The battle for the heart and soul of the GOP

Chris Graham

The Top Story by Chris Graham   For a brief moment or two after the 2006 midterm elections, it had seemed that the Republican Party was perhaps going off its ideological moorings. The talk was reaching the level of near-clamor regarding how the GOP was going to have to consider retreating from the right-wing conservative…

Right to left? In what direction will Dems take national politics?

Chris Graham

The Top Story by Chris Graham   It hasn’t been that long since some in the punditry and the blogosphere were speculating aloud about how Republican victories in the race for the White House and in Congress in 2004 might be signaling the dawn of a GOP century. And it seems that now, instead of…

What the heck just happened?

Chris Graham

The Top Story by Chris Graham   You listen to Bob Goodlatte, Republican congressman from the Sixth District of Red State Virginia, heading into his eighth term, finishing out his second two-year term as chairman of the powerful House Agriculture Committee, talk about life on Capitol Hill, and you realize pretty quickly that a sea…

Can we all just get along?

Chris Graham

The Top Story by Chris Graham   The Shenandoah Valley is usually pretty tame as far as its politics goes – but even the solid Republican Mountain Valley has seen its share of contentiousness this political season. To wit … – One of the highlights of the Augusta County Fair this summer was an episode…

Bridging the race divide?

Chris Graham

The Top Story by Chris Graham   Daryl Davis has plenty of detractors – people who question his motives for wanting to meet with white supremacists, who wonder why an African-American man would of his own volition attend rallies of the Ku Klux Klan, who outright doubt his stories of conversions of racial separatists as…

An election at the grassroots: The Valley Family Forum and its role in the race in the 26th

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham The Democratic Party targeted the 26th House District seat being left open by the retirement of Republican incumbent Glenn Weatherholtz, and for good reason – namely, a win by Democrat Lowell Fulk would give the party a plum seat in a GOP stronghold in Rockingham County and the city of Harrisonburg.

30 seconds to Election Day: How campaigns use TV to reach voters

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham   They’ve spent $18 million to date on the 2005 gubernatorial campaign – and it could all come down to a folksy television spot that featured Jerry Kilgore and his twin brother, Terry, arguing over who is the better-looking one of the two. “No, I had no idea it would take…

The man who stopped the Unabomber

Chris Graham

The Top Story by Chris Graham David Kaczynski didn’t believe for a second that his brother, Ted, could have been the man known to the world as the Unabomber. “My initial reaction was, ‘Well, Ted’s never been violent. I can’t imagine him harming other people like this,’ ” said Kaczynski, whose wife, Linda, confronted him…