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WASHINGTON – Sen. Barack Obama's victory in North Carolina and near-miss in Indiana last week remove much of the doubt about whether he will win the Democratic nomination for president. With Obama the likely Democratic nominee and Sen. John McCain long his party's presumptive nominee, the search for their vice presidential picks can now begin. Below, you'll find the five most logical veeps, assuming McCain and Obama are the candidates, ranked in the order of the likelihood of being chosen. No. 1 on each side is currently the likeliest to be named. REPUBLICANS 5. Mitt Romney: A few months ago,...

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Barack Obama is a gifted politician who has led an exemplary life. His run for Presidency for many offers redemption that America has finally moved beyond race. But that laudable proposition is beginning to foster surreal rules of campaigning from both the media and Obama himself that do no one any good. 1. The 2008 campaign must stick to concrete issues and detailed policies. That said, Barack Obama can continue to speak only in vague terms of “hope and change.” 2. Rev. Wright’s racist tirades must be contextualized and only understood in their proper historic milieu of white racism—that is,...

We are part of the many Democrats that will definitely vote for John McCain if Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination to run for president. We would love to have our economy and national image restored to at least what it was during the Clinton years of presidency, but Barack Obama is not the answer. Obama speaks politics and not what he believes. He only says what he must to win. Actions speak louder than words. He does not respect America -- won't wear a flag on his lapel, won't put his hand over his heart during the pledge of...

The head of U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign refused to concede Sunday that she has no chance to win the Democratic presidential nomination. Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Terry McCauliffe said it is still possible for Clinton to win the nomination, even though most pundits have concluded that she cannot overtake her rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, to become the Democratic Party nominee. "Look, tomorrow -- something new could happen," said McCauliffe. "Nothing's impossible. You are talking to Terry McAuliffe. I don't believe anything in life is impossible." McAuliffe argued that Clinton would be a stronger candidate than...

LINCOLN, Neb. — Former Colorado senator and two-time presidential candidate Gary Hart told Nebraska Democrats that Barack Obama will heal the national party, while John McCain's nomination may cause a rift among Republicans. "There's a real struggle for the soul of the Republican Party under way," Hart said Saturday before the state Democratic Party's annual Morrison-Exon Day Dinner. About 450 people attended the party's largest fundraising event. Hart, 71, sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988, and was a U.S. senator from 1975 to 1987. Hart said the Republican Party is going to find its ties to religious...

Common delusions notwithstanding, the United States, I submit, is not a democracy—by which is meant a system in which the will of the people prevails. Rather it is a curious mechanism artfully designed to circumvent the will of the people while appearing to be democratic. Several mechanisms accomplish this. First, we have two identical parties which, when elected, do very much the same things. Thus the election determines not policy but only the division of spoils. Nothing really changes. The Democrats will never seriously reduce military spending, nor the Republicans, entitlements. Second, the two parties determine on which questions we...

Hillary Clinton, down to her last straw, is making the case that she is the better candidate to run against the Republicans because, unlike Barack Obama, she can win white Democrats. She is right. But because she is daring to touch the hot button of racial politics, she is being told to shut up or risk being charged with exploiting racial tensions for political advantage. The facts are stubborn, however. Since his phenomenal win with 33% of the white vote in nearly all-white Iowa, Obama has been unable to get a firm grip on white Democrats. He has won a...

Here we go again. After being subjected to eight years of the collegial presidency of Bill and Hillary, when we were told that when we got Bill we got Hillary as a bonus, it looks as if we are facing another twofer: Barack and Michelle. Effete liberal Democrats are all but canonizing Barack Obama, who they see as one of their own — cool, detached, impressively intellectual — all in all what Pat Buchanan described as something fresh out of the faculty lounge, where lofty thoughts abound and contempt for the great unwashed is hardly concealed. That may be an...

HOW DO we even begin to measure the degree of crassness embodied in Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s failure to show up at Wednesday’s Days of Remembrance Holocaust Observance at the Old State Capitol? There simply is no metric for an act of omission that so clearly demonstrates this governor’s lack of respect for so many things: for those who planned and participated in Wednesday’s event, for the history it represents, for the very office that he holds. The Holocaust observance is a 27-year tradition that, until 2004, always had featured the governor in attendance. Blagojevich missed it in 2004 because he...

