Welcome

Welcome all political junkies and those who have a casual interest in the machine that powers our republic! I am brand new at blogging so please pardon any growing pains that may be experienced as it moves forward.

A little background - I have resided in Massachusetts my entire life. From about the age of nine I have had a keen interest in politics/history/geography (all those geeky subjects). I remember having semi-serious 4th grade discussions over the 1976 election on the school bus - I was for Ford and my friend Jon was a Carter devote. (As I recall Ford did win the mock Huckleberry Hill School election in the Republican town of Lynnfield 210 to 155).

Throughout grammar school and Lynnfield High I always gravitated to classes in history and social studies. Thank goodness I was able to weasel out of physics!

After making the mistake during my first year at Nichols College of declaring as an Accounting major (I quickly learned the error of my ways after my well-deserved D in Intro to Accounting) I switched my major to Public Administration. I was fortunate enough to meet the late Professor Bob Fischer, the Director of The Institute For American Values, (now The Fischer Institute), who enabled me to get very involved in the fabric of public policy that had always engrossed me. I had the opportunity to go on class trips to Washington DC and hit some of the "think tanks" for various seminars and also Michigan where I got the chance to meet former President Ford in 1988.

After completing my graduate work in Political Science, I began teaching as an adjunct in 1993 and have been teaching two courses a year at Bentley University since 1998. I have taught course in many areas ranging from American Politics to Political Parties to International Relations. Less hair these days, but I still learn a great deal during each semester I teach.

I have a "regular job" in market intelligence outside of academia as well (where my political background is an asset), but my teaching lets me fulfill a deeply rooted passion of mine and is immensely satisfying. It is important in our democratic system that people are involved and understand it so I hope that my teaching does some good in that respect.

Although I lean more to the conservative side of the spectrum combined with some liberal leanings in certain areas (sort of libertarian, but not completely), my intention is that this blog serves as an educational forum where we can follow and discuss the issues of the day (2010 elections are just 18 months away!!) and have some fun handicapping the races as they come together. I play it down the middle as a good analyst should, but will not always completely nail it as evidenced by my opening post on the 2008 election where I somewhat underestimated the extent of Obama's win. Onwards!