Politics

The Sarah Palin Effect is over. Palin and McCain joined forces last week to make sure that no one took them very seriously, and they did every thing they could to help Obama open up a small but increasingly solid lead on McCain. With the Palin bump neutralized, Obama’s still nagging concern are those Hillary voters…

If  you have not made up your mind about whom to support for President, last night’s debate about foreign policy and the ongoing economic crisis may not have helped you. Neither Republican John McCain nor Democrat Barack Obama committed a major gaffe or landed a knockout punch. Neither expressed a new idea. So I suggest…

“…She swallowed the spider to catch the fly— I don’t know why she swallowed the fly…” When Sen. John McCain shows up in Mississippi tonight, after two solid weeks of Wall Street bailout headlines, he and Sen. Barack Obama will square off in the most anticipated presidential debate in almost 50 years. McCain still believes…

The first presidential debate scheduled for the University of Mississippi tonight is being held hostage be John McCain’s deep concern for the economy, but plans remain in place for the showdown, which would give Americans the first opportunity for a side-by-side comparison of the two White House hopefuls. A clear win by either side will change…

While the greatness of American democracy is celebrated by Obama and McCain, the rest of the free world is squinting and tilting its head at our version of egalitarianism: staggeringly expensive political campaigns, a questionably representative two-party system, a confusing and misleading electoral college and laws (and tricks) that continue to disenfranchise minorities. It also…

There are some people who like to make it harder than necessary for others to vote. Voter-caging practices have already taken hold in this election. It was rumored that the Michigan GOP planned to use a list of foreclosed houses to bar those residents from voting. But with the way these things work, the damage…

It has taken a frightening flirtation with global economic collapse, but even George W. Bush seems to have exhausted his blind faith in the almighty market. “I’m sure there are some of my friends out there saying, I thought this guy was a market guy; what happened to him?” the president posited last weekend—while proposing…

Michigan is once again one of the crucial states that could determine the outcome of this election. There will be a lot of strategizing between now and November. We want answers to our battered economy and our record foreclosure rate. We want to know about health care and the survival of the middle class. At…

And now it’s breath-holding time for South Africa, as the nation comes to grips with the sudden, shock-and-awe removal of its president Thabo Mbeki by his own party. Mbeki’s credo for the continent was ‘African solutions for African problems.’ Even as he applied the doctrine next door in Zimbabwe, a South African solution to the Mbeki…

I’m sick of folks yapping about how Barack Obama needs to do a war dance on John McCain’s head. Sure, McCain and his GOP allies are telling lies and appear to bear no cost for repeatedly doing so. And, yes, the Democrats’ response has been, to say the least, lame and tepid. I understand; it’s maddening to…