If the polls are accurate, the presidential race nationally is essentially tied, but Barack Obama holds leads in almost all of the battleground states that will ultimately decide the race.
Among the factors in Obama's slight bump after his convention last month was the nearly universal acclimation given to former President Bill Clinton's prime-time speech in Charlotte.
As has been the case since his Clinton Global Initiative began back in 2005, the former POTUS usually appears on at least one Sunday morning talk show to highlight the event, as well as weigh in on the politics of the moment.
That took place on CBS' Face The Nation this Sunday.
Naturally Clinton was asked to weigh in on Mitt Romney's infamous Boca Raton speech, where he discussed the 47 percent of the country who don't pay income taxes as being dependent on government. Clinton rebutted that claim, but then host Bob Schieffer asked the larger question lying underneath: is government too big? Clinton you might remember, said back in 1996 that the "era of big government is over."
This article appears in Sep 20-26, 2012.