In an era when governments and families alike are trying to reduce debt, it seems harder to make a case for issuing state bonds.

Maine governors balance budgets. That’s as true for Paul LePage as it was for John Baldacci. And it was true for Angus King.

After watching from the sidelines, it’s nice to see that Maine is on the battleground in this year’s presidential election, even if it’s only one of our two congressional districts.

Monday night, before President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney debated, a new Washington Post/ABC poll showed how treacherous a world this is — for candidates.

It’s been 40 years since George McGovern lost his run for the presidency — lost so badly as to become a figure of fun to entertainers, a cautionary example to practicing politicians and, in myth at least, the creator of a movement known as “McGovernism,” seen by many as wacky, weird and perhaps menacing.

Last week the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York became the second federal appeals court to rule that Congress violated the Constitution when it limited the definition of “marriage” in federal law to the union of a man and a woman.

For half a century, a bipartisan bargain on agricultural policy worked well to balance the needs of urban and rural areas.

Do you watch college football? Listen to smooth jazz? Search the Internet for guidance about parenting, spirituality or a health concern? Look at pornography sites online?

John Edwards pulled the rug out from under the supporters who had backed his run for the presidency in 2008 when the scandal about a mistress and illegitimate child hit the news.

For all our enlightenment in this information age, conspiracy theories permeate American life, especially politics. Some of us will embrace such theories because they conveniently rubber-stamp suspicions or biases we have, even when evidence is clearly lacking.