Stories related to: Barack Obama

Wounds from Election 2008 aren’t quickly being papered over in Clintonland, the New York Times reports in a speculative piece about who is likely to be on the former first couple's enemies list. How deep will animosity toward Obama boosters Bill Richardson, Jim Clyburn, and Claire McCaskill run? Use of words like “ingrate,” “traitor,” and “enemy” by Clinton associates may not tell the whole tale, but Hillary ’08 chairman does say, “You have to keep track of this.” More »

The questionable past of the man leading Barack Obama's VP search was a gift to the GOP trying to rough up Obama's image as a squeaky-clean outsider, the Washington Post observes, but it also underscores the difficulty the Democrat faces in broadening his grass-roots campaign to the general-election stage. Obama has to bring aboard Washington insiders like former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson, but the Johnson choice has backfired badly. More »

Egypt is the latest foreign spot where US journalists are finding support for the candidacy of Barack Obama, with Thomas Friedman, in the New York Times, finding "Egyptians are amazed, excited, and agog that America might elect a black man whose father’s family was of Muslim heritage." Win or not, the Democrat's success "has done more to improve America’s image abroad … than the entire Bush public diplomacy effort." More »

A master German dollmaker and Barack Obama fan has paid tribute to the candidate with a doll, Der Spiegel reports. The craftsman admits that the creation—his first attempt at making a black doll—is far from an exact Barack-plica, but says it works on a more symbolic level. The 14-inch doll sports the oft-debated Stars-and-Stripes lapel pin and the kind of blue tie Obama favors. More »

John McCain and Barack Obama drew clear battle lines yesterday over a central election issue—the sputtering economy. McCain promised to boost the economy with tax cuts and reduced regulation, while Obama set out a strategy to help the hard-hit poor and raise taxes on the rich, reports the Washington Post . More »

Barack Obama’s VP selection team had a busy couple of days on Capitol Hill, talking up possible running mates with legislators. A new name in the mix is that of retired Gen. James Jones, MSNBC reports. Joe Biden and Ohio governor Ted Strickland also came under scrutiny; Bill Richardson, Janet Napolitano, Mike Bloomberg, and Chuck Hagel did not.. More »

Ed Rendell's incredible bluntness and honesty are worth celebrating, but those same qualities make the Pennsylvania governor unacceptable as a Democratic vice presidential candidate, Buzz Bissinger writes in the New Republic. Pairing him with Barack Obama might be “a fascinating marriage of the idealist and the schmoozing fixer,” but Rendell’s style is way beyond the pale of national politics. More »

Among Barack Obama's potential running mates, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius brings a history of standing up to the Bush White House and credibility for having won over a historically Republican state, Sam Stein writes in the Huffington Post. "Kansans of all political stripes loved" Sebelius' blasting of Bush's war policy when it left the state without military reserves needed to pick up after 2007 tornadoes. More »

Barack Obama won't accept contributions from lobbyists and PACs, but the rest of his party is unlikely to follow suit, reports Politico. Democratic lobbyists and fundraisers are outraged that the donations they secure are automatically considered suspect, while Senate and House candidates simply need the cash to compete. "You really have to look under every rock," a House aide says of fundraising. More »

Fed up with a focus on local ties and attractiveness in vice presidential selection coverage, Mark Halperin of Time lists the qualifications most under- and -overvalued by the media. Among other things, don't overlook: A candidate ready to be president from Day One. A candidate trusted and liked by the nominee. A candidate trusted and liked by the nominee's wife. More »

Republicans can't get no satisfaction—at least according to several anti-McCain videos set to air on YouTube by pro-Dem marketing group Truth Through Action. The premier video features a steamy bedroom romp that turns suddenly icy when a hot bar date discovers an autographed McCain photo in a nightstand. As if. More »

Barack Obama is being widely hailed as the first black candidate to clinch a presidential nomination, but that's not entirely accurate, Jason Carroll writes for CNN. Obama, son of a black father and white mother, is actually biracial. He self-identifies as black, and some argue that by labeling him as such, "we are all ignoring a vital and legitimate side of his life," says Carroll. More »

"It is the most racially integrated neighborhood in the nation's most racially segregated city," Andrew Ferguson writes in the Weekly Standard of the area in south Chicago Barack Obama calls home. It's a college town, a lefty enclave where the moneyed mix with boho bookworms, and "NPR announcer" types  walk the streets wearing wire rims and backpacks. But Hyde Park isn't an ordinary college town, it's an unusually isolated one—an island in the middle of a slum. More »

James Webb's legendary temper spurs worry that saps energy from the argument for a Barack Obama-Webb ticket. But it's exactly that quality that makes him an attractive possibility, Eve Fairbanks writes in the New Republic . It’s not just his “capacity to hormonally invigorate a party sick of its effete, wine-sipping image.” More »

Barack Obama staffers have quietly been working Virginia, a red state Democrats hope to flip, for at least the past month, the Washington Post reports. Their focus is voter registration, with Tim Kaine's strategy in his successful 2005 gubernatorial campaign as a model. More »

Barack Obama launched a 2-week economic tour today, prompting dueling press releases, Time reports. Obama kicked off the one-on-one stage of the election by vowing to “restore fairness and balance to our economy,” and John McCain's campaign countered by saying the Democratic nominee "doesn’t understand the American economy. " More »

Sen. Ted Kennedy returned to his Massachusetts home today, a week after undergoing a chancy surgery to remove part of a malignant brain tumor, WBZ-TV reports. The Democrat's plane landed at a Cape Cod airport around 11:30 this morning, the Boston Globe adds; Kennedy, 76, told reporters it was “good to be home." More »

John McCain and Barack Obama turned down an invitation from Mayor Michael Bloomberg and ABC News to hold the first town hall meeting in New York, AP reports. While the candidates are both enthusiastic about the idea of such a forum, they want it to be broadcast by multiple stations. Both camps have shown interest in a series of joint stops, new to modern presidential campaigns. More »

Her candidate may have lost the Democratic nomination, but Dianne Feinstein is still dreaming of the dream ticket, Politico reports. Although she conceeds that "nobody else can tell" Barack Obama what to do, Feinstein today reiterated on ABC's "This Week" the Clinton campaign's longtime assertion that it won the popular vote.  The California senator hosted Thursday's meeting between the two candidates. More »

Bill Clinton’s interfering tenacity and squabbling aides killed Hillary Clinton’s chances to win the White House, the New York Times eulogizes in an obituary of the campaign that once seemed indestructible. “Hers was the campaign of destiny, a back-to-the-future effort to restore the Democratic dynasty of the 1990s that could never quite escape the last decade,” write Peter Baker and Jim Rutenberg. More »