“You can sleep after election day,” I heard one volunteer say, and this battle cry seemed to capture a truth of the 2008 presidential campaign — that the election mattered, not only because of the president it would elect, but because of the sense of belonging and meaning citizens gained from their participation in it. But it also hinted at another truth: that come November 4th, for most people, the work would be over. Even though this year’s presidential primaries marked the highest voter turnout in over three decades, less than one-fifth of Americans expect to be involved in political issues after the election. It would be Obama’s job from there on out.

I was heading out the door after making a speech in Defiance, Ohio — a quaint, charming town deep in thestate’s northwest corner — when a middle-aged man in faded jeans and a hunting jacket stopped me and extended his hand. “Excuse me, Ms. Brown,” he said. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m a registered Republican.” Given that my father, Sherrod Brown, is a longtime Ohio politician and a longer-time Democrat, such an introduction usually does not bode well.

Media and academic circles focus on China’s increasing economic and political power almost on a daily basis. Highlighted on the New York Times website is a section entitled “China Rises,” and major magazines declare that “nothing is changing the world’s political and economic landscape more than China’s joining the ranks of the great powers.” Such talk appears everywhere.

It is easy to write off Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a leader lacking in diplomatic skills and refinement, or, in less elegant prose, as a lunatic.

The Internet’s capacity for making information seamlessly accessible is even more impressive given its largely unregulated and decentralized nature. This freedom from regulation has allowed superior technologies like Google to quickly make themselves the standard. Yet although the protocols and codes for the Internet belong to the private sector, important components of the Internet rest within the grasp of a single power: the United States government.

The nuclear industry, despite a rough patch in the past few decades, may be poised for a major renaissance. As the prices of conventional fuels such as coal and natural gas skyrocket, nuclear power has become increasingly attractive to utilities looking for stable operating costs, environmentally friendly sources of energy, and insurance against geopolitical threats to energy security. Finally, in an era of rising concern over energy security, the nuclear industry is being promoted as a domestic solution to the nation’s demand for imported energy.

Americans across the political spectrum have attacked George W. Bush’s administration for creating a double standard with respect to sensitive information getting leaked to the press.

The responsibility for choosing the proper judicial body reverts back to the UN. Unfortunately, as the oil-for-food scandal has shown, it is no longer clear that the international community can afford to place its trust in the UN.

The boldness of the recently chosen leading Senate Democrat was surprising given his moderate record, but appropriate given the current political climate. Reid normally exhibits outspoken moderation, which is emblematic of the larger uncertainty within the Democratic Party as a whole.

“Extreme poverty can be ended, not in the time of our grandchildren, but our time,” wrote Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia’s Earth Institute and Special Adviser to Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals, in his new book, The End of Poverty.

If a donkey brays in the woods, but nobody hears it, does it make a sound? Democrats must wonder. And what makes them all the more ignorant is that donkeys aren’t normally found in the woods.

Ellen Malcolm is Co-Founder and President of EMILY’s List, a political action committee dedicated to supporting pro-choice Democratic women get elected to all levels of government.

President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia won’t soon forget the last fifteen months. His political whirlwind began with the nation’s “Rose Revolution” of November 2003, a nonviolent popular uprising that served as a model for last fall’s Ukrainian “Orange Revolution.”

Screw the economy; it’s the foreign policy, stupid.

President Bush is leading a major tax code overhaul. For more than two decades, a growing number of free-market economists and conservative politicians have been planning to overthrow the entire federal taxation system. If successful, these radical reformers would effectively shift the burden of taxation from wealth onto wages and therefore onto lowerincome Americans. This idea is known as the consumption tax.

New York Congressman Anthony Weiner Wants to be Mayor