It looks to me as though the Republican attempt to link Obama to radical leftists is having great success here in Texas. Political signs are going up all over the place in my neighborhood — and so far, every last one of them says, “McCain-Palin”. Of course, even when times are flush, the “tax and spend Democrats” line plays very well here, but things look a bit different this year. It seems that my neighbors are convinced that socialism is coming on little Obama-ridden hooves…...

The more radical elements of the Republican base have been getting a lot of attention lately — and not without reason. They really do sound pretty nuts. But they’re hardly alone in the wilderness. In fact, there’s a sort of beautiful balance to this whole thing.

I’ll preface this post by saying that the most conservative parts of the GOP base will not agree with it… nor will they see any reason McCain should care about the votes of people like me. I’m not a Republican, and I see that party as corrupted and twisted beyond all recognition these days. They’ve fully earned their time in the wilderness, and I know many (former) Republicans who won’t vote for them this year under any circumstances. Furthermore, the tactics McCain...

Like my fellow TMV bloggers, I’m glad to see John McCain attempt to confront and unravel some of his supporters’ increasingly worrisome (mis)perceptions about Barack Obama. I agree with those who say that the direction McCain’s campaign has gone was both disappointing and surprising, and I have no trouble understanding why some Republicans and conservatives have withdrawn their support of him as a result. A few days ago, there was a video from a rally that showed John McCain’s...

If you’re running Firefox and you’ve installed Greasemonkey, you can now view memeorandum in full living “political-bias” colors. While most political blogs are extremely partisan, their biases aren’t immediately obvious to outsiders like me. I wanted to see, at a glance, how conservative or liberal the blogs were without clicking through to every article. With the help of del.icio.us founder Joshua Schachter, we used a recommendation algorithm to score every blog on...

Regular readers here know that I’m frustrated by the profligate waste and fiscal irresponsibility our Washington leadership has demonstrated. After many posts and comments (and a great deal of anguish), I decided to bring my concerns directly to the people running for office in my area. Call it a civics experiment. To that end, I spent the vast majority of last weekend putting together a letter, and this past Monday morning I sent it to all the congressional candidates (20 or so people) in...

Okay — I understand now why McCain wanted the Townhall debate format. He is much, much better in this setting. Yes, he looked extremely stiff — and next to Obama, downright ancient. But McCain’s demeanor, and his answers, were much improved from the last debate. Furthermore, these questions were exponentially better than we’ve seen to date, and I was thrilled to hear somebody finally start nailing both candidates down on priorities and sacrifice in the face of prior fiscal...

In a thread yesterday, commenter JSpencer made reference to “the brilliant minds who conceived this country”. Although the context was narrowly contemporary (the 2008 election), the comment spoke to something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Would the Founding Fathers recognize the system we’re using today? Are we on the path they tried to set us on? If not, where do you think we went awry? Myself, I think we’ve followed a number of forks in the road, and I’d...

Almost a month ago, I wrote that I had taken the Obama sticker off the back of my truck and gone back on the fence. In large part, I needed to take a step back. Having declared myself for a candidate, I was finding myself defensive of him, and thus not able to evaluate positions fairly. Likewise, the screeches and screaming that arose around Sarah Palin’s elevation to the GOP ticket — ludicrously over the top — made it utterly impossible to judge her at all. So I pulled back…...

In the best of times, the presidency is a tough job. One can come in with all sorts of high-falutin’ ideas and goals, but something always comes up to complicate things. People flying airplanes into buildings… radicals taking a bunch of diplomats hostage… It’s always some dang thing or another. 2008, of course, is not the best of times. This morning, TMV co-blogger Jazz Shaw wrote: I’m quickly coming to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter who wins the presidential...

A month or so ago, when I wrote that I was back on the fence, I was met with quite a range of reaction. For most folks, it seems, these choices are just obvious — but the more I’ve cogitated on this, the more complex the decision has become. One of the most difficult internal hurdles I’ve encountered is my very strong belief in checks and balances… and my worries about one-party government have been magnified by the ongoing party purges of their moderates. I sent a WaPo...

Tonight’s debate was kind of a letdown, eh? No embarrassing gaffes (though there’s plenty of fodder for parsing and picking). No bumbling or incoherence. No bullying. Not even any bias from the moderator. Kind of bland for those of us who popped popcorn and expected a show. I did, however, come away with some impressions. First and foremost, of course, is that Sarah Palin did much better than the (ludicrously low) expectations. If all people wanted to know about her tonight was...

