November 7, 2012  |   Poll workers watch over voters at the Cottageville Municipal Complex during the U.S. presidential election in Cottageville, South Carolina, November 6, 2012. Photo by REUTERS/ Randall Hill. Elections produce many things, from balloon drops to new elected officials, but...

July 25, 2012  |   The Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colo., where 12 people were killed Thursday night. Photo by Thomas Cooper/Getty Images. Less than a week after the mass shooting in a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., that left 12 dead...

June 14, 2012  |   President and Mrs. Obama campaign at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond in May. Photo by Sara D. Davis/Getty Images ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The home of the University of Michigan is in its quiet summer mode in June, as...

June 5, 2012  |   Supporters of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who is trying to unseat Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, attend a rally on Friday. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images. In a year when most analysts are expecting a close presidential election, nearly everyone...

May 24, 2012  |   An all-terrain vehicle exits the cargo bay of a Kentucky Air Guard C-130 onto the flight line at Fort Campbell, Ky. U.S. Air Force photo by Maj. Dale Greer via Flickr. HOPKINSVILLE, Ky. | Memorial Day weekend will feel...

May 9, 2012  |   Photo by Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images What's the significance of President Obama's evolution on gay marriage? In terms of policy, probably not much. He made clear in his interview with ABC News that he still considers the issue...

May 2, 2012  |   Mitt Romney speaks in Wisconsin in April. Photo via Getty Images With six months to go until Election Day, the 2012 presidential contest is only now beginning to take shape. In the coming days the campaigns of President Obama...

April 24, 2012  |   GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks in in Wilmington, Del., on April 11. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images The 2012 election is going to be about the economy. We've heard that for the last year as analysts have diagnosed...

April 4, 2012  |   Rick Santorum greets supporters Tuesday during a primary night rally in Mars, Pa. Photo by Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum sounded defiant as ever in his speech Tuesday night, but after a sweep by Mitt...

April 3, 2012  |   Mitt Romney greets supporters Sunday during a pancake brunch in Milwaukee. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images. As former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has picked up momentum and endorsements over the last few weeks, his armor of inevitability has grown...

March 30, 2012  |   Photo by Paul Thomas/Bloomberg via Getty Images. No one likes paying more for anything, but there's something special about gasoline. It's a price increase that's very hard to avoid, and it's directly tied to one of the nation’s central...

March 21, 2012  |   Mitt Romney addresses supporters during his Illinois primary victory party. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images. Updated with new map at 2:56 p.m. | Mitt Romney won big in Illinois -- double digits. He claimed the breakout victory many analysts...

March 20, 2012  |   Mitt Romney is polling well in the Chicago area against Rick Santorum. Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images. With a big lead in delegates and a solid lead in national polls, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is seemingly past the...

March 14, 2012  |   GOP candidate Rick Santorum speaks during a meeting with veterans Wednesday in Puerto Rico. Photo by Christopher Gregory/Getty Images Like a political Energizer Bunny, the Republican nominating campaign keeps going and going and going. Big wins on Tuesday for...

March 13, 2012  |   Mitt Romney speaks with comedian Jeff Foxworthy following a campaign appearance at the Whistle Stop cafe on Monday in Mobile, Ala. Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images. At first glance, the polls leading into the next set of Republican primaries...

March 7, 2012  |   Coming out of Super Tuesday, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has a bigger lead in delegates, a nice push of momentum and, in some quarters, a growing sense that the GOP presidential nomination is slowly falling into his hands. Romney...

March 6, 2012  |   Rick Santorum campaigns in Lake County, Ohio, last week. Photo by Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images. This Tuesday is "super" in the Republican nominating battle because of sheer volume. There are 11 states holding votes and more than 400 delegates at...

February 28, 2012  |   WARREN, Mich. | If you want a sense of the challenges Mitt Romney and the GOP have in Michigan, you could learn a lot from standing on the corner of Mound and East 9 Mile roads here in suburban...

February 23, 2012  |   Creative Commons photo courtesy Flickr user innpictime Sometimes it's the small indicators that carry the most economic significance. For months now the unemployment rate and consumer spending numbers have shown signs of a slowly improving economy. The Dow Jones...

February 15, 2012  |   Mitt Romney campaigns in Reno, Nev., in early February. Photo by Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images It may be that Mitt Romney's problem, his falling numbers since last week in state and national polls, is his base. Nine states...

