The Democratic Party unveiled their 2012 platform this week as they host their national convention in North Carolina. Among a host of topics and political concerns, the Democratic Party platform explicitly supports same-sex marriage. Delegates will vote Tuesday to officially adopt the platform.

From the platform text:

According to the latest from Gallup, last week's Republican National Convention had "minimal impact" on the voting population in America, with similar numbers reporting to be less likely to vote for candidate Mitt Romney after the RNC, than those reporting to be more likely to vote for him.

The Independent Voter Project recently published an analysis of the effect of

As heavily focused on in this past month, the role of Social Media in the RNC has been both praised and criticized. The idea of a "Convention Without Walls" signified a huge step in technology radically changing how politics is promoted. The implications of this new kind of coverage, from live-streaming to Google hangouts, has proven new territory taken on by the GOP. As the close of the RNC has passed, so raises the question of how the GOP's social media strategy actually panned out.

Spain is nearing financial collapse. Record amounts of money have been withdrawn from banks that already are wobbly at best.  Their ill-advised scheme to roll up several small insolvent banks into one big insolvent bank, Bankia, was a failure and merely a desperate attempt to buy time.

The Republican platform contains a remarkable “sleeper” provision calling for repeal of nearly all of the federal criminal code. So far as I can tell, this radical proposal has not caught the attention of the press or even of legal scholars.  Maybe the reason is that it’s buried in a long section on law enforcement.

In California’s first non-partisan open primary, voter turnout across party lines was a low 31.6%. This could, in part, be attributable to President Obama and Mitt Romney having locked up their nominations prior to California's open primary vote.

Some Texas lawmakers returned from the Republican National Convention after the state suffered a bad week in federal court. Texas was found in violation of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 not once, but twice in less than a week. Republican leaders are now looking ahead to save some major partisan initiatives as quickly as possible.

Some Texas lawmakers returned from the Republican National Convention after the state suffered a bad week in federal court. Texas was found in violation of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 not once, but twice in less than a week. Republican leaders are now looking ahead to save some major partisan initiatives as quickly as possible.