The New Republic

Political conventions, like the one that the Republican Party of Virginia held in Richmond on Saturday, exist for hardcore partisans and speechifying. So it follows that E.W. Jackson, a far-right reverend with a little YouTube cachet, delivered a thundering address on Saturday that won him the party nod for lieutenant governor. READ MORE >>

Politico recently christened all the conservative think tanks, nonprofits, and publications Bill Kristol is involved with “Kristol World.” But “world” doesn’t do it justice: Kristol’s résumé occupies its own universe. His influence ranges from conservative media to foreign policy to academia to economics. To help untangle Kristol’s myriad activities, both past and present, we mapped the influence of the neoconservative mastermind. READ MORE >>

In 1964, an ambitious young student at the University of Louisville made an impassioned plea to his classmates, urging them to march in solidarity with Martin Luther King Jr. At the time, Kentucky was no haven for race reformers—it was dominated by some of the same elements of the Democratic Party that vehemently rejected the very notion of civil rights. Nevertheless, this 20-year-old activist called for strong statutes, state and federal, to protect the dignity of minorities. READ MORE >>

Ever since last year's election, the nation's conservatives have been in self-preservation mode: They know something about the GOP needs to change, but they don’t want it to be them. The party establishment would prefer to jettison cultural issues, since it never cared much about cultural issues, anyway. And the faction of fiscal conservatives argues that well-educated, affluent voters are more natural GOP constituents, anyway. READ MORE >>

Regardless of how the Supreme Court rules on the two big gay marriage cases it heard last week, it’s only a matter of time before the institution is legalized. Public acceptance is accelerating and will soon be overwhelming. READ MORE >>

Did you know that the federal government spends more money on welfare than it does on Social Security, or Medicare, or the military? Me neither, perhaps because it isn’t true. It’s the kind of hooey that the crankier, less-informed sort of conservative is all too ready to believe. Yet the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate budget committee has lately been spreading this meme, and a variation is included in Representative Paul Ryan’s proposed budget. READ MORE >>

On Monday morning, after a four-month listening tour and a thousand op-eds about What Went Wrong, the Republican National Committee rendered its verdict: The GOP has an image problem. People see it as a stuffy old club of rich white people, one that’s out of touch with the lives of most Americans. READ MORE >>

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus is winning accolades for the wide-ranging plan he presented Monday morning in Washington that charts a way forward for the party after its demoralizing performance in the November elections. Drafted by a five-person committee—which included former George W. READ MORE >>

At this weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference, reeling from its demographic drubbing in last year's elections, the American right—or part of it, at least—is chewing over how to align itself with the nation's evolving mores. And much has been made of their efforts to expand the tent. Maybe undocumented immigrants, for example, shouldn't be deported on sight? And is it possible that gays, too, should have the right to marry?  READ MORE >>

While much has been made of Marco Rubio’s performance at CPAC and the GOP’s Latino outreach, it’s hard, walking the crowded, carpeted halls at this gathering, not to notice the Republican Party’s other big demographic problem: women. The attendees are overwhelmingly male and, of the forty-two speakers in the first two days of the conference, there were only five women. (Sarah Palin was slated for the convention’s third day.) This reflects the Party’s broader dilemma. READ MORE >>