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 >>

Welcome to a non-presidential election year in the age of Obama. Last week, a new poll showed Democratic Senate candidate Ed Markey ahead of his Republican rival, Gabriel Gomez, by just 4 points in Massachusetts, reviving memories of Scott Brown’s victory in a 2010 special election. READ MORE >>

Kenneth Cuccinelli II was that student in class who always had his hand up.Even during the anxiety-ridden opening days of law school, the New Jersey-born “Cooch”—as he was, and still is, known to friends—was demonstrating the clear-eyed confidence and unwavering assertiveness that’s become a staple of his persona as Virginia’s conservative firebrand attorney general. READ MORE >>

Dietary supplements. A wedding caterer charged with embezzlement. Disputes about who’s picking up the bill. The makings of another downscale-America reality show? Nope. Rather, the features of an increasingly murky drama involving a man who not long ago at all was being considered a serious prospect for a Republican presidential ticket: Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. READ MORE >>

Four years ago, when he was elected governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell was a golden boy of the Republican Party, and to liberals he was a villain who hated gays and unwed mothers and thwarted equal-pay measures. A year later, he was his party's choice to rebut Obama's 2010 State of the Union address. READ MORE >>

Congressional Republicans have done a pretty good job pretending not to care that the planned March 1 sequestration will cut $43 billion out of this year’s defense budget. Sure, it’s an “ugly and dangerous way” to cut spending, says House Speaker John Boehner. READ MORE >>

Most people who remember John Calhoun from their history books think of him as the fiery senator from South Carolina who defended the antebellum South and once called slavery a “positive good.” But Calhoun also fancied himself a political philosopher. In the early 19th Century, he wrote a treatise laying out his theory that a small group of states should have the right to block legislation—to exercise a “minority veto”—in order to preserve their way of life. READ MORE >>

Many Democrats were irate at the news that Virginia Republicans are considering changing their state's election laws so that future Electoral College votes will be apportioned by congressional district, rather than on the basis of a winner-takes-all popular vote. READ MORE >>

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Today President Obama will unveil a gun-control platform that is expected to include a reinstatement of the long-expired assault weapon ban. READ MORE >>