Before nominating Eric Holder to be his attorney general, President-elect Barack Obama quietly asked key Senate Republicans if there would be any potential confirmation problems with Holder's nomination. Holder is his first cabinet pick and Obama wants to make sure that the pick will be hailed as a good one....

President-elect Barack Obama's promise to rethink, reexamine and maybe even scrap some of Bush' executive orders was greeted with much joy by environmentalists, abortion rights advocates, and labor union officials. But Obama also lightly noted that he'd take a laser close look at those Bush executive orders which might infringe...

Long before Secret Service officials reported that President elect Barack Obama has gotten more threats against him than any other president-elect, the buzz from many African-Americans was: Do you think that they'll try to do something to him? The "they" was take your pick, a lone deranged crazy, the KKK,...

The instant that Barack Obama tossed his hat in the presidential rink nearly two years ago the twin mantra was that he could be the first black to be president and if that happened America had finally kicked its race syndrome. The twin mantra has been repeated ad infinitum, and...

In September, 2004, then Democratic presidential contender John Kerry desperately searched for a message and a way to re jumpstart a lagging campaign. He did the politically smart thing. He called on Bill Clinton for advice. Clinton laid out his blueprint for Kerry in a long winded...

In a speech on February 10, 2007 on the steps of the Old Capital Building in Springfield, Illinois, then first term U.S. Senator Barack Obama quashed months of doubts, speculation, and rumors over whether he was running for president. He said he was and that touched off...

There are two clues as to how likely president-elect Barack Obama will govern. The first is the names Obama insiders have dropped for months as sure bets for his staff and cabinet. The list reads like a who's who of mostly Democratic senators, ex-senators, governors, former Clinton administration officials, bankers...

The much vaunted October surprise turned out to be not one surprise but a succession of surprises. And they all seemed to go bust. Let's tick them off. Obama allegedly broke bread with a Palestinian terrorist and in the process nodded and even spewed anti-Israel, pro Palestinian...

Republican presidential contender John McCain got one thing right about Democratic rival Barack Obama. He told Larry King that he didn't think race would be much of an issue in the final vote. As McCain put it only "a tiny, tiny, minority" will vote against Obama because he's...

It was inevitable that a badly outdated but now infamous interview -- given to a Chicago radio station in 2001 by then Illinois Senator Barack Obama, in which he called for "redistributive change" and chided the Supreme Court for not doing more to make that happen -- would be snatched...

The then freshly elected President Clinton had barely dropped his arm after taking the oath of office in January 1993 before they started in on him. The "they" was Rush Limbaugh (Remember his "Day one of America held hostage" daily rant), packs of radio shock jocks, legions of Christian broadcasters,...

If Republican contender John McCain loses two things did him in. One he couldn't control. That was the economy, not its collapse, but when it collapsed. In a look at how six of eight presidents fared since 1948 when the economy went on the rocks or appeared to...

At first glance it seems absolutely incredible that Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama can't shake Republican rival John McCain. Yet an AP poll calls the race a statistical dead heat. That's only one poll, of course, and the mish mash of other polls show Obama with either a respectable lead...

Not long after Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama tossed his hat in the presidential rink back in February 2007, an odd, even bizarre thing happened. A hodgepodge of avowedly racist groups burned up internet sites not with rage, but glee. They were giddy at the thought that Obama...

The dredging up of the alleged ACORN voter registration fraud charge hardly rises to the level of the much talked about and much dreaded October Surprise that one, more or many GOP 527 committees supposedly are getting ready to drop on the nation's plate in a last gasp effort to...

The fur flew again between Jesse Jackson and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama after Jackson's alleged quip at a conference in France that an Obama White House will no longer put Israel's interests first. The alleged quip set off furious denials from Obama, loud protests from Jackson that he was...

It was a tense and riveting moment at the recent McCain campaign rally in Minnesota when a flustered and livid participant shouted at Republican presidential contender John McCain that he was scared of an Obama presidency. The man is not alone in his professed terror of an Obama...

News reports that state officials in the crucial battleground states of Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina were purging thousands from voter rolls illegally drew a flurry of media and public attention. The crude, dubious, if not outright illegal, stuff to suppress votes such as the...

OK, we now know for the umpteenth time that Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain will cut taxes, provide affordable health care to everyone, drill for more oil, expand nuclear power use, end global warming, rein in the Wall Street fast buck artists, take out Osama Bin Laden, and...

The recent report that 8 million African-Americans are unregistered to vote brought gasps of disbelief, cries of shame, and a lot of head shaking reproach. It also stirred a mild soul search among blacks about how and why the numbers are so appallingly high. The figure was cited in September...