About.com's Election Blog: Talking Change

By Steve Cave Well, that was ninety minutes of everything we already knew. I, for one, was hoping that this debate would really shed some light on some of the core ... Read More

By Lahle Wolfe After what seems like an endless two years of campaigning, the debates finally began on Friday night. But do people form their opinions based on what ... Read More

By Susan Heathfield The problem, Andrew, is that Sen. Barack Obama has been straightforward about the policies and principles he wants to enact as president. I’ve studied his history of positions, ... Read More

By Andrew Collins I was interested by Susan's comment in a recent blog that, should Obama be elected: "Buyers' remorse looms in November. And over the next four years, I will not ... Read More

By Lahle Wolfe Susan, we already have something worse than “buyer’s remorse”: We suffer from “borrower’s remorse” thanks to eight years of President Bush. Now, we have little choice ... Read More

By Susan Heathfield The lesson that should be learned from the meltdown in the subprime mortgage industry is that when government regulates free markets, the taxpayer will suffer in the end. ... Read More

By LaToya Irby I can’t say that I’m surprised by McCain’s wanting to postpone Friday’s debate. Part of me thinks it’s just a publicity move. You know, make the American people ... Read More

By Daniel Levisohn Another reader writes: I think that all of them — all the congress critters — should have announced last week that they were suspending re-election campaigning to focus on ... Read More

By Daniel Levisohn There are a bunch of questions I have about McCain’s decision to hit the pause button on his presidential campaign: 1. What role would McCain and Obama take in solving ... Read More

By Steve Cave What a crazy strange time to be living in. Our economy is in a mess. Some people think the situation is so bad that in three days you ... Read More

By Daniel Levisohn Forum comments may not be the best way to judge the mood on Main Street, but this reader’s post echos some of the sentiments I've been hearing: At ... Read More

By LaToya Irby Last year, the National Association of Business Economy said that credit was the biggest short-term threat to the economy. The people in charge did nothing on the predictions ... Read More

By Daniel Levisohn $700 billion dollars! That’s a lot of money, and it may just be the start. News of the wide-reaching government bailout is slowly being digested by Congressional representatives, economists, ... Read More

By Andrew Collins I watched a special on CNN last week, hosted by commentator Roland Martin (a supporter of Barack Obama), in which he spoke out against sexism, racism, and ageism ... Read More

By Lahle Wolfe The September 29, 2008 issue of Forbes features an article by Lawrence J. Kotilkoff and Scott Burns. In “Is the U.S. Going Broke?, ” Kotilkoff points out ... Read More

By Susan Heathfield Much has been made this election season over the expectation that Sen. Barack Obama is the candidate most likely to bring change to Washington, to America and to ... Read More

By Steve Cave I think health care will and should be shoved to the back burner, with the current financial crisis we’ve all been tossed into. I think that the ... Read More

By LaToya Irby Banks got themselves and the country in this mess by making so many bad loans. Yet, as Daniel points out, the government is using our money to rescue ... Read More

By Daniel Levisohn Marc Ambinder, a reporter for the Atlantic magazine, asks a great question that relates directly to our conversation about health care: Assuming that banks begin to lend money again, ... Read More

By Andrew Collins It looks like I'm the last of the five of us to weigh in on this week's topic, health care. Indeed, I've learned quite a lot about the ... Read More

By Lahle Wolfe I respectfully disagree on most points with you, Susan, but do agree with you and Steve on one: The big picture. We have seen how poorly run federal ... Read More

By Daniel Levisohn Here's an interesting comment from a reader on the health care debate: I agree that the weakest need the help. As a Republican, I agree that the healthcare system ... Read More

By LaToya Irby A person’s lack of medical coverage could have far-reaching effects. It can keep you from getting a home, a car and even a job. Sounds far-fetched, doesn’t it? ... Read More

By Steve Cave I have to agree with Susan that Obama's health care plan looks like a disaster. I think she made an excellent point that Obama knows how to say ... Read More

By Susan Heathfield Health care is one of the most highly regulated sectors of the American economy, according to the Heritage Foundation: “The United States spends $2.1 trillion on health care, ... Read More

By Daniel Levisohn Last year, when the controversial director Michael Moore released his film Sicko, a documentary about healthcare in America, he received a rare response: bipartisan agreement. Republicans and Democrats ... Read More

