American schoolchildren are not the best in the world when it comes to doing math. This is a fact which is proven over and over again by comparing test scores here with those achieved in other countries. The long-term problem with this, though, is one few people ever think about -- those kids grow up to be American adults, who still apparently can't do basic math. And, not to put too fine a point on it, this includes politicians. Either politicians can't do math themselves, or they cynically know that their constituents can't do math and exploit this when making promises to the public.

On both sides of the aisle, this leads eventually to the line of thinking which Vice President Dick Cheney was bold enough to put into words: "Deficits don't matter." If you're a Republican, then you drink the "supply-side" Kool-Aid, and convince yourself that down is up and it'll all magically take care of itself (forty years of proof to the contrary). If you're a Democrat, every time you actually try to solve the problem you are attacked so viciously for doing so that big changes never are deemed "politically possible." Or, from either side, you just don't care about handing a crippling debt to the next generation of Americans, because it is so much fun to put all the ever-popular "bread and circuses" stuff on the First Bank of China credit card.

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The upcoming midterm elections are likely to change the party numbers in both houses of Congress, but this may happen faster than most people now realize in the Senate. Because while most incoming members of the new Congress will get sworn in on the traditional timeline (i.e., next January), there are a handful of Senate races whose victors will be sworn in immediately after the election. This could alter the balance of power between the parties for the "lame duck" session -- the period between the election and next January. Which could have consequences for any legislation being put off until then (such as just happened with the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal, and the DREAM Act).

The reason a few senators will be sworn in early is that the races are "special" elections, held to replace vacancies which are now being filled by temporary, appointed senators. In other words, while most Senate elections are happening on their usual six-year cycle, these races are not in synch with this cycle, due to unexpected vacancies.

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Howard Dean is (as he is often wont to do) making all kinds of sense on healthcare reform today. His idea is to jettison the "individual mandate" part of the healthcare reform law passed this year. And he's right, on both political and practical grounds.

The individual mandate is the least-liked part of healthcare reform. It really has no natural constituency other than insurance companies. There was no call from the public to include this in the final law (as there was with the "public option," in comparison). The Left wasn't in favor of it, and it causes apoplexy over on the Right. President Obama did not campaign on the individual mandate (although Hillary Clinton did, I should point out), so he obviously didn't think it was all that important (or all that good an idea, take your choice) before he got elected. Since the mandate appeared, very few people have bothered defending it in public. Its appearance in the debate was obviously a direct result of demands from the health insurance industry, who will be the obvious beneficiary of the plan.

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Christine O'Donnell was going to appear on two nationally-broadcast Sunday political chat shows this weekend; Face The Nation on CBS, and Fox News Sunday. She appeared on neither, citing scheduling conflicts with a picnic in Delaware. Even Fox News didn't really buy this explanation, which is truly saying something. But it really should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention this election cycle, because this appears to be the new Tea Party media strategy: "Don't talk to the media. Ever." What remains to be seen is whether it will work or not. If it proves successful, look for many future candidates across the political spectrum to copy this strategy in future races.

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Last week was a busy one, and also a pretty good one for Democrats, all around. But we'll get to all of that in a moment.

First, though, we simply must wish ourselves a happy third anniversary. Woo hoo! Three years of FTP columns!

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The White House caused a news frenzy -- at least on one side of the political spectrum -- by leaking the announcement that Elizabeth Warren would be named as the person who would create and head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (C.F.P.B.). This process is known by various names such as "floating a trial balloon" or "running it up the flagpole to see who salutes." As a result of the feedback offered up today, the White House will likely refine their actual formal announcement to address a few outstanding concerns. Until there is the specificity which comes from a formal announcement, though, things are a bit fluid (which led to the amusing Huffington Post headline: "Everyone Is Basically Confused About What Elizabeth Warren Will Be Doing").

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You can forgive the pragmatic, establishment Republicans who run the national party machinery for feeling a bit besieged this morning. Because the Tea Party keeps continuing to storm the GOP's castle. The party regulars are manning the battlements, but to no avail. They see their stronghold being overrun by a mob over whom they have no control, and they are shaking in their boots at the prospect. You can picture these GOP faithful rushing about the castle's keep, desperately trying to convince the rabble that eating all the seed stores will result in famine next year, but to no avail as the Tea Partiers pillage at will.

The reason for this long-winded and increasingly-convoluted introductory metaphor is, of course, the defeat of one Castle in particular -- Mike Castle, moderate Republican of Delaware -- in last night's Senate primary in the First State. The Republican Party establishment watched last night in absolute horror as Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell swamped Castle in the primary. The horror stems from the fact that this will likely mean Joe Biden's old Senate seat will remain in Democratic hands this November. Republican voters chose purity over electability, plain and simple. They'll now have a purest-of-the-pure Tea Party candidate, who will go on to lose what would otherwise have been a very easy pickup for the Republicans. This may also doom any Republican hopes of taking control of the whole Senate, as it is pretty hard to chart a path to a majority without picking up the Delaware seat.

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OK, that was an annoying headline, I fully admit. It was annoying to type out, and I can only imagine how annoying it must be to read.

Which should only serve to warn you, this is going to be an annoying column all around. Don't say you haven't been warned, in other words.

Or, as the young'uns would have said, "IOW." Ahem.

I'm writing this column today because I am approaching two milestones in social networking.

And to get in the spirit of the thing, no paragraph today will be longer than 140 characters.

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There's an upcoming debate on taxes and tax cuts which is likely going to define the rest of the 2010 midterm election season. This will be reported on and commented on by a wide array of people in the media, from all sides of the political landscape. But why is it that media "full disclosure" rules seem to be completely ignored during such debate by the punditry? Because by all rights, anyone in the media talking about raising income tax rates on the top two income brackets should have to disclose their possible conflict of interest in the debate. It wouldn't take much, just a simple declaration: "Full disclosure, I fall into the top tax bracket myself, so I would personally be affected by changing this rate."

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America (as, likely, everywhere else) always has a seamy underside, crawling with metaphoric maggots, to anything that is mostly seen as good by the majority of the populace. One of those maggots crawled out this week in the religious world, down in Florida. Its proper name is bigotry, or perhaps hatred. It is the direct descendent of Kristallnacht, and of the Ku Klux Klan. And, of course, all of that makes for good television, as far as the media is concerned.

Using what I would call "the Balloon Boy effect," a pastor with a very small flock managed to get his face pretty much in every media outlet which currently exists. There's a lesson to be drawn from all of this, and it is an ugly one which will likely happen repeatedly, until the media figures out how badly it is being "played" -- threatening to burn a Quran all but guarantees you worldwide media attention. Other hate-filled religious leaders (of which, sadly, America has more than just one) will likely figure this out fairly soon. In other words, even after tomorrow, this could become a much bigger problem.

Which is why I've been refusing to acknowledge the guy, or otherwise write about him. He doesn't deserve it, what he deserves is to be quickly forgotten.

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