During the 1980 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan, in a debate with President Jimmy Carter, famously suggested that voters answer a simple, but potent, question. ...more

September 14, 2008

Every so often, not just every four years, but in a seemingly endless succession of election years, we're deluged, bombarded, and swamped with political posturing and pontificating. Each side tries to convince us poor ignorant peasants that their candidate walks on water and will make the civilized world safe from all predators while their opponent, if elected, will bring us to the brink of extinction. ...more

September 13, 2008

At Republican headquarters, 461 S. Commerce, Justine Devlin is being - her words - drowned in phone calls and requests for signs. ...more

September 12, 2008

Sen. John McCain is running a television ad attacking the spending record of prominent Democrats. This is certainly a remarkable offering from a man who treats Ronald Reagan as a saint. Reagan ran up the largest deficits in history, surpassed only by the Bushes, without a word of apology. ...more

September 12, 2008

Speech Was Vindictive I was appalled, but not surprised Wednesday night to hear Gov. Palin launch vindictively into Sen. Obama without providing an ounce of substance about where she thinks a McCain administration should focus. I was particularly affected by her characterization of the war in Iraq as "God's task." That assertion is at the very least xenophobic, and at best fundamentalist. ...more

September 6, 2008

In a year when personal narratives are primed to trump policy positions as persuaders of the electorate, it is helpful to be reminded that biography often is not destiny. Not that you would have gathered that from either major party's (now blessedly concluded) national conventions. ...more

September 5, 2008

Barack Obama seems to enjoy some enormous advantages over John McCain in their pursuit of the White House. Polls show that more than eight out of 10 Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction. The Republican brand is in tatters because of the Iraq war and the economic slowdown. And Obama is on pace to raise more money than any presidential candidate in history. ...more

August 24, 2008

As Barack Obama continues to remind voters in those equivocal yet reassuring tones of why he is completely unqualified to be president, John McCain shows why he should win this election by a landslide. ...more

August 22, 2008

John McCain shows why he should win this election by a landslide. ...more

August 21, 2008

It's just not the same. The Olympics I mean. I remember the first Olympics I saw on the television - the 1964 Summer Olympics from Japan. There were Bob Hayes, the World's Fastest Human, and Joe Frazier, the young boxer. My dad, an Air Force officer, taught me to root against the Russians, East Germans and any Soviet bloc country because they were "commies." These were the countries that wanted America to fail, he said. They hated the way we flaunted our freedom, our capitalist ways and the way we want others to be more like us. Don't be mad at the athletes, just their governments, he said. ...more

August 19, 2008