Julian Assange's October 4 surprise a fizzer

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There was disappointment for eager American alt-righter wingers who stayed up to 3am US East Coast time to watch Julian Assange's speech to mark the 10th anniversary of Wikileaks.

Trump confidant Roger Stone had stoked expectations by claiming Mr Assange would mark the occasion by releasing information that would "destroy Hillary Clinton."

And Wikileaks teased by retweeting a conspiracy site's evidence-free claim that Mrs Clinton considered a drone strike on the Wikileaks founder:

To Silence Wikileaks, #HillaryClinton Proposed Drone Strike on Julian Assange -- report https://t.co/S7tPrl2QCZ

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 3, 2016

But in the event, it was a fizzer.

As the Wikileaks founder's rambling speech reached the one hour, 58-minute mark, some members of the media were perhaps secretly wishing for drone intervention.*

Mr Assange, talking via a video link from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, offered nothing new today.

He did promise a series of revelations over the next 10 weeks to mark Wikileaks' 10th anniversary but he seemed to be dampening expectations of a bombshell revelation about the Democratic candidate.

"Our upcoming series includes significant material on war, arms, oil, Google, the US elections and myself," he said.

The US election material will be released before November 8, he promised. However, Wikileaks might want to get a wriggle on if it wants to influence the vote. Many states open early voting a month before the election. The crucial battleground of Ohio has a 35-day rule, so special voting will start tomorrow NZT.

A week after the first debate, Trump behind in the polls — but still within spitting distance
It's easy to see why Mr Stone and other Trump advisers would hope for a bombshell from Wikileaks.

There has been a slew of polls since the September 6 first debate, and all show the Republican candidate has slipped back overall, but not by the 2% to 4% predicted by polling guru Nate Silver. Here are some aggregated summaries:

New York Times poll-of-polls:

• Hillary Clinton - pre-debate: 45% | post-debate: 45%
• Donald Trump - pre: 42% | post: 41%

Or, with Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson factored in (the Times is not tracking Green candidate Jill Stein):

• Clinton - pre: 43% | post: 44%
• Trump - pre  41% | post: 40%
• Johnson - pre: 8% | post: 7%

RealClearPolitics’ poll-of-polls:

• Clinton - pre: 46.6% | post: 48.1%
• Trump - pre:  44.3% | post: 44.3% (no change)

Or with the third-party candidates included:

• Clinton - pre: 43.1% | post: 44.3%
• Trump - pre: 41.5% | post: 40.6%
• Johnson - pre: 7.4% | post: 7.4%
• Stein - pre: 2.4% | post: 2.6%

Post-debate, Mrs Clinton has consolidated her small lead in Florida (a state whose demographics were no doubt in Mrs Clinton's mind as she revealed Mr Trump's comments about Latina beauty contest winner Alicia Machado). But she's still only a razor-thin 2.8% ahead, on RealClearPolitics polling average. And in Ohio, Mr Trump has actually increased his lead marginally, to an average 3.8%.

The remarkable thing, really, is that after his poor debate performance, his 3am tweets and the tax return revelations of the past few days, Mr Trump is still within spitting distance of his rival in the incessant daily tracking polls. Both nationwide, and in key battlegrounds, most surveys have the gap still within the margin of error; a couple, including the LA Times' survey, actually have the Republican a nose ahead.

Mrs Clinton remains vulnerable to even a minor hiccup.

The next key moment in the campaign will likely be Sunday, October 9 (or Monday, October 10 NZT) as the candidates square off in their second debate, whose format will be a "town hall" style meeting with each candidate fielding questions from the audience.

The vice presidential debate between Tim Kaine and Mike Pence will take place today.

* Joke