Now Barack Obama faces a true dilemma: how best to punish Hillary Clinton. After 15 months of fighting her off, as she veered wildly from bully to victim, as she brandished any ice pick at hand, whether racial, sexual, mathematical or marital (in the form of her Vesuvian husband), Obama must decide the most efficacious means of doing to Hillary what she has been trying to do to him: putting her in her place. Her last resort is to continue to press the “Psssst — he’s a black man” tactic. She insisted to USAToday, after the North Carolina and Indiana...

Item: The McCain campaign's handpicked RNC convention czar, Doug Goodyear, resigns after Newsweek reports that his firm, the DCI Group, was working to make the government of Myanmar look good. “Today I offered the convention my resignation so as not to become a distraction in this campaign. I continue to strongly support John McCain for president, and wish him the best of luck in this campaign.”

John McCain's choice to manage the GOP convention this summer is lobbyist Doug Goodyear, whose firm once represented Burma's repressive regime. After John McCain nailed down the Republican nomination in March, his campaign began wrestling with a sensitive personnel issue: who would manage this summer's GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn.? The campaign recently tapped Doug Goodyear for the job, a veteran operative and Arizonan who was chosen for his "management experience and expertise," according to McCain press secretary Jill Hazelbaker. But some allies worry that Goodyear's selection could fuel perceptions that McCain—who has portrayed himself as a crusader against...

Do leaders of the Democrat National Committee (DNC) actually expect the American people to believe that their party has the wherewithal to manage the most powerful nation of earth, when that same party is apparently unable to manage a simple system of pre-election primaries? After nearly two years of plotting and scheming to recapture the White House, just months before election day the Democrat Party remains bitterly divided and may have to spend an additional $30 million dollars just to rerun primary elections in Florida and Michigan. Is that any way to run a party, Howard Dean? And yet despite...

You know, one of the funny things about watching the Democrats is their alternation between fear and bravado about whether Republicans will "Swift Boat" their candidate this time around. Orwell once said that "The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable.'" This is roughly the way the Democrats use the term "Swiftboating" to suggest a political attack of thoroughgoing fraudulence and impropriety concocted out of whole cloth. Never mind that each and every one of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was a combat veteran, including a number of highly decorated...

Refusing to go gently into that good night, Clinton supporter Jerome Armstrong stubbornly sticks to the message that Hillary Clinton can win the Democratic Presidential nomination. He points to West Virginia as a state that serves as a good indicator of what Armstrong believes to be Barack Obama's general election problems. Sensitive to charges that fretting about Obama's general election appeal in West Virginia could be tantamount to giving credence to the views of racists, Armstrong spends a goodly amount of time denouncing anyone who would dismiss as racists anti-Obama voters in West Virginia. This isn't particularly interesting save for...

We, the Sixth Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, representing more than 80,000 members and clergy in Georgia, express support for our clergy colleague, the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., retired pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ. Rev. Wright is a renowned religious scholar, nurturing pastor and outstanding preacher. Our friend and fellow minister has been vilified in the national media for practicing the great commission to go ye preach and baptize in my name. We repudiate the irresponsible and shameful behavior of the national media for replaying and sensationalizing Rev. Wright’s words out of context simply...

There's been much convinced talk that John McCain needs to add diversity to his ticket by choosing someone who's black, or at least brown (and Brown!) for the v.p. slot. But wouldn't that cost McCain his advantage among racists? In the current issue of TNR, John Judis estimates that Obama's race could cost him as much as "15 to 20 percent of Democrats or Democratic-leaning Independents," and Politico's Roger Simon thinks the race vote is worth upwards of 15 percent among the general electorate. By adding diversity to his ticket, McCain would just jeopardize his hold on these voters, while...

Friends and close associates of both Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are now convinced that, assuming she loses the race for the presidential nomination, she is probably going to fight to be the vice presidential nominee on an Obama-for-president ticket. Clinton "is trying to figure out how to land the plane without looking like surrender," a prominent figure in the Obama camp said Friday. This means, in all likelihood, bringing her campaign to a close in the next few weeks and trying to leverage her way onto an Obama ticket from a position of maximum strength, said several knowledgeable...

