After nearly a year of supposed debates formatted like low grade television quiz shows, moderated by talking-heads asking inane and pointlessly irrelevant gotcha questions targeting the minutia of personal histories; dutifully followed by an army of pollsters, who daily report their statistical finding like variations in the weather, we are finally approaching a point of alleged decision-making in the winnowing process of selecting the presidential candidates who will compete for the presidency of the United States in a general election to be held in November of 2008. The first narrowing of the field will result from a series of coffee klatches held by the matrons and patriots of Iowa. Shortly following these conclaves the minions of the maple syrup belt, the live free or die bunch; New Hampshire, will be polled and report their collective wisdom as to which two of the various political marathoners would, in their inspired judgment, best lead the country. What is seldom discussed is that these two states will have seven and four electoral votes respectively to cast in the general election which requires the winner to aggregate at least 270 electoral votes out of a possible 538. ...more

December 29, 2007

I find presidential campaigns very distressful for this reason: The candidates make claims to have powers not granted to them by our Constitution. ...more

December 29, 2007

Before heading to that New Year's Eve party Monday, don't forget: Dec. 31 also is the deadline to register to vote in January's presidential primaries. ...more

December 27, 2007

A little more than a year ago, Kathy Stangl received a devastating prognosis: Doctors told her she had a few months to live. ...more

December 26, 2007

Democratic rivals assailed front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday for a vote against Iran that they portrayed as misguided and dangerous in light of a new intelligence report that says the Iranians stopped pursuing a nuclear weapon years ago. ...more

December 5, 2007

In an effort to eliminate some of what is being emitted by presidential candidates during presidential debates, I have come up with a "simple plan." Once the parties have their presidential candidates established, this is what they should do. Each presidential candidate could ask his or her opponent 50 questions that the opponent must answer, yes or no. A. The candidate pledges that his or her name could not be put on the ballot unless they answer these 50 questions, yes or no. ...more

December 3, 2007

St. Petersburg police arrested three protesters outside the CNN/YouTube presidential candidates' debate at Mahaffey Theater on Wednesday. ...more

November 29, 2007

Focus On Mexico Regarding "Mexican President Blasts Treatment Of Migrants" (Nation/World, Nov. 15): ...more

November 24, 2007

Gov. Charlie Crist, with a politician's ability to evade interrogation, has been dodging one question more than any other lately: Could he be a candidate for vice president in 2008? ...more

November 20, 2007

About six months ago, I was having lunch with a political consultant and we were having a smart-alecky conversation about the presidential race. All of sudden, my friend interrupted the flow of gossip and said: "You know, there's really only one great man running for president this year, and that's McCain." ...more

November 15, 2007