Presidential Race News Blog @newzblogz.com

WASHINGTON — Al Gore made an emotional return to Congress Wednesday to plead with lawmakers to fight global warming with moral courage while revealing nothing about whether he’ll join the 2008 presidential race.

The former vice president is a Democratic favorite for the presidential nomination even though he says he’s not running. Fresh off a triumphant Hollywood appearance in which his climate-change documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” won two Oscars, Gore drew overflow crowds as he testified before House and Senate panels about a “true planetary emergency.”

He said the issue should not be partisan or political, but Gore faced skeptical Republicans who questioned his personal commitment to reducing energy usage and the science behind his film.

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WASHINGTON, March 21 ? John Edwards, the North Carolina Democrat making a second bid for the presidency, called a news conference for Thursday to discuss the future of his campaign, a day after he and his wife, Elizabeth, visited Mrs. Edwards?s doctor to assess her recovery from a bout of breast cancer.

Mrs. Edwards, in a brief interview from her home in Chapel Hill, N.C., said she and Mr. Edwards would discuss her health at the news conference, but she declined to elaborate.

?I?m still here,? she said.

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MOSCOW - The appointment of Sergei Ivanov, former defense minister and deputy prime minister of Russia, as first deputy prime minister has greatly clarified the picture of the 2008 presidential election race.

President Vladimir Putin is supported by a majority of Russians, and polls show that they will vote for the candidate he supports.

There will be five or six candidates, but the government's monopoly over resources effectively rules out the election of outside contenders. Only the ruling power will nominate candidates who have a chance of winning the high post; all the rest will fight for their own goals not connected with the struggle for the presidency.

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Do you have the feeling that the 2008 presidential race has charged across the frontier into the long-predicted moment when the governing never really begins because the campaigning never really ends?

If so, you are not alone. And there's some basis for this feeling.

But be careful not to mistake a trend that has been building since the 1960s or '70s for what CNN calls "breaking news."

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CARSON CITY Delaware Senator Joe Biden missed a Nevada trip Wednesday due to Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid's request to be present for key budget votes in the Senate. But Biden says he'll be spending lots of time in this state in his bid for the presidency.Biden said in a telephone interview that Nevada, with its January 19th caucus, is a key state in the nominating process. He adds that he's been familiar with the state's issues for years, rejecting criticism from the state's Republican...

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To appreciate how much America has changed during the last five decades, to the point where Barack Obama can visit predominantly white states and attract throngs of fawning Caucasians, it is instructive to recall the turbulent presidency of Douglass Dilman.

Dilman was actually our first black president - or, in the nomenclature of his era, our first "Negro." In the pages of Irving Wallace's bestselling 1964 novel The Man, the fictional Dilman rises to the top, only to be plagued at every turn by racist Washington politicians. He is trapped in a fake sex scandal, targeted for impeachment, and his White House dinners are boycotted. His powerful opponents view him as merely "a Negro president," because they cannot look past skin color and view the man.

It's doubtful that such a novel would sell so well today; Americans, 40 years after the civil-rights movement transformed the culture, have become far more tolerant about race. They haven't solved the culture's glaring racial inequities, of course. But they are nevertheless intrigued by Barack Obama, the freshman Illinois senator, and willing to accept him as a serious White House aspirant.

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As President Bush prepares to "surge and accelerate" in Iraq, conventional wisdom decrees that he needs to work closely with his Democratic foes. But maybe his biggest political problem right now is that he is on the verge of losing his friends.

When a mainstream Republican senator - as opposed to, say, Cindy Sheehan - is willing to suggest publicly that Bush's war strategy might be "criminal," one can reasonably conclude that the GOP on Capitol Hill is no longer willing to take its marching orders from the wartime commander in chief. The era of lockstep complicity is over.

Bush is a lame duck seeking to salvage the signature issue of his presidency, and hence his legacy. Because he never has to face the voters again, and because he clearly feels no particular obligation to honor the results of the '06 election, he can order a military escalation in Iraq - an option that draws 12 percent support in the latest polls. He is, in a sense, a free man. But his fellow Republicans are not so free. They have to run for office again in 2008, and the last thing they want is to have Iraq front and center when the voters render their next verdict.

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WASHINGTON -- Al Gore was on Capitol Hill pushing his signature issue: global warming.

