The 1880 Republican National Convention convened from June 2 to June 8, 1880 at the Interstate Exposition Building in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and nominated James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur as the official candidates of the Republican Party for President and Vice President of the United States, respectively, in the 1880 presidential election.

Of the 14 people nominated for the Republican nomination, the three strongest candidates leading up to the convention were Ulysses S. Grant, James G. Blaine and John Sherman. Grant had served two terms as President from 1869 to 1877, and was seeking an unprecedented third term in office. He was backed by the Stalwart faction of the Republican Party, which supported political machines and patronage. Blaine was a senator and former representative from Maine who was backed by the Half-Breed faction of the Republican Party. Sherman, the brother of Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman, was the then Secretary of the Treasury under President Rutherford B. Hayes. A former senator from Ohio, he was backed by a delegation that did not support the Stalwarts or Half-Breeds.

The Republican National Convention is the presidential nominating convention of the Republican Party of the United States. Convened by the Republican National Committee, the stated purpose of the convocation is to nominate an official candidate in an upcoming U.S. presidential election, and to adopt the party platform and rules for the election cycle.

Like the Democratic National Convention, it signifies the end of a presidential primary season and the start of campaigning for a general election. In recent years, the nominee has been known well before the convention, leading many to oppose the convention as a mere public relations event and coronation.

Historically, the convention was the final determinant of the nomination, and often contentious as various factions of party insiders maneuvered to advance their candidates. Since the almost universal adoption of the primary election for selecting delegates in the last quarter of the 20th century, however, the convention's significance has diminished. The national party focuses on the convention as a unity point to bring together a party platform and state parties.

During the French Revolution, the National Convention or Convention, in France, comprised the constitutional and legislative assembly which sat from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795 (the 4th of Brumaire of the year IV under the French Republican Calendar adopted by the Convention). It held executive power in France during the first years of the French First Republic. It was succeeded by the Directory, commencing 2 November 1795. Prominent members of the original Convention included Maximilien Robespierre of the Jacobin Club, Jean-Paul Marat (affiliated with the Jacobins, though never a formal member), and Georges Danton of the Cordeliers. From 1793 to 1794, executive power was de facto exercised by the Convention's Committee of Public Safety.

France, like the rest of Europe, has never again used an elected constitutional convention to draft its constitutions, instead relying on the executive or legislative branches to draft successive constitutions before usually (but not always) submitting them to the electorate for approval in referendums.

Michael Dennis Malloy (born July 1, 1942) is an American radio broadcaster from Atlanta, Georgia. Previously his show has been carried by WSB (AM) Atlanta, WLS (AM) Chicago, the I.E. America Radio Network, the Air America Radio network, Nova M Radio and the On Second Thought network. He is now self-syndicated. Politically, he describes himself as "a traditional Liberal Democrat doing his part to return the Democratic Party to its Liberal roots."

Malloy was born in Toledo, Ohio. His mother was a waitress, and his father was a construction cost analyst. He studied English and political science at North Carolina State University, the University of Toledo, Georgia State University, and Jacksonville University. In the late 1970s, Malloy relocated to Atlanta and became editor of the alternative weekly newspaper Creative Loafing and actor with the Southern Theater Conspiracy. From 1984 to 1987, he was a news writer with CNN, and he was a writer and producer for CNN International in 2000.

Malloy began his radio career in 1985 as an apprentice with Ludlow Porch of WCNN in Atlanta (not related with CNN). From 1986 to 1995, Malloy hosted a late-night show on WSB in Atlanta, until WSB replaced him with the syndicated program of Laura Schlessinger. In 1997, Malloy began to host a show that aired from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. on the Chicago station WLS. Malloy's WLS program was regularly among the top five late-night programs in Chicago. In 1999 and 2000, Talkers magazine ranked Malloy in its Heavy Hundred listing, and Malloy won an Achievement in Radio award for best overnight radio show in Chicago. Malloy left WLS in March 2000. WLS claims that he voluntarily left with mutual consent, but Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn claimed that an executive at the station called Malloy "mean-spirited" in an e-mail.

Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul (born August 20, 1935) is an American politician who has been the U.S. Representative for Texas's 14th congressional district, which includes Galveston, since 1997, and a three-time candidate for President of the United States, as a Libertarian in 1988 and as a Republican in 2008 and currently 2012. He is an outspoken critic of American foreign and monetary policies, including the Military–industrial complex and the Federal Reserve, and is known for his libertarian-leaning views, often differing from his own party on certain issues.

A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Paul is a graduate of Gettysburg College and Duke University School of Medicine, where he earned his medical degree. He served as a medical officer in the United States Air Force from 1963 until 1968. He worked as an obstetrician-gynecologist from the 1960s to the 1980s, delivering more than 4,000 babies. He became the first Representative in history to serve concurrently with a child in the Senate when his son Rand Paul was elected to the United States Senate for Kentucky in 2010.