By Lahle Wolfe Susan is absolutely right: “We fundamentally agree on many values; we disagree on approaches.” In fact, Obama said nearly this exact same thing during his Democratic nomination ... Read More

By Lahle Wolfe Daniel writes, “Democrats have had to fight off accusations that Obama is simply a celebrity. One of the questions going into the last two months of this election ... Read More

By Andrew Collins We'll never know for sure how this election might have gone had Obama chosen Hillary Clinton as his running mate, or had McCain chosen a more moderate but ... Read More

By Susan Heathfield Bill Whittle reviewed the Republican convention, and in one of the best political pieces I have ever read, Proud of the GOP, he said that last Wednesday evening, ... Read More

By LaToya Irby Back when McCain first announced Palin as his running mate, I knew he was doing it for the media. He’d already been whining about all the media attention ... Read More

By Daniel Levisohn Democrats have had to fight off accusations that Obama is simply a celebrity. One of the questions going into the last two months of this election is whether ... Read More

By Steve Cave You know Andrew, I think you are totally right, but it’s this “selling the news” bit that you mentioned that makes me sick. And angry. Personally, I like Palin. ... Read More

By Andrew Collins I don't see a clear pattern of the media supporting one campaign or another. What I conclude from watching major TV media outlets, and reading an assortment of ... Read More

By Lahle Wolfe The presidential race should be about McCain and Obama squaring off. With the Palin blizzard whirling around it has become Obama vs. Palin. The life and ... Read More

By LaToya Irby Daniel, I think you said it best when you described this election as a reality television show – we’ll call it “The Real World, DC.” It’s not just ... Read More

By Susan Heathfield Daniel wonders whether the proliferation of media outlets via the Internet and citizen journalist bloggers has made the electorate more informed during this election. I don’t know about ... Read More

By Steve Cave Well Daniel, the “Media”, which we’re part of in writing this stuff, does have a huge influence on this campaign, you’re right. The best way to navigate it, ... Read More

By Lahle Wolfe Daniel, it does seem to me as well that more people are taking an interest in this presidential election than in any other I can recall. I ... Read More

By Daniel Levisohn I don’t know about the rest of my fellow bloggers, but I’ve been amazed by the public interest in this election. John McCain spoke to over 40 million ... Read More

By Andrew Collins There's been a nice post-convention bounce for the McCain-Palin ticket, and I keep hearing buzz about the rejuvenated Republican base. I agree, this past week's Republican National ... Read More

By LaToya Irby Steve, I agree with your moral stance on abortion, but we disagree when it comes to government regulations of abortion. Is abortion a selfish decision? Sometimes. Is it ... Read More

By Steve Cave In the aftermath of the two conventions, there have been a lot of good, well thought out points splashed across this blog. It’s been good. We ... Read More

By Daniel Levisohn Clara James, About.com’s Guide to Minneapolis/St. Paul, has written a pretty powerful description of a protest last night at the RNC. There was a lot of talk this ... Read More

By Susan Heathfield Here are some thoughts about why. Those of you who have been reading this election blog know that my political beliefs lean to the conservative point of view. ... Read More

By LaToya Irby Though we’ve done a lot of candidate analysis, praising our favorites, and bashing our un-favorites, there’s more to this election than whose daughter is pregnant or who’s the ... Read More

By Lahle Wolfe I was pleased to hear news correspondents after Sarah Palin’s speech last night remind Americans that Palin is no Hillary. She’s not. I was also pleased that they ... Read More

By Daniel Levisohn Has Sarah Palin energized the Republican base? You bet. Will she energize the rest of the country to vote Republican? We’ll have to wait and see. But this ... Read More

By Susan Heathfield Sen. John McCain puts America first. Gov. Sarah Palin puts Alaska first and will soon have the opportunity to put America first. Long known as a maverick and ... Read More

By Steve Cave Daniel , I think you’re right about the hurricane being a distraction, but I don’t think it was much more than that. I wasn’t really worried about how ... Read More

By Lahle Wolfe Hurricane Gustav was warned to be the “Mother of all storms.” The prediction was ominous and resulted in mass evacuations (we learned something from Katrina, after all). ... Read More

By Andrew Collins I was initially relieved to see that Dan's blog topic for the week steers us slightly away from the much-sensationalized discussions of Sarah Palin and either party's conventions. ... Read More

By Daniel Levisohn It’s easy during a long campaign to get distracted by, well, unimportant distractions. This election, more than any of the others elections I remember, has the feel of ... Read More