Negativity drove me out of politics in the mid-Nineties.

Elections are about the future. And the GOP will not win a campaign focused on the past.

Every day I am being told to sign up for Tumblr, Yammer, Friendfeed, Plaxo, Last.fm, ping.fm or the hot social-media tool du jour that happened to get mentioned on Mashable.com. It is like a social-media arms race. Each one of these new tools is like a cool new night club. Hot today, gone tomorrow, replaced with something else.

Marketers know - no matter how deep the emotional connection or brand loyalty - when a product does not perform, rational thought overtakes emotion, and most consumers make a new choice.

Negativity drove me out of politics in the mid-Nineties.

There's no question that many factors contribute to voters' perceptions about debates and who wins and who loses.

Democracy is but an experiment in the long history of the world.