The 2012 presidential campaign's turn away from the classic, straight-up, American election - where the candidate who gets the most votes nationwide wins - is another sad reminder of the extreme political polarization distorting today's politics. No one talks about a 50-state strategy for winning the presidency these days.

Sons love moms forevermore.

In black America there's such a thing as passing, the black people who are light skinned and they will pass for white.

The Democrats thought that Hillary Clinton is too aggressive and too much into regime change.

Democrats cannot win elections without capturing the votes of independent-minded swing voters. And that is where writing off the Tea Party as a bunch of racist kooks becomes self-destructive. The Tea Party outrage over health-care reform, deficit spending and entitlements run amok is no fringe concern.

In 2008, Obama won 56 percent of the women's vote to John McCain's 43 percent. It was the critical difference in the race.

The critical importance of honest journalism and a free flowing, respectful national conversation needs to be had in our country. But it is being buried as collateral damage in a war whose battles include political correctness and ideological orthodoxy.