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WASHINGTON - Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said Monday that either Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama must drop out of the Democratic presidential race after the June primaries in order to unify the party by the convention and win the election in November. But Dean didn't say which candidate should drop out, only that it should happen after primary voters have been to the polls. "We want the voters to have their say. That's over on June 3," Dean said in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America." Dean also said that while the party rules say Democratic superdelegates...

If history repeats, the loser of this year’s presidential election will blame the news media. Richard Nixon, in the wake of his loss in the 1962 California gubernatorial race, bitterly taunted reporters, telling them, “You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.” (Turned out he was wrong on that point.) Barbara Bush also had some choice words about the press when her husband, President George H.W. Bush, lost his reelection bid in 1992. The media could be even a larger target this year because of the influence of blogs and talking heads...

RUSH: Let's go to this ad, ladies and gentlemen, the North Carolina Republican Party TV ad. An unidentified female TV announcer you'll hear and then the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and the North Carolina Republican Party chairman Linda Daves. FEMALE ANNOUNCER: For 20 years, Barack Obama sat in his pew listening to his pastor. WRIGHT: And then wants us to sing God Bless America? No, no, no! Not God Bless America. God (bleep) America. FEMALE ANNOUNCER: Now, Bev Perdue and Richard Moore endorse Barack Obama. They should know better. He's just too extreme for North Carolina. DAVES: The North Carolina Republican...

In last week's Philadelphia debate, Hillary Clinton said she would commit the United States to a retaliatory attack against Iran, presumably with nuclear weapons, if it dropped the bomb on Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, or Kuwait. Asked if "it should be U.S. policy now to treat an Iranian attack on Israel as if it were an attack against the United States," Clinton astonishingly responded that she'd use American nukes not just to defend Israel, our traditional strategic ally, but also other neighboring states such as the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait from an Iranian nuclear attack. Barack Obama's...

RUSH: Do you remember the genesis of MoveOn.org? The whole point of MoveOn.org, it was a Clinton front group. "Move on," meant, "Can't we move on from the impeachment? Can't we move on from all of these scandals? Can't we move on from all of these little Chihuahuas yapping at the heels of the Clintons? Can't we just move on?" With that in mind, in February 2008 in a closed door fundraiser (phone quality here), this is Mrs. Clinton talking about MoveOn.org. HILLARY: We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic...

It was one of those typical questions from a reporter gaggle on Capitol Hill: Does Harry Reid think the protracted nomination fight between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will harm the party? Reid didn't miss a beat. "It makes me bitter," he deadpanned. Reid has such a dry humor that you actually have to pause and look at him to make sure he's not being serious when he's attempting comedy. But his usual grimace in front of reporters quickly turned to a grin as he capitalized on the now infamous "bitter" comment made by Obama at a San Francisco area...

Former President Carter and Al Gore have discussed plans to tell Hillary Rodham Clinton that she must abandon her presidential bid, for the sake of the Democratic Party. "They're in discussions," a source close to Carter told the Scotland on Sunday newspaper. "Carter has been talking to Gore. They will act, possibly together, or in sequence." The newspaper said the message will be delivered — it's just a matter of when. Barack Obama leads Clinton in the race for pledged delegates, and political experts say its nearly impossible for her to catch. But she retains a lead among superdelegates, and...

Former US president Bill Clinton said Friday he has been ordered to hold his tongue by his wife Hillary for reviving an embarrassing story about her trip to Bosnia in 1996 while out campaigning. "Hillary called me and said 'You don't remember this. You weren't there, let me handle it.' I said, 'Yes ma'am," the grinning ex-president said during a campaign stop in Indiana, according to television pictures. A series of gaffes have made Bill Clinton somewhat of a liability in his wife's campaign for the Democratic White House nomination. And he put his foot in it again Thursday by...

A bitter Sir Elton John thinks America's sexism may be sinking his friend Hillary Rodham Clinton. John, a knighted British subject, said that gender discrimination is behind Clinton's problems in the polls as he addressed 5,000 Clinton supporters at Radio City Musical Hall last night in an event that raised $2.5 million for the cash-strapped campaign. "I never cease to be amazed by the misogynistic attitudes of some people in this country," said John, wearing a spangled black evening coat over a vermilion silk shirt. "I say to hell with them. ... I love you, Hillary, I'll always be there...

Hillary Clinton should hang in there and run a good race. And she has vowed to do so. Clinton has been under unprecedented pressure to bow out of the divisive Democratic primary and to clear the field for her opponent -- Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. Among those who want her to throw in the towel are, of course, Obama’s supporters. But many other Democrats are trying to push her out of the contest on the ground that a contentious race can hurt the party and could help their Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Clinton also has been...

Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean has a plan that will produce a nominee before his party's convention in August, avoiding what he fears could be a "really ugly and nasty" fiasco. Democratic leaders have begun complaining he has bungled the party's nominating process and alienated voters because of his failure to engineer a political compromise in the DNC's ill-advised decision to strip Florida and Michigan of all its delegates. But Mr. Dean, whose polls show the party's internecine warfare is hurting its chances in November, has been talking to party bigwigs about a deal and now says the delegations will...

MIAMI -- A donor to the Democratic Party asked for a rebate out of frustration over the party's Florida delegate dilemma -- and he got it. Federal records show that Paul Cejas has given six-figure sums to the Democratic National Committee for years, NBC 6's Nick Bogert reported. Cejas asked for his last donation back. He said he was angry with the party, particularly party Chair Howard Dean, over the failure to resolve Florida's delegate dilemma. "Frankly, he's dropped the ball, and I told him, 'You're going to go down in history as the worst chairman of the Democratic Party...

Are Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Elton John breaking U.S. laws by allowing the British pop singer, a foreign national, to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign by performing a concert on her behalf? That's the question Inside the Beltway put to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) yesterday, which does not rule out the possibility. First, some background supplied by the FEC: The goal of the 1966 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was to "minimize foreign intervention" in U.S. elections by establishing a series of limitations on foreign nationals. In 1974, the prohibition was incorporated...

When Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton square off in an April 16 debate in Philadelphia, they may be forced to spend time discussing an issue neither has talked much about in this campaign: gun control. April 16 will mark one year since the murder of 32 students at Virginia Tech, the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence will stage events around the country that day calling for stronger gun regulations, and for the candidates, gun control will be thrust on the table suddenly and unavoidably. Guns are an especially potent issue in...

Now that Hillary Clinton has been nailed in an outright fabrication of her role in Bosnia, it is time to remind ourselves of another, even more galling fantasy that Hillary tried to sell the voters. After 9/11, Hillary had a problem. New Yorkers were desperately focused on their own needs for protection and they were saddled with a Senator who was not one of them -- an Arkansasn or was it a Chicagoan? Interviewed on the "Today" show one week after 9/11, she spun an elaborate yarn. The kindest thing we could say was that it was a fantasy. Or...

In the 1960's I had a lady friend who loved Robert Redford. So, naturally, I got dragged to all of Redford's movies. I saw "The Candidate" several times. In that film, Mr. McKay (Redford), a "community organizer" like Barack Obama, hatches a slogan, "McKay, The Better Way" to run for office. Ironically, Barack "Barry" Obama has now chosen "The Better Way" as his mantra through February 10th. Well. Obama's slogan has about as much substance as the celluloid version popularized by Robert Redford. Obama is entirely a creation of wealthy contributors and powerful, liberal media interests. So what he does...

The campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) is seeking to play down news that the former first lady gave an incorrect account of landing in Bosnia in 1996 under sniper fire, and refused to answer additional questions about a flap that could hurt her chances of catching Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) in the race for the Democratic nomination. “We’ve said all we’re going to say on that,” said Deputy Communications Director Phil Singer on a Tuesday morning conference call with reporters. A video from CBS News had shown that Clinton’s version of having come under sniper fire was not...

U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney, whose district includes much of Martin and St. Lucie counties, is hoping he won’t have to attend the Democratic Party national convention in Denver in August. If he does go, that will mean the Democrats still haven’t decided a nominee for the presidential election. And if neither Sen. Hillary Clinton nor Sen. Barack Obama has clinched the nomination by August, Mahoney says we may see a brokered convention, meaning the nominee could emerge from a negotiated settlement. “If it (the nomination process) goes into the convention, don’t be surprised if someone different is at the top...

Maybe, just maybe, it’s now worth at least asking whether Hillary Clinton might wind up as the Democratic candidate for vice president. When the chatter about a Democratic “dream ticket” began last year, it was easy to dismiss. Either Clinton or Obama would win a clear victory in the primaries and, after what inevitably would be a contentious campaign, each would want as little to do with the other as possible. Clinton, if she emerged victorious, would instead choose some kind of national security graybeard to her political right, a retired general perhaps, or maybe even a Republican. Likewise, Obama...

In some ways, Barack Obama's speech on race last week was as brilliant as it was nuanced. But for all its rhetorical beauty, it was also an enormous step backward and, in the end, a rather self-serving call for more discussion about racial grievance in a country that has already done way too much talking. Until last week, so much of Obama's appeal lay in the fact that he was not asking us to talk about the racial divide. Instead, he offered himself as a living and breathing symbol of racial reconciliation; his very origins pointed to the goal of...