Free Republic

Greenbelt, a city that prides itself on its heritage as a New Deal-era social experiment, is finding its commitment to inclusiveness tested as two black candidates contend for seats on its all-white City Council in Tuesday's elections. Until this year, only two blacks had ever run for the council and none had been elected, even though blacks account for nearly half the 21,000 residents of the 6-square-mile city just outside the Capital Beltway, according to the most recent census estimates. Asians and Hispanics make up 20 percent. The disparity has caught the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union and...

This year, for the first time in decades, Maryland is left with only a single Republican congressman in Washington. And with a national debate stirring about how to reinvigorate the party, there are few signs that Republicans in the state have developed a plan for turning things around. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the top elected Republican in the country, said earlier this year that his party "seems to be slipping into a position of being more of a regional party than a national one." Specter's switch and the recent failure to pick up a historically Republican House...