Star Tribune

Minneapolis voters spoke loudly last week when, by a nearly 2-to-1 ratio, they chose a new kind of balloting for most city elections -- instant-runoff voting...

But if all goes through, the 2009 election for mayor and City Council will be like nothing Minneapolis voters have seen.

Instead of two elections for those offices -- a primary and a general contest -- there will be just one. The ballot will ask voters to rank their first, second and third choices for each… more

The choice of Zell Miller, a far-right Southern Democrat, as the keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention probably did not help the GOP attract moderate swing voters. But it symbolizes the degree to which the Republican Party has become the party of the Deep South.

In 1860, the Republican candidate for president, Abraham Lincoln, did not receive a single Southern electoral vote for president, and his election inspired the South to secede. The liberalism of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry… more