Eye on Congress:The Big Story

We don’t need hindsight to see that 2020 is a year unlike any other in recent memory. The coronavirus pandemic has touched every fiber of our lives and woven itself inextricably into the fold of presidential politics, including the national conventions blanketing the airwaves this week and next.  Usually, the Republican and Democratic parties live up to their collective nouns and really get down at these weeklong rallies, but that’s a no-go with a pandemic raging. Instead of convening in person, the conventions are going virtual. It’s yet another wholly unconventional move made this year that still somehow feels inevitable and even downright sensible. The conventions haven’t served their original purpose — actually picking a presidential candidate — since 1952. Both parties shifted to letting primaries and caucuses select their electoral champions — a move begun during the Progressive Era that accelerated in 1968 following the chaos that unfurled outside of the DNC in Chicago when several nights of protests l