Some small observations in the spirit of Melinda’s post on Elizabeth Dole: Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., is out. Virgil Goode, R-Va., looks to have lost in a squeaker. That last-ditch attack ad flopped. South Dakotans defeated Measure 11, which would have prohibited abortions except in absurdly limited cases and was meant as a test rocket to ...

And I have tears in my eyes, too, watching Barack Obama and Michelle and their two beautiful little girls walk out there in Grant Park. And I'm glad my own little girls spent this morning knocking on doors here in Virginia, helping to get out the vote.

I was saddened this evening to read about the death of Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, or as anyone who has read Dreams From My Father might remember her, ''Toot.''  Toot was an ordinary woman who raised an extraordinary family and who increasingly lived race in America in a way few have. Living in Texas after the war, Toot shooed her ...

My beloved Liz Lemon—er, I mean Tina Fey—isn't the only one suggesting that Sarah Palin's focus has shifted from 2008 to 2012. Today, trying get a jump on the post-election story before the polls even open, much less close, a host of politicos are placing their bets over who will emerge from the broken GOP as the next to be (unofficially) ...

So, Barack Obama has raised $605 million (including money from sources whose ''names'' look as if they were plucked from ACORN's voter registrations lists), reneged on his pledge to take matching federal funds along with John McCain, and is spending almost $2 million on a half-hour ad to air on the networks next Sunday, and I'm supposed to think ...

So, news outlets reported that yesterday Joe Biden told fundraisers in Seattle that in the next six months an international crisis would ''test'' Barack Obama just as one had tested Kennedy. According to reports, Biden told supporters: ''The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States. ...

Watch the amazing video of John McCain and Barack Obama at tonight’s Alfred E Smith Memorial Dinner in New York. It’s not just that both of them are wreck-yer-mascara funny. They are. And it’s not just that they let themselves laugh out loud at each other’s jokes. They do. The really stunning part is getting to see them both again the way they ...

Can we look at a larger point about Joe the Plumber? Joe Wurzelbacher is, after all, a plumber. He didn't have his well-off parents send him off for his MBA or a law-school degree so he could get a cushy 9-to-5 job with an office and an assistant and good benefits. He's not a 25-year-old starting an Internet company with someone else's venture ...

Dana, I kind of agree with you but for different reasons: I don't have much sympathy for Palin, cringe as I might through those interviews at her ignorance on some major issues, simply because I don't think she shows much sympathy for other victims in her political views. I can never get past her providing no exception for victims of rape and ...

Barack Obama is going to wish he hadn't said this (via Politico): Obama poked fun of McCain and Palin's new ''change'' mantra.''You can put lipstick on a pig,'' he said as the crowd cheered. ''It's still a pig.''