A good effort from Firth, though I must agree strongly with Bookworm in that I think he needed to be clearer about what he was setting out to do. At first it looked like an interesting examination of the convergence of showbusiness and politics in America, then it stopped being serious and felt like a mockumentary - which I suspect was indeed the main aim - and by the end it had become not so much mockumentary but rather straight sketch comedy. Also, it looked like it was originally meant to be focused on the Bush era, and serve as a sort of prelude for the 2008 election, but then it seemed to change its mind and attempted to shift focus entirely to the 2008 election.
Still, I laughed out loud many times - especially the short scenes where Obama girl was interviewed, the McCain/communist conspiracy theories, the footage of Obama losing his train of thought in front of thousands of people, and the various bits where Firth sent himself up as a neurotic film star - such as insisting of finding his lost pants, his video diaries where we criticises his staff, and the scene where he and one of assistants are screaming at each other in front of the Lincoln statue.
Time to come home to Australia Charles. I think the 'Firth Factor' has a lot of mileage left to go.