But on the whole, it has been a policy-light contest for the simple reason that there was very little to choose between the two Democrats either on domestic or on foreign policy.
Without that, Obama's speech was always going to be a policy-light pitch rightwards to win back the independent swing voters that focus groups and professional pundits prize so highly.
The Labour for a Referendum campaign is being bankrolled by Labour donor John Mills, who last week caused a headache for Miliband by suggesting he is "policy light".
Angrist and economist Victor Lavy used a policy quirk to shed light on this issue, publishing the results in a 1999 paper.
Just eighteen months before the financial crisis, Senator Charles Schumer and Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued a report called "Sustaining New York's and the US' Global Financial Services Leadership," which warned that, if the trend toward re-regulation continued, the financial industry would move to London, which had adopted a policy (now abandoned) of "light touch" regulation.
This is not a sensible policy in light of the fact that both countries, among the poorest in the world, have already spent more than $1 billion on arms since 1998.
The government announced a policy of dimming the lights in the airport; there were hardly any tourists.
There is little wrong with a policy which keeps the lights on while limiting the damage to the environment and creating jobs.
Mr Abbott used the speech to remind Australians of his government's determination to stop terrorism, an important policy in light of last year's terror attack in Sydney, when customers and staff were held hostage at a café by an Islamic extremist.
"It shed light on a policy that was never formal but based on an individual's prejudice against methadone.
This paper explores the prevailing urban transformations of Hong Kong and London in the light of a policy shift from sustainable development preoccupation to carbon control management.