The former vice president, congressman and senator from Tennessee, who 20 years ago held the first hearings in Congress on global warming, appeared before a joint hearing by two House committees.

Fresh off a triumphant Academy Awards appearance in which his climate change documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," won two Oscars, Gore drew overflow crowds as he testified before House and Senate panels about a "true planetary emergency" if Congress fails to act. He said addressing the problem is a moral issue and should not be a partisan or political.

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CAPITOL HILL -- Al Gore is back on Capitol Hill, this time telling Congress that climate change poses a crisis that threatens civilization.

Gore, who 20 years ago held the first hearings in Congress on global warming, testified before House panels today that it's not too late to deal with climate change. He has emerged as perhaps the leading spokesman on the issue because of his Oscar-winning documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth."

Later today, the former vice president will testify before a Senate committee that includes Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton.

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Al Gore made an emotional return to Congress on Wednesday to plead with lawmakers to fight global warming with moral courage. He called it "a true planetary emergency."

> Gore first testified before a joint hearing by two House committees ?- Energy and Commerce and Science and Technology ?- and later before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

> His wife, Tipper, sat behind him. Beside him was a stack of boxes containing what he said were about 516,000 e-mail petitions he received in "a few days" after he asked for expressions of public support.

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Gore tells Congress of a "true planetary emergency"

08:58 PM EDT on Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Nedra Pickler, Associated Press Writer

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WASHINGTON ? Al Gore made an emotional return to Congress Wednesday to plead with lawmakers to fight global warming with moral courage while revealing nothing about whether he'll join the 2008 presidential race.

The former vice president is a Democratic favorite for the presidential nomination even though he says he's not running. Fresh off a triumphant Hollywood appearance in which his climate-change documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," won two Oscars, Gore drew overflow crowds as he testified before House and Senate panels about a "true planetary emergency."

He said the issue should not be partisan or political, but Gore faced skeptical Republicans who questioned his personal commitment to reducing energy usage and the science behind his film.

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Media Credit: Steve Berry/AlestleSophomore presidential candidate Laurie Estilette speaks to the audience at the Student Government candidates open forum Tuesday.

Participants at the spring 2007 Student Government candidates open forum said building community on campus and assessing student fees were some of their primary goals if elected on April 2 and 3.

The open forum, which took place at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Morris University Center's Goshen Lounge, gave students the opportunity to ask questions of the candidates running for the positions of senator, trustee, vice president and president and to learn about their platforms.

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WASHINGTON - Al Gore made an emotional return to Congress Wednesday to plead with lawmakers to fight global warming with moral courage while revealing nothing about whether he'll join the 2008 presidential race.

The former vice president is a Democratic favorite for the presidential nomination even though he says he's not running. Fresh off a triumphant Hollywood appearance in which his climate-change documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," won two Oscars, Gore drew overflow crowds as he testified before House and Senate panels about a "true planetary emergency."

He said the issue should not be partisan or political, but Gore faced skeptical Republicans who questioned his personal commitment to reducing energy usage and the science behind his film.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Al Gore made an emotional return to Congress Wednesday to plead with lawmakers to fight global warming with moral courage while revealing nothing about whether he'll join the 2008 presidential race. The former vice president is a Democratic favorite for the presidential nomination even though he says he's not running. Fresh off a triumphant Hollywood appearance in which his climate-change documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," won two Oscars, Gore drew overflow crowds as he...

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NEW YORK - The Iraq war, a defining issue of the 2008 presidential race, has turned into a proxy fight between Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama over credibility and leadership.

Obama has cast his early and forceful opposition to the war as a key test of presidential judgment. The Clinton team has begun openly challenging his claim of political purity and authenticity on the volatile issue.

The matter came to a head Monday at a forum at Harvard University, where Clinton strategist Mark Penn squared off with Obama adviser David Axelrod over the Illinois senator's voting record on the war. But beneath the squabble lay an acute recognition of the depth of voter anger over Iraq, especially among Democratic primary voters.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- "Bill and Al's excellent adventure" ended tensely in the Clinton impeachment crisis and the Gore election loss - the heady '92 campaign a distant memory. Now they're back in Washington, two policy wonks cutting up the rug in the capital once more.

The old boys on the campaign bus are on separate journeys that rarely bring them in front of Washington crowds, much less on the same day. Tuesday was an exception.