Barack Obama's aides charged Wednesday that their candidate would have done even better Tuesday were it not for meddling by an unlikely booster of Hillary Rodham Clinton: longtime Clinton family nemesis Rush Limbaugh. The impact of the popular conservative radio commentator's "Operation Chaos" emerged as an intriguing point of debate, particularly in Indiana, where registered voters could participate in either party's primary, and where Clinton won by a mere 14,000 votes. As he had before several recent primaries, Limbaugh encouraged listeners to vote for Clinton to "bloody up Obama politically" and prolong the Democratic fight. Limbaugh crowed about the success...

Organized labor is paying more attention to Republican John McCain as Democrat Barack Obama solidifies his status as the front-runner in the Democratic contest against Hillary Rodham Clinton. The AFL-CIO, which has not endorsed anyone in the Democratic primary, announced Wednesday that it is sending more than 6,000 of its people to more than 22 states during the next two weekends to talk to more than 200,000 union voters about McCain. "Senator McCain's economic path would lead to disaster for America's working families," said John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor organization. Meanwhile, the nation's largest union,...

I've heard from a number of freepers in recent threads telling me, "A vote for a third party candidate is a vote for Obama". In an attempt to FINALLY put that idiocy to rest, I'm devoting this thread solely to that subject. "Let logic prevail!", I always say. Well, there IS no logic to the above statement IF the voter in question (who has decided to vote third party in '08) 1) is not a registered Republican and 2) was never going to vote for McCain in the first place Remember 1992, when Republicans (as many of them still do)...

In the clearest indication yet of how he intends to confront Senator Barack Obama on foreign policy issues in the general election, Senator John McCain on Friday again portrayed the Democratic contender as being the favorite of Hamas, the militant Palestinian group, and implied that he would also be friendly with Iran, a Hamas ally. Speaking at a news conference in New Jersey, Mr. McCain said he believed that comments made by a Hamas leader approving Mr. Obama’s candidacy were “a legitimate point of discussion,” and he went on to accuse Mr. Obama of agreeing to negotiate with the president...

WASHINGTON -- Three months ago, Sen. John McCain made a calculated decision to begin painting a not-so-pretty picture of Sen. Barack Obama. Although Sen. Hillary Clinton was -- and still is -- battling Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, McCain began preparing his case against the Illinois senator early on. McCain's advisers, like other observers, had concluded that Obama was the likely nominee and wanted to begin shaping Obama's image while the Democrat was still consumed with fighting Clinton. Defining one's opponent is a key task of any campaign, and simply put, McCain has had a long head start. As...

CHICAGO -- Michelle Obama gave a hint of what her portfolio may be if she becomes first lady at a fund-raiser Friday for Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.). Former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson -- of Plamegate fame -- who has been stumping for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) -- was also a featured speaker. Obama suggested that if she were to become first lady, she would take on women's and family issues, prompted by the stories she has been hearing from females on the campaign trail. "And if I have the honor of becoming the next first lady, I want...

Michelle Obama has spoken frequently on the campaign trail about the amount of student loans she and Barack had to take out to get through Harvard and Princeton. Worse yet, she had to pay them back! As she has many times in the past, Mrs. Obama complains about the lasting burden of student loans dating from her days at Princeton and Harvard Law School. She talks about people who end up taking years and years, until middle age, to pay off their debts. “The salaries don’t keep up with the cost of paying off the debt, so you’re in your...

To the question of the moment--What did Barack Obama know and when did he know it?--I answer, Obama knew everything, and he's known it for ages. Far from succumbing to surprise and shock after Jeremiah Wright's disastrous performance at the National Press Club, Barack Obama must have long been aware of his pastor's political radicalism. A careful reading of nearly a year's worth of Trumpet Newsmagazine, Wright's glossy national "lifestyle magazine for the socially conscious," makes it next to impossible to conclude otherwise. Wright founded Trumpet Newsmagazine in 1982 as a "church newspaper"--primarily for his own congregation, one gathers--to "preach...

This election season has been full of stories about bowling scores, barroom boilermakers and basketball. But, recently, a little noticed U.S. Supreme Court ruling may have jeopardized Americans' precious right to vote. In Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, the Supreme Court ruled to uphold the most restrictive voter identification law in the country and failed, I think, in its duty to protect the voting rights of all Americans. In its 6-3 decision, the court sanctioned the practice of requiring Indiana voters to present government-issued photo identification in order to vote. Poll taxes, which were used to disenfranchise Southern black...

