Today, the American people have stated loud and clear that they want a new direction for our country. And they know Democrats will take us in that new direction.

Clearly, the American people are tired of the pay-to-play politics Republicans made so common in Washington during recent years. This is about nothing less than the integrity of our system and the defense of government of, by, and for the people.

The people are demanding a change, and Democrats stand ready to give them one. To get there, we're going to open up the political process in the House, from the Rules Committee on down. We're going to bring transparency, integrity, and democracy back to the legislative process.

We received reports about a 13-year-old who portrayed me in a mock election at school. We've enjoyed her aggressive campaigning and sticking to issues (and her innovative use of candy giveaways: "Don't be a dum-dum...vote Radnofsky").

This is a great day, with an in studio morning radio show and then, having voted early, off to the polls to meet voters. I was pleased to be covered by several networks, radio stations and print, and have been taking phone call interviews all day.

A highlight: the vice principal of the Kipp School came to vote, stopped to talk before and after voting, and asked me to visit the students. I came at 1:30 and spent an hour visiting with the fifth grade students. Their questions were superior! These kids asked cogent questions regarding the 15th Amendment, voting, tensions within the First Amendment, and talked about what they wanted to be when they grew up: we're going to have a good generation of doctors (mostly pediatricians), nurses, a marine biologist, lawyers, an archeologist, counselors, an actor, and a few professional athletes who have contingency plans as engineers! Read more...

Democrats and the press don't realize what the political "game" is, and that's why we lose it (and "lose it") so regularly. What we see as ironic, hypocritical, disingenuous, and duplicitous is part of a quite deliberate and highly-effective strategy, one described in "1984" and used by Hitler, the Soviets, and Mao, but perfected by GOP "geniuses" Atwater and Rove. We lose race after race thinking politics is about issues, facts, truth, reality, logic, proof, and substance. Rove's extremely-effective strategy knows those things are not relevant anymore. Actually, liberals were successful for years with less sophisticated versions of disgarding reality and logic: winning elections by beating the GOP over the head with all-things-to-all-people, house-of-cards policies toward social security, farm programs, education, and supporting the "middle class." But Rove, "The Architect" as Bush calls him, left Democrats in the dust by operating principles like:

* Define your opponent before they can define themselves -- facts don't matter, merely what what sounds like it ought to be true, or "truthiness" as Stephen Colbert calls it. Thus, appeal to prejudice, preconceptions, "hooray for us" jingoism, labeling opponents as lacking principles and of hypocrisy ("flip-flopper").

* Governance as politics, partisanship, and campaigning 24-7-365. Liberals look at fundraising, politics and campaigning as preludes and separate from governance.

* "Spin" every event as a success validating your side's rightness and effectiveness or as a threat that requires your side's formulas for action (the Marxists used that for years). Thus, all GOP Congressional bills are named the opposite of what they do. Read more...

It looks like heavy turnout in the KY-05 Congressinal District. The polls have been open nine hours, and they close at 6:00 P.M. Eastern time. We hope for the best, but the voting is still being done.

The great Yogi Berra said it best: 'It's Déjà vu all over again.'  Except instead of the boys of October, we're talking about the long lines and broken machines of November. Allegations of election fraud and voter suppression were once rarities, today they're business as usual for the American voter.  It's time to stop throwing taxpayer dollars at a broken system.  Oregonians have a solution — Vote by Mail.

For more than a decade Oregonians have been successfully voting by mail.  Up to three weeks before Election Day, ballots are sent to all registered voters, giving busy families time to research their votes and carefully mark their ballots, which are then either dropped in the mailbox or delivered to secure drop boxes at libraries, county offices and other convenient locations.  Trained election officials then match the signature on each ballot against the signature on each voter’s registration card, before processing the vote. Read more...

After an hour of radio this morning into Corpus Christi, we enjoyed good wishes from South Texas, as the front page of the Brownsville Herald heralded the South Texas poll, where Radnofsky leads Hutchison 52-40. I did work South Texas hard, and enjoyed several dozen visits, as the ride there is beautiful and diverse, especially if the route gores by the intercoastal waterway. We've spent two wonderful family vacations in the last two years on Padre Island, where my husband and I honeymooned long ago. And the small towns are loaded with Native American artifacts and stories of conquistadores and LaSalle's adventurers and heroes of the Texas revolution and pirates and a huge share of war heroes.

I've seen two Medals of Honor at local Texas museums in the last 6 months. Pioneer women's stories and early newspapermen dominate, as do oil and agricultural history. And the birding ... The best in the world. So it was very pleasing to know how strong the campaign has been in the RGV (Rio Grande Valley), which recently hosted a Pachanga for me on a ranch outside of Mission. Folks care about education, scant social services and overtaxed school districts, water, health care and treating our veterans fairly. (South Texas, lacking any VA hospital, is disproportionately represented by wounded, aging and retired vets). Read more...

From the war in Iraq to our economy, President Bush and the Rubber Stamp Republican Congress are out of touch and in denial.

Since President Bush took office in January 2001, real incomes have fallen, while the costs of health insurance, gasoline and home heating, and attending college have soared. Millions of Americans are working hard and are unable to get ahead. Republicans' record budget deficits are passing trillions in debt on to our children and grandchildren. Republicans' misplaced priorities of more tax cuts for the wealthy and more record deficits have put the American Dream for the next generation at risk.

On Iraq, Republicans have abandoned the 'stay the course' slogan, but they are still fully committed to the 'stay the course' strategy. Just last week, President Bush said that the U.S. was winning in Iraq and Vice President Cheney said the Administration is going "full steam ahead" with its failed Iraq policy, despite the U.S. Central Command judging the situation in Iraq to be near chaos, with "violence at all-time high, spreading geographically" and four highly respected military newspapers saying of Secretary Rumsfeld, "His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised...Donald Rumsfeld must go."

But tomorrow is our opportunity to make a change.

Read more...

Tuesday’s election will be a fundamental moment for deciding the future of our country. It will also be a major marking point for the debate about How to run our elections, which began in earnest after the election of 2000, continued through the 2004 election, and rages today.

What will Tuesday bring, and where ought the debate go after that? Well, to state the very obvious, we are all hoping that the elections will go smoothly, that voters will participate in significant numbers, and that their votes will be clearly and fully counted. But there are many barriers and potholes—before, during and after Election Day itself—that suggest that may not be the case. Here are a number of things that could thwart the ability of eligible voters to register and cast a vote, and have that vote properly counted—and therefore erode confidence in the entire process. Read more...

There are two election process issues facing the nation this November:
* Can the polls be opened on time?
* Will voters trust the results?

The large deployment of new technologies is what drives the first question. Poll workers are often people who do not see computers often in their everyday lives. Turning on these new high tech machines in scores of thousands of polling places at 6 AM is going to be a challenge. Only machines designed for usability and jurisdictions that invest appropriately in training will lead to a "yes" to the first question.

The second question is more complicated and has several parts. Having accurate results is a very different question than trust. In a voluntary system such as our democracy, trust is certainly as important as accuracy. Even if the new machines cannot be tampered with, some will likely have bugs. In our opinion, only an unambiguous paper ballot solves the trust and accuracy questions. But not all paper ballots do so. Here's why: Read more...