Say what you want about Niccolò Machiavelli. He’s the champion of chicanery, the sultan of schemes. But the 16th-century author of The Prince, a how-to guide for the power-hungry, also identified the political truths that dominated the midterm elections earlier this month. And more often than not he didn’t just say it first — he …

There is a fantastically tricky (and admittedly nerdy) board game called Ex Libris that I used to play with the other English teachers at Winchester College. The title is a Latin phrase meaning, roughly, “out of book.” And the object was to concoct a first line — based on a given title, author and plot summary — that other players …

There may not have been a James Stewart or Julius Caesar elected to the Senate, but Arkansas’ Pulaski County is allowing us to live out one huckleberry fantasy. Sure, the spelling isn’t quite on and “Doc” is a sort of nickname for incumbent Democrat Charles Holladay, but the name was legitimate enough to make its way onto the ballot — …

As Scherer points out, Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO, spent almost $142 million on her bid to become the next governor of California. But her historically expensive attempt seems to have fallen short. (A quick moment to consider what she could have bought with that money: a 222-acre Bahamian island, a goat for every person in Egypt, or a …

Update: A few minutes before 1 a.m., the RGA announced they had won the majority of governors’ seats. Going into the election, Democrats held an edge of 26 to the Republicans’ 24.

Haley Scores One for the Mama Grizzlies

As Election Night wore on, the South Carolina gubernatorial race stayed nail-bite tight. At 9:30, with almost …

Oh, the insanity—of the Rally to Restore Sanity.

Since Jon Stewart announced this meeting of measured minds last month on his fake-ish newscast, The Daily Show, more than 200,000 people have professed via Facebook that they will attend. Arianna Huffington has offered to bus as many New Yorkers as want to go to the three-hour event …

Last week Swampland’s own Michael Scherer and White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer sat down to discuss President Obama — what he’s been trying to do in these final weeks before the election, how he’ll play the politics going ahead and what the administration wishes they could have done differently during the first half of …

In 2008, a scary, inaccurate adage made the rounds: Lose your house, lose your vote. It spread after the Michigan Messenger, a publication that described itself as “a coalition of long-time progressive bloggers, freelance writers and professional journalists,” reported that a local Republican group was planning to use lists of …

The Brookings Institution hosted a live Web chat today with their voting guru Michael McDonald. Below are questions I submitted as well as a few other exchanges. Turnout and what prods that turnout seem, predictably, to be on everyone’s minds during these least few weeks.

Comment From Katy Steinmetz:

Are black voters going to turn

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With predictions of 50-seat gains and chamber sweeps abounding, TIME took a closer look at what threats remain for the GOP. This interview with our Washington bureau chief, Michael Duffy, breaks down the dark lining to the Republicans’ silver cloud, as he sees it.

The two candidates duking out a personal battle for Obama’s old Senate seat — Democratic State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias and five-term Republican Congressman Mark Kirk — took their beefs to the set of Meet the Press this morning.

Sitting in the D.C. studio, the two candidates spoke nary a word before the segment and twiddled their …

The UK has been more productive than the US in addressing climate change, legislatively at least. In 2009, the EU committed to a “20% by 2020” resolution to cut carbon emissions as a whole, a measure that allowed for intriguing means of flexibility like limiting the increase on emissions for developing (read: Eastern European) …

When you’re suffering from lack of attention—be you a speed skater in full-body Lycra, a soldier in an unpopular war or a union leader in an uphill battle—there’s one man you definitely want coming to your aid: Stephen Colbert, the newsman-satirist of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.” This was a lesson driven home …