February 8, 2012  |   Former Sen. Rick Santorum speaks to supporters Tuesday in St. Charles, Mo.; Photo by Whitney Curtis/Getty Images So what exactly happened Tuesday night? Suddenly former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has reemerged from the pack to claim the Republican spotlight...

February 1, 2012  |   With a dominating win in Florida, the Romney campaign moves forward with a nice push of momentum into February. And now, well, who knows? The one certainty of the 2012 presidential campaign thus far is its uncertainty. It wasn't long...

January 31, 2012  |   Mitt Romney holds a campaign rally Monday in Dunedin, Fla. Photo by Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images. The game of presidential see-saw the GOP has been playing in 2012 continues Tuesday night in Florida. A short 10 days ago former House...

January 18, 2012  |   Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman leaves a campaign stop at Crosby's Bakery on Jan. 9 in Nashua, N.H.; Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images Nashua, N.H. | When you have been down a long time, as the U.S. economy has...

January 11, 2012  |   Mitt Romney had a lot of advantages going into New Hampshire -- from residency to voter demographics -- and in the end it all showed up on Tuesday night. The former Massachusetts governor won nine of the state's 10 counties....

January 10, 2012  |   If you were devising a state where GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney could do well in a vote, it would probably look a lot like New Hampshire. Romney was the governor of Massachusetts, which sits next door. He has a...

January 4, 2012  |   Everyone will talk about who won in Iowa. But the real story out of the state is the sharp divide in the vote -- and one that might be expected. We wrote earlier that the most likely result out of...

January 3, 2012  |   Iowans listen to Texas Rep. Ron Paul last week during a town hall meeting at the Sioux Center Public Library. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images. Everyone likes to win, but sometimes it's better to finish second. Up in the...

December 27, 2011  |   President Obama speaks in the White House Rose Garden; file photo by Jim WatsonAFP/Getty Images. Barack Obama has not had an easy ride as president. He took office as the economy was collapsing on many fronts -- spikes in...

December 12, 2011  |   Like a very, very long episode of the TV series 24, the White House website's We Can't Wait clock ticks down. The clock, which displays the amount of time left before the current payroll tax cut expires, is meant...

November 30, 2011  |   A European Union flag and Greek national flag fly near the Parthenon temple; Photo by Angelos Tzortzinis/Bloomberg via Getty Images There have been Rick Perry's "What's number three?" gaffe and the allegations against Herman Cain. But the biggest story...

November 17, 2011  |   Job seekers and employers meet in Ontario, Calif.; file photo by David McNew/Getty Images Over the last four years, scanning the nation's business headlines has become something best done with a pack of Tums at the ready. From housing...

November 7, 2011  |   Fresh produce is viewed at the Central Park United Methodist Church weekly food pantry on Oct.19, 2011 in Reading, Pennsylvania. The church feeds thousands of needy Reading residents monthly and relies on donations and volunteers to keep its increasingly...

November 3, 2011  |   Mitt Romney greets volunteers; photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images The 2012 primary contests have not yet begun, but one trend has emerged in the early stages of the campaign. In national polls, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney sits firmly...

October 26, 2011  |   Texas Gov. Rick Perry; Justin Sullivan/Getty Images As the early stages of the 2012 campaign progress, a new question has come into play: Are the rich really different? Or, more specifically, should they be treated differently in the U.S....

October 20, 2011  |   Renzo Salazar places a sign in front of a foreclosed home on Oct. 13 in Miami, Florida; Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images It is all but impossible to pinpoint one key problem in the U.S. economy -- manufacturing declines,...

October 11, 2011  |   Occupy Wall Street demonstrator. File photo by Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images What began in Manhattan more than three weeks ago with the rallying cry to "occupy Wall Street" has grown to become something more. The loosely organized liberal protest group...

September 21, 2011  |   Home in foreclosure; Getty file photo After months of declines, foreclosures were up again in August by about 7 percent compared to July. That's not good news to anyone hoping for an economic turnaround. But look closer at where...

September 16, 2011  |   Downtown Nashua, N.H. Photo by Flickr user StarrGazr NASHUA, N.H. - There are a lot of towns in America that would trade places with this city, which sits just over the Massachusetts border. The unemployment rate is an unusually...

