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[Update 8:18 PM PST] IVN.us announces Barack Obama has been re-elected to a second term. [Update 8:17 PM PST] CNN projects President Barack Obama will win re-election by taking the state of Ohio. [Update 8:15 PM PST] With the projection of Oregon going to Obama, statistically speaking it is very unlikely Romney will be able to pull off a victory because one more state will put the president over the top. CNN also projects Missouri to be carried by Mitt Romney. -- [Update 8:10 PM PST] Th

(Credit: Gage Skidmore) Author's note: As the Independent Voter Network is a non-profit, non-partisan website, the following is not a collective endorsement, but my personal opinion and my personal opinion alone. I appreciate the employment IVN has given me so that I may air my personal views and reasoning in this space. Any mistakes, accidental misrepresentations, and intemperance is mine. ~CW A few days ago I wrote an article for the Opinion page making "The Conservative Case Against Mitt Ro

The 2012 election is almost over and President Obama is a favorite to win in many circles. Considering his historic election as the first black President, perhaps now is the time to reflect upon the possibility of who could be the first Latino President of the United States. Latinos make up the fastest growing bloc of independent voters in the nation and their influence is still little understood. Regional politics prevail and the best candidates will be those who are able to break through and p

When the presidential candidates are calling each other liars or something close to that, that’s hardly new – but a major American corporation all but calling a presidential candidate a liar, when did that happen before?  Never mind happen twice.  In one week. Widespread coverage of the story of the Chrysler Corporation’s flat contradiction of Mitt Romney’s campaign assertions, followed by General Motors doing the same, suggests that such sharp corporate responses are unprecedented.  Certainly

(Scott Strazzante / Chicago Tribune) In Illinois, abortion has raised tensions between candidates for the 8th Congressional District. In a new poll released Friday, Tammy Duckworth has a 10-point lead over Representative Joe Walsh. The lead comes in the wake of Joe Walsh (R) decrying an approved ad by Duckworth (D) in which Walsh's child support dispute with his ex-wife is attacked. This has been one of the most bitter races in the country, as both sides have employed controversial attacks on

(Credit: C-SPAN.org) Author's note: The reader will notice that some of the differences between Barack Obama in 2008 vs 2012 are actually from 2007. As presidential campaigns begin to last two years, statements made in 2007 are relevant because they are closely related to the 2008 campaign. 1. The president cannot go to war without Congress In a 2007 questionnaire for the Boston Globe, then-Senator Barack Obama replied: The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally

Credit: Olivier Douliery / Abaca USA Illinois Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. has been missing from Congress since June. According to Jackson, he has been undergoing treatment for bi-polar disorder -- a revelation that was admitted two months after his initial absence. The diagnosis came at the heels of the House Ethics Committee's investigation into Jackson's alleged role in the "pay-to-play" scheme, hatched by former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to sell off Barack Obama's senate seat to

Photo: Michael Reynolds Debates have always been an important platform for candidates to articulate and narrate their stances on the issues of the era. Like any art, particular moments in the past have defined and redirected its present form. Here are a few of these defining, great debate moments that, despite their brevity in broadcast, have not been fleeting in political memory. The 1858 Lincoln-Douglas Debate No one alive today was present to experience it, but the 1858 senatorial debate b

Credit: White House Going into the last few weeks of the election, just as much attention has been directed toward the performance of the debate moderators as the presidential candidates themselves. Be it criticism of veteran moderator Jim Lehrer’s presumed passive-aggressive behavior or CNN correspondent Candy Crowley’s fierce fact-checking of President Obama’s Libya comments, the nature of the moderator has come under harsh criticism from both sides of the political aisle. History tells us

(Source: Ron Cogswell) Last week, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel expressed his disapproval for Governor Pat Quinn's choice for the state's stadium authority. Quinn handpicked Kelly Kraft, a former TV reporter, to serve as Executive Director. The post would require Kraft to not only manage the same body that runs US Cellular Field, but also to oversee a much-needed Wrigley Field renovation that was halted by the Mayor this past July. This latest disagreement is the most recent example of dysfunction