It’s been 40 years since George McGovern lost his run for the presidency — lost so badly as to become a figure of fun to entertainers, a cautionary example to practicing politicians and, in myth at least, the creator of a movement known as “McGovernism,” seen by many as wacky, weird and perhaps menacing.

Last week the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York became the second federal appeals court to rule that Congress violated the Constitution when it limited the definition of “marriage” in federal law to the union of a man and a woman.

For half a century, a bipartisan bargain on agricultural policy worked well to balance the needs of urban and rural areas.

Do you watch college football? Listen to smooth jazz? Search the Internet for guidance about parenting, spirituality or a health concern? Look at pornography sites online?

John Edwards pulled the rug out from under the supporters who had backed his run for the presidency in 2008 when the scandal about a mistress and illegitimate child hit the news.

For all our enlightenment in this information age, conspiracy theories permeate American life, especially politics. Some of us will embrace such theories because they conveniently rubber-stamp suspicions or biases we have, even when evidence is clearly lacking.

It’s a reform that would make a radical and revolutionary change to our whole social system. It would weaken the family structure, which is the basic unit of a healthy society. It would violate tradition, nature and the religious teachings of nearly every faith.

As Maine voters go to the polls to decide whether to permit same-sex marriage, a federal court in New York took on the same issue from another angle.

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick, convicted in 2007 of running a brutal dogfighting operation, has gotten a dog.

In the second presidential candidate debate, an aggressive Mitt Romney and a rejuvenated Barack Obama faced a town hall forum grilling, with both playing well to their own camps.