September 9, 2011  |   Ten years later there can be little question that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have changed much in the United States -- everything from decisions on foreign policy to government spending priorities to airport security. And while those attacks...

September 8, 2011  |   Foreclosed home for sale in Haymarket, Va.; Flickr Creative Commons/taberandrew President Obama will head to Congress Thursday night to talk about jobs and the economy -- the issues dominating the minds of American voters. But before the economy actually...

September 2, 2011  |   President Obama shakes hands with people after speaking about immigration reform in May in El Paso, Texas. Photo by Pete Souza/White House President Obama's public approval numbers may be down, but he still has a large number of supporters...

September 1, 2011  |   GOP presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney and Ron Paul; file photo Saying you like a candidate is one level of support. Putting a sign in your yard is a bit more. But when your support turns into dollars, ah, there's...

August 26, 2011  |   Smokestacks belch out smoke at a factory; file photo In every election there are a few issues that shape the look and feel of the campaign, and even in the earliest stages of the 2012 race, one issue has...

August 19, 2011  |   Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Friday in New York; photo by Scott Eells/Bloomberg via Getty Images In an unstable time, the Dow Jones industrial average has become something of an economic zeitgeist checker....

August 12, 2011  |   The jobless rate in the nation's Monied Burb county types rose to 8.5 percent in June; Creative Commons photo courtesy flickr.com/shoa What's wrong with the U.S. economy? Ugliness abounds. The Dow is way down, then it is way up,...

August 10, 2011  |   The Democrats came close in their recall fight in the Wisconsin state senate, but they wound up a seat short -- two wins in six tries. So the upper chamber in Madison stays in the hands of the GOP --...

August 4, 2011  |   A look inside the Denver International Airport control center; photo by John Moore/Getty Images After months of squabbling and coming to the brink of national default, Democrats and Republicans finally came together in the end to produce a debt-ceiling...

July 29, 2011  |   Lincoln City, Ore., relies heavily on a tourism economy, which many business owners say is flat this year. Photo by Flickr user Anne S. Lucas. LINCOLN CITY, ORE. | Politicians like to make linkages. They like to take a...

July 21, 2011  |   Fond du Lac County; Creative Commons photo courtesy flickr.com/auvet After two weeks of recall elections in Wisconsin, the Democratic Party has some things to crow about. On Tuesday, the party held onto the one seat it could have lost...

July 19, 2011  |   Voters in Wisconsin are headed to the polls Tuesday for the second time in a week as part of another spate of recall elections. These three are for state Senate seats held by Democrats. And on Aug. 9, there...

July 15, 2011  |   Ah, summer in Wisconsin. Brats on the grill, time at the lake -- and recall elections. The Badger State's recall-palooza got underway this week on Tuesday with six Democratic primaries that selected the candidates that will challenge six incumbent Republican...

July 11, 2011  |   Job seekers register and pick up jobs fliers from employers at a June jobs fair in Los Angeles; Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images This post was updated at 10:47 a.m. ET on July 12 In the last week, the...

July 7, 2011  |   Lincoln City, Oregon; photo by Dante Chinni, Patchwork Nation If you want a scorecard for the behemoth we call the American economy, there is no shortage of measurements. Every week brings reports on everything from jobless claims to gas...

July 1, 2011  |   A carpenter installs vinyl siding for a new home under construction in Raleigh, N.C., in May. Photo by Jim R. Bounds/Bloomberg via Getty. As the economic troubles that began with the last recession drag on and on, the drop...

June 29, 2011  |   In a recent post, we examined the prevalence of food deserts, places with limited access to affordable and nutritious food. In 2006, 2.4 million households were located in food deserts, defined for households as being more than a mile from...

June 24, 2011  |   The unemployment rate is more than 9 percent. Banks are swimming in foreclosures. It's no wonder that the 2012 campaign is shaping up to be about the economy. Who wouldn't want to "fix" numbers like those? Ah, but there's...

June 23, 2011  |   President Barack Obama's call for steep reductions in the number of troops on the ground in Afghanistan is likely to be met with applause from people in nearly all of Patchwork Nation's 12 county types. But their feelings about...

May 25, 2011  |   In politics, it's not always whether you win, sometimes the places you lose, and the way you lose them, can be just as informative. Democrats are celebrating their win in New York's 26th congressional district. A few months ago, their...

