NEWS
By Nancy Langer | August 2, 2009
President Barack Obama recently did something very few American presidents have done: announced his intention to sign and submit to the Senate for ratification an international human rights treaty. The U.S. has ratified only three of 26 international human rights treaties; some in Congress cling to the idea that the U.S. should never sign any international piece of paper. Even Yemen and Sudan have ratified The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It's time for the U.S. to come on board.
NEWS
By Jim Tankersley and Mark Z. Barabak | September 5, 2008
ST. PAUL, Minn. - With soft rebukes of his opponent and his own party - and harsh words for the culture of Washington - Sen. John McCain claimed the Republican presidential nomination last night and promised that "change is coming" after eight years of the Bush Administration. The address was much like the candidate: forceful and blunt-spoken, with little of Obama's lyricism. McCain filled it with biography and calls for bipartisanship, hammering his convention theme of "country first" and jabbing Obama.
NEWS
By Paul West | September 4, 2008
St. Paul, Minn. - John McCain's 10-year climb from his desk in the Senate to his party's presidential ticket will top out this evening at an arena in Minnesota. McCain, who was formally nominated last night, has memorably addressed national conventions since Ronald Reagan's presidency. His moving, patriotic speech nominating Bob Dole in 1996 helped mark McCain as a rising Republican star. But the stakes are higher than ever. McCain is trying to catch Barack Obama in the polls. At a late-starting convention, delayed by Monday's hurricane, he has been buffeted by questions about his running mate and how he chose her. Republican politicians and strategists, and independent analysts, identified five big things McCain should be shooting for when he steps onstage, sometime after 10 p.m. Sharpen the contrast McCain should draw sharp lines of difference with his Democratic opponent over experience in government, expertise in international and military matters, and tax-and-spend policies.
NEWS
By Cheryl Miller | August 28, 2008
Cheryl Miller, 55, and her husband, Michael, coordinate the Volunteers for Obama office in Anne Arundel County. She is an Annapolis resident and mother of two who runs a home-based event-planning business. Despite studying political science at Lycoming College in Pennsylvania, Miller was not particularly involved in politics until this year. She was invited to a fundraiser last fall and soon found herself immersed in the Obama campaign, working phone banks and traveling to Ohio and Pennsylvania to knock on doors.
NEWS
By Los Angeles Times | August 11, 2008
ST. PAUL, Minn. - Republican Party officials have developed a well-deserved reputation for planning ever more extravagant national conventions, each built on the party's ability to secure abundant cash. But just six weeks before the convention - at which Sen. John McCain of Arizona is to accept his party's nomination - executives found they were about $10 million short of what they needed for a party they had already cut back. Officials say that they have already secured most of the funds and that meeting budget needs was never in doubt.
NEWS
By Tom De Luca | April 30, 2008
Sen. Hillary Clinton's win in Pennsylvania's Democratic primary underscores the need for the Democratic Party to bring the nomination battle to a swift and fair conclusion as soon as possible. The best way to do that is to move the Democratic nominating convention from the end of August to the end of June. Why? When Democrats vote in Indiana and North Carolina on Tuesday, they will probably render a split decision, with Sen. Barack Obama handily winning in the South and Mrs. Clinton eking out an industrial Midwest victory.
NEWS
By Joshua Spivak | January 22, 2008
The 2008 primaries have quickly shaped up as the most interesting in recent memory. Both parties' races are so tight and in flux that there is a chance in each party that no candidate will have captured enough votes to secure the nomination before the convention rolls around. This may be a far greater danger for the Democrats, because of a rule enacted by previous party leaders aimed at maintaining control over their presidential choice. In 2008, the result may be a Democratic convention choosing a nominee who lacks the legitimacy of being the "people's choice."
NEWS
By Jill Rosen | August 13, 2007
WASHINGTON -- They're armed with lobster and heirloom tomatoes, with plush carpets and flattering lighting, with a custom-designed bus. With free-flowing Chateauneuf-du-Pape, with endearing little presents, with fawning attention. Such elegant weaponry - one could almost forget there's true combat under way here as Baltimore, with its best crab cakes and confit, attempts to capture enough convention business to stay alive in a game that can be as gracious as it is ruthless. In a corner of Washington's posh Ritz Carlton last week, Baltimore's convention sales team courted a roomful of decision-makers, people who might bring their lucrative annual meetings to Charm City - or choose to take them to a town that charms them more.
NEWS
By CHICAGO TRIBUNE | August 14, 2006
CHICAGO -- The organizers of massive coast-to-coast immigrant marches tried to keep their growing national movement headed in the same direction yesterday by devising a strategy for the fall elections. About 400 people from 25 states gathered for a two-day national convention in Hillside, Ill., to debate how best to achieve legalization for the nation's 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants and a moratorium on raids and deportations by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Immigrant leaders created their first formal national structure, taking the place of a loose catch-all of labor unions, immigrant advocacy groups, ministers and students whose informality was once viewed as a strength.
NEWS
By NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE | June 10, 2006
LAS VEGAS -- Hundreds of liberal (they'd say progressive) Internet bloggers crawled out of their cybertunnels for face-time and political networking here at the first-ever YearlyKos convention. Named after DailyKos.com, the widely read political Web log by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the three-day convention that opened Thursday is something of a milestone - an event that unites the irreverent and ever-morphing liberal blogosphere with mainstream political figures who have begun to recognize the bloggers' potential influence.