Is it fair to label John McCain's presumptive presidential nomination as tantamount to Bush's third term in the White House?  I thought about this recently after seeing a bumper sticker proclaiming the message.  The McCain camp has also taken notice of this particular line of attack on their candidate's viability.

The matter interests me because if the senator from Illinois hopes to win his bid for the highest elected office, won't his political strategists and advisors need to understand what draws an undecided voter toward Senator McCain as much as away from him? 

The bumper sticker routine, I believe, simply won't work on voters already likely to vote for Senator Obama.  These slogans attempt to discourage the undecided, as well as those leaning toward McCain.  But does this particular insult work in that vein?   

The most obvious premise of the message taps into Bush's increasingly high disapproval ratings.  Since a majority of Americans have repudiated any support Mr. Bush gained before his last term in office, the thinking goes, extending his stay would be political failure.  This idea, however, "preaches to the choir" and probably won't serve to sway voters.

With Ralph Nader announcing his presidential candidacy, the embarrassment of holding him partially responsible for Al Gore’s loss in 2000 crept up like a forgotten nightmare. I don’t like admitting this — although many in my party don’t mind — because I believe what Mr. Nader has said about bipartisanship is true.

The two-party system is choking civic involvement. Labeling oneself as either a Democrat or a Republican feels stifling now as more and more voters claim their independence. 

I don’t think Ralph Nader’s run for office this time will siphon votes the way I begrudgingly believe it did in 2000. That’s because Dems have heard his message earlier this year, and mostly rejected it.

When John Edwards’ campaign message featured big corporations versus the little people, it was a prelude to Mr. Nader’s meat-and-potato policy initiatives. Edwards’s message was mostly rejected by early primary voters. So unless former Edwards’ supporters jump ship from backing Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton to go third-party for a day, Mr. Nader is competing for undecided Democratic and Independent voters.

Personally, I think Mr. Nader’s work has made a huge impact on America’s view on the important role of independent voters, the environment, and big business’ relationship with regular consumers. However, his days of running for office are irrelevant and will likely be ignored by most voters this time around. Then again, maybe Ralph Nader is as much a "miracles guy" like Mike Huckabee when it comes to victoriously ending this election.

-Citizen Voices blogger Alma Sove has spent most of her life in San Diego and is currently attending law school. 

A funny thing happened on the way to the polling booth in San Diego County. People got lost. I don’t mean they couldn’t find their polling place, although that happened a lot, too. They couldn’t find their political party.

Sure, most everyone had registered to vote under the patriotic flag of their choice, but many I talked to were feeling disenfranchised by their party and wondering where they really belonged.

People are describing themselves as a mixture of parties these days, saying something like “I’m fiscally conservative, but socially liberal.” So does that describe an elephant or a donkey or some new creature?  What do you get when you mix blue states and red states? You get purple. It seems a new purple voter is emerging. A lot of people I talked with on election day expressed frustration with their party and wanted to know how to change their official voter registration card. America is clamoring for change and voters are beginning with whom they want to align themselves.

Some Republicans, for example, claim that John McCain is really a Democrat in disguise. Has the party left the voters or is it the other way around?