May 24, 2011  |   EAGLE, Colo. | The last few years have given people in this Rocky Mountain town good reason to be angry. While no community has escaped the toll of the great recession, Eagle has seen a fundamental change in its...

May 18, 2011  |   The 2012 election cometh, and as of right now the Republican field of candidates seems unsettled at best. Before it has even formed, the herd has been thinned. Witness former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's step out of the election pool...

May 13, 2011  |   Looking at the housing market is enough to give anyone a serious dose of cognitive dissonance. Take the April foreclosure numbers. The data, just released this week from RealtyTrac, shows what could only be labeled, at first blush anyway, as...

May 11, 2011  |   With the 2012 presidential race in early stages and the political press looking for clues about the mood of the electorate, politics in Wisconsin has become a national story. The battles between new Republican Gov. Scott Walker, Democrats and the...

May 3, 2011  |   The impromptu celebrations that broke out following news that U.S. forces had killed terrorist Osama Bin Laden, were not limited to the New York and Washington. In places as far away as Columbus, Ohio; Austin, Texas and Dearborn, Mich.,...

April 29, 2011  |   Are the hopes for an economic recovery disappearing into our gas tanks? On Thursday the Commerce Department reported economic growth had slowed to an annual rate of 1.8 percent. It had been projected to be as high as 4 percent....

April 19, 2011  |   From Wisconsin to Ohio to Indiana, the new Republican powers in statehouses have made clear that one of their chief targets is public sector unions. In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker fought for and eventually won passage of a bill that...

April 14, 2011  |   When is good news not as good as it seems? Well, the foreclosure numbers from the first quarter of 2011 offer a good example. The news seems positive at first blush, as headlines declare declining foreclosure activity: Foreclosure filings hit...

April 13, 2011  |   Was it a temporary dip or a fundamental restructuring of the American economy? As the last recession dragged on and on, that was the larger question hanging over the country. And yet it remains unanswered. The debate will likely...

April 7, 2011  |   The political world, especially its left side, is abuzz over Tuesday's special state Supreme Court election in Wisconsin. The race was nonpartisan, at least technically. On Thursday, the official count of the election swung back to give the lead...

April 5, 2011  |   To shut down or not to shut down? As the budget battles go on in Congress, that is the question in Washington. And in recent days it seems the momentum toward a shutdown has grown. On Monday morning members...

March 30, 2011  |   What difference can a few miles make? It may be the difference between living a healthy life and struggling against a sea of health problems, according to a new study that ranks the relative health of counties. The study...

March 28, 2011  |   The federal government wants you to have access to a broadband connection. Badly. The Federal Communications Commission has held dozens of workshops and filed away more than 23,000 comments on its National Broadband Plan. "High-speed wireless service is the...

March 24, 2011  |   For as long as anyone cares to remember, Detroit has been Michigan's center of gravity. There have been challengers from time to time. Lansing is the capital. Grand Rapids is a power base in the west. But ultimately, the state...

March 14, 2011  |   View of Philadelphia from Glenwood Green Acres public garden; Creative Commons photo courtesy flickr.com/tonythemisfit In the debate about income inequality in America, many stories miss an important point: rising disparities are not just about investment bankers versus autoworkers. They're...

March 8, 2011  |   Living a healthy lifestyle is not easy in the U.S.; keeping fit can be tough in the land of supersizes and never-ending pasta bowls. But the health problems aren't the same everywhere, and in a paper released Tuesday, the Centers...

March 4, 2011  |   As the 2010 Census results start to roll out, America is beginning its decennial demographic "who are we" discussion. Are we older than 10 years ago? Are we more diverse? And where are we going -- literally -- when...

March 2, 2011  |   As protesters march throughout the Middle East, forcing regime changes, they have set the oil markets into a panic. On Feb. 1, crude oil futures were trading at just under $75 a barrel. By Feb. 28, they were trading at...

February 25, 2011  |   Firefighters at Feb. 19 rally in Madison, Wis.; Flickr Creative Commons photo courtesy CindyH Photography What started in Wisconsin as a budget fight about the wages and bargaining power of public-sector unions has grown into a national fight as...

February 15, 2011  |   The annual arrival of the president's proposed federal budget is always more of a show than a real news event - a starting point for congressional additions and subtractions - but that is especially true this year with the new...

