Bumped by Carol. I run more toward the classical in music but understand your sentiments. I don't think it is an affliction of progressive bloggers to champion "their" candidate, but a reflection of the broader culture and the horse-race mentality being encouraged by media coverage of the election. Both absolutely to be deplored.

I sit here and play Eva Cassidy records and idle my time away by desultory flicking through various American political blogs and finding little there that either suits my mood or feeds my mind.

I am commenting on the American elections as an observer, some three thousand miles away. I am conscious that in doing so there is an enormous danger that the absence of day-to-day contact with people as they go about their normal business isolates me from some of the important feelings that can emerge in a society as whole. These are the collective sentiments of a people that can, in a very rapid space of time, alter dramatically the balance of opinion during an election. My only defence for commenting, therefore, is that the distance from which the observations will be made may give some different perspective which prompts thought, however faulty the basis of the understanding may be.