I'm a life long voting Oregonian, and while the vote by mail has been successful in boosting participation and keeping the already fairly clean electoral process on the up and up, I truly miss the old "going to the polls" ritual. That being said, ote by mail has had the effect of spreading out the campaign a little and has seemed to help eliminate the perceived advantage of "October surprise", last minute attack ads. Of course, that means that the whole campaign often becomes an attack ad, but that's politics, eh?

but... it's my belief that we should be far more careful than to simply call for the elimination of the electoral college. Wouldn't that take a constitutional amendment, anyway?

There are a lot of reasons why smaller states supported the establishment of the electoral college, many of them still arguably valid. While the will of the popular vote has been subverted by the institution quite a few times, remember it wasn't necessarily the electoral college that handed the current fraud the presidency, but a 5-4 vote by an extremely partisan Supreme Court.

"Who appointed Iowa king-maker?

Can someone explain just why Iowa gets this blessed position as first in the primary schedule?"

No mountains, no oceans, no forests....

The PUMA site that Salon linked to in some article yesterday (don't remember which one) had a large PUMA logo with a notable change. Instead of the original meaning of the acronym - "Party Unity, My Ass" - the words were "People United Mean Action"... a slightly less self absorbed, mindlessly militant approach, to be sure. I don't know if this means anything.

Though I'm loathe to open myself to charges of being a conspiracy theorist, I'm inclined to agree with posters who suggest that the whole PUMA "movement" is just another Rovian dirt bag operation. NO rational progressive... NO liberal... NO Democratic Party voter... in other words, NOBODY who wasn't already in the thrall of the Corporate Fascist Party (formerly the GOP) would EVER switch their support from Clinton to the absolutely abhorrent McBush.

You simply can't get from Hillary to Johnny "I was a POW for 5 years" McCain politically. No and pretend to be sane.

I'm not necessarily an Obama "supporter", I'm a fascist hater, a realist, and pragmatic. Thus, I will vote for him, or rather against the nominee of the American Corporate Fascist Party. And I won't waste my time with the silly, pointless petulance that is the primary, secondary, and really ONLY point of the whole PUMA "movement"... whatever the pouty pointy heads who subscribe to it currently claim acronym means. In my world, ANYONE who is working against the less than perfect choice we're given - that being Obama - is working FOR continued Fascism. Plain and simple. I also don't believe for a minute that ANYONE who is actively trying to drag down Obama's chances in November was EVER going to vote for a Democrat. As I said, it's looking more and more like a Rovian psyop ... and the more people like you post your vitriolic nonsense in here, the more convinced I am of that.

It's hard to predict how a name turns out. My given name William was the most popular name given to boys the year I was born. It was also a long established name in my family and had belonged to a beloved uncle killed in WWII. It immediately became "Bill" and that stuck all my life.

But I've also lived with a German last name that always caused roll call to come to a screeching halt the first time a teacher encountered it. In only five letters it manages to stymie almost everyone I encounter.

My three children were given increasingly unique names; mostly at the behest of my wife who grew up with an unfashionably old fashioned, semi common name. The last two, the ones with names that might qualify for some of the lists mentioned in the article, have since acquired nicknames. Of course these nicknames are as odd as their real names (the boy is "Soup Bone" to me, or to some of his friends "Cake" - an understandable contraction of his given name).

So, I don't know.... whose business is it anyway. Let them battle it out with their parents when they achieve majority... and there's always the nickname route.

are not used for a plural. It's Clintons... NOT Clinton's.

I ain't a grammer nazi, honest. It's just that the poor apostrophe is perhaps the most overused and misunderstood form of punctuation.

ok... back to the scrum

As a proud life long Oregonian, I'm glad we still have enough crazy, anarchy prone freaks to export them nationwide. Portland isn't "Little Beirut" to the Bushistas for nothin'.

Frank Rizzo's Philly? Cops in shorts? On bikes?

Man... I guess SOME things CAN change.

The only "Clinton" who EVER got ANY electoral votes is ineligible to run this time Wes. Maybe you haven't been keeping up with the news. The other Clinton lost the primaries. Unless you're a fan of the way that the coup of '00 was conducted she ain't gonna get any electoral votes either.

McBush will mouth any words put into his mouth in order to get HIS TURN to play act at being president. He's looking more and more like an exact clone of Bush; a man without principle or even his own thoughts. "Tell me what to say Karl"... a glory hog, so intent on "being" president, that he won't give a damn what the people who put him there do in his name. Not that he's against any of the neocon fascist agenda, mind you... it simply doesn't matter to him. The ONLY thing that matters to these very mediocre little men that the Republican party keeps propping up to front for their very real dirty work is the title.