When author, journalist and political commentator Hoyt Hilsman joined The Huffington Post editors as a contributor in the fall of 2008, he had just finished a second unsuccessful campaign for Congress in California, but he still had lots to say about the politics and culture of our country. Since then, he has written over a hundred essays for HuffPost, on topics ranging from gun control to Britney Spears, with a focus on American politics and culture. As an unabashed Democratic centrist (or more precisely center-left), Hilsman believes in an activist government to meet the needs of all the people, but he also believes that government should be effective and efficient, with as little waste of money and human resources as possible. While he frequently takes the Right to task for their excesses during the Obama presidency, he also has been a critic of some of President Obama's policies and politics. So all that puts Hilsman squarely in the middle of the road as a political and social commentator, which leads to an explanation of the title of this volume of essays - Armadillos and Yellow Lines. Those readers of political commentary will recognize this a reframing of the Jim Hightower quote: "There's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow lines and dead armadillos." His message - stay away from the political middle unless you want to get run over. For better or for worse, Hilsman has accepted the challenge of cheating fate in the middle of the road. Perhaps, after reading these essays, you may want to join him on that lonely patch of asphalt.