The former president, a judiciously used weapon in New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, was the headliner for a fundraiser for his wife Tuesday night, pulling in more than $1 million from 1,000 or so guests. That matched an event Sunday in New York that brought in a similar amount.

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Dallas mayoral candidate Darrell Jordan says he did not plagiarize when lifting, verbatim or nearly verbatim, entire sections of other people's documents in crafting "The Darrell Jordan Accountability Pledge & Plan of Action to Reduce Crime" and "The Darrell Jordan Crime Reduction Plan."

"If there are similarities, there are similarities. Darrell looks at other ideas where people have been successful," said Jack Klaus , Mr. Jordan's campaign manager. "Just because you like a good idea that's out there doesn't make it plagiarism. If it's a good idea, it's a good idea."

Former U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez, R-Colo., who wrote an accountability pledge last year that's nearly identical to the pledge Mr. Jordan released this year, doesn't quite agree.

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The Suns (51-16) get a seeming schedule break as they bear down on a 60-win season and an almost certain No. 2 seed in the Western Conference.

They play two straight games versus the Kings (29-38), at home Thursday and on the road Sunday. The Suns have won four straight against them and are 2-0 this season.

The main goal: Kick up the pace and — when teams sag in the middle to stop Steve Nash's penetration and to hinder Amare Stoudemire, as they have lately — kick the ball out quickly to open shooters.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Al Gore, a Democratic favorite for the presidency despite pronouncements that he's not running, spoke out on his signature issue Wednesday, telling Congress that climate change poses a crisis that threatens civilization. In a return he described as emotional, Gore testified before House panels that it is not too late to deal with climate change "and we have everything we need to get started." Gore's return to Congress marked the first time he had been in the Capitol since ...

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NEW YORK (AP) -- The Iraq war, a defining issue of the 2008 presidential race, has turned into a proxy fight between Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama over credibility and leadership. Obama has cast his early and forceful opposition to the war as a key test of presidential judgment. The Clinton team has begun openly challenging his claim of political purity and authenticity on the volatile issue. The matter came to a head Monday at a forum at Harvard University, where Cl...

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11 DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- It's just past 8:30 a.m. on a snowy weekend morning when the unassuming presidential candidate strolls into a hotel conference room. "Hey, folks. I'm Sam Brownback. Good to meet you," says the Republican senator from Kansas, personally greeting the sparse crowd of some two dozen people munching on pastries and sipping coffee. Standing at the podium, Brownback eschews talk of his accomplishments and criticism of his better-known rivals. Instead, he explains where h...

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NEW YORK ? The Iraq war, a defining issue of the 2008 presidential race, has turned into a proxy fight between Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama over credibility and leadership.

Obama has cast his early and forceful opposition to the war as a key test of presidential judgment. The Clinton team has begun openly challenging his claim of political purity and authenticity on the volatile issue.

The matter came to a head Monday at a forum at Harvard University, where Clinton strategist Mark Penn squared off with Obama adviser David Axelrod over the Illinois senator's voting record on the war. But beneath the squabble lay an acute recognition of the depth of voter anger over Iraq, especially among Democratic primary voters.

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11 DES MOINES, Iowa ? It's just past 8:30 a.m. on a snowy weekend morning when the unassuming presidential candidate strolls into a hotel conference room.

"Hey, folks. I'm Sam Brownback. Good to meet you," says the Republican senator from Kansas, personally greeting the sparse crowd of some two dozen people munching on pastries and sipping coffee.

Standing at the podium, Brownback eschews talk of his accomplishments and criticism of his better-known rivals. Instead, he explains where he stands on various issues and seeks to define himself for the right-leaning GOP voters who matter in primaries ? "a full-scale, economic and social conservative with a smile."

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WASHINGTON - "Bill and Al's excellent adventure" ended tensely in the Clinton impeachment crisis and the Gore election loss - the heady '92 campaign a distant memory. Now they're back in Washington, two policy wonks cutting up the rug in the capital once more.

The old boys on the campaign bus are on separate journeys that rarely bring them in front of Washington crowds, much less on the same day. Tuesday was an exception.

The former president, a judiciously used weapon in New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, was the headliner for a fundraiser for his wife Tuesday night, pulling in more than $2.7-million. That was more than double the amount raised at a similar event Sunday in New York.

