Palin: The road back to nowhere

Contributors

Rampant speculation continues over what Sarah Palin’s plans regarding 2012 might be. The conventional wisdom: She’s running, no question about it, yep, she is, damn the torpedoes, or she’s not, because she’d rather be a conservative celebrity, because being a conservative celebrity pays more than being a presidential candidate. I’d like to throw in a…

Tom Perriello: Permanent Medicare reimbursement fix

Contributors

Last week, Congress took an important step to make sure that our senior citizens can continue to see their doctors for care by protecting the reimbursement rates for doctors who participate in the Medicare system. The House passed bipartisan legislation that blocks the 25 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors that could have gone…

Kidd: The fundamentals in Virginia politics haven’t changed

Chris Graham

At first glance, Virginia has flipped, big time. The Old Dominion was blue in 2008, and has been bright red since, with Republicans sweeping the 2009 state races and taking three of the six seats held by incumbent Democrats in the 2010 congressional midterms. Not so fast, says Quentin Kidd, a political-science professor at Christopher…

Alan Ramsey: Questions about the 2010 elections

Contributors

I was a Reagan Democrat and Republican activist from ’80-’06. My views have changed as this new-age, anti-Reagan Republican Party has devolved away from the Constitution into a party of extreme hatred and racial, religious and ethnic bigotry, claiming they’re the only “true” patriots and “real” Americans: everyone else is somehow un-American and “liberal” (as…

Sarah van Gelder: Families can’t afford to stay home on Election Day

Contributors

If you’re like me, this election doesn’t feel anything like 2008. The excitement and hope of that historic election have been replaced by worry and disappointment. The 2008 campaigns at least occasionally addressed our country’s serious problems. This year it’s all noise, attacks, and accusations. Little actual policy makes it through. Meanwhile, billionaires, big oil,…

Economic engine: In the trenches with small-business owners

Contributors

At the height of the real-estate boom, business was indeed booming for Brian Mininger. “Our biggest issue wasn’t getting business, it was how in the world can we keep up with it and service it,” said Mininger, whose Fishersville-based home-remodeling business, Home Innovations, was doing hundreds of thousands of dollars of remodeling work annually before…

Press Conference: Al Groh

Chris Graham

Georgia Tech defensive coordinator Al Groh talks with the media in advance of the team’s game with Virginia on Saturday. On how Saturday’s game will be different “Every Saturday night, there are only two ways you can feel in your competition. You can feel a sense of satisfaction from accomplishment you get because the result…

Vanke defends release of push poll

Chris Graham

Independent candidate Jeff Vanke is defending his campaign’s release of a two-question push poll that was touted in e-mail as showing him within four points of incumbent Sixth District Congressman Bob Goodlatte. “My campaign is not ’tilting at windmills,’ as one journalist asked me about,” Vanke wrote in an e-mail to members of the media…