I’d been blogging for nearly a year and a half when the November 2006 elections turned Ohio blue (Democrats took four of the five state offices and former Congressman/now U.S. Senator from Ohio, Sherrod Brown, dethroned incumbent Republican Mike DeWine). In the course of that time, I threw my first house party ever, for then-candidate and now award-winning Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, and I observed up close and personal how support from EMILY’s List – for both Brunner...

I love this post at Life in Israel: This image was cropped out of the Haaretz website… these news items ran one after the other…. So, is he Jewish or is he Bedouin Arab? Rafi goes on to comment about how everyone seems to want to claim Obama as their own. I’ve gotten that sense as well and also think about what demands those claims bring with them.

Mata H. of BlogHer has a sensitive and poignant entry about the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht. I urge you to go read it there, but I’m grafting just a couple of things to share and adding a bit more. First, please listen to and watch this short clip: One of the truths I’ve always known about has been the failure of the United States to intervene in the events as they unfolded in Europe and resulted in the death of more than 11 million people, 6 million of whom were Jews. However,...

For real. As in, really for real. Because frankly, I will not make it to November 4th if I don’t get to hear some good stories about voting, democracy and learning about what makes our country strong, not senile. So find them and send them or write them. I’ll go first: As some readers may know, I was really unhappy that my town only allowed one yard sign per yard. I know, I know, yard signs don’t vote and all that. And in point of fact, I never allowed us to put up signs in the...

I wrote about this exact point here and here (though not in regard to the debate). E.J. Dionne, Jr. writes about it in today’s Washington Post column, “Hockey Mom on Thin Ice:” This week, McCain’s backers signaled their fears that [Alaska Governor and GOP VP nominee Sarah] Palin would fail by trying to discredit the debate in advance. Although it has been known at least since July that Gwen Ifill was writing a book on “Politics and Race in the Age of Obama,” the...

I watched the vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin with a group of women in my hometown. Three of us are lawyers and one is a speech pathologist who detailed problems in unfunded mandates related to NCLB. The children of our host watched part of the debate, filling out the Palin and Biden Bingo cards (they got FULL!) and the husband of the host watched too. In addition to watching with these friends, I also participated in two Ohio-based live-blogs and followed Twitter tweets. What...

Okay. Disclosure: I went to law school. Big whoop. I’ve got kids who are in or have been through middle school – and that is where you first learn about Brown v. Board of Education and Miranda and even in the supplements they get from Newsweek or TIME, Bush v. Gore. And yet Alaska Governor and GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin could not even mention summarily issues that SCOTUS has written about that matter to conservatives such as the death penalty, the gun law from DC that got panned this...

Are the recession deniers – some of whom have claimed that saying that the country is in a recession is just a push by the liberal media to elect Barack Obama – going to have a cow? From the AP: [During a campaign stop in Columbus, Ohio] McCain unleashed a blistering attack on his opponent as he resumed campaigning, saying Obama favors policies that “will deepen the recession.” Maybe that’s just because John McCain was in Ohio, where we’ve known this for a loooong...

H/t to Plunderbund and a tweet from Jeff Coryell.

Background: I’m someone who has needed to be persuaded as to why Barack Obama deserves my vote because I didn’t support him during the primaries (none of the GOP candidates came even remotely close to holding positions I support – they were off the table from the start; I state this as a matter of full disclosure). Once it came time to determine why I should (and could) vote for him, I decided to re-run a series I did in 2006 called the 57 Reasons to Vote No on Issue 3, which was...

I get that it’s nice to see someone who we think is like us running for president or vice president. But the fact is that even conservative voices, including conservative female voices, are chiming in that Sarah Palin is not ready and is a dangerous choice. Please – do not take what these writers and thinkers say personally – they are clearly not happy about what they are writing but they are being responsible. And Kathleen Parker of the Dallas Morning News goes so far as to say...

Hat-tip to Plunderbund for posting. I’ve not yet watched it but about three minutes into watching, the video cut out and was replaced by a screen that said “not available…try later.” I refreshed the page and it came back, but at the beginning. So just a warning.

At the post, “Sarah is the Fresh Air,” on Blogher, I found this comment today: When can she be interviewed by reporters – I find it disturbing that the McCain campaign isn’t allowing Ms. Palin to be interviewed by reporters. What are they hiding? According to Nicole Wallace of the McCain campaign, possibly never: Oh, well, wait – maybe in two weeks, said Todd Harris yesterday, a Republican strategist who was John McCain’s communications manager. Why not for...

