Republican National Convention

Democrats had to make some hasty and awkward changes to their 2012 platform. The GOP platform passed smoothly but contains some controversial language. Important as it is to set down in writing what a political party believes in, it has become increasingly verboten to talk about it too publicly. There are two big reasons why.

The Democratic National Convention is underway this week in Charlotte, North Carolina. Several members of Colorado’s Congressional Delegation are…

This year’s Democratic National Convention is more than 1,500 miles away from Denver, but Colorado’s imprint is clearly visible during the gathering in…

Just 2 percent of delegates at the Republican National Convention were black. That's higher than the percentage that supported Mitt Romney in a recent poll: 0. And getting blacks on board may prove especially hard for the GOP presidential candidate given the tone of some recent campaign ads and a wave of new voter ID laws.

Anti-government sentiment has deep roots in the Republican Party — from Ronald Reagan's proclamation, "government is the problem," to last week's convention. But the message has had most of its success in the abstract, and sometimes Republicans aren't putting the ideology into practice.

Along with campaigns and conventions come a mountain of political stuff: T-shirts, bumper stickers, buttons and everything in between. Much of it will remain just stuff, but some will be gathered by National Museum of American History curators Larry Bird and Harry Rubenstein, and become part of the Smithsonian collection. We hear what makes the cut and what they found at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida this week.

The Republican National Convention has been designed to appeal to many different voting groups, including Hispanics. But is there a gap between the speakers on the stage and the voters in the states?

That's when Democratic vice-presidential nominee Burton K. Wheeler debated an invisible President Coolidge in front of a packed hall.

Scott Finn of WUSF Public Media in Tampa, Fla., wonders why some media reports paint his city — host of the Republican National Convention — as "a disaster" and the "strip club capital of the world." He says Tampa looks as much like America as anywhere else and that bashers should back off.

Transcript of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's acceptance speech as prepared for delivery at the Republican National…