by David Safier It's important to know which stores are Christmas-friendly, Christmas-negligent and Christmas-offensive when you go shopping. So we owe James Dobson's Focus on the Family a vote of thanks for telling us which is which. Just so you know what each category means: "Christmas-friendly" retailers — prominent acknowledgment of "Christmas" "Christmas-negligent" retailers — marginalized … Read more

by David Safier The "Conservatives Jumping Ship" series was supposed to end at the election, but here's another one: David Frum, former speech writer for Bush and now an author trying to figure out the shape of a new conservatism. First he said less than complementary things about Sarah Palin. Now he's leaving the National … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Most of you by now have seen the electoral map depiction of the 2008 election (h/t fivethirtyeight.com). But simply using the map of the United States creates a visual distortion of election results in that the map is based upon land mass and is not weighted for population or other factors. Western … Read more

by David Safier The Phoenix-based Arizona Democratic Party needs to show more respect for Democrats in Southern Arizona during elections. We've developed some savvy pols down here who understand the lay of the land and have some good ideas about how to win elections, but the state party continues to treat us like slightly dim-witted … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: I have been busy with post-election debriefings from candidates and consulting with colleagues in the election integrity community about the close elections still undecided and that appear headed for a recount. Before the election I predicted that Democrats would net 20-25 House seats in Congress. In fact, Democrats won 24 seats but lost only … Read more

by David Safier Here's a short piece from Kevin Drum on his Mother Jones blog (He used to do the Political Animal blog for Washington Monthly) about the south's diminishing political clout. I hope he's got this right. For many years, the Democratic Party controlled the agenda of American politics and Southerners controlled much of … Read more

by David Safier A very interesting analysis of voter turnout nationally. Generally, the number of Democratic voters increased while Republicans decreased. But in states that went for McCain . . .  Here are a few excerpts. The entire article is worth a read. Turnout in last week's election increased from four years ago but fell … Read more