This article originally appeared in Dissent Magazine.

Americans are used to voting for presidential candidates with backgrounds as lawyers, military officers, farmers, businessmen, and career politicians, but this is the first time we've been asked to vote for someone who has been a community organizer. Of course, Barack...

Barack Obama will be addressing the U.S. Conference of Mayors at the group's annual meeting on June 21 in Miami. John McCain is likely to be a no-show; he hasn't accepted the group's invitation. On the face of it, it appears that the two presidential candidates recognize the reality that...

Pundits often liken politics to a game of chess, where each candidate has to think several moves ahead in pursuit of victory. But Hillary Clinton's speech last night was more like checkers than chess. She's run out of moves to win the Democratic domination, but she took a page from...

Like many students in the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD), and across California, my daughters Amelia and Sarah, 11-year old twins, have been making posters opposing Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's draconian budget cuts for public schools: "We Like Our Schools." "Arnold: Don't Terminate Our Teachers." "Cuts Hurt Kids." "Fund Schools, Not...

On Tuesday, the day before he announced his support for Barack Obama, former Senator John Edwards launched a campaign to cut the nation's poverty rate in half in the next ten years. You can be excused if you hadn't heard about it. Only one major daily newspaper -- the Philadelphia...

"McCain Can't Close the Deal." If the mainstream media were truly being evenhanded, that's the headline that would appear in newspapers and news magazines around the country. Why? Because even after he became the presumptive Republican presidential candidate on March 4 -- when Ohio, Texas, Vermont, and Rhode Island held...

The first battle in what is shaping up to be a general-election war over the mortgage crisis occurred last week. On Thursday, the House voted 266-154 in favor of a bill, sponsored by Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), chair of the House Financial Services Committee, that would help homeowners at risk...

Former journalist Sidney Blumenthal has been widely credited with coining the term "vast right-wing conspiracy" used by Hillary Clinton in 1998 to describe the alliance of conservative media, think tanks, and political operatives that sought to destroy the Clinton White House where he worked as a high-level aide. A decade...

By Peter Dreier and Kelly Candaele

Just as we are on the precipice of a major political realignment, a possible resurgence of progressive politics in Washington, the backbone of that movement -- organized labor -- is engaged in a self-destructive internal battle. This could not only...

The involuntary resignation of HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson this week provides an opportunity to underscore and distinguish the three major failings of the Bush administration: corruption, indifference, and incompetence.

Corruption occurs when a government official -- elected or appointed -- uses his or her office to engage in illegal activity...

The nation's escalating economic troubles -- triggered by the growing wave of home foreclosures, declining housing prices,and bank failures -- was entirely preventable. It will take years and trillions of dollars to dig ourselves out of this hole, as the ripple effects of the mortgage meltdown reverberate throughout the economy:...

Funny how the right-wing echo chamber is reverberating in the mainstream media. Consider an article in Saturday's New York Times about the fast-fading presidential hopes of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. According to the article, Bloomberg's chances are "diminished by the success of Senator John McCain, a moderate candidate..."...

The Clintons are playing the race card, and it isn't pretty.

In the four primaries and caucuses held so far, Barack Obama received between 34% and 38% of white votes in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada and 24% in the three-way race in South Carolina. If you believe the Clinton...

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have recently been arguing whether Martin Luther King Jr. or President Lyndon Johnson was more important for securing civil rights legislation. Their campaigns and the press have turned this tempest into a controversy over race. But it is really a dispute about political strategy and...

Hillary Clinton would be more useful to America as a progressive Senator than as a centrist president, which is how she has positioned herself in contrast to the more liberal Barack Obama and John Edwards. Obviously Clinton still hopes to win the White House. But if she loses the nomination...

Just a week before Christmas, President Bush gave corporate America two big presents. On Tuesday, his Federal Communications Commission changed the rules to allow the nation's giant conglomerates to further consolidate their grip on the media by permitting them to purchase TV and radio stations in the same local markets...

The following piece is produced by HuffPost's OffTheBus.

At the NPR Democratic candidates' debate in Iowa on Tuesday, the topic of global sweatshops finally reared its head. But the way debate moderators framed the issue revealed ignorance about the realities of globalized trade and labor. And despite significant...

The following piece was produced by the Huffington Post's OffTheBus.

Let the candidates kiss babies, raise money, and issue position papers. While voters and reporters are watching the TV debates, a small group of right-wing GOP donors and political consultants (several with close ties to Rudy...

The following piece is part of an ongoing series of OffTheBus reports by citizen policy experts critiquing different aspects of Campaign 08.

Much of Wednesday's Democratic presidential debate at Dartmouth College focused on health care reform, which Americans consider the top domestic policy issue, according to polls. Moderator Tim...

Earlier this month Ralph Nader spoke at a protest rally outside the White House demanding an end to US occupation of Iraq. I know that Nader was an early and vocal opponent of the war. But I wonder if he ever considers his own responsibility for this tragic war. Without...