I have some small experience dealing with the national bookstore chains, as one of the magazines I used to co-publish, Alternative Press Review, was carried in Borders and Barnes and Noble.
It was a huge headache back then dealing with the chains and it no longer seemed worth the hassle. The chains were ripping off small magazine publishers with stupid charges. The most ridiculous one was a charge if the bookstore employee couldn't scan a magazine's bar code.
The likelihood of one of the chains picking up a new political magazine, of any kind, is nil.
The magazine market is awful for all genres of magazines. Nobody buys magazines anymore. It's also likely that one of the two chains will go out of business within a year. B&N is struggling big time.
Ironically, if one of the chains goes under, this will create a good climate for independent bookstores.
There are still some good reasons for publishing a print magazine.
* Print publication gives your views and your project respectability. If you are published on paper, people take that seriously. Wikipedia is notorious for being picky about information sources. Print gives you credibility.
* A print publication is an excellent way to develop a long term relationship with readers, who then become supporters.
But even printing and distributing a magazine is way more expensive than it used to be. Printing costs have gone up and most printers won't do small runs. Mailing costs have skyrocketed. Indie publishers lobbied unsuccessfully a few years ago to keep magazine rates lower.
I've been toying lately with the idea of publishing magazines just in PDF format and letting people print them if they wanted. This method means that you could concentrate and content, design and promotion. Printing would be up to the readers.
Chuck