Immediately after the news broke that George Bush's administration has now agreed to a hard-and-fast timetable for withdrawal of all American troops in Iraq (all troops will be gone -- no matter what the situation on the ground is -- by the end of 2011), I got the following...

I have to begin here today by stomping all over a cutesy term the media has come up with for the upcoming economic "summit" George W. Bush is holding this weekend. The newsies, in their exuberance, have taken to calling this meeting "Bretton Woods II."

To which I say: "No,...

One of the more scurrilous 2008 campaign tactics (in a campaign seemingly full of them) had to have been those insidious "Have you heard... Barack Obama is a secret Muslim?!?" emails. These bounced hither and yon on the internet almost from the beginning of the campaign itself (or at the...

Today's column is in three parts. The first two are updates on the Missouri presidential election results and the Alaskan Senate election results, and then a quick rundown of some of the state-level ballot initiatives you may have missed out on... what with all the other election excitement this year.

Welcome back to Friday Talking Points.

Of course, the big question on everyone's mind right now is: What is going on up in Minnesota? Al Franken is tantalizingly close to taking a lead in his Senate race, but very few details are available in the media (with the exception of...

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Because it's Election Day, I'm not going to give a detailed analysis of the past week's polls, as I normally do here. For those who have been following the progress of my "Electoral Math"...

Barack Obama has run one of the most impressive political campaigns in all of American history. That is saying quite a lot, but I truly feel he has earned that much, no matter what happens tomorrow night. The Obama campaign did not leak, and they did not squabble amongst themselves...

[Today's Hallowe'en column is in two ghastly parts -- one frightful, fingernail-chewing tale for each side of the corpse-ridden and zombified political divide.]

Gather 'round, ghouls and goblins! Our annual Hallowe'en fright fest is about to begin... full of scary monsters, ghostly tales, and horrors galore... because on this night,...

Welcome to the penultimate Electoral Math column.

OK, I admit, I just like correctly using the word "penultimate." Plus, it's fun to say! Try it!

If you detect a certain giddiness here at Electoral Math Central, it is due to the fact that the election is actually drawing nigh, after...

[Note: I ran this story a few weeks ago, but it didn't get a lot of attention due to the presidential campaign. Now that Senator Ted Stevens has been found guilty on all counts in his corruption case, I thought it was worth running it again.]

[Update:] I did...

John McCain is losing the race for the White House. Now, this doesn't mean he has already lost it -- we've still got to go vote, after all. I'll cover that aspect in the Talking Points section, but anyone looking at the polls or an electoral map these days would...

It's quiet out there... too quiet.

Well, not really, but I always wanted to start a column with that line. The news this week is that there's not much news. The state-by-state polls have been remarkably stable for how close we are to Election Day. Some fringe states have shifted...

While 2008 is guaranteed to be an election "like no other" in American politics for many other reasons, it will also be the first election where the voters themselves may wind up doing the best job of policing the election process itself. The Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and YouTube have...

I started blogging over two years ago. That is to say, right about the time the 2008 presidential campaign began.

OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration. I actually started writing in order to have some tiny influence on the 2006 election, after I wrote the book "How Democrats...

This week's word is going to be "insurmountable." Look for it coming from the lips and pens of pundits everywhere in the next week. Because while mainstream media journalists are obviously trying to portray this race as a lot closer than it really is (better ratings that way), if Obama...

The nomination of Sarah Palin for the Republican vice-presidential ticket has brought a lot of media attention to the Alaskan political scene. But while Palin's record and past deeds are being combed over by all and sundry, there are plenty of other scandals worth looking into up in the Last...

While we're all waiting for someone to leak the Palin Troopergate Report (which is reminiscent of waiting for "Fitzmas" during the whole Scooter Libby fiasco), let us take a brief look at the presidential race.

Things are getting pretty nasty out on the McCain campaign trail, it seems. Not...

I have to admit, that's a pretty provocative title. And enumerating the poultry before they emerge from the ova is always risky... as the saying goes. But it's hard to look at this week's polls without the word "landslide" appearing in your forebrain.

Now, there is no hard-and-fast rule as...

The Washington Bullets basketball team (now the Wizards) won a spectacular national championship in 1978. This was a big deal in Washington, since the town hadn't had a major sports championship since the Redskins won one in 1942. But there were two amusing footnotes to their victory worth mentioning here....

The weirdest moment in last night's vice presidential debate (at least for me) happened before the debate officially had even begun. Not realizing their mikes were being picked up by the networks, Sarah Palin (while shaking Joe Biden's hand) asked him "Can I call you Joe?"

Now, in normal life,...