It was early September 2008. Obama, by then widely regarded as the frontrunner in the general election, was campaigning from atop one of the most sophisticated, fully conceived political organizations this country has ever seen. An old college acquaintance of mine who was working for the campaign, Emily Thielmann, sent an email to a few friends saying her regional field director was looking to hire an additional field organizer. A mutual friend forwarded me the email, which I initially ignored, having little interest in quitting my job and moving to the small, mostly rural county in the thumb of Michigan where the office was. A few days later I was [...]

"President Obama has decided that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and has asked his Justice Department to stop defending it in court, the administration announced today."

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs will depart from that position to become a political consultant to the President as he gears up for re-election. We will miss his blunt ways and general shininess.

The numbers are out, and here's how the House of Representatives will be reapportioned: Texas gets four new seats, Florida gets two, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, South Carolina, Utah and Washington get one new seat each. New York and Ohio each lose two seats, while Illinois, New Jersey, Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Missouri and Massachusetts each lose one. This is considered very good news for Republicans, but then again, what isn't considered very good news for Republicans these days?

Elizabeth Warren pretty much killed it in last night's Massachusetts Democratic Senator primary debates. (The Boston Herald rather gushingly agrees!) What's fascinating about Warren is that mostly she speaks from that odd place of 100% overlap between Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party. (Where she deviates from either side is on things like legalizing marijuana (she's quite against, actually!) and immigration (she believes in "retaining talent" in America, no matter where it was born.)) Consider her closing statement.

Don't worry, poor people, Barack Obama will almost certainly take care of you once he gets re-elected. Until then, maybe you should pick up a couple of extra sweaters from Goodwill, just to be on the safe side.

Has the Barack Obama exposure cycle finally switched back to "we know too much about him" as opposed to the "we don't know enough about him" narrative that has been the conventional wisdom for the last year or so? NPR thinks so. Still too soon to call this one, but if you see it in a Maureen Dowd column in the next week or two the answer is probably yes.

Wow, it looks like they actually went through with the remake of Red Dawn after all! Um, anyway… even in the context of China as the villain of the political season, this "slickly-produced new ad from Citizens Against Government Waste" leaves me speechless. And kind of angry. I just… well, I'll repeat myself: Wow.