Whether or not the Democratic primary marathon between two path-breaking candidates has been good for the party or the country, it has clearly been good for people like me: political scientists who study voting behavior. We've been given a data gold mine, the results of an experiment that no one intended to conduct. Sen. Barack Obama is the all but certain Democratic nominee, but voting patterns in Indiana and North Carolina show that resistance to a black candidate among some white Democrats remains a serious threat to his chances in November: · As in other recent primaries, Sen. Hillary Rodham...

In black America, oh, how the mighty have fallen. Bill Clinton is no longer revered as the "first black president." Tavis Smiley's rapid-fire commentaries on a popular radio show have been silenced. And the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., self-described defender of the black church, has been derided by many on the Web as an old man who needs to "step off." They all landed in the black community's doghouse after being viewed as endangering Sen. Barack Obama's chances of being elected president. And the community's desire to protect the first African American ever to be in this position may...

WASHINGTON -- With the racially tinged Democratic race drawing to an awkward close, Barack Obama and John McCain face the challenge of winning over "Hillary Democrats" _ the white, working-class voters who favored the former first lady over Obama's historic candidacy. Obama and McCain clearly have set their sights on each other, a recognition of the long odds Clinton faces in trying to capture the Democratic presidential nomination. The McCain campaign figures some of her supporters might be up for grabs and won't necessarily vote Democratic in the general election in November. "I've been saying for a year that you...

ROME: Silvio Berlusconi was sworn in Thursday as prime minister of Italy for the third time in his political career, after forming one of Italy's most rightist cabinets since World War II. "We're in a honeymoon period," Berlusconi said, adding that he intended to pick up where he left off in 2006, when he failed to be re-elected after a five-year term. He also served as prime minister from 1994 to 1995. "We have 100 days to avoid disappointing those who put their faith in us, and five years to change and modernize this country," he was quoted by the...

Quote: "It is wonderful to be back in Oregon," Obama said. "Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it."

The dying days of the Hillary Clinton campaign have brought the breathtaking spectacle of a candidate lashing out at every element of public life that has nourished her career. The über-wonk has disparaged economists and expertise. The staunch ally of black America has attacked her opponent for lacking support of "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans." People who thought they knew Hillary Clinton have gazed in astonishment: What has she become? The answer is, a conservative populist. Conservative populism and liberal populism are entirely different things. Liberal populism posits that the rich wield disproportionate influence over the government and push for...

NEW YORK — Conservative legal advocates are recruiting pastors nationwide to defy an IRS ban on preaching about politicians, in a challenge they hope will abolish the restriction. The Alliance Defense Fund, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., will ask the clergy to deliver a sermon about specific candidates Sept. 28. If the action triggers an IRS investigation, the legal group will sue to overturn the federal rules, which were enacted in 1954. Under the IRS code, churches can distribute voter guides, run voter registration drives, hold forums on public policy and invite politicians to speak at their congregations. However, they cannot...

In case you were wondering whether Barack Obama would really run a campaign free of what he calls the "old politics," here's a sneak peak of what's ahead for the general election. Unless, of course, you don't consider making sly suggestions about John McCain's age being "old politics..."

Kennedy: No soup or VP slot for you TRIBUNE-REVIEW By Salena Zito Apparently, Sen. Ted Kennedy does not think Sen. Hillary Clinton has "real" leadership qualities or "is in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspiration(s) of the American people."

It's fun to think about, but there are so many obstacles, and Ted Kennedy isn't buying, he said on Bloomberg Television's "Political Capital With Al Hunt," which airs this weekend. "I don't think it's possible," he told Hunt of the joint ticket, continuing that: Obama should choose a running mate who "is in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspirations of the American people," Kennedy said. "If we had real leadership — as we do with Barack Obama — in the No. 2 spot as well, it'd be enormously helpful." Ouch.

It's obvious that I've been favoring Barack in the Democratic primary, but I find the calls for Hillary to drop out of the race somewhat puzzling. As I understand it, pro-Obama pundits and pols believe Hillary should withdraw because: *Even if she wins all the remaining primaries, she will not have enough pledged delegates to win the nomination. *Even if some compromise is worked out with the Michigan and Florida delegations, she will still trail Obama in the popular vote. *Her staying in the race will only further tarnish Obama, to the benefit of John McCain, thus costing the Democrats...

