Joe L. Allbritton, who became one of Washington's most influential men through a media conglomerate that included newspapers and television stations and a financial empire that once included Riggs Bank, died Wednesday. He was 87.
When Africa's longest-serving dictator, Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang, faced his first election in 1996, he won with 98 percent of the vote. His percentages in subsequent elections would never reach that high, dropping to 97 percent by the time of his fourth electoral contest, in 2009.