Over at my own blog this morning, I griped about what I saw as some off-topic distractions in the Senate’s version of the bail-out bill. At the time, the full breadth of the Senate’s madness hadn’t been revealed. But it has now. From Hot Air: New Tax earmarks in Bailout bill - Film and Television Productions (Sec. 502) - Wooden Arrows designed for use by children (Sec. 503) - 6 page package of earmarks for litigants in the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident, Alaska (Sec. 504) Tax earmark...

John McCain has an ad out already, using moments from the debate when Barack Obama segued into his rebuttals via agreement. (You can view the ad here.) But Obama wasn’t just acknowledging common ground, and he definitely wasn’t tacitly deferring to McCain’s mastery. Rather, he assured the rest of us that we’re all seeing the same thing. That we’re not crazy or stupid. I think McCain has completely miscued this shot, and in the doing, demonstrates a total misread of the public...

From my position on the fence, I’ve really been looking forward to tonight’s debate. In spite of having followed both Obama and McCain for months, there’s something clarifying about hearing their visions in a direct (and mostly polite) format, and there’s really no replacement for observing them side-by-side. So let me start by saying that while there were some odd moments, there were no major deal-breakers for me. There were a couple of things, though, that struck me about...

Sometimes, there really is a song for every occasion. Take Sarah Palin, for instance: While TMV co-blogger Jill Miller Zimon evidently hears nuns this morning, Polimom’s brain has been looping Janis Ian since last night. It all seems pretty appropriate to me, actually, considering the initial reactions to her ranged from Mitch Ryder & the Detroit, to Helen Reddy, to The Beatles. Any ideas for the next song on the track?

Parenting is a tough job. One has to find a balance between letting kids learn life’s lessons through painful experience (natural consequences), and keeping them safe. The parental path through the child-raising wilderness is not always well-marked. Fire is hot. Should we let little Janey touch a flame so she learns that it’s dangerous? Guns can kill people. Do we teach little Johnny how to handle them so he doesn’t make a fatal mistake through ignorance? Life’s perils...

As Jazz noted earlier, there’s a truly jaw-dropping amount of political game-playing going on right now around this bail-out. And I agree with him; Mr. Straight Talk Express is setting a whole new standard for the genre. But the bail-out shenanigans are starting to look like an elaborately staged play to my cynical eyes. Is it coincidence that the Republicans are balking just in time to be saved by their Mavericky Knight? You know what they say about coincidence…

I’m really saddened by my reaction to McCain’s maneuver statement that he’s suspending his campaign in favor of rushing off to lead the country into the sunrise. I’ve discovered a truly deep well of cynicism about all things political lately. And he wants the first debate postponed until the “crisis is over”? LOL! The elections could very well be over before we’re through this mess. No, I think now is an excellent time for these two aspirants, who have...

How did she end up in such a fix? A (very little) bit of commentary here.

When I wrote a couple of weeks ago that I was “back on the fence” about the presidential election, I came under some pretty heavy rhetorical fire. I didn’t care about “the issues”, I was told, and “I wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade”. Since that post, I’ve been doing my best to wade through the overheated rhetoric, spin, and flagrant lies coming out of both campaigns (and their supporters), trying to find something that will give me a sense that either...

For the last few days, I’ve been writing about risk and responsibility. Specifically, I’ve tried to point out that individual decision-making played at least some role in setting up this current financial crisis. Some seem to think I’m saying that the borrowers are the primary problem in all this — but that’s not it. What I am trying to point out is that although lenders certainly own a big chunk of the responsibility, one cannot place all the blame on them. There...

The term “social contract” gets thrown around a lot — but its use is generally limited to the relationship between government and citizens. I’d like to point out that there’s another dimension here that’s being ignored at the moment: the social contract between individual members of society. In terms of the current crisis, it goes like this: if you are financially irresponsible, you screw it all up for the rest of us. Now, being financially irresponsible is...

This morning, I wrote at my own blog that I’ve pulled the Obama sticker off of my truck; that although I’m not suddenly a McCain supporter, I can no longer be counted in the Obama column. In short, that I’m back on the fence. This is causing a bit of consternation, some of which appears to be driven by some rather offensive (to me) assumptions (I’m a woman, and therefore must subject to the Palin hype. Or I’m an independent and therefore must falling for McCain’s...

Since Tasers arrived on the law enforcement scene, there have been many problematic and troubling stories involving their use. Myself, I’m of the opinion that the Taser is just like any other tool: dangerous in the wrong hands. It’s bad enough when someone misuses power, but it’s downright appalling when a (now former) police officer could rampantly and repeatedly abuse it… and that the environment in which he lives and works allowed him to do so.