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Cancer-stricken Sen. Kennedy asks state leaders for speedy process to replace him in Congress BOSTON (AP) — A cancer-stricken Sen. Edward M. Kennedy has written a poignant letter to Massachusetts leaders asking that they change state law to allow a speedy replacement of him in Congress. The note to Gov. Deval Patrick and the state's Senate president and House speaker acknowledges the state changed its succession law in 2004 to require a special election to fill any vacancy. At the time, legislative Democrats were concerned Republican Gov. Mitt Romney would be able to fill any vacancy created as Sen. John...

Just when you thought things couldn’t get more farcical in our nation’s capitol, the Al Franken Circus heads to town. Franken was declared the winner yesterday of the long-contested Senate race by the Minnesota Supreme Court with a razor-thin margin of 312 votes out of over 2.9 million votes cast. Norm Coleman chose to bow out of the race rather than continue the contest taking the fight to the federal courts. It is estimated the two camps have spent more than $1.7 million in legal fees through March, the end of the last FEC reporting period. Rumors abound that Coleman...

DENVER -- Stop wallowing, the primary election is over. That was the message House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivered this morning even as she acknowledged that reconciliation between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton camps was not yet complete. She told reporters before addressing the California delegation that women will be the key to beating John McCain, and she considered it a personal mission to get more women behind Obama. A majority of women support Obama, according to recent polls, but recent polls also suggest as many as one in four Clinton supporters would vote for Republican presumptive nominee John McCain. "There's...

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland is the latest supporter of Hillary Clinton to accuse the media of bias in its coverage of the Democratic nomination battle. At a dinner with Washington Post reporters and editors, Strickland called the coverage "almost shocking at times" and unfair it the treatment of both candidate Clinton and her husband, the former president. "Quite frankly, some of the people that I had most previously admired as commentators I have a remarkably different opinion toward right now," Strickland said. Strickland was the second big-state governor and Clinton supporter to sound off about the press at the convention....

Deal: Clinton's Name Will Be Placed in Nomination at Dems Convention August 14, 2008 11:09 AM ABC News' Kate Snow reports: A deal has been brokered between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton that will allow Clinton's name to be placed in nomination at next week's Democratic nominating convention, sources close to the Clinton camp told ABC News. "Both sides agree that it is in the best interest of party unity and making sure that everyone's voice and vote is honored to make sure her name is put into nomination," a person close the negotiations said. "It's to honor everyone...

DENVER, Colo. -- An e-mail sent from the Political Director of the Colorado Democratic Party threatened the status of a national delegate, alleging she made "disparaging public remarks" about Sen. Barack Obama. Sacha Millstone of Boulder told CALL7 Investigator John Ferrugia that her comments were critical, but they were not public. Millstone acknowledged she was frustrated over how the Obama campaign was treating delegates who supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and told a fellow delegate, in what she believed was a private e-mail exchange, that she was not sure she could vote for Obama at the Democratic National Convention later...

There was something sort of fun about watching the folks at CNN squirm when they were asked a slightly tough question. "Why did it take a skit on 'Saturday Night Live' to change the tone of the Democratic primary coverage?" asked a member of the Television Critics Association. "Did it take a skit to change the coverage?" replied David Bohrman, the head of CNN's Washington bureau who heads up the network's political coverage. Well, after an "SNL" sketch depicted a debate in which Hillary Clinton was asked tough, unfair questions while Barack Obama was tossed softballs, things did seem to...

Not much love between the Obamites and the Hillary PUMAs..to say the least! See thread content below: (7-28-08) Negative Super Responses to PumaPac (PumaPac) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PumaPAC is collecting all responses from Supers and the DNC that are ..hum...less then respectful to the voter expressing their opinion and/or asking that they continue to, or switch, support to HRC, as well as work to allow her name to be placed in nomination. Plans are being made to use them as the GE draws closer. If you are a PumaPAC member you have the addy they asked these types of responses be mailed...

Well, they got her.Debra Bartoshevich, the duly elected Democratic Party delegate for Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin who vowed undying loyalty to the former first lady, has been dumped by the state party and barred from attending the Democratic National Convention in Denver next month.According to the Associated Press, the state party's administrative committee has officially whacked Bartoshevich from the 92-member delegation.(snip)"No self-respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party that ignores her," Bartoshevich told a local journalist. "That's by Susan B. Anthony."

