As our frequent commenter Silence noted the other day, the Obama-Clinton race shares a lot in common with the most recent Massachusetts gubernatorial election in which we elected Deval Patrick. This shouldn’t be especially surprising, especially considering that Obama and Patrick are long-time friends with similar backgrounds. In fact, it was Deval [...]

There was a very interesting article in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine about Jack Goldsmith’s tenure as head of the State Department’s Office of Legal Council, from Oct. 2003 to June 2004. (The article is written by a law professor and friend of Goldsmith’s, Jeffrey Rosen. It is part interview, part biography, [...]

Huge political news that you may have heard today: Tommy Thompson dropped out of the presidential race.
Oh yeah, and that Karl Rove guy resigned.

Gay marriage is here to stay, in Massachusetts anyway, at least until 2012.  To really appreciate what’s happened, you need to start at the beginning.  Three and a half years ago, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled, in a 4-3 decision, that the Massachusetts State Constitution forbade the government from discriminating against couples who [...]

The absurdity of the American political system is simply amazing.  Last spring, President Bush pushed for an immigration compromise.  The Republican controlled House passed an extremely punitive bill that did nothing to address the status of the millions of illegal immigrants and potential immigrants.  The Senate passed a compromise bill that was really quite moderate, [...]

I’ve been disturbed by the attack ads this year. Most of them are not only mean-spirited, but downright deceptive. Some of the claims I’ve recognized as misleading, or simply false. So I was intrigued by this article about why consumer ads are regulated for honesty, but political ads are not.

Here’s my dilemma. I like the Republican candidate from my district better than I like the Democrat. So on one hand, I should vote for the Republican.
But I hate what the Bush administration is doing, and I’m furious at the Republican party for letting him do it. Thus, I want to vote [...]

Political campaigns tend to be obnoxious, annoying, dirty, and all around distasteful. The negative campaigning is enough to get me to flip channels at the slightest hint of a campaign ad. But now political campaigning has hit a new low. A republican campaign in California has been sending letters to (likely [...]