A president’s first year in office is crucial, a time of dangerous peril and exceptional opportunity.

History professor Will Hitchcock explains why the Republican candidates should get to know Dwight Eisenhower.

Do presidential debates change elections? An expert panel debated the subject during the 2012 election cycle.

In his First Inaugural Address, confronted by a dim economic outlook, President Ronald Reagan declared his intention to reverse the course of government expansion by stating: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Thirty years later—with both political parties holding power for extended periods of time—the size and scope of the United States government has reached a new apex. In short, the end of “the era of big government” has not come to pass.

In less than a generation, the Internet has altered the daily lives of individuals in ways few would have conceived in its nascent stages. Initially a playground for the computer savvy, the world of blogs and tweets has given equal voice to anyone with a computer and a web connection. It is also where Americans increasingly look for news and information.

In the wake of the 2000 presidential election and the intense scrutiny of the institutions of election administration that followed it, the Miller Center assembled a commission to examine the voting systems in place and recommend election reform designed to improve America's electoral system. The commission's proposed improvements to the federal, state, and local voting systems were largely adopted in the Help America Vote Act, a landmark piece of election reform legislation signed by President George W. Bush in 2002.