Michael Kinsley: There are a dozen ways to look at the national debt and the annual government deficit, and they all lead to varying degrees of panic. What's especially scary about our fiscal situation is that everybody knows the facts and concedes the implication, but nobody is doing anything about it.
Decius: I said I'd do something about this, and I am.
Wendy Kaminer: I wish the issues were vetted ... but I think they're not, because voters don't have the time, or the energy, or the information.
Tribal Leader: We Taliban have time.
Christopher Hitchens: I could introduce you to dozens of enthusiastic and intelligent people, highly aware of "the issues" and very well-informed on all questions from human rights to world trade to counterinsurgency, to none of whom it would occur to subject themselves to what passes for the political "arena." They are willing to give up potentially more lucrative careers in order to work on important questions and expand the limits of what is currently thinkable politically, but the great honor and distinction of serving their country in the legislature is only offered to them at a price that is now way too steep.
The Economist: In all his speeches, John McCain urges Americans to make sacrifices for a country that is both "an idea and a cause". He is not asking them to suffer anything he would not suffer himself. But many voters would rather not suffer at all.
Josh Kraushaar: Democrats have portrayed the influx of GOP outside money into the political process as sinister, raising the unsubstantiated specter of foreign influence into the political process. But money chases momentum -- not the other way around.
Lawrence Lessig: Under our current system of campaign finance, there is no overlap between the interests of voters and of contributors. There is instead a fundamental gap. The sort of thing you need to do to make contributors happy is not the sort of thing you need to do to make voters happy.
Jay Rosen: Who's going to win? What's the strategy? Is it working? Focusing on those things helps advertise the political innocence of the press because "who's winning?" is not an ideological question. By repeatedly asking it journalists underline that theirs is not an ideological profession. But how does this pattern help voters make a decision? Should they vote for the candidate with the best strategy? My own view is that journalists should describe the world in a way that helps us participate in political life. That is what they are "for".
Michael Tomasky: One old rule of politics is that when the other side is shooting itself in the foot, do nothing - just stand back and watch. But we are in a new media and political environment. So I propose a new rule: when the other side is shooting itself in the foot, stand close by and keep handing out bullets.
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