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Finally, Americans have an opportunity to face down a monster ? the ignominy of using barbaric torture tactics in the name of national security ? let loose upon us by the Bush administration.

Since April 2004, when the awful images of Abu Ghraib came to light, we have learned what really goes on at Guantanamo and in the CIA?s worldwide network of secret prisons, where ?alternative interrogation techniques? such as sexual humiliation and water-boarding are applied.

Though voters on Nov. 7 rejected President Bush?s methods, he has not forsaken them: We must assume the United States government is still ? no other word for it ? torturing countless alleged terror suspects, most of whom haven?t been charged.

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WASHINGTON -- Al Gore's global warming crusade comes to Congress today.

His testimony before House and Senate environmental panels will be packed with as much drama as substance.

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WASHINGTON — "Bill and Al's excellent adventure" ended tensely in the Clinton impeachment crisis and the Gore election loss — the heady '92 campaign a distant memory. Now they're back in Washington, two policy wonks cutting up the rug in the capital once more.

The old boys on the campaign bus are on separate journeys that rarely bring them in front of Washington crowds, much less on the same day. Tuesday was an exception.

The former president, a judiciously used weapon in New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, was the headliner for a fundraiser for his wife Tuesday night, pulling in more than $2.7 million from 1,000 or so guests. That was more than double the amount raised at a similar event Sunday in New York.

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AUSTIN – Presidential hopeful Bill Richardson says he might lack the "rock-star status" of his Democratic opponents but has two qualities to help win the White House.

HARRY CABLUCK/APPresidential hopeful Bill Richardson (left) was honored by Speaker Tom Craddick and the Texas House on Monday in Austin, one of many stops on his Texas campaign swing.

He's Hispanic and from a Southwestern state.

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Senator Barack Obama said he will announce "soon" whether he will seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.

The Illinois Democrat refused to confirm a report that he will announce formation of a presidential exploratory committee as early as this week. That step would allow him to begin fund raising and setting up a campaign organization.

"Obviously, there's been a lot of talk," Obama, 45, said on CBS's "Face the Nation" program. "I've said I've been considering it. And we'll be making an announcement fairly soon." The first test in the presidential race, the Iowa Caucuses, is a little more than a year away. Five other Democrats already have announced plans to run for the nomination. Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, who also hasn't announced her intentions, are the top favored candidates in polls of Democratic voters.

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| U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz, D-13th District, endorsed Hillary Clinton for president Monday at a fundraising event for the New York senator, becoming the first Democratic Pennsylvania member of Congress to publicly choose a candidate.

Schwartz made her endorsement official at a fundraiser in Philadelphia, where she introduced Clinton to a crowd of about 150 people.

A second-term lawmaker, Schwartz is the lone female member of the state's congressional delegation. She is regarded as an up-and-comer and a possible candidate for statewide office in 2010.

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Now that Mitt Romney has flip-flopped on, deep breath here, abortion rights, gay rights, gun control, immigration policy, and campaign finance reform, what's left to reverse? Maybe this:

July 20, 2007

DES MOINES -- Trailing by double-digit margins in the polls to thrice-married Rudolph Giuliani and twice-married John McCain, presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced yesterday that he was seeking a divorce from his longtime wife, Ann.

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After first misreading his intentions and then underestimating his strength, waves of pundits are continuing to view Rudy Giuliani's lead in Republican presidential polls as some kind of giant misunderstanding.

But the fact is that the former New York mayor is the front-runner in the race and a huge new force in American politics. The time has come to stop wondering whether he's for real and start asking a far more important question: What kind of president would he be? For the past few years, Giuliani's old constituents in New York have marveled as a man once described as a human hand grenade by a New York Times columnist has been transformed into a revered, almost saintly figure. These days, as conservatives struggle over whether to embrace Giuliani, the only discussion is whether he's too liberal.

Saintly? Liberal? The words have almost no relevance to the mayor who once ruled over Gotham. Giuliani is an enormously gifted man, with extraordinary accomplishments to his credit. He's also a highly idiosyncratic figure prone to unusual, sometimes self-destructive acts. As the presidential race moves into a more serious phase, it may be best to put aside the cliches about America's Mayor for a while. If voters are going to elect Rudy Giuliani president, there are a few things they'd better know.

