If you believe, as I do, that healthcare is a right, you should be appalled by the fact that over 46 million Americans are without health insurance. Lucky for us, this is a change the upcoming election promises to bring, but unfortunately neither major candidate has come up with an efficient and thorough way to guarantee healthcare.

Senator Barack Obama won the Democratic Presidential nomination in part because of record high turnout from voters age 18-24. This often-ignored demographic changed the political landscape by taking an active interest in politics for the first time since 1972, and now seems poised to play kingmaker in the fall.

With the selection of Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin as the vice presidential nominees of Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain, respectively, the two campaigns have defined their candidacies and established the tone for the next two months of the presidential race.

Recently, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has taken a hit for comments made at a closed fundraiser in San Francisco, where he characterized the people of Pennsylvania's belief in God and guns as an inevitable consequence of despair. This proves he is unqualified to be sociologist-in-chief, but it also brings into question his ability to unite the country.

Ever since President Franklin Roosevelt took an aggressive approach to dealing with the Great Depression through his New Deal policies, it has been unacceptable for a president to appear to have his hands off the economy in uncertain times. There have been varying degrees of involvement by presidents since Roosevelt, but he established a new precedent that demanded a certain amount of action.

Hillary Clinton's surprise showing in Texas was in part attributed to her 3 a.m. phone call advertisement, in which she offered herself as the Democratic candidate with the ability to handle an international crisis because of her experience. This is not a new message for Clinton's camp, which has always championed her years of experience, but it signifies a shift in tone.

In 1982, the Democratic Party created superdelegates to prevent future ambiguity over the presidential nomination, which had divided the party after the contentious convention of 1980. In 1984, superdelegates passed their first test by increasing Walter Mondale's lead and enabling him to amass the delegates needed to secure the nomination.

Barack Obama's sweep of the Potomac primaries, with wins in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., established him as the clear frontrunner in the race for the Democratic nomination. He then charged full-steam into Hawaii and Wisconsin on Tuesday, and emerged with decisive wins.

For the Democrats, Tuesday was again a battle between change and experience, while the Republicans attempted to choose between party purity and viability in November.

In 1968 there was a power struggle within the Democratic Party that pitted the old school Democrats, embodied by Hubert Humphrey, against a leaderless youth movement. The unrest amongst the Democrats built until it exploded with riots at the national convention that year.

Presidential primaries are about appealing to one's respective base, and then running to the middle to win votes in the general election after the conventions.