Back in July 2007 I showed up at HuffPost's Manhattan office with a suitcase packed with enough clothes to get me through the month while I looked for an apartment and launched OffTheBus. Even before our official launch many of you were peppering my inbox with emails, wanting to know...

"I can't take much more of this. Two weeks to go, and I'm at the end of my rope. I can't work. I can eat, but mostly standing up. I'm anxious all the time and taking it out on my ex-wife, which, ironically, I'm finding enjoyable. This is like waiting...

OffTheBus writer Diane Tucker sent me this email today:

"On Saturday night I received emails from both McCain and Obama -- each asking me to "get to work" on their behalf. What's interesting is how different their approaches were, at least in Virginia. McCain wants me to make...

This presidential election is unprecedented. Gazillions of dollars are being spent on advertising, campaign materials, volunteer efforts, rallies, and - in the case of the McCain campaign - clothing and makeup. Hundreds of thousands of people - if not millions - are donating time and energy.

So, what does the...

Ever read The New Yorker's "Talk of the Town"? Wikipedia describes it as "a miscellany of brief pieces-frequently humorous, whimsical or eccentric vignettes of life in New York -- written in a breezily light style." Now, imagine that same feature, but people-powered with submissions and stories from a network of...

At HuffPost's OffTheBus, our specialty is covering the presidential campaign in new and exciting ways by having people on the ground write about their experiences. Today, James Camner, an antiquarian bookseller and appraiser, journaled his experiences as an Obama phonebanker dialing undecided voters in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. From...

We are tired of talking so much about lipstick and lapel pins. At OffTheBus - HuffPost's citizen-produced election coverage site - we are devoting the rest of September to covering the policy differences between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama. From millions of uninsured Americans to war in Iraq...

OffTheBus is collaborating with Brian Lehrer and WNYC Radio on their "30 Issues In 30 Days." Here's a brief project intro from none other than the host, Brian Lehrer:

"The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC Radio is using the wisdom of crowds to help produce some great election coverage....

Joshua Green, a senior editor at the Atlantic, invites OffTheBus members to dig through memos and emails leaked by some of Senator Hillary Clinton's senior staffers. In his most recent piece, "The Front-Runner's Fall," Green provides a chronology of Clinton campaign mishaps and debates, all set in a memoranda...

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OffTheBus Special Ops members who reported on local Democratic Party platform meetings are sending in attendees' responses to the Platform Draft. The Draft was approved by the full Democratic Party Platform Committee this past weekend.

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Attendees of the Democratic Platform Meetings co-organized by the Obama Campaign and the DNC believed their policy proposals and ideas would be strongly considered by the Platform Drafting Committee, according to reports filed by OffTheBus Special Ops. It remains unclear how the DNC and the...

More than 100 OffTheBus members have reported back on approximately 120 Platform Meetings in the last week (See a map depicting meeting locations here). The Platform Meetings are part of “Listening to America,” a new initiative announced by the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee to elicit...

WANTED: Citizen reporters to help HuffPost's OffTheBus cover the Obama campaign. Over the next two weeks the campaign will be holding hundreds of small platform meetings where the public is invited to help shape the nominee's platform. We need you to be a reporter in your local meeting, and...

The Jesse Jackson "hot mike" flap, it seems, is only the latest evidence that the old "rules" of journalism deserve a real public hearing, one far more serious and ambitious than what we've heard to date.

Jackson lost his bearings in FOX's studio and let slip before his interview...

Starting last week OffTheBus's Special Ops members set out on their first assignment to check out what was going on at local and state party headquarters across the country. In the slide show below, you'll see what a handful of what our team of citizen-reporters found (and...

Where are the state campaign headquarters located, exactly, for the party that claims to represent Main Street? Where are they located for the party that claims to represent everyone? Thanks to the work of HuffPost OffTheBus Special Ops, you can visit offices around the nation in just a few...

It's the electoral race of the century. Political maps are being redrawn, and rules are getting rewritten across the board. Fundraising records have been broken. The candidates are even comparing the size of their email lists.

The mainstream media is tripping over itself to report on every last press...

If only Hunter S. Thompson could weigh in on the debate surrounding Mayhill Fowler's latest news piece, "Bill Clinton: Todd Purdum's a "Sleazy" "Slimy" "Scumbag." Imagine Thompson, both pleasantly and belligerently drunk, cursing in some chatroom on the Internets. He would likely dole out his characteristic candor and call...

We want to get the real story on the media and McCain, so OffTheBus is partnering with NewsTrust from June 2 - June 8. NewsTrust is a nonprofit social news site devoted to good journalism and its online tools make it really easy for anyone to rate the...