While the presidential election has preoccupied the minds of most progressive Californians, there is a ballot initiative which, at this point (with our guy in the lead), merits at least as much of our attention, if not more. Proposition 8 seeks to amend California's constitution by adding the phrase "only...

For many of us--we who've had an unhealthy obsession with this presidential campaign for 20 months and who've developed an amazing tolerance to read the same punditry, same polling data, and other identical political miscellany many times over as it ricochets around the blogosphere--it's incredible to see the finish line...

If you were going to dream up a picture-perfect political ad, it might involve some combination of your opponent and Saddam Hussein. Well, if you're Josh Segall, Democratic candidate for Congress in Alabama's 3rd district (previously profiled here) with a decent chance of turning a red district blue,...

Did you miss the old McCain campaign? You know, the no-chance, hard-luck, dottering campaign of summer 2007. When so few voters would show up at his rallies that McCain would have to resort to this for attention? McCain's campaign had sunk to such lows of popularity and possibility that...

Much of the early part of the day in Denver is spent searching for, procuring, and sharing various credentials (whether for the convention floor, the blogger's Big Tent, the Huff Post Oasis, or various VIP lounges). As evening approaches, though, delegates, media, and any other convention-goers turn their attention to...

On the second floor of the Denver Pavilions, above the din and bustle of 16th Ave, a group of students from RISD is putting on a display of cutting edge energy and design solutions that are currently in operation or planning around the world. Going beyond the oft-heard...

culmination of pro-Hillary group 18 Million Voices's day of all-things-Clinton was a public broadcast of her speech at Cheesman Park. As my cab driver informed me as she dropped me at the sparsely attended rally, the allegedly haunted park had once been a cemetery. That fact was surely unconsidered...

On arrival in the madhouse that is Denver (and the even madder blogger's tent), I'm almost more concerned with what's happening in Chicago (or wherever else the Obama ad team is based) than anything happening here. In a week in which Democrats and the national media are focused on the...

Much has been made of the promise of Barack Obama's coattails: his supposed big-tent ability to swell voter rolls and mobilize an election-day turnout that will not only put a Democrat into the White House, but also sweep down-ticket Democrats around the country into state and national offices...

Before Democrats get too enamored with the idea of the seemingly perfect-on-paper Obama/Webb ticket, it is worth revisiting Jim Webb's background, and specifically an article he wrote for the Washingtonian in November 1979 entitled "Women Can't Fight." In the lengthy article, Webb is blunt and stark as he makes...

Did you see it? The way he won Oregon? So smug and self-assured. Going back to Iowa, the site of the crime, to deliver his speech as if he's got it all wrapped up...

That wasn't my reaction, but it might very well have been Geraldine Ferraro's...

One school of psychiatric thought holds that there are five stages of grieving: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. While Senator Clinton has of late been loath to throw her lot in with elite experts (presumably this includes psychiatrists as well as economists; basically any "-ist" profession), the passions...

Twenty-four hours after the Obama campaign cut 900 delegate candidates across California, the campaign reversed itself and reinstated all candidates. In an email sent to all Californians running to be Obama delegates at this summer's Democratic National Convention, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe wrote:

There has been an extraordinary...

UPDATE: In a reversal, the Obama campaign has reinstated the previously cut California delegate candidates. Read all about it here.

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I've spent the past few weeks excitedly sending emails, making phone calls, and explaining the technicalities of Democratic party registration to my family and friends in...

This weekend brought word that John McCain will be convening a panel of his doctors next month, in an effort to help assuage concerns about his age and health. Of course, McCain's prognosis at that press event is a foregone conclusion: clean bill of health, sound of mind and...

Here's the thing about a 6-week lull between nominating contests: political journalists, bloggers, and pundits need something to talk about. And in the Internet age, they need a lot to talk and speculate about, even if that something is spinning out endless "could be" scenarios. Enter Joe Klein, who wrote...

It's become increasingly obvious that no matter what Senator Clinton does, she can neither overtake Senator Obama's pledged delegate advantage nor his popular vote lead. The Clinton plan, as her camp has admitted, essentially boils down to convincing the superdelegates that Clinton is the better candidate and that Obama is...

The conventional media wisdom (oxymoron?) is that Hillary Clinton's March 4th resurgence in Ohio, Rhode Island, and Texas (well, initially in Texas) stanched the flow of superdelegates to Barack Obama. One hopes that the reason for the superdelegate hold-out is that they are waiting to coalesce around whichever candidate finishes...

The story lines and spin coming out of yesterday's semi-super Tuesday are enough to make your head, well... spin. The Clinton camp would have us believe that the results in Ohio and Texas fundamentally altered the trajectory of the primary, while the Obama team would have us believe that yesterday...

A cornerstone of Senator Hillary Clinton's strategy to become the Democratic presidential nominee--and a recently renewed argument on the campaign trail--is the eventual seating of the Florida and Michigan delegations. But could the official decision on whether to seat those delegates already have been made? And during the Democratic Convention,...