Over 17 million veterans voted in the 2004 presidential election. If you include the 37 million dependents (spouses and dependent children) of living veterans and survivors of deceased veterans, this constituency block jumps to over 61 million, or over 20 percent of the US population. With such large numbers, why does it seem like veterans' issues have been lost in the campaign rhetoric? And how are the candidates addressing this large group of potential voters and the organization that supports them?

OhMyGov! has provided the Cliff's notes to get its readers up to speed on the positions of the leading presidential candidates, as they pertain to vets.

All three candidates claim to be strong supporters of veteran's issues. Barack Obama is the only candidate on the Senate Veterans...

"Green" is hip in 2008, even in the presidential campaign. No longer do candidates and their supporters debate whether or not global warming is a real problem, but rather what needs to be done to reverse it. A candidate who prioritizes the environment is not slandered as a "tree-hugger" or "crunchy," instead the candidates clamor to be perceived as the greenest of the green.

While Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama predictably offer the more stringent and more expensive plans for environmental protection and energy independence, Republican nominee John McCain has come out strongly for environmental stewardship.

The issues of environmental protection, energy independence, and economic concerns intertwine with one another but can generally be categorized...

While Obama and Clinton continue to battle it out for the Democratic nomination, pro-Democratic groups like Progressive Media U.S.A are already ramping up their muckraking campaigns against John McCain. The latest video put out by the group attempts to paint McCain as Bush II...or is it Bush III? In any case, the video ad will be part of a $40 million venture to make sure no Republican reaches the White House this year.

PITTSBURGH— John McCain wants the federal government to free people from paying gasoline taxes this summer and ensure that college students can secure loans this fall, a pair of proposals aimed at stemming pain from the country's troubled economy.

At the same time, the certain Republican presidential nominee says Democratic rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton would impose the single largest tax increase since World War II by allowing tax cuts pushed to passage by President Bush to expire.

Among other proposals, McCain said he would:

--Raise the tax exemption for each dependent child from $3,500 to $7,000.

--Require more affluent people -- couples making more than $160,000 -- enrolled in Medicare to pay a higher premium for their prescription drugs than less-wealthy people...

"It's the economy, stupid!" read a sign James Carville hung in the 1992 campaign headquarters of candidate Bill Clinton. Though intended for an internal audience of campaign workers, the phrase leaked out into the populace at large and became a sort of unofficial slogan of the Clinton campaign. And it worked. At first, President George H. Bush had been considered unbeatable due to his strengths in foreign policy, but the campaign was able to harness the anxiety of a country in the midst of recession and unseat a sitting president by arguing that he had not done enough to prevent it.

America may or may not be in a recession now in 2008, but it is clear that the economy is again issue number one in the minds of many voters, and all three of the remaining candidates are clamoring...

Comprehensive immigration reform failed to pass congress in 2006 and 2007, and the prospect of change at the state level is also grim. Last week an Indiana immigration bill to penalize businesses who knowingly hire illegal immigrants died after a legislative conference committee could not agree on a final version that would have yanked the license of offending employers. With immigration reform at a veritable stalemate nationwide, the onus will be upon the next President to institute real change. Hence, a critical look at where the leading candidates stand and what they have done on the issue is of paramount importance. The primary debate drivers on immigration are:

How to secure the borders? What to do with the illegal aliens already in the country? How to improve the bureaucracy and red...

A recent Associated Press story projects that health care costs will double in the next 9 years from $2.1 trillion to $4.3 trillion, costing an estimated $13,101 per person. The big question on everyone's mind is which Presidential candidate (who has an actual chance of being elected) has the best plan to deal with the health care crisis facing Americans in the coming decade?

To assist you in navigating through this complex issue, OhMyGov! has provided the following health care proposal analysis of the leading Presidential Candidates. First, we present the highlights by party and candidate.

Attached to this post, you will find a five page, comprehensive analysis for those truly looking to dig through the details.

General (Republican) Proposal

Oppose mandated universal health care...

The New Republic reported that a member of the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) Rules And Bylaws Committee--the committee that stripped Florida and Michigan of its delegates for moving their primaries before February 5th--stated that Michigan plans to get out of its uncounted delegate problem by announcing a new caucus in the next few days. Read more

Florida and Michigan were punished by the DNC for moving their primaries forward without permission. Consequently, the DNC stripped the states of their primary delegates.

Clinton won both states, though neither candidate campaigned in either. With the race between Obama and Clinton tight, the Clinton camp is looking for ways to flex their political muscles and get those delegates counted.

Howard Dean, DNC Chairman, wants Florida and...

Cannotrustclinton.com? clintonisbad.com? At least 25 domain names related to Hillary Rodham Clinton have links to the Republican National Committee: the names were either registered by the Republican National Convention last year or showed up on servers the committee uses.

Some of them may signal the party’s future strategy: baracknotready.com and norealexperience.com. The party has also begun preemptively registering domains that could be used to attack John McCain, like mccainamigos.com, voteagainstmccain.com, flipflopmccain.com and hatemccain.com (ihatemccain.com was taken.) Read more

And so it seems sound bites and mudslinging will overshadow issue debates once again. At least now you know where that campaign contribution went.

Michigan’s Democratic governor and her Republican counterpart in Florida today called on the national committees for their respective parties to seat all of their states’ delegates for this summer’s nominating convention.

In so doing, the two - Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist - are fueling a fire that could lead to do-over elections or caucuses in the two delegate-rich states. Read more