The Plain Dealer published this op-ed, written by me, on May 5, 2005. I cannot state any more clearly why I believe parents should share with other parents, “how they do it,” and particularly a parent, such as Sarah Palin, who is holding out that status as a qualification for being second in line to the United States President. ————————- There’s no shortage of documentation about how mothers feel crushed between simultaneous responsibilities....

Gloria Feldt and Carole Joffee wrote this piece on Huffington Post in honor of the Labor Day holiday tomorrow. Please read the full post for the commentary, but here are the questions they want this GOP presumptive nominee for president to answer: First, John McCain, do you think women belong in the paid labor force? So if you accept most women will spend some of their lives in the labor force, do you believe women should earn the same as men, for the same jobs? Can you explain to us why you voted-twice-against...

No – seriously – here’s the graphic that the publisher/editor had done for my most recent Mommy Matters column: So – what do you think? Okay – just checking to see who is awake on the Sunday before Labor Day…

American Princess writes on BlogHer and on her own blog. I’m not that familiar with it, but I spent a few moments there this morning. I like what I found – even though I disagree with it. If I were a conservative woman, particular in her generation (let’s just say I could be her mom – I’m finding I could be the mom of a lot of women who let me befriend them lately though!), I can imagine making very similar arguments in favor of Sarah Palin. Hattip to Denise for linking. In...

That was the title of the post I did on Joe Biden after Barack Obama chose him to be his running mate for the Democratic President/Vice President ticket. I figured, I might as well have a mini-series or two-parter and use the same title for Arizona Senator and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s VP selection, Alaska Governor and fellow Republican, Sarah Palin. Let me start with a round-up -because I have been responding to e-mails, tweets, comments and phone calls literally...

The BBC interviewed me last night and, not surprisingly, their concerns focused on Clinton holdouts and the tight race for Obama. But I got cheeky with these concerns because I’ve been spending hours interacting with the individual bloggers in Denver – via Twitter, direct messages and the bloggers’ own posts of video, audio and writing. For example, read any of the threads at BlogHer and you will find a spectrum as broad as the colors of the rainbow in terms of love and dislike...

I like Rebecca Traister’s piece on the Party Unity My Ass loyalists in Salon very much but I love this woman. The setting: Whether they knew it or not, the PUMAs who had congregated next to the MSNBC stage were making the night of the man who has done everything in his power to destroy their purported heroine. They held aloft Clinton signs and hand-markered cards reading “Stop Delegate Intimidation!” and “South Jersey PUMA.” At one point, three women and three men holding...

To read the swing state of Ohio, listen to its delegates in Denver on the choice of Joe Biden as Barack Obama’s running mate (h/t Ohio Daily Blog,): Attorney Jan Roller of Cleveland, a Clinton delegate, said Biden “adds great strength for the experience he brings to the ticket, especially in foreign policy.” Justin Zollars, a college instructor from Bowling Green, said he’s happy with what he called “a smart pick” because Biden is experienced with foreign policy. Sonny...

From JTA.org: Ehud Olmert has decided not to run for the leadership of his centrist Kadima Party. The Israeli prime minister was expected to make the annoucement during a hastily organized speech at 8 p.m. Israel time (1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time). The Prime Minister’s Office did not give details of the speech, but Israeli media are reporting that Olmert will announce he is not running in primaries for the leadership of Kadima. Olmert has been the subject of a number of corruption investigations....

You can read Barack Obama’s agenda for helping women and families balance work and life in his Blueprint for America’s Working Women and Families, and later today, I’m told, there will be video of the announcement, which occurred in Chicago just about 20 minutes ago. From the inbox: Michelle Obama will address a gathering of Women for Obama in Chicago on Monday. There, she will discuss the campaign’s success in reaching women across the country, and discuss why her husband, Democratic...

You will not read a more visceral and affecting account of what the demise of the Big Three means to individuals, families, neighborhoods and regions than this one from Michigan (cross-posted from Michigan Liberal):   Yesterday my family joined the ever-growing group of Michigan families who now face an uncertain economic future due to lay-offs in the auto industry. My dad’s employer, once part of The Big Three, offered their employees age 50 and over a puny buyout package, with the hopes...