ArcaMax

Brian Murray knows just how fierce an opponent Arizona's Sen. Kyrsten Sinema can be. The Republican strategist saw his candidate lose to Democrat Sinema in their 2012 race for the House.

Calling the experience "unpleasant," Murray admits his candidate, Vernon Parker, was flawed, but "flawed candidates win all of the time. Kyrsten, however, was ...Read more

ARKANSAS -- Clay Newcomb is on a personal mission to explore things forgotten in a digital world that moves past people and experiences at the speed of light. He revels in places, communities, traditions and lives that still remain deeply relevant to a lot of people and cultures across our country but risk being lost.

It was a mission he began ...Read more

PITTSBURGH -- On the morning of Election Day in western Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf mentioned on a local radio show that his wife had submitted his mail-in ballot for him -- a direct violation of Pennsylvania election law punishable by up to a year in prison, a $1,000 fine or possibly both.

Had the progressive Democrat signed the ...Read more

ERIE, Pennsylvania -- Voters in the Keystone State, as in Virginia, took Tuesday's election as an opportunity to rebut Democrats' overreach. Driven by the loudest voices in their national party toward issues of social justice, "intersectionality" and "climate justice," Democrats suffered for ignoring everyday issues such as inflation, crime and ...Read more

Last April, when Major League Baseball pulled the All-Star Game out of suburban Atlanta in what it thought was a strident example of the powerful corporate punishment states would face if Republican lawmakers passed laws MLB did not like, its corporate, academic and cultural peers applauded the move.

Commissioner Rob Manfred's decision was seen...Read more

RICHMOND, Virginia -- Some of the many overlooked but critically important offices in the American political landscape are the ones held by state legislators and members of general assemblies. These are the people who are most like us, the ones who live in neighborhoods close to ours, sit in the pews on Sundays and attend the local high school ...Read more

PITTSBURGH -- Twenty years ago, Paul Carson said he never would have hesitated to speak out at a school board meeting about any issue affecting his children's education.

But one day, that changed. "I just don't do it," Carson told me. A physician who practices medicine in an urban Pittsburgh hospital, Carson said it has nothing to do with his ...Read more

MIDLAND, Pennsylvania -- For as much cash and strategy as partisans put into creating a wave for their own parties, they always seem to miss where the ripple starts and why.

Part of the reason they miss it is that they are in Washington and not in places such as this one.

Midland is a borough in Beaver County -- an urban area that hugs the ...Read more

LOWER ALLEN TOWNSHIP, Pennsylvania -- Sometimes, a community's relationship with its culture and its people is so strong it can withstand anything that tries to break it apart. Such durability is a testimony to the sense of what Americans have within their communities.

On social media, we mostly read about traditions falling to the mob or, ...Read more

Take all of the imagery you have seen of the over 14,000 Haitian migrants camped under an international bridge in the small Texas border town of Del Rio and add the complications of disease, public excrement, unbearable heat and heightened frustrations. It has led to violence that has injured Border Patrol officers.

Now close your eyes and ...Read more

MIDDLETOWN, Pennsylvania -- When judging the nation's character, the media tend to gravitate toward its loudest voices, its most extreme measures, its deepest grudges. The result is a loss of all subtlety and nuance.

In the days and weeks following Aug. 26, when our nation lost 13 service members in a deadly terror attack in Afghanistan, ...Read more

SHANKSVILLE, Pennsylvania -- The first thing you notice about Frank Siller is the resolve in his mission. Each step he takes along Shanksville Road on the outskirts of this Somerset County town is done with purpose.

The sound the steps make is a forward motion; there is no hint of retreat.

You can imagine it is a trait he shared with his ...Read more

Last Thursday, Aug. 26, at 6:00 p.m. in Kabul, a suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest as American troops at Abbey Gate were processing entrants to Hamid Karzai International Airport. Nearly 200 people died at that horrific moment, including 13 U.S. service members.

It was a horrific massacre that didn't need to happen.

There is only one...Read more