Barack Obama is leading in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida according to polls conducted by Quinnipiac University (one of Nate Silver’s preferred pollsters so they’re good enough for me). The gains are due to independents moving toward Obama after the debate, the economy turning overall voting confidences to him and Sarah Palin’s declining favorability. I’ll be honest and say I started laughing when I saw that she had a negative favorability rating in Florida and Pennsylvania and is just breaking even in...

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Sarah Palin never banned any books from her local library. But she did look into the matter- with the backing of her church- and fired a librarian that was shocked Palin would ask about such a thing (the librarian was rehired after a public outcry). There’s an implication that if there hadn’t been an outcry over the firing, some books might have slipped off the shelves and into a bonfire.  Via Steve Benen:  Yesterday, ABC News’ Brian Ross moved the ball...

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I, like many other Americans, have spent the past eight years trying to balance my love of my country and my hatred for its government. As a Floridian, I get to pull double duty on the land love, government hatred front. But surely this flatland that I love would learn from its past election season mistakes. Right?  Yeah, not so much:  State elections officials will resume enforcement of a controversial state law that requires Floridians to have their identification match...

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I fell behind on my reading last week due to my site’s move and the mild coma I lapsed into thanks to the Republican National Convention. But getting back into it, I find a piece by Sean Quinn at Five Thirty Eight that points out the seemingly obvious (but somehow often overlooked) fact that the presidential election cycle is largely a game. There are teams, there are players, there are official rules that can’t be broken (with  punishment of ejection) but...

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