may well make Labour turn left.
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But a hunting ban may enthuse supporters in marginal suburban seats, where foxes can be portrayed as harmless furry animals, rather than (as the hunters have it) feral vermin that disembowel lambs.
Iain Martin, of the Wall Street Journal, criticised the party's manifesto, which had the words 'an invitation to join the government of Great Britain' embossed on its cover, saying it "must have sounded like a great idea when Oliver Letwin and Steve Hilton came up with it but I can not imagine it flying in marginal Conservative seats".
Alternatively, the charges against Clinton could collapse, leaving him with his mysteriously high ratings and new leverage to help marginal Democrats win seats in the House and Senate.
Both disaffected groups have tended to support the Liberal Party, and many of their members live in marginal constituencies along the urbanised east coast, where Labor needs to snatch only a handful of seats to take power.
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