Politics

By MARC SANDALOW
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
It is a case study in modern politics or lunacy _ perhaps both _ that two sentences uttered by a Massachusetts senator not up for re-election would come to dominate the political airwaves less than a week before what is shaping up as a historic national election.

By SHARON SCHMICKLE
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
As voters get ready to take control of Campaign 2006 on Tuesday, many agree with Deanna Bredt that it's high time to decide.

"The more political ads I see the more I don't know what to do," Bredt said.

By MONICA HAYNES
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Visions of hanging chads are still dancing in the heads of voters who saw the 2000 presidential election nightmare as a wake-up call to the fallibility of the voting process.

Many states, prompted by the federal Help America Vote Act and its pot of $3.9 billion for upgrading election equipment, moved to electronic voting machines.

The HBO documentary "Hacking Democracy," which premiered Thursday, shows that despite the use of electronic voting machines, America's voting system is still vulnerable.

The documentary focuses on Bev Harris, a Seattle author and grandmother, whose research into electronic voting machines led to everything from Dumpster diving at Diebold Corp.

By LAUREN SMITH
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
In one of the tightest races in nation, one that could prove pivotal for control of Congress, New Mexico GOP Rep. Heather Wilson and Democratic challenger Patricia Madrid are battling it out for the Albuquerque-area congressional seat.

The latest poll numbers show Madrid pulling ahead by as many as 8 percentage points.

By DIANA NELSON JONES
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Denise Johnson was recruited from a $5-an-hour job at McDonald's last winter to become a community organizer for ACORN at $8 an hour.

In Pittsburgh, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now employs four full-time organizers whose ranks swell to 20 in the weeks before elections.

By ZACHARY COILE
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
To hear the TV ad tell it, Democratic House candidate John Cranley of Cincinnati loves using Tasers on small children.

He "voted to allow children as young as seven to be tased," says the ad, paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006
The fiercely contested 2006 elections for Congress have produced a bumper crop of negative, often personal attack ads. Among them:

_ "Call me!"' _ This ad against Democratic Rep.

By STEVE KANIGHER
Monday, November 06, 2006
The roots of Nevada's ballot measure to legalize marijuana stretch all the way to Cleveland and New Zealand.

Because if a now-retired auto insurance billionaire from Cleveland had not been busted for pot possession in New Zealand, Question 7 might never have made it to the Nov.

By MARA LEE
Monday, November 06, 2006
In the Gaslight Restaurant at Huntingburg, Ind., Anne Hamilton was saying the kinds of things former Rep. Baron Hill wants to hear.

The 73-year-old Huntingburg resident is a Republican, yet she said, "I was almost to the point of voting any incumbent out, just to change our representation." But Anne and her husband, Ray, a Democrat, have already voted for Sodrel.

Ray Hamilton, 73, says he doesn't want the House to go Democratic.

"They're so liberal.

By JOSH SWARTZLANDER
Monday, November 06, 2006
TV anchors will point at flashy maps next week as midterm election results roll in, reducing months of campaigning, punditry, scandal and debate into a two-toned metaphor for America's sociopolitical divisions.

Which races will go blue and which will go red?

Over the last half decade, "red" and "blue" have etched themselves deeply into the American political lexicon.

"It gives people a certain image of cosmopolitans versus the heartland," said Andrew Gelman, professor of political science at Columbia University.

"Red state" and "blue state" became household phrases after the 2000 election, said Grant Barrett, a lexicographer for Oxford University Press in New York.

The 2000 U.S.