Savvy Republicans know that something is deeply wrong with the GOP—frequently mocked these days by Republicans themselves as "the stupid party"—which has lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential

 The ruin and hardship inflicted by a natural disaster can reveal truths that political propaganda tends to obscure. When Hurricane Sandy destroyed swaths of the Northeast, darkened our largest city and plunged

Even modern political conventions, which are often little more than highly scripted party...