There’s a message on my home answering machine from the local McCain campaign office essentially begging me to come down and run a telephone for them sometime in the next eighteen days. More than likely, I will not return that phone call or help the campaign.

Why? Because I believe my position as a writer creates a conflict of interest for me that I cannot overcome. It is not just writing her on this weblog that creates a problem, but also the fact that I work as a reporter and an editor for my college newspaper where my beat is, among other things, politics. [...]