Today, a politician does not just need public support to win elections; he needs it to govern.

Much of the DOE green energy lending program is a scam. It is a slush fund of pork for paying back campaign contributors.

The cost of campaigning has skyrocketed in recent years because of the falloff in TV viewership. With only one-third as many people watching TV as did 20 years ago, politicians have responded by buying three times as many ads, driving the cost of campaigning to levels which only favored candidates can afford.

Spontaneous combustion of grassroots politics is the future.

Each morning we sat reading our copy of the New York Times, the Washington Post or the Los Angeles Times and ruminated on their prophecies of doom and quagmire. Then we looked up to see, on television, correspondents actually embedded with our troops, reporting quick advances, one- sided firefights, melting opposition and, finally, welcoming crowds.

The key to controlling your own political party, so that it does not eat you alive, is to realize that while Democratic and Republican leaders differ sharply, their voters do not.

The key to running a campaign on the cheap is to avoid spending money on anything other than projecting a message.