Much was made in the past few presidential elections about the "need" to get rid of the Electoral College. Predictably, the "noise" was predominantly made by those whose candidate was on the losing end of the electoral vote.

   read more »

The Senate Democrats are in a pickle, and it's all George Bush's fault.

   read more »

When did the mainstream in America become the right wing "extreme"? When did the memo go out (and who sent it?) to begin portraying ordinary Americans with their parent's values as space aliens bent on world domination or subversion of the democratic process?  read more »

That bell you heard last Friday afternoon was the opening of round one of what is sure to be the greatest fight over a judicial nomination in the history of this country. Not that it should be. But it will be, for a whole host of reasons, but to summarize: when Republican's get to pick nominees, it's a fight. Period. Also, this will be the first su  read more »

With all the attention that has been paid to the rhetorical blather of DNC Chairman Howard Dean (with such attention being well deserved), a good number of high level Democrats have been able to speak "under the radar" as it were.  read more »

With apologies to Ken Mehlman, Howard Dean is quickly becoming the GOP's favorite party chairman. Like something out of a science fiction movie, Dean seems to represent some sort of nexus in the universe for overwrought emotion, stupidity and arrogance. Like a magical Christmas present, he is the gift that keeps on giving.

   read more »

In the early 1800's, a Massachusetts Governor by the name of Elbridge Gerry conceived a novel plan to increase his party's share of that state's legislative districts. He would simply redraw the map. By redrawing the boundaries of the districts in such a way as to more effectively distribute friendly voters as well as break up pockets of opposition, he enabled his party to constitute a majority of voters in more districts. The r  read more »

When it comes to reaping the "spoils of war" many conservative Republicans are beginning to feel like Charlie Brown does when Lucy moves the football just as he tries to kick it. They get all psyched up and excited and ready to accomplish a task, only to have the opportunity yanked away from them at the last second.

   read more »

For years liberals have been fostering the perception that "values voters" (alternately known as "cultural conservatives" and/or the "religious right") are somehow new to our American political system. As if their presence among us is the result of an "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" type scenario. The simple truth is that these voters have been here all along.

But the liberal vitriol is there. Especially among the press which, as numerous studies have demonstrated, is more liberal and Democratic in their sympathies. Gary Wills likened such voters to Al Qaeda in a NY Times article. Carl Bernstein claimed that minority religious groups were trying to impose (emphasis mine) values on a secular country. And ABC's Carole Simpson said that the election results reflected a triumph of the stupid. How un-biased of her.  read more »

Now that the first election conducted under the new campaign finance laws has come and gone, a little post-mortem is in order. By any objective standard, it has been an abject failure.

Ostensibly, campaign finance reform (CFR) was supposed to deliver us from the evil of the "special interests" and their "soft money", (contributions that can't be given or spent directly on behalf of a candidate, like "hard" dollars can). We were told that they had hijacked our political system.

We were told that CFR (as they envisioned it) was a necessary trade-off tighter restrictions on free speech in exchange for a reduction of the influence of money in the political process.  read more »