The Democrats' retreat came after months of hard pounding over war funding.

ECONOMIST: Iraq

He admitted there was still much hard pounding ahead - but seemed convinced that the recent mildly positive financial results were the first signs that the leap onto Microsoft's platform rather than Google's was working.

BBC: Nokia and Sony - in the recovery room?

So, with three months to go, it is back to hard-pounding in a few states.

BBC: Reading the US election runes