February 11, 2011  |   Foreclosure sign in Haymarket, Va. Reading economic numbers is not easy in 2011. This indicator or that one may sound hopeful -- but there is always a caveat. So it is with the latest foreclosure numbers....

February 10, 2011  |   New Orleans as seen From space on Jan. 26; Creative Commons photo courtesy NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center Long before last year's Census, it was clear that New Orleans was a changed city. A drive past the vacant homes...

February 4, 2011  |   The scenes playing out in Egypt and across the Arab world are not just dramatic, they are remaking the region and U.S. policy for years to come. Regimes have been pushed out leaving an unsettled landscape in one of...

February 2, 2011  |   Nixa, Mo.'s Main Street; Creative Commons photo courtesy Casey Spivey NIXA, Mo. | By most standard measures -- gross domestic product, consumer spending and the like -- the United States is in the midst of a steady, albeit very...

January 20, 2011  |   In terms of keeping promises, Wednesday's vote to repeal the health reform law stands as a significant checkmark on the House Republican agenda, but what does it mean outside of Washington? Maybe not as much as GOP leaders hope....

January 19, 2011  |   Philadelphia's City Hall building. Photo via Flickr user Th.omas. PHILADELPHIA | High atop the city hall the statue of William Penn looks down on this city and sees a city that stands as a symbol of the hopes and...

January 14, 2011  |   When Congress returns to Washington to begin work in earnest following the shootings of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 18 other people in Tucson, gun control advocates will likely be making the case for new measures. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D- N.Y.,...

January 7, 2011  |   On Thursday, as their first act, members of the new Republican-led House read the U.S. Constitution aloud. The reading was not about civics - one would assume lawmakers have the basics down by now - it was a sign...

January 4, 2011  |   Say this about Americans: they are nothing if not hopeful. While 2009 and 2010 may have brought economic trouble and pain, the mood among most Americans appears surprisingly upbeat going into 2011. In each of Patchwork Nation's 12 county...

December 29, 2010  |   Christmas 2010 is in the past and New Year's is approaching, which means it's time to start thinking about ... 2012. Yes, Iowa and New Hampshire are more than a year away, but for presidential hopefuls the political calculations...

December 23, 2010  |   Wal-Mart shoppers in Syracuse, N.Y.; Creative Commons photo courtesy flickr.com/number13001/ As the Christmas gift season winds down there are distinct holiday retail stories emerging - one for the wealthiest communities and one for places that are struggling. Luxury retailers...

December 21, 2010  |   DREAM Act supporters file out of the Senate Gallery after watching its defeat on Dec. 18; Photo by Bill Clark/Roll Call This year brought big changes in to the United States. The midterm elections shuffled the balance of power...

December 16, 2010  |   In the three years since the great American housing collapse became a big story, there is good news to report. The numbers are down. But maybe not for long. The latest home foreclosure data from RealtyTrac show that last...

December 7, 2010  |   As the debate over extending the Bush-era tax cuts plays out in Washington, an important element is being left out of the debate - geography. This tax cut debate has a similar sound to others in Congress. Republicans back extending...

December 2, 2010  |   On Tuesday, Congress refused to further extended long-term unemployment benefits, keeping the cut-off at 99 weeks. That doesn't mean the fight is over. Democrats continue to argue for more time, while Republicans say the country can't afford it. But...

November 30, 2010  |   Of all the factors that go into making a community the local school system may be the most critical. Better schools not only equal better-educated kids, but often better property values and a better quality of life. On Tuesday, a...

November 26, 2010  |   Hoping to cash in on the annual holiday season gift-giving frenzy Toy R Us opened its doors this year at 10 o'clock. That's p.m. -- on Thanksgiving. Other stores didn't even wait for Turkey Day. If you found yourself...

November 22, 2010  |   As a measure of economic pain, bankruptcies carry a special power. A bankruptcy is more than losing one's job or home, it is essentially calling for a complete financial do-over. Since 2007, the number of bankruptcies in the United...

November 15, 2010  |   Two weeks after the 2010 midterms, the results are receding into the past, and the new reality is settling in. But before we go too far down the road of analyzing the shift in the American voting public - the...

