Adding a Little Sugar to Politics

Some say this year's 2008 presidential election will be determined by women. There are a zillion political blogs out there and a number of them are geared toward women. One that I've found is CitizenSugar. Launched this past January, the blog is dedicated to the latest headlines and political news. The blog makes following politics easy and fun for women.

Some regular CitizenSugar features include:

• Check This: The scoop and analysis behind the headlines, a must-read for the beyond well-read.
• Hot Button: A forum that dares to discuss everything controversial.
• Now You Know: Background on the most talked about issues – from No Child Left Behind, to Darfur.
• Ad-rageous: The best (or funniest) campaign videos and ads.
• Yay or Nay: Daily polls on everything from bumper stickers to national policy and everything in between.

This is definitely a blog to check out.

O Non-Partisan Sites, Where Art Thou?

This past Friday night my friends and I were discussing politics over dinner. Many of them vented that they wish they knew of a place to get non-partisan political news. Are there such sites out there? It’s no surprise that I’m a liberal that would much rather get my political news from MSNBC over that horrible cable network that rhymes with Pox Mews. I’m an avid fan of The Huffington Post and I steer clear from sites like TownHall.com. Is it healthy for me to get all my news from liberal leaning media? Maybe I should check out conservative leaning media. Or not. However, I did find two sites that are genuinely “fair and balanced.”

The first is FactCheck.org. They describe themselves as “a nonpartisan, nonprofit, ‘consumer advocate’ for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics.” They monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by both John McCain and Barack Obama “in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases.” Reading the findings from this site often brings me down from my liberal high horse. It has me focus on the real issues of the campaign instead of the mudslinging that is being thrown by both parties.

The second site is PolitiFact.com. In the same spirit of FactCheck.org, this site calls out the candidates on their exaggerations and lies. It’s a highly amusing site that offers a feature called the Truth-O-Meter. This feature rates the candidates’ claims and attacks and are given rulings (TRUE, MOSTLY TRUE, HALF TRUE, BARELY TRUE and FALSE). If a statement isn’t accurate and is completely ridiculous, the site rules it PANTS ON FIRE. Another amusing feature is Flip-O-Meter, which you guessed it, determines if a candidate has flip-flopped on an issue.

If you are true independent or just need a dose of un-biased “truth,” these two sites are for you.

I Dream of Arianna

Welcome to my blog. I owe it all to Arianna Huffington. Let me first explain that I’m absolutely obsessed with the 2008 presidential campaign. MSNBC is on at my house 24/7 and I constantly surf the Web to find the latest on the election. As a proud liberal, The Huffington Post is my favorite site. I’m on it multiple times a day. I’m so consumed by politics that last night I had a dream about Arianna Huffington. I won’t bore you with the details of my dream but it did get me to go to YouTube and watch all I can possibly find on Arianna. I have concluded that she’s a genius. Who knew that the idea for starting The Huffington Post stemmed from a viral campaign Arianna used when she ran for governor of California. Check out her Women@Google interview for more interesting tidbits on HuffPo, but I digress. Arianna inspired me. If she was able to get people who didn’t even know what a blog was to start blogging for her site, well why can’t I start my own. And that my folks is how Noticeably to the Left was born.