A few regions of it have been represented by a WHIG before a Democrat.

I was pretty loud and outspoken.

Even though I've barely posted anything since the primaries.

If there are 5 Democrats, 4 Republicans, and 11 independents, that's a total of 20 voters.

How do we end up with 21 votes then?

A few obvious examples:

In the US House, 2006 elections, Kilroy was up 12 points in the polls, and lost in a close election. The same thing happened with Eric Massa. In 2002, similar things happened with Roy Barnes and Max Cleland... though there is the possibility of electoral fraud.

Other than it, only Republican polls have had Chambliss up by double digits recently. Rasmussen has had this race within single digits for a while now.

ARG had McCain +4 as well, and another poll from a small organization that I can't remember had McCain +5.

Delete, please!

One of the main reasons Quayle was chosen for VP was his (supposed) good looks. Wikipedia quotes John McCain as saying, "I can't believe a guy that handsome wouldn't have some impact."

Well, hopefully his choice of Palin has the same effect

The proportion in NC is something like D-46, R-36 right now. A lot of those 'Democrats' tend to vote Republican nationally, of course (a common pattern in the South.)

Party identification was about equal in 2004, but things have changed a lot since then.

(Sorry about that.)

South Ossetia was invaded first by Georgia. This is a fact that everyone agrees on. Well, Georgia calls it 'restoring constitutional order to a renegade province' (or something like that), but the meaning is the same. That's why the fighting was in South Ossetia (around its capital) until Georgia began pulling out.

I don't agree with the Russian invasion of Georgia proper... but the overall pattern of this is something that most political analysts (which I am not, obviously) could have predicted. Russia sees Georgia as a threat. Russia wants to project its strength. So Russia isn't going to let Georgia embarrass it by regaining South Ossetia - and it will probably take the opportunity to use the casus belli to get rid of Saakashvili, whom it sees as a threat. I don't agree with its actions, but it makes logical sense from Russia's point of view - realpolitik is a must for understanding today's world.

Russia sees the Georgian president as a hyper-belligerent warmonger who's going to be a thorn in their back. So this provides them a convenient casus belli to oust him (and perhaps install their own puppet president), while sending a signal to the rest of eastern Europe that the Russian Bear is back.

In short, Saakashvili was hoping to quickly seize South Ossetia with tacit support from the West, and have it be a fait accompli before Russia could move in. He miscalculated and overplayed his hand.

The situation isn't as clear-cut as that.

North Ossetia is officially part of Georgia... just as Tibet was officially part of China in 1950. Both sides have had their problems in this conflict.