Republicans in 1994 had their best election cycle in decades. The GOP swept to joint majorities in Congress for the first time in 40 years. And the party picked up a net 10 governorships, giving them 30 of 50 overall….
Few political observers were surprised in May of 2013 when Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee completed his leftward ideological makeover and became a Democrat. During his seven years in the Senate, Chafee was consistently the most liberal Republican. Yet that…
Statewide ballots in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin next year will look awfully familiar. First-term Republican Sens. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin are likely to face off in 2016 against the same Democratic opponents they defeated in the…
Ambitious politicians never openly root for their party’s presidential nominee to lose. Even if that’s what they probably secretly want. When Republican standard-bearer Bob Dole (predictably) came up short against President Bill Clinton in 1996, Texas Gov. George W. Bush…
The Last Lincolns: The Rise and Fall of a Great American Family By Charles Lachman (Union Square Press, 484 pages, $24.95) Abraham Lincoln’s last descendant died in 1985. But were Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith still alive, it’s unlikely he would…
Who wants to be governor of Rhode Island? The gig pays $117,118 a year, and while Rhode Island may be our smallest state the winner still gets to be one of only 50 governors in the nation. All of which…
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — It’s become conventional wisdom that the keys to the White House in 2008 will run through Colorado, where rapidly changing demographics give Barack Obama a serious shot at nabbing the previously reddish state’s nine Electoral College…
While Mark Stein’s University of Wisconsin classmates were protesting the Vietnam War, he had a different set of concerns: How come Michigan has that whole separate section that’s actually attached to Wisconsin? Why does Delaware exist and why isn’t it…
For voters in Southern Indiana’s 9th Congressional District, Election Day might feel a bit like Groundhog Day. For the fourth straight election cycle Democratic Rep. Baron Hill will face off against Republican Mike Sodrel in this rural, culturally conservative Ohio…