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Springfield, Ill. - Democrat Barack Obama announced today that he is running for the White House in 2008, evoking Abraham Lincoln's ability to unite a nation and promising to lead a new generation to "transform this nation." The first-term U.S. senator announced his candidacy from the state capital where he began his elective career just 10 years ago, and in front of the building where in another century, Lincoln served eight years in the Illinois Legislature.

"We can build a more hopeful America. And that is why, in the shadow of the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln once called on a house divided to stand together, where common hopes and common dreams still live, I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for President of the United States of America," Obama said. His voice rose to a shout as he spoke over the cheers from thousands who braved temperatures in the teens.

Obama, 45, is looking to cap a remarkable and rapid rise to prominence with the biggest prize in American politics.

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New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson concedes he's no political rock star, but asserts he is the rock-solid candidate for president of the United States.

The candidate spoke to about 100 people at a fundraiser Monday morning at the home of John and Debbie Blake at 865 Sayles Blvd.

Richardson, 59, pitched his candidacy based on long seasoning in public life, international experience, moderate views, status as the only Westerner in the presidential field, dedication to hard work - and the fact that he's a next-door-neighbor.

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      WASHINGTON — From his outspoken defense of President Bush on interrogating terrorism suspects to an appeal to Christian conservatives here Friday, Gov. Mitt Romney is increasingly trying to position himself as the leading conservative alternative to Sen. John S. McCain, R-Ariz., in the 2008 presidential race.

Brendan Smialowski, Getty ImagesGov. Mitt Romney has been positioning himself as the more-conservative alternative to Sen. John McCain.

      Romney, elected just four years ago as a moderate Republican, is seizing on the opening created by an unexpectedly tough re-election campaign this year for Sen. George F. Allen of Virginia, the prospective presidential candidate who had been widely seen as the standard-bearer for the GOP's conservative wing.

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      Pignanelli & Webb: First, the weasel words: It's always tough to make predictions about election outcomes. So much depends on final activities and turnout, and we're writing this column six days before the actual event.

      Nevertheless, we're going to stick out our skinny little necks and prognosticate (actually, take wild guesses) about some of the national and state contests and make observations about others.

      Webb: I'm climbing way out on a limb and saying the GOP retains control of both the House and Senate by small margins. It will be a devastating defeat for the Democrats; if they can't win big in this environment, they are in serious trouble. No matter who controls Congress, the long-term outlook for Democrats is not good. Both ideologically (conservatives outnumber liberals 2-1) and demographically (growth areas with traditional families are Republican; declining areas with ...

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      WASHINGTON — Sen. Joe Biden officially joined an increasingly crowded field for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination Wednesday, as he has been promising for months.

      "After nine months of doing this, there is no exploratory committee — I'm running," the Delaware senator told The Associated Press.

      A 34-year Senate veteran known for his foreign policy expertise and somewhat windy oratory, Biden acknowledged his campaign would generate little of the buzz surrounding the celebrity candidates New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

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      WASHINGTON — Running out of time and influence, President Bush faces a rough road in the twilight of his presidency regardless of who controls Congress.

      The once-unshakable loyalty of congressional Republicans is weakening. After marching in lockstep with the White House for six years, GOP lawmakers are looking at the political calendar and thinking about their own futures rather than Bush's legacy in his last two years in office.

      Republicans are in a sour mood, scarred by corruption scandals, held in low esteem by voters and divided over issues from deficit spending to immigration reform. Many GOP candidates shunned Bush in their campaigns, fearing he would hurt rather than help them.

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      SARASOTA, Fla. — The touch-screen voting machines Katherine Harris championed as secretary of state after the 2000 presidential recount may have botched this year's election to replace her in the U.S. House, and it's likely going to mean another Florida recount.

      More than 18,000 Sarasota County voters who marked other races didn't have a vote register in the House race, a rate much higher than the rest of the district, elections results show.

      Sarasota County Elections Supervisor Kathy Dent defended her staff and the voting machines, arguing that the thousands of voters must have either overlooked the race — which was pushed to a second screen by a glut of minor U.S. Senate candidates on the ballot — or simply decided not to vote for either candidate in a race marked by mudslinging.

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So goes the famous quote from Gen. George S. Patton's 1944 D-Day address to his troops. That quote was later popularized in a 1970 masterpiece of a movie called "Patton." And Patton's words have relevance today when pondering President Bush's low approval ratings.

