After midterm elections that saw the Democrats lose control of the House of Representatives, how much damage has been done to Barack Obama's presidency? Jonathan Freedland is joined in London by fellow Guardian columnist Martin Kettle and Observer business editor (and former Wall Street correspondent) Andrew Clark, and in Washington by US environment correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg to assess the landscape as the political momentum shifts behind the Tea Party movement.
What went wrong for Obama? And how could a Republican majority in the House be actually helpful to a battered, bloodied president?
Ed Pilkington reports from Kentucky, where Rand Paul claimed the Tea Party's first Senate seat. We ask to what extent the Tea Party split the Republican vote, and whether the right can unite behind a presidential candidate in 2012.
We also ask how Obama can usefully govern in what remains of his first term, and what strategy he might adopt in the lead-up to the next presidential election.