November 5, 2010  |   As the Democrats sort through the wreckage of Tuesday night, the question "what just happened?" is undoubtedly running through their minds. Was it Tea Party enthusiasm that buried them or anger at the economy or a loss of faith...

November 2, 2010  |   While all the conversation tonight will be about the battle for control of Congress, analysts and experts note that the "battle" is actually 435 smaller contests, each with its own demographic makeup and ideological terrain. True enough. But Patchwork Nation...

October 28, 2010  |   If much of the electorate is driven by anger, much of that anger is driven by foreclosures. As Patchwork Nation has measured the number of tea party "meetups" in the last four months, one type of congressional district has...

October 21, 2010  |   _pap_embeddable; Ohio's 16th District all begins with Canton. The former manufacturing hub in the northeasternpart of the state has simultaneously shrunk in population and yet grown in the ranks of Ohio cities - climbing to the state's...

October 18, 2010  |   In an election year where voter anger has been the topic on everyone's minds, the loose confederation of groups and interests known as the Tea Party movement has been a star attraction for political analysts. Hailed by some as...

October 11, 2010  |   As Patchwork Nation often notes, the diversity of communities in the United States makes it difficult to identify a single economic story. National GDP and unemployment numbers are not encouraging, but no one in American experiences those U.S. averages -...

October 4, 2010  |   If the Republican Party is going to recapture in November the 39 seats its needs to control the House, it is going to have to do exactly what the Democrats did in 2006 and 2008. Its candidates are going...

September 27, 2010  |   Updated: 5:04pm ET There is little doubt that the economy is the biggest driver of voter sentiment in 2010. Poll after poll shows economic anxieties are a serious concern for Americans. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the economy will...

September 24, 2010  |   The tea party movement may be a national story -- particularly after the victory of Christine O'Donnell in Delaware's Senate primary on Sept. 14 -- but the group's sway is much more localized. Some congressional districts are hot spots,...

September 20, 2010  |   After 2 1/2 years of economic trouble, it is hard to cite one singular reason voters are disgruntled going into fall. But one of the biggest culprits in the troubles is undoubtedly the housing market. So at Patchwork Nation, we...

September 17, 2010  |   There are usually two ways of looking at midterm congressional races, neither of them wholly accurate. There is the tendency to see the 435 separate House races as completely individual events - an idea that all politics is hyper...

September 13, 2010  |   The discussion about Islam in America has grown more heated - and ugly - in recent weeks, but the debate is not the same in every community. In some places the talk is concrete - there are diverse populations and...

September 2, 2010  |   What the military giveth, the military can taketh away. It's not a happy lesson, but it is one that many Military Bastions, counties around armed services installations, have learned in the recent years through rounds of base closings. And it...

August 30, 2010  |   Glenn Beck had a good Saturday. Depending on whose crowd estimate you want to believe -- always a tricky game -- somewhere between 87,000 and 500,000 people came to the National Mall for the TV and radio personality's "Restoring Honor"...

August 26, 2010  |   When you are down long enough it can be hard to recognize the start of a turnaround. That's actually been the story of the U.S. economy over the past eight months - a touch of good news, followed by set...

August 23, 2010  |   Amid all the headlines of U.S. soldiers coming home from Iraq, it's tempting to think of military communities filled with happily reunited families preparing to pick up where they left off. That's been a dominant story of the past...

August 20, 2010  |   When Barack Obama won the White House, a running theme among the press was how tactically smart the Obama team was in everything from their use of the Web to their ability to see the long-term and not sweat the...

August 11, 2010  |   How much money does it take to restart a sputtering economy? That's the question the federal government has been trying to figure out for the last year and a half. In the past year-plus the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act...

August 5, 2010  |   As this blog has noted in many posts, despite the media coverage of the political movement known as the tea party, it is difficult to tell what its impact is or will be in the fall. Looking at the results...

August 2, 2010  |   As August arrives and people begin thinking in earnest about the midterm elections, there is a growing discussion of the impact of President Obama on November. Last week the president told a group of Democratic congressmen he may offer help,...

July 28, 2010  |   Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election was broad-based, but when you look closely, it was mostly about the 'burbs. President Obama's margin of victory in the suburban counties Patchwork Nation calls the Monied 'Burbs was 12 percent. Four...