It is not the president's decision to go to war in Iraq that sunk his popularity. For many, it's the perceived lack of results stemming from the war, which began four years ago today. That means it isn't the inherent "morality" of the war that troubles many Bush critics; it's the practical yield from it, or lack thereof.

In pure theory, why wouldn't a plan to establish a democratic beachhead in a portion of the world fraught with violence and instability and depose an evil despot like Saddam Hussein, who had slaughtered his own country's citizens, strike millions of reasonable people as a worthy undertaking?

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      SACRAMENTO, Calif. — He may be riding a surging wave in the Republican presidential race. But former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani found himself pleading for privacy Monday in the wake of news coverage over troubled relationships with his children.

David McNew, Getty ImagesCalifornia Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, left, and ex-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani at news conference in Monterey Park, Calif.

      The twice-divorced Giuliani appeared Monday at a Los Angeles County anti-gang meeting with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and law enforcement officials. Yet he wound up facing reporters' questions over comments by his son, Andrew Giuliani, who described hurt feelings and a sense of estrangement with his father.

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      WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sen. John McCain will officially enter the presidential race — his second run after a bitter loss to George W. Bush in 2000 — with a formal announcement in early April.

John McCain

      The Arizona senator disclosed the timing of the long-expected announcement in a taping for the "Late Show With David Letterman" on CBS for airing Wednesday night.

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American adults aren't eating enough fruits and vegetables, and more needs to be done to meet national goals, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported.

In 2005, about one-third of adults in the United States ate fruit two or more times a day, and a little more than a quarter ate vegetables three or more times a day, the amounts recommended by federal health officials, according to a CDC Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report published Friday.

"The numbers are low, and we have to move away from awareness programs to intervention," Larry Cohen, an officer of CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service, said in a telephone interview. Cohen said awareness programs haven't led people to eat more fruits and vegetables. The CDC recommends teaching people about the benefits of eating fruit and vegetables, finding out what's keeping people from getting the recommended amounts, and making the foods more available, such as by adding them to vending machines.

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As we age, skin on the neck starts to lose its elasticity because of gravity and genetics. The resulting sags and wrinkles are graphically called turkey neck. Most of us don't pay much attention to that part of our body until suddenly one day it confronts us in the mirror.

One woman who can't stand her neck is author Nora Ephron, who wrote, "I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman" ($19.95, Alfred A. Knopf). As she so wittily writes: "There are chicken necks. There are turkey gobbler necks. There are elephant necks ... loose necks, crepey necks, banded necks, wrinkled necks, stringy necks, saggy necks, flabby necks, mottled necks.

"The neck is a dead giveaway. Our faces are lies and our necks are the truth."

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Some prominent journalists have mates who work for a presidential candidate. They approach this potential conflict in different ways.

March 19, 2007

Some of America's most prominent political journalists are, quite literally, wedded to the 2008 presidential race: Their spouses work for one of the candidates.

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SPRINGFIELD, IL - The democratic presidential race heats up. Saturday, Illinois Senator Barack Obama formally threw his hat into the presidential ring while New York Senator Hillary Clinton made her first stop in New Hampshire. 

In the city where he cut his political teeth, Senator Barack Obama made it official.

"I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for president of the United States," said Obama.

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America, home of the free and talentless - Curt Yeomans

I said I wouldn’t talk about a certain show again, but I have to wonder where America’s priorities lie.

Since I’ve been at this paper, the two columns of mine that have gotten the largest volume of responses have been columns on American Idol and Swedish singing group ABBA.

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Checking his baggage early, the former House speaker may have the goods.

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Over the coming weeks, we will try to make the case for how each of the major 2008 presidential contenders could win the White House. These aren't predictions or endorsements, mind you, just food for thought. Last week was Democrat John Edwards. This week, Newt Gingrich.

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Based on the 13-2 spanking the White Sox gave the Cubs last Sunday, it's obvious the Sox will go all the way while the Cubs will finish in last place.

Also, Paul Konerko will hit 384 home runs, Jon Garland will win 34 games, Casey Rogowski is a legitimate threat to hit .400 and Lou Piniella's head will literally catch fire by the Fourth of July.

Oh wait. Turns out that was just one spring training game, and in the grand scheme of things it's almost utterly meaningless.

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