Ann Davidow

Friday's big news was that Senator McCain had chosen a running mate - - a relatively low-profile woman, Governor Palin of Alaska. Congratulations and happy talk flowed as the two candidates embraced during a carefully orchestrated meet-up in Ohio.

Apparently his choice came as something of a surprise to supporters and members of the opposition alike. It hadn't been necessary after all for Karl Rove to call Joe Lieberman and implore him to remove his name from contention as a possible candidate - - sad for many Democrats who had hoped McCain would take Lieberman o

Republicans were prepared for whoever Senator Obama’s VP pick would be, with videos featuring Senators Clinton and Biden describing the Democratic candidate as unprepared to be president. There’s even a spot with Biden  saying he’d be honored to run with or against John McCain - - must have been back when McCain still had principles and wasn’t trying to milk his war experience and court the religious right.

And there’s Hillary claiming earnestly that the Obama campaign had grown “increasingly negative.” It remains a source of amazement t

Much of the McCain attack machine seems to focus on Obama's strong points. That may seem an odd thing to say since doubts about his lack of experience and his patriotism are standard Republican talking points. Picking up where Hillary left off, Obama is depicted as a bit of an oddity and a speechifying neophyte. Curiously, however, he seems to be despised mostly because he's smart, and because he's just so darn likeable.

Obama began stressing judgment as an important leadership quality early in his campaign, questioning the ill-advised decision of McCain

With the Swift Boating of John Kerry still fresh in their minds, Obama's team vowed not to let such skullduggery pass without comment. A rapid-response mechanism is triggered whenever some tawdry attack is initiated by the other side. It is a dizzying exercise that has also been adopted by the McCain camp in its own special way.

The problem with this back-and-forth turf building is that it can be hard to digest -- a kind of scattershot approach that is difficult to assess. Obama's lagging poll numbers are said to be a result of the personal attacks he is endur

Apparently nothing is off limits as McCain seeks to gain the White House. Much time is spent denigrating Barack Obama and trying to befuddle the public with a skewed vision of domestic and world events. With a nod to the religious right, it is clear no stone will be left unturned as he works to grind out a few more votes.

Supporters remain enthralled with the celebrity-drill-drill-drill gambit, since these efforts seem to be "working." And just in time to affect the final months of the campaign, Corsi's book arrives to dredge up every debunked ti

It's easy for single-issue or third-party figures to assume the mantel of moral rectitude and criticize main-stream political candidates for not being tougher about where they stand on issues. The third tier never has to worry about losing an election for being too controversial because they rarely receive enough support to become viable contenders. The best that can be said for most of them is that they may at times be able to open up debate about matters of national concern that would otherwise be left unaddressed.

But no matter what followers of Ralph Nader, Cy

If you thought the McCain campaign couldn’t get any sillier or more irrelevant you were wrong. The odd thing is that, despite wall-to-wall coverage on cable news networks, attempts to portray Obama as an empty-suit, liberal elitist with a series of ill-chosen, superficial ads and misstatements, the net effect has been to diminish McCain’s image and dislodge the halo from his head.

It was bad enough when his campaign managers sought to deflate Obama’s success abroad by making him appear to be just another celebrity like Paris Hilton or Britney Spears in that s

Here we are in the midst of a presidential campaign and yet enormous chunks of cable news channel air time are being expended on Hillary Clinton and John Edwards - - two people who are no longer in the race.  At least Hillary still has an opportunity to screw things up for Barack Obama since many of her supporters seem to be trying to find a way to reinvigorate her candidacy at the convention in Colorado. Edwards has been out of contention for ages, and he meant it when he withdrew.

But his admission that he did in fact have an affair has news teams everywhere saliva

It's always the economy - - here, there and everywhere. At the simplest level, people seek financial security; they don't turn on each other when everyone is a participant in a social contract with a government that protects them from intruders and promotes the general welfare. It is only when governments fail in these endeavors that structures crumble and internal conflicts allow despots and foreign threats to create conditions in which raw power and fear are the determinants of individual lives.

Even tyrants survive if they keep o