I'm watching the candidates sweep through the midwest while I sit at a coffee shop in the midwest and look around. My cousin and I were just chatting about how she rarely sees her husband, who's working in another state. He had to go where where the work was, and it wasn't here in Michigan. He comes home a few times a month and his kids and wife go about life here in Metro-Detroit as though it's just normal for Dad to work out of town. My other cousin, a teacher and administrator, has nothing on her mind but budget cuts.

A few weeks ago, it occurred to me that reproductive rights were not the number one issue for all women voters in the country. In fact, it seemed to not even be the number one issue for women of childbearing age or women who care about women of childbearing age. As someone obsessed with my right to self-autonomy, I wondered what was up. A quick investigation into the matter led me to conclude that many women didn't prioritize reproductive rights as an issue because they falsely assumed that both candidates supported the full spectrum of reproductive rights.

On Monday, John McCain visited Pennsylvania, where he attended a meeting with small-business owners to discuss jobs and the economy. While his remarks on energy earned plenty of press coverage, his comments on strengthening small businesses, and thereby promoting future economic growth, were less noted. As such, I wanted to use this post to highlight some key aspects of John McCain’s plan to help them.

In politics, money talks, but online fundraising has really helped close the money gap between men and women. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, women are the majority of low-dollar donors to Obama- in the $200-499 level. In this post, I present some ways to think about your political giving strategy.

Whoever wins women this year may win the White House. Hillary voters are pivotal--are they still disaffected by the perceived sexism of the MSM and the Obama campaign? Or will they vote Dem in the end?

Have you heard about the "new" CDC surveillance system used for tracking new HIV infections? Did you notice that the infection rate is considerably higher than originally reported? Our Bodies, Our Blog has an overview of the CDC's revised HIV infection estimates.