Between the long shadow cast by the economy and the excitement of the historic election of Barack Obama as the new president of the United States, there's one subject which has barely made it into the headlines. Among the ballot initiatives that were decided in the fifty states were three referenda which would have banned or restricted abortion. These measures, in South Dakota, Colorado, and California, were all defeated.

An analysis in the Los Angeles Times today posits what could prove to be a tipping point for the health care crisis: the current economic slump.

The process – not the rhetoric – of change.

If change is to come, we cannot return to business as usual. We have seen so many elections that promised hope and more responsive government. And time and again, we have returned from our polling places to our homes and just waited for change to come. This time, something must be different.

Is a diploma by any other name a diploma? I suppose it depends on who you ask. Graduation rates in the country are just under 70 percent, meaning that fewer than seven in ten freshmen who enter the system graduate from high school four years later.

A report in the Washington Post today highlights sharp contrasts in President-elect Barack Obama's overall strategy for the wars in Afghanistan and Iran from the current administration's, both militarily and diplomatically. A major difference is the Obama team's clear priority of shifting focus by deploying more troops to the war in Afghanistan, which has recently seen the most U.S. casualties since the conflict began.

Advisers involved in ongoing talks with president-elect Barack Obama regarding the prison at Guantanamo Bay said that a proposal is in the works to ship many prisoners to U.S. soil to face a criminal trial. Obama has been candid about his intention to shut down the controversial prison but had not previously been specific about how he would handle the enormous legal complications of relocating, prosecuting and detaining the hundreds of prisoners currently held there.

It's tempting to think about problems in terms of government actions: laws passed, elections won, court rulings issued. Those are easy things for the media to cover; pre-packaged milestones. But public attitudes often develop in ways that have little to do with the election cycle, or with politics at all.

To get a sense of how public attitudes about race have changed, you need only look back at the America Barack Obama was born in, and compare it to the one that has elected him as the first African American president.

Election day is also exit poll day for many in the chattering classes, with much discussion of whether the exit polls might leak and whether they're accurate in predicting the election. Tonight, if the results are lopsided enough, there's even the possibility that the networks may call the election before the polls close on the West Coast.

There's time for one last look at the issues before the presidential election, and one thing seems worth remembering as the voting starts: Very little happens in this world without money, and one of the biggest challenges for the next president and Congress is the fact that the federal budget is in such bad shape.