REPUBLICAN

Politics makes for strange bedfellows indeed. My husband and I have been married for 21 argumentative years. Technically 10 argumentative years, until I switched my political party affiliations. We had never seen eye to eye on anything, and we rarely had the same opinion on politics. When we first met, we had rousing arguments about who should be President of the United States. We had different opinions on why past politicians did lousy jobs as president or vice president. The only issue on which we agreed was that President Ronald Reagan's trickle down theory of economics was benefiting people who were already rich.

I'm a social liberal, a product of my New England upbringing who thinks government can be run by professional Robin Hoods who redistribute wealth and carefully protect civil liberties. She is a fiscal conservative who thinks that the free market should be upheld at all costs. She's no war hawk, but she's no pacifist either. She thinks wars should be fought with hostile takeovers and marketing blitzes. I called her a robber baron, and she called me a socialist lite. They were like pet names. It's our luck that we met during the reign of Bush. We were equally disgusted by the ruling executive. Sure, we had different points of attack: I was horrified by the assault on civil liberties, while Karen was more concerned by the fiscal incompetence and costly doctrine of interventionism (she was, and still is, one of the few true isolationists I know). But we had a common enemy, and that allowed us to overlook the differences. But it was just that: an oversight.

You probably heard that news that John McCain's VP nominee Sarah Palin has a seventeen-year-old daughter, Bristol, who is pregnant and plans to marry the father. In today's New York Times there's a piece with the headline, "In Political Realm "Family Problem" Emerges as Test." Swap in the word "relationship" instead of "political," and you could be describing the experience of meeting your significant other's family. The questions in both the political and relationship realms are these: How much is someone's family a reflection of them, and should your lover's clan influence the decisions you make about him or her? In the relationship realm, someone's family probably isn't a

The Democratic convention ended last night, so we thought we'd check in to see if conventioneers got nookie in the mile high city. And what better place to find out than the online repository of fantasy, cock shots and misspellings: Craig's List Denver. Below, a sampling of political booty-hunters, a rating of their post, and our guess about the likelihood that they scored.

We all know about politics make for strange bedfellows. Can political or religious identity be a deal-breaker? Catie Lazarus finds out if some of these differences make a relationship incompatible.

  Politico-dependent, fili-lust-er, and cast-ration. Update your dating slang in time for the 2008 elections with this video. Love Lexicon's Political Edition takes the politics of love to a new level!

Finally, someone is asking the voters the tough questions. Which candidate would you rather kiss? Overwhelmingly Match.com users would rather pucker up with Barack Obama than John McCain. The 1,433 readers, per Reuters, rated Obama higher than McCain by a 77 to 23 ratio. The article goes on to mention that the poll was not scientific, which in this case probably means that the users had to practice kissing their hands rather than stand-ins for the Senators.

If Republican presidential candidate John McCain wants to energize his party, he'll have to pander to bigots and use gay rights as "wedge issues" to create divisiveness and friction among voters. Does that suggestion make you see red, too? It's the advice of an editor at the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard who spoke on the show "Fox News Sunday" about the McCain campaign. The liberal web site Think Progress reports that executive editor Fred Barnes said McCain can appeal to more conservative voters by selling out LGBT folks.

Wondering about the candidates in the presidential primary? YourTango's got you covered. As part of our series exploring couples in the presidential race, we bring you inside the marriage or Ron and Carol Paul. "Ron Paul is running for the Republican Party Presidential nomination on a platform of no-jokes Libertarianism, which whether one agrees with his politics or not, clearly is a sign of determination. His wife of nearly 51 years, Carol, has stood by Paul throughout his medical and Congressional years, as well as his time on the campaign trail, despite requiring heart surgery to implant a pacemaker while garnering support in Iowa in August 2007."

Part of Tango's series on the couples of the 2008 presidential primaries, we go inside the marriage of Republicans Mike and Janet Huckabee. "They met in junior high school; by senior year, they were dating. At the age of 18, he didn't quite have the money for an engagement ring yet and proposed with the pull-tab of a soda can. They married in her parents' living room in Hope, Arkansas, in 1974. One could say Mike and Janet Huckabee have humble beginnings and have culled a rock-solid relationship over the last 30 years. During the last two decades, they have shared success and hardship."

My boyfriend voted for Bush. Yes, for Bush. And he'd vote for him again if our Constitution allowed it. Now let me duck while you spit at me. No, please go ahead. Really, I'm used to it. When this happens—the attacks, the spittle—I sometimes enlist a coping strategy. I tune out and think back to when I discovered that J was one of Them.

In our series on the 2008 presidential couples, YourTango explores the McCains. From John's time in a Vietnamese prison camp to Cindy's battle with addiction, YourTango gives you all you need to know to decide if the McCains have what it takes to live in the White House. "He was a war hero, a former prisoner in North Vietnam; she was the daughter of a wealthy beer distributor and almost 20 years his junior. They met in 1979 at a reception in Honolulu. 'We both lied about our ages,' Cindy told a reporter. 'I made myself older and he made himself younger.' Before they could marry, he had to divorce his first wife (although they still remain on good terms)."

Mitt and Ann met in elementary school and have been close ever since. As Mitt tells it, the Romney marriage is a real love story.