All Politics, All the Time

Unless you've been living in an underground bunker for the past 18 months, you've heard about the upcoming election. Starting today and running through November 4th, I'll be writing about politics every day. I'll take a time-out for Halloween, the most sacred day on JT's kid-dom calendar, in order to post an unreasonable number of photos of my much-adored little boy in his costume. But then I'll return to my all-politics diet.

In my previous life I was a full-time political scientist. These days, I'm just a part-timer, since I also teach history. But it would be fair to say that I spend three to four hours every day reading and writing about politics. It's an obsession.

I like to think that it's a healthy obsession...and in the next week you can be the judge of that.

I check out the pollster.com website a few times every day, and it has the electoral map that I trust the most these days. Let's just say that things there look quite promising right now. But there are other electoral maps well-worth my political junkie time. Try this one or these folks for more information than you could possibly use. And if you'd like up-to-date daily polls about Senate and House races, Ron over at politics 1 has got your daily fix. The upshot of all of these websites: Blue Nation.

I know that winning is the focus right now, and I'm just as thrilled as the rest of the progressive world to see a Democrat back in the White House. I'm happy that the Congressional balance will also favor the Democrats. But winning is only half the battle. In the aftermath of November 4th, Barack Obama and the Democratic party must demonstrate that they can use their victory to govern well. So for the next few days, I will indulge my wonkish self with some ideas about how to make that happen.