As a composition and literature professor (and one-time speech instructor), I have to say that Obama was better at explaining and exploring the issues (and he was right), but McCain won. Obama was subtle, knowledgeable, thoughtful, and warm and humorous when appropriate. But he was too abstract and too analytical. McCain was funny, brief and to the point, simple instead of complex, and full of stories to illustrate his points--exactly what the average person, who lacks any background information about the issues, wants.

People want someone who is direct, certain, sure, and comes across as a good guy to know; someone who is smart enough but not so smart that the other person feels stupid. Reagan mastered that persona (despite being really ignorant or maybe because of it), Carter didn't. Bush I and Dukakis didn't master that persona, Clinton did (despite being really smart and knowledgeable). Bush II seemed to find that persona, Gore and Kerry didn't. Hillary was getting there with some help from Bubba.

We don't need to guess who won the general elections. I'm worried.

I'm an old-fashioned, bleeding-heart, ultra-liberal, atheist, feminist, who has not served the GOP in any way since I learned to think and feel at the same time.

I supported Clinton because, as Paul Krugman documented, she is more liberal than Obama. And, if you're worried about the Democrats' 40 year servitude, incestuous or otherwise, to the GOP you supported the wrong candidate.

Who said the Republicans were the party of ideas over the last decades, that Reagan marked a seminal change? Who voted for FISA, for Dick Cheney's energy bill, took money from Exelon and Goldman-Sachs and oil company executives and a slum landlord named Rezko? Who used the infamous Harry and Louise to criticize a rival's universal health care plan while his own left out millions?

Who claims to want a post-partisan relationship with Republicans to get things done, after making concessions (see above) that so far seem to suggest giving away half the farm before negotiations begin?

Obama is better than McCain on the issues, but that's not saying a whole hell of a lot.

It seems to me that a sensible solution about "marriage," the word and the issue, is to decide that everyone who applies for a marriage license at some point in the process, if they want a legal relationship, turns in a form that creates a civil union, a state-created, secular "marriage" called a civil union. Those who want a religious ratification of that state-created civil union go to the church, temple, mosque, whatever, that they follow for a religiously blessed union called marriage, grand pooh-pah, or whatever, that is performed according to the religious rites of the institution the couple believes in. Thus everyone would start with a civil union, that would be the default setting, with all the rights and privileges now associated with marriage, and, then, if they want, the couple would have that union sanctified by the religious institution of their choice. Marriage then becomes, as it should, not a legal state, but a religious one, and a civil union becomes the state recognized legal relationship. In other words, everyone starts with a civil union and that is sufficient unto itself, and marriage is just an optional religious ceremony like baptism, confirmation, ordination, whatever, organized by religious institutions according to belief, tradition, and custom.