2014 Election News, Videos, Opinion

In light of the upcoming Presidential election, of course gaining a competitive edge is one of themost difficult aspects for the campaigners. But eve...

Fred Schebesta

Co-founder and CEO of personal finance website finder.com

The problem? "It's still fitting the way we live to the 1700s, and that's so complicated to stayengaged in."

Our current political system has advanced at something close to glacial speed since about 1860when the Republicans fielded their first presidential candidate (Abraham Lincoln). Since that time,there has been precious little change in how politics has been done.

On Wednesday night, there was a debate at Grove Isle between the District 2 commissioncandidates. It wasn't really a debate, as it was a cordial evening consisting of the candidatesanswering brief questions posed by the moderator. There really was not much disagreement andthey were all very polite to each other.

Rather than blame Latino voters -- Why was your turnout so low? Don't you care who wins?-- weshould think about how well the candidates for office in 2014, did or did not make their case toLatino voters.

Like the swallows returning noisily to Capistrano each spring, Congress has returned to D.C.following another midterm election, this time with the Republicans firmly in charge and alreadyimposing their will on the legislative agenda.

Colorado law has attempted to blunt the crushing effect of big money in politics through strongpublic disclosure laws that require spending by each of these groups in candidate elections to bereported online to Colorado voters.

Peg Perl

Senior Counsel, Colorado Ethics Watch

Rather than playing partisan politics with the ballot box, state legislators and local elected officialsshould seek to improve the electoral process and access to the ballot in 2015. After all, politiciansshould not be choosing their voters; voters should be choosing their politicians.

It dominated Facebook feeds for weeks -- everyone from your high school girlfriend to your collegeroommate to your extended family seemed to join in. The trend swept the nation, yet the questionremains: why was the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge so successful?

There must be a national Democratic strategy comparable to that developed by Karl Rove for theGOP. This is more than a compelling populist message.

Bob Burnett

Berkeley writer, retired Silicon Valley executive

In light of history repeating itself so completely, one must ask where did all these millions of dollarsgo if, 12 years later, the very same mistakes, blunders and oversights are being made?

Elections, victors are prone to crow, haveconsequences. Today that gibe carries atragic truth. One consequence of our recentelections will be deaths -- many deaths. Afew thousands or tens of thousands, if we arelucky, millions if we are not. Let us specifysome of the ways.

It shouldn't be difficult for Democrats toremember what they stand for. These fourmessages support populist values. They alsoserve to differentiate the likely Democraticpresidential candidate from any Republican.

Bob Burnett

Berkeley writer, retired Silicon Valley executive

We did no serious modeling with the raw data - only applying basic demographic weighting at the

state level. These straightforward adjustments mean the results shed light on the important rolesthat scale (large numbers of interviews) and heterogeneity (diversity of respondents and sources)play in poll accuracy.

Jon Cohen

SurveyMonkey's VP-Survey Research. Ex of Pew Research Center, Washington Post, ABC News.Currently enjoying lack of winter on the westside.

Voter turnout shot up in Togiak and throughout Native Alaska this year, thanks to the increasedavailability of early voting, improved language assistance for traditional-language speakers andballot measures Natives strongly supported.

The Democratic Party's leadership has said they will release a report in February on what wentwrong in 2010 and 2014 to produce such a "shellacking" and what corrective steps must be taken. I,for one, can hardly wait to read it and see if anything has sunk in.