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) introduced a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College on Friday, less than a week after the Democrats settled on how to handle delegates from Florida at their national convention. “It’s time for Congress to really give Americans the power of one-person, one-vote, instead of the political machinery selecting candidates and electing our president,” Nelson said in a release announcing the amendment. Nelson had announced he would offer the legislation in an address to his state’s senate in March. Nelson said his principal argument for making the change is that the Electoral College permits a candidate...

With the final primary concluded barely hours before, top Democratic Party leaders in Washington early this morning ratcheted up the pressure to force all remaining uncommitted superdelegates to make their choice of candidate known by Friday -- and thus end the now hopeless, onetime front-running campaign of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. The joint statement was obviously pre-planned and timed for issue shortly after Clinton refused to concede the presidential nomination victory to Barack Obama, who's gained sufficient delegates to clinch the party's nomination. Howard Dean, right, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader...

Words mean nothing to liberals. They say whatever will help advance their cause at the moment, switch talking points in a heartbeat, and then act indignant if anyone uses the exact same argument they were using five minutes ago. When Gore won the popular vote in the 2000 election by half a percentage point, but lost the Electoral College -- or, for short, "the constitutionally prescribed method for choosing presidents" -- anyone who denied the sacred importance of the popular vote was either an idiot or a dangerous partisan. But now Hillary has won the popular vote in a Democratic...

OBAMA WAS SELECTED, NOT ELECTEDJune 4, 2008 Words mean nothing to liberals. They say whatever will help advance their cause at the moment, switch talking points in a heartbeat, and then act indignant if anyone uses the exact same argument they were using five minutes ago. When Gore won the popular vote in the 2000 election by half a percentage point, but lost the Electoral College -- or, for short, "the constitutionally prescribed method for choosing presidents" -- anyone who denied the sacred importance of the popular vote was either an idiot or a dangerous partisan. But now Hillary has...

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will endorse Senator Barack Obama on Friday, bringing a close to her 17-month campaign for the White House, aides said. Her decision came after Democrats urged her on Wednesday to leave the race and allow the party to coalesce around Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton’s aides said she would “express her support for Senator Obama and party unity” at an event in Washington that day. One adviser said that Mrs. Clinton would concede defeat, congratulate Mr. Obama and proclaim him the party’s nominee, while pledging to do what was needed to assure his victory. Her decision came...

20 minutes ago WASHINGTON — Barack Obama became the first black presidential nominee in U.S. history on Tuesday, declaring victory over Hillary Clinton and lifting the curtain on an epic struggle for the White House against Republican John McCain. Clinton, credited by Obama as an inspiration to millions, refused to concede defeat and sparked a buzz early in the day about the possibility of a dream team by saying she's open to joining the ticket as his running mate. "Tonight, we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another," Obama told nearly 20,000 cheering supporters in...

Excerpt - WASHINGTON--The Democratic National Committee Rules and Bylaws Committee meets Saturday to wrestle with the disputed delegates from Michigan and Florida. The essential questions, according to documents prepared for the meeting by the DNC--and obtained by this blog--is whether the Florida and Michigan delegates are to be seated and how these delegates then should be allocated between Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and the likely Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama. The package of materials includes staff analysis of the various issues, arguments and potentials. solutions. Michigan and Florida were stripped of their delegates as punishment for holding January primaries,...

Maureen Dowd is worried that the Republican smear machine is at it again, attacking Barack Obama by using…his middle name. It seems Ed Rogers referred to Obama by his full name on "Hardball" a while back, setting off indignation among some on the left. I don't know why it came to Rogers' mind, but it is true I included Obama's middle name in an NR story (not available on the web) in early November: "Obama has joked that he worried his political career was over after 9/11 because his name sounded too much like Osama. In fact, it's better than...

Americans have not yet begun to pay the price for the Bush presidency. The global ramifications of his foreign policy, the long-term impact of his budgetary excesses, our depleted military, the ongoing erosion of civil liberties and church/state separation, the unprecedented acquiescence to corporate power…all these factors, and more, will dictate the course of this nation for decades to come. Had Al Gore assumed the presidency in 2001, he would have confronted the same challenges - a nation, and world, simmering in a mix of cultural/religious extremism and declining resources. Realistically speaking, Mr. Gore could probably not have solved any...

Scores of convicted felons voted illegally in the state's 2004 general election, and officials never noticed because of serious flaws in the system for tracking them, The Seattle Times has found. The Times, reviewing felony convictions as far back as 1997, identified 129 felons in King and Pierce counties who were recorded as having voted in the Nov. 2 election. Another 23 likely voted. Several methods were used to confirm the findings. Either the counties failed to flag or purge felons on the voter rolls as required by state law, or they allowed them to register without checking their status....