Politics

If you lived for a time in a place known as "Pleasure Island,'' you might think that would be a pretty good place to hang your hat.

Well, I did. And it wasn't.

Dayton, Ohio, is a city that is used to getting knocked flat on its back.

In the wake of Kentucky's close gubernatorial race, state lawmakers are considering a constitutional amendment that would trigger an automatic vote recount in close elections.

Everyone knows that the donkey is the mascot and symbol of the Democratic Party, and has been for some time.

For decades after that awful day of November 22, 1963 – and exactly two weeks from my 11th birthday – I had an overwhelmingly desire to see Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas.

Because on that day, when I was a fifth grader at Cleveland Elementary School in Dayton, Ohio, a horrific event was taking place nearly 1,000 miles away in Dealey Plaza, in the heart of downtown Dallas, Texas that would leave emotional scars on the hearts and minds of millions of children, traumatic memories that would last a lifetime.

There was a time when the leaders of the Democratic Party in Hamilton County had to crawl on their hands and knees and beg people to run for county offices.

Ten candidates are taking the stage for the November Democratic debate in Atlanta, amid public hearings in the impeachment inquiry into President Trump. NPR reporters will be providing fact checks and analysis throughout the debate. Follow along.

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When I finally do hang it up and retire from covering politics (there are those who wish I had done so long ago), I will be grateful for many things.

Among them will be the chance that writing about politics has given me to see this great, big country over the better part of the past five decades, from sea to shining sea.

For all the pre-election wind Donald Trump expended on behalf of Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, you might assume that the president would like to see his good friend Matt prove "irregularities" in the vote count and overturn the results of last Tuesday's election.

Sept. 11, 2001, changed all of our lives, including mine. I suddenly found myself writing as much about the thousands of local men and women – most of them in military reserves and National Guard – who had been sent halfway around the world to fight, and sometimes died, in places like Anbar Province and Kabul as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ground on and on.

In his successful 2007 gubernatorial run, Steve Beshear lost 28 counties, winning the state’s other 92. He also lost only 28 counties in his winning reelection bid in 2011.

His son Andy Beshear, running in a similar Democrat-but-not-that-left style, won just 23 counties on Tuesday, losing the other 97. Andy Beshear’s path to victory included huge margins in Jefferson and Fayette counties, which combined he won by about 36 percentage points (68-32). But the attorney general lost the rest of the 118 counties to Gov. Matt Bevin by a combined 12 percentage points (44-56).

Let's give credit where credit is due.