Is Barack Obama--now closer than ever to winning the Democratic nomination--nonetheless at a political disadvantage because of white racism, or "racial fears," or "race-baiting," or racial "double standards," as some commentators have suggested? The evidence indicates otherwise, as it pertains both to this election and more broadly to the perennial tendency of many in the racial-grievance groups, the media, and academia to exaggerate how much white racism remains and its impact on African-Americans. But many of the voters who have been unfairly tarred as racist do have a different flaw that Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain are working especially...

Washington - Today, the Club for Growth released its 2007 annual scorecard, awarding the Defender of Economic Freedom award to six senators and forty-nine representatives who scored a 90 or above on the Club's scorecard.... "These top-scoring members of Congress are staunch defenders of American taxpayers," said Club for Growth President Pat Toomey. "Their votes are critical to lowering taxes, cutting wasteful spending, and promoting economic growth for all Americans. The Club for Growth scorecard allows taxpayers to see how their senators and representatives are performing in Congress and find out who is truly fighting for pro-growth, limited-government policies...." The...

Hispanic voters registered as Democrats have overtaken Hispanic Republicans in Florida, signaling a trend that, if it continues, could have far-reaching implications for the 2008 election and U.S. foreign policy. Until now, the politically influential, mostly Republican Cuban-American community in Miami-Dade made Florida the only state in the country where, among Hispanics, Republicans outnumbered Democrats. April voter registration statistics show 418,339 Hispanic Democrats statewide, compared to 415,068 Hispanic Republicans and 345,108 registered with neither party, according to a Florida Democratic Party analysis of state data. The state provides registration data sorted by party and race to the public only in...

Sen. John McCain as the Republican presidential candidate doing everything he can to show how liberal he is, to the point where it's very difficult to find any significant difference between him and the two Democratic candidates. Speaker Nancy Pelosi running roughshod over House appropriation rules, trade agreements signed in good faith, and doing everything else in her power to run out the clock on this year until, presumably, a newly inaugurated President Obama or Hillary can sign everything President Bush would veto. And last, but certainly most, a Republican Party that has gone completely supine and offers no opposition...

Clinton and her campaign know that the road to victory for her must include a resolution to the Florida and Michigan votes, something that has been dragging on since both states voted in January in violation of Democratic Party rules. Later this month the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the DNC will meet to discuss the matter... The fund-raiser was interrupted briefly at the beginning when a protestor stood on his chair with a large sign that read "Obliterate Iran? Apologize." The sign referred to some comments Clinton made in regards to bombing Iran if they attacked Israel with a...

Watching McCain on Bill O'Reilly this evening it looks to me like his hamster jowls have receded. They haven't completely disappeared, but the look substantially less than before. Of course it could be good make-up work or good lighting by Fox, but I wonder if he is going through some "makeovers" to make him look more youthful?

Via the NYT’s Caucus blog: “Stop trying to divide us into these groups, Paul.” — Donna Brazile to fellow Democrat strategist Paul Begala during Tuesday night’s election coverage on CNN. They were arguing about Obama’s problem appealing to working class white voters. Two days later, Clinton essentially says the same thing, about how she appeals to a broad base of voters, including working class whites - a comment which she’s being blasted for in the liberal blogosphere, as Matt Yglesias notes here. Memo to Ms. Brazile: Isn’t it a bit late in the game for you or any other Democrat...

By the time Hillary Clinton figured out how to beat Barack Obama, it was too late. When she began the race in 2007 thinking she was in for a coronation, she claimed the center in order to position herself for the real fight, the general election. She simply assumed the party activists and loony left would fall in behind her. However, as Obama began to rise, powered by the party's Net-roots activists, she scurried left, particularly with her progressively more explicit renunciation of the Iraq war. It was a fool's errand. She would never be able to erase the stain...

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McCain has a new web page.

The question, my fellow election watchers, is not, "Why won't Hillary do the honorable thing and quit?" but "Why won't Democrats do the honorable thing and quit trying to force her to?" Did Democrats make Ted Kennedy quit when he fought Jimmy Carter through the Democratic convention in 1980 in an effort to dislodge pledged delegates though Carter had already secured a majority? That was far worse than anything Hillary is doing. Until one of the candidates secures the magic number of delegates (a majority) -- and that number is a moving target, given the limbo status of Florida and...