Simon van Zuylen-Wood

Last night signaled a monumental victory for gay rights. Same-sex marriage laws were passed by ballot referenda in Washington, Maryland and Maine –with Minnesota voting to block a potential gay marriage ban. Few predicted this result; E.J. Graff thought “one, maybe two” of the four would tilt they way they did. There are several factors […]

Today, some odd “sample ballots” can be found fluttering around Connecticut polling places, featuring two photos with checkmarks next to them: one of Barack Obama, and one of Senate candidate Linda McMahon, a Republican. The sample ballots, in addition to SEIU-flavored “I Support Obama and McMahon” t-shirts, and Barack/Linda doorhangers, spell a last-ditch campaign effort […]

Here’s a reminder of just how tough it’ll be for Scott Brown to win tonight in Massachusetts. In the January 2010 special election that catapulted him to the Senate, a total of 164,312 ballots were cast in Boston. By noon today, according to the Boston Phoenix’s David Bernstein, 103,369 people had already voted in Beantown. […]

Here’s a brief rundown of the various shenanigans and legal roadblocks that may have dampened turnout thus far in battleground states. Florida Early Voting In response to the interminable lines South Florida voters faced this weekend, which were a direct result of Republican cutbacks in early voting, the Florida Democratic Party sued the three largest […]

In a week, if President Obama is re-elected, the amount of attention the national press bestows upon the Mormon faith will decrease by roughly 100 percent. What better time, then, to encounter what is perhaps the best essay to appear about Mormonism in the past several years. Jackson Lears’s piece, which has been published in […]

When it comes to attacking Mitt Romney, team Obama has shuffled between two portrayals. On one hand, it paints him as a radical hell-bent on rolling back reproductive rights, financial regulation and the entire New Deal legacy. On the other hand, it makes him out to be an unprincipled flip-flopper. The two strategies can’t really […]

…Temporarily, so that readers can get news about Hurricane Sandy. Which raises a question: Is it unethical for non-subscribers who’ve eclipsed their monthly NYT reading limits to ingest news items not related to Sandy? I say yes. Thoughts?

In today’s Sunday Review, David Leonhardt suggests that the way the economy is going (up), either candidate will get to take credit for the recovery should he take office in January. To some degree, this line of thinking echoes Jon Chait’s habitual speculation about the positive economic potential of a Romney presidency: Because Mitt will […]