The primaries saw a plethora of debates; more than forty total if you add the debates of the two parties, between spring 2007 and summer 2008. Most of those debates had more than two candidates present, which complicated matters somewhat, but even given that they were horribly moderated. Candidates were asked to respond [...]

Note: This post is insanely long, even by my standards. I wrote it mostly for my own edification, but I figured I’d post it anyway in case someone was interested. It’s a question-by-question breakdown of what the candidates said, and a couple of my own thoughts. I might try to post a [...]

Politicians love to attack the media. It feeds their own egos to attack the messenger rather than to adjust the message. It also can make the public look more favorably upon you if they believe that you are being unfairly targeted by other people. This adage has been especially true running up [...]

I like Obama, don’t get me wrong. But there are two things in particular that just drive me nuts every time he utters them.

Democracy is a great form of government–but it doesn’t work for the reasons that most people seem to think it works. There is no inherent wisdom of the people; in fact, the people are pretty dumb most of the time. Study after study has been done indicating that most people have no clue [...]

You know, you stop reading the news for a week to help your mother move, and the world goes to heck in a hand-basket. I saw in the paper this morning that the government was seizing WaMu (with a name like that it’s no wonder they are having problems), that the Bush Administration has [...]

Check out this series of charts detailing the differences between the Obama and McCain tax plans. For one, the information itself is useful in comparing the two presidential candidates. Just as importantly, however, it makes it crystal clear how easily information can be manipulated to the whims of talking heads. After all, [...]

Given the date, I thought it would be a good day to go over the differences between the two presidential candidates when it comes to The War on Terror. (If you were hoping that I’d discuss whether or not Senator Obama believes that Governor Palin is a barnyard animal, I’m sorry to disappoint.) [...]

I naively thought that John McCain would have to do something to reconcile the inherent contradictions in his campaign. After all, he’s a maverick claiming the support of millions of Americans; a Bush opponent who champions Bush policies; a Republican candidate with support from the incumbent running on a platform of “change”. I [...]

Sarah Palin just stood in front of a national television audience and told America that she doesn’t need polls to know what real Americans think; she just knows, by virtue of the fact that comes from a small town. She won’t let the polls tell her what to think! And the RNC loved [...]