In addition to the decline in competition, American politics today is characterized by a growing ideological polarization between the two major political parties.
Presidents are elected not by direct popular vote but by 538 members of the Electoral College.
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.
Responsibility for overseeing the implementation of election law typically resides with partisan officials, many with public stakes in the election outcome.
Speech is civilization itself. The word, even the most contradictions word, preserves contact - it is silence which isolates.
America is an outlier in the world of democracies when it comes to the structure and conduct of elections.
Beer soothes the upset soul.
Knowledge of the soul would unfailingly make us melancholy if the pleasures of expression did not keep us alert and of good cheer.
A healthy degree of party unity among Democrats and Republicans has deteriorated into bitter partisan warfare.
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.
The only religious way to think of death is as part and parcel of life.
Whose best and most fruitful gift was the power of admiration, which made it possible for me to learn. Now, as in my youth, I am looking up to the truly great creations of the past, which I see high above my own and which alone deserve the name of greatness.
I will keep faith with death in my heart... For the sake of goodness, for the sake of love, Let no man's heart be ruled by death... The only religious way to think of death is as part and parcel of life; to regard it, with the understanding and the .emotions, as the inviolable condition of life.
It is impossible for ideas to compete in the marketplace if no forum for their presentation is provided or available.
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).
Science never makes an advance until philosophy authorizes it to do so.
With the parties at virtual parity and the ideological gulf between them never greater, the stakes of majority control of Congress are extremely high.
Congress requires states to draw single-member districts.
But presidential approval also became a surrogate measure of national unity and patriotism.
In the House, Republican prospects have been buoyed by several successful rounds of redistricting, which have sharply reduced the number of competitive seats and given the Republicans a national advantage of at least a dozen seats.
All of this suggests that while citizens became more comfortable with President Bush after September 11 and thought him to have the requisite leadership skills, they continue to harbor doubts about his priorities, loyalties, interests, and policies.
We are not separate and independent entities, but like links in a chain, and we could not by any means be what we are without those who went before us and showed us the way.
You ask what is the use of classification, arrangement, and systemization? I answer you: order and simplification are the first steps toward the mastery of a subject - the actual enemy is the unknown.
The writer's joy is the thought that can become emotion, the emotion that can wholly become a thought.
Human reason needs only to will more strongly than fate, and she is fate.
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