July 22, 2010  |   Detroit skyline. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images DETROIT | It's long been said that when the U.S. economy gets a cold, this city, with its reliance on the auto industry, gets pneumonia. The last few years have raised the...

July 14, 2010  |   In a country as complex as diverse as the United States, there aren't many issues that cut the same way everywhere. Some places may be strongly opposed, say to free trade, while others tend to be more supportive. Patchwork Nation...

July 12, 2010  |   In a country full of surly voters, Nevada holds claim to some of the surliest. Sky-high unemployment and foreclosure rates have created a volatile atmosphere and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid appears to be in for a major fight in...

July 8, 2010  |   Thursday night at 9:00 p.m. EST LeBron James will come down from Mount Basketball with an announcement. After months of deliberation, James, the 26-year-old NBA All-Star, will reveal to the world what many are waiting to hear: which of the...

July 8, 2010  |   No one doubted Arizona's new immigration law was going to have far-reaching repercussions - in areas ranging from law enforcement to unemployment. But as its implementation date approaches, some communities in the state are feeling new pains where their struggling...

July 5, 2010  |   For those hoping for a quick economic turnaround, the last few weeks have been a cold splash of water in the face. A string of bad housing reports and bad unemployment news have even optimistic economic forecasters shaking their...

July 1, 2010  |   <!-- _pap_embed_custom; //--><!]]> Six months into the 2010 primary season, the most-discussed new force in American politics, the tea party movement, remains something of a mystery. Wins by Republicans with tea party backing such as Rand Paul and Sharron Angle...

June 29, 2010  |   On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Constitution's Second Amendment right to bear arms applies to state and local gun control laws. And on Tuesday the overwhelming reaction was, now what? The ruling lacked specifics and may raise...

June 24, 2010  |   Turning on an economic recovery is not like turning on a light. Numbers improve and then, slowly, people begin to feel better and start to spend. In 2010 that means for any real economic improvement to have an impact on...

June 22, 2010  |   Some years the flow in politics is a torrent, a powerful river rushing in one direction where the coming impacts are obvious and clear. In summer, you can look ahead to November and see a pretty clear image of the...

June 16, 2010  |   Somewhere in the 50-plus days that raw crude has been spewing from a hole in the floor of the ocean, the Gulf oil spill became a political problem for the White House. But the problems for the president aren't...

June 9, 2010  |   <!-- _pap_embed_custom; //--><!]]> If you are looking for a unified theme out of Tuesday's round of primaries, good luck. In states holding the biggest votes of the night there were decidedly different storylines and lessons. The tea party movement had...

June 7, 2010  |   Measuring the health of the U.S. economy continues to be a dodgy game. Witness last week's job numbers that were nowhere as good as many had hoped. But a more complicated measure of improvement may be the U.S. housing market....

June 4, 2010  |   Of all the startling numbers out of the Gulf oil spill story, the most interesting one may be this: zero. That is the number of calls out of the Louisiana State legislature for any freeze on drilling in the Gulf....

June 1, 2010  |   Memorial Day, the unofficial kickoff of summer, means something more than just warmer temperatures and the coming end of the school year in some places. It is about turning five months of red ink to black. For vacation towns...

May 26, 2010  |   In an election year, the party in power ultimately lives or dies on the state of the economy -- or so goes the conventional wisdom. So, with a little less than six months before voters go to the polls, how...

May 24, 2010  |   Rand Paul's victory in the Kentucky Senate primary was hailed as the first victory for a true tea party candidate. In his victory speech, Paul himself announced he was coming to "take Washington back." But a primary is not a...

May 21, 2010  |   Foreclosures and interest rates are just numbers. Sometimes the best way to examine an economic meltdown is to jump into it with abandon, to witness the carnage up close. In a sense, that's what NPR's Planet Money reporting team did...

May 19, 2010  |   In a year where the biggest news is an unsettled electorate, everyone is looking for signposts and many think they saw them in Tuesday night's primary results - particularly in the Senate primaries in Pennsylvania and Kentucky. But in each...

May 18, 2010  |   U.S. Senate hopeful Rep. Joe Sestak campaigns in Philadelphia, Penn. In politics, winning is everything. And over the next few days there will be a lot of airtime and ink devoted to the winners of the Tuesday Pennsylvania, Kentucky,...

