One way it’s tough to evaluate candidates for office as a voter is from looking at their personal religious beliefs.  Thanks to the First Amendment, we have a secular civil government.  That may be right or wrong, and I know some readers here would argue for wrong, but that's the way the Founding Fathers set up the system of checks and balances, and that's the way the system has worked most of the time during last two centuries. 

Personally, I don't think a person's religious beliefs are part of the equation unless they choose to make them so.  I prefer to look at their proposed policies, and the conclusions about politics and law they reach as a result of those beliefs.  A candidate's experience in implementing policies, and success in competently managing programs, are more important to me than his or her source of inner strength in reaching those accomplishments.

I don't think the topic is off limits though.  It can be very interesting, and telling, to see the labels a candidate can slap on himself in an effort to ingratiate to a specific voting block.  From my perspective, the contortionist act generally backfires.  The more a person's claimed devoutness becomes the central part of their proffered character, the tougher it becomes to see past personal deviations from that claimed faith, like infidelity, eating shrimp, and wearing white after Labor Day.

Preparing for an appearance on KPBS' "These Days" with Chris McConnell and Chuck Hartley, the topic selection for the program narrowed down to discussing the La Raza conference in San Diego, the gas crisis, and Proposition 2.  Among the producers, the radio program's excellent host Tom Fudge, and the three bloggers, we decided to discuss the Latino vote in general and Proposition 2. 

Although discussing animal cruelty can involve contentious debate, (just check out Chuck's blog and subsequent comments) I started to worry about how the conversation surrounding La Raza would take shape. Would I be asked to defend the organization, which gets a bum rap as being fundamentally divisive? How about my personal reasons for not attending? Would Tom Fudge ask me how a Mexican-American could not attend the conference in good conscience?

John McCain talks about victory in Iraq. He has not given a coherent description of "victory in Iraq" - but claims victory is a moral necessity, as well as imperative to our security. Barack Obama's 16-month timetable is now being "refined." This is a politically calculated move to the center or a continuation of Obama's promise that the US  "must be as careful getting out of Iraq as it was reckless going in."

Either way, it's a vague policy at best.

Trina Boice, one of our two registered Republicans here at Citizen Voices is moving to Las Vegas. We are now in search of a Republican who can blog weekly on local and national political issues.

Until we pick our next political pundit, we're going to feature a guest Republican blogger each week. Potential bloggers can send their resume, writing samples and guest post to Nicole Lozare at .

View Craigslist job posting for more details.

I've learned in life to never say never. I never thought I'd be spouting politics on the Internet for all to see. I never thought I'd buy one of those tiny toy dogs since I have five manly boys in my family. I never thought I'd live in the desert, but guess who's moving to Las Vegas? Yep, it's true. I'm leaving paradise and moving to the desert right in the middle of the summer. Great plan, eh?

When my twin sister married a man who was born and raised in Sin City my husband and I felt sorry for her, knowing that she'd probably be surrounded by tumbleweeds for the rest of her life. My husband laughed and said "Vegas looks just like San Diego... after a nuclear holocaust!" Guess who's laughing now.

The recent housing crisis has hit my family particularly hard. My husband owns a real estate appraisal company and both of us are also Realtors. Because the real estate market is somewhat cyclical, we have lived through a roller coaster existence of feast or famine our entire married life together. The feasting cycles were awesome, but the famine times stunk. 

As mortgage rates continue to climb and home values continue to fall, our livelihood has taken a hit. Add rising gas and food costs, braces on the kids, and our second son joining his older brother in college this fall and we've just joined the "People Who Adore San Diego But Can't Afford To Live Here Anymore" club.

I am a member of the worst coed softball team in San Diego. Some of my teammates play for fun, some of us play to win, most of us argue.

We are unanimous in only one arena - losing - every game we play. We usually lose the old fashioned way -- by sucking. Though our most recent loss represents a diversification of our losing ways; disqualified for too few women.*

The ump stuck by the rules of the league; unmoved by our arguments, complaints, excuses, tantrums and cries. He interpreted the rules and dropped the forfeit hammer down. Game over. Until next week.

In a patently political gambit, John McCain recently pointed to the Supreme Court's decision in Boumediene versus Bush as one of the worst decisions in the court's history. Among others labeling the decision as an astonishing case of judicial activism, is Citizen Voices blogger Trina Boice. She is clear and succinct in advocating her position:

"Just last week, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to grant terrorists the same privileges as U.S. citizens. Judicial activism continues to grow around the country, allowing judges to play politics, circumvent the lawmaking process and assume the powers of legislating. Does that bother anyone else or am I still the freak here? The Constitution is threatened when judges change the definition of social institutions and reinterpret approved laws in order to reflect their own policy preferences."

Venturing an answer to Trina's question: you're no freak, Trina. You simply do yourself a disservice by relying on talking points that simplify weighty constitutional arguments. It is worth pointing out that the detainees held at Guantanamo are most certainly guilty of something; be it terrorism, unlawful combat, conspiracy to commit terrorism or being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Last week, Citizen Voices bloggers were asked to express our opinions, feelings, fears and insights about same-sex marriage, and to engage in a dialogue with you, contributors and readers, who were asked to share the same.

It was an eye-opening experience, and I look forward to more of these directed topics before the November election. For me, last week's discussion was especially meaningful, as was reading the personal and sometimes deeply moving stories that readers shared about their own experiences with love, heartache, miracles, and being honest with the people in their lives.

The truth will set you free, so the saying goes. But the truth can sometimes hurt and often does when it isn't what we expected to hear. 

Assuming we can form and articulate our political opinions, is the fear of hurting another person (or ourselves) what makes sharing specifically political ideas challenging for many people?

Growing up in a strict religious home, my parents surprisingly did not go out of their way to discuss their ideas on homosexuality. Sporadically, phrases like "perverted" and "keep your distance" were slipped into conversations about people in our lives -- neighbors, family members, even some longtime friends of my mother.

But the message from my family and the church we attended was still clear: We do not approve.

So, this week a failed attempt to impeach President George Bush made the news, albeit the news is being hidden by the main news media. Apparently, the fact that 166 representatives think that the president LIED to us isn't enough.

Let's examine this closer... 166 people that we, the American People, voted for think we were misled into the Iraq War. That our president knew there were no bombs or weapons in Iraq, but let us go to war anyway. That Saddam Hussein had NO connection to Al Qaeda, but framed him anyway. That, to put it bluntly, he failed in his job in leading America's government.

Recently, Paul Krugman, the prolific New York Times political columnist, Princeton economics professor and best selling author, was interviewed by Tom Fudge on the KPBS program "These Days." Mr. Krugman was on the air discussing his new book, The Conscience of a Liberal, about the demise of the country from "strong democratic values and broadly shared prosperity" into a nation divided by the new Gilded Age. 

His book is thought-provoking, not just because it proposes a restoration of New Deal social programs -- i.e., when Franklin D. Roosevelt's government did more to build a strong middle class than today's under funding of public schools, union busting, and "borrowing" from Social Security to pay off federal debts-- but also because the book draws an impenetrable line between liberals and "new conservatives," or "goal movement conservatism," as Krugman calls it in his book. 

So why did his comments that there is no middle ground between liberal and conservative philosophies, and that fighting hard against Republican ideas is a necessary thing, really strike me as being regressive instead of progressive?