Responsibility for overseeing the implementation of election law typically resides with partisan officials, many with public stakes in the election outcome.

First, his job approval ratings have been trending down for many months, a trend that has accelerated in recent weeks as the war on terrorism has been supplanted in the public's mind by corporate scandals, stock market declines, and a growing sense of economic insecurity.

But presidential approval also became a surrogate measure of national unity and patriotism.

Redistricting is a deeply political process, with incumbents actively seeking to minimize the risk to themselves (via bipartisan gerrymanders) or to gain additional seats for their party (via partisan gerrymanders).

A human being tends to believe that the mood of the moment, be it troubled or blithe, peaceful or stormy, is the true, native, and permanent tenor of his existence.

While Republican voters have remained universally supportive of their President, Democrats and Independents are returning to a more naturally critical stance.

The writer's joy is the thought that can become emotion, the emotion that can wholly become a thought.