May 14, 2010  |   In the age of niche marketing there isn't much use for a standard stump speech, just ask President Obama. Over the past few months he has been roaming the country talking to crowds on what the White House calls a...

May 11, 2010  |   The nation's wealthy suburban areas, places we call the Monied 'Burb counties in Patchwork Nation, are often the fulcrum of election night. Home of famously independent voters, the decisions voters make in the Burbs, which hold some 69...

May 6, 2010  |   In a year when politicians and analysts want a grasp on what, by most accounts, is a volatile electorate, this past Tuesday's primaries in Indiana, Ohio and North Carolina provided a chance to read the tea leaves. Alas, those looking...

May 3, 2010  |   As analysts try to gauge the strength and meaning of the tea party movement there are two dominant questions: How much of the electorate do the disparate groups speak for and what is their primary objective? Those are difficult questions...

April 28, 2010  |   Standing in the spring of 2010 looking around at the economy, we think it's worth asking: What does a recovery look like? There have been positive signs lately - the auto industry looks much better and consumer confidence numbers are...

April 26, 2010  |   On Friday, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law what most everyone agrees is the most restrictive immigration law in the country. The law, which allows local police to stop and demand proof of citizenship from anyone suspected of being...

April 21, 2010  |   If you turned to a cable news channel in recent weeks, you may have seen a large group of "tea party" protesters, signs in hand, expressing outrage over government tyranny. But how big are those groups really? The tea party...

April 16, 2010  |   The story of Florida over the past half-century has been a story of real estate. Booms and busts and disputes between developers and preservationists can be deep and lead to tensions within communities in the state. We wrote about the...

April 14, 2010  |   Clermont, Fla. - Mike Glantz has never been particularly politically involved. But the 70-something decided he was bothered enough by what's going on in Washington to organize a "tea party" meeting in this central Florida community. He booked time in...

April 12, 2010  |   Clermont, Fla. -- Economic times are hard in this small town in the center of the Florida peninsula. Unemployment in Lake County hovers around 13 percent, and home foreclosures, which clocked in at about 5,800 last year, look to...

April 7, 2010  |   One thing seems clear from a look at President Obama's approval ratings: He is not as popular in April 2010 as he was in April 2009. Much of that is to be expected, of course: The presidential honeymoon often doesn't...

April 5, 2010  |   Ask the same question to people in Patchwork Nation's 12 community types and you will likely find very different answers. That is just what a group of journalism students from Syracuse University did last summer. The students, working on project...

March 31, 2010  |   The state of Internet connectivity in the U.S. has been a big story the past few weeks. Officials everywhere from the Federal Communications Commission to Google are looking to improve America's high-speed networks. But what exactly do the current networks...

March 29, 2010  |   Hyannis, Mass. -- The Massachusetts special Senate election is more than two months old now - ancient history by American political standards. But if you walk up Main Street here, past the Cape Cod Central Railroad Building, you'll still see...

March 24, 2010  |   The headlines may be all about health care reform this week, but throughout the United States, the biggest story continues to be the sputtering economy. Poll after poll shows that the economy and unemployment are the top issue with voters....

March 17, 2010  |   The Tea Party movement was in the news again Tuesday as some 1,000 followers came to Washington to oppose Democrats' final effort to pass health care reform. Since last summer, when the group gained recognition for its vocal opposition...

March 9, 2010  |   In recent months, political populism has been defined by the Tea Party movement and framed by ire aimed at debt and government spending. But populism is a phrase that defies easy ideological pigeonholing, and another view of populism was on...

March 2, 2010  |   If, as some suspect, the Supreme Court rules Americans Second Amendment rights take precedence over state and local laws, some will cheer and some will jeer, but the actual impact in different communities will be quite different. The spread of...

March 1, 2010  |   It is hard to find a place in America where times are not harder than they were last year. Across all of the 12 community types in Patchwork Nation, unemployment has spiked dramatically in the last year. Tensions are high....

February 24, 2010  |   Consumer confidence is down. Gas prices and unemployment are both up. A look at the latest Patchwork Nation's Economic Hardship Index -- a measure of key indicators including foreclosures, unemployment and gasoline prices - show that it's still rough out...

February 12, 2010  |   Every first lady takes on a mission during her time in the White House, and Michelle Obama this week said that hers would be childhood obesity with the program "Let's Move." The goal is to help improve the health of...