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AMES, Iowa (AP) — President Barack Obama is poised to eke out a victory in the race for the 270 electoral votes needed to win re-election, having beaten back Republican Mitt Romney's attempts to convert momentum from the debates into support in all-important Ohio, according to an Associated Press analysis a week before Election Day. While the Democratic incumbent has the upper hand in the electoral vote hunt, Romney has pulled even, or is slightly ahead, in polling in a few pivotal states, including Florida and Virginia. The Republican challenger also appears to have the advantage in North Carolina, the...

Once deeply vulnerable, President Barack Obama has seen his fortunes take a dramatic turn for the better as the Republican Party splits between its historic business-friendly establishment and the powerful tug of more conservative and social issues voters. Burdened throughout his term by the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression, Obama was expected to be hard pressed to hold on the White House in November. But eight months before Election Day, things have changed. That's partly because the economy is finally showing signs of a sustained recovery. But the new wind at Obama's back blowing just as powerfully...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congressional investigators said Monday that four House members received VIP discounted loans from the former Countrywide Financial Corp., the lender whose subprime mortgages was largely responsible for the nation's foreclosure crisis. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, declined to name the four but wrote the House Ethics Committee that it should investigate the lawmakers. Issa, in a letter dated Friday and released Monday, said there could be additional lawmakers who received discounted loans. The most favored customers of Countrywide were known as "Friends of Angelo," who were given discounts in...

Bulling its way into 2012, the tea party is shaping the race for the GOP presidential nomination as candidates parrot the movement's language and promote its agenda while jostling to win its favor. That's much to the delight of Democrats who are working to paint the tea party and the eventual Republican nominee as extreme. "The tea party isn't a diversion from mainstream Republican thought. It is within mainstream Republican thought," Mitt Romney told a New Hampshire newspaper recently, defending the activists he's done little to woo, until now. The former Massachusetts governor is starting to court them more aggressively...

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul is likening his home state opponent, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, to a "candidate of the week." Paul, a Texas congressman, is advising GOP primary voters to look closely at Perry's record over the last decade. Paul says a lot has changed in Texas under Perry's watch — and much of it isn't good.

Republicans named a mix of partisans and pragmatists on Wednesday to the new congressional committee charged with striking a debt-cutting compromise. While members of both parties expressed urgency over controlling surging budget shortfalls, others were pessimistic that the bipartisan panel would overcome deep political divides. With nine of the committee's 12 members selected, Washington began calculating whether the faltering economy and chaotic financial markets could spur the panel to produce a bipartisan plan trimming $1.5 trillion from the government's debt over the coming decade. Failure — a real possibility, considering GOP opposition to tax increases and Democratic hostility to cuts...

MADISON, Wis. -- A stand by Wisconsin Republicans against a massive effort to oust them from power could reverberate across the country as the battle over union rights and the conservative revolution heads toward the 2012 presidential race. Democrats succeeded in taking two Wisconsin state Senate seats away from Republican incumbents on Tuesday but fell one short of what they needed to seize majority control of the chamber. Republicans saw it as a big win for Gov. Scott Walker and a confirmation of his conservative agenda, the hallmark of which was a polarizing proposal taking away most collective bargaining rights...

Attitudes about Muslim-Western relations have become slightly more positive in the U.S., Britain, France, Germany and Russia compared with five years ago, though negative views between Muslim countries and the West persist on both sides, a Pew Research Center survey found. The survey, by Pew's Global Attitudes Project, found majorities of Muslims surveyed in five of six Muslim-dominant countries and the Palestinian territories described non-Muslim Westerners as selfish and greedy. In all of the six Western countries surveyed, less than 30 percent of non-Muslims said they consider Muslims respectful of women. Ten years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Muslims in...

Madison, Wis. (AP) -- When a little-known liberal challenged a conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, the once-sleepy race suddenly looked like a backdoor way for Gov. Scott Walker's opponents to sink his agenda. Then a clerk discovered 14,000 unrecorded votes that vaulted the incumbent into the lead. Experts said the results represented a draw for the governor: He didn't lose, but the slim margin means he didn't win big, either. And the close contest could help ensure Walker's opponents stay energized for the next round. The outcome also improves the odds that Walker's collective bargaining law would survive a legal...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Easy for them to say: Cut spending, no matter what. Don't let the government borrow any more. Shut it down if you have to. While the cast of potential White House contenders tells Congress to get tough, drawing lines in the sand is risky for lawmakers who have to live with the consequences. Many remember what happened more than two years ago when House conservatives bolted from their Republican president and leadership to defeat a $700 billion rescue bill for the nation's financial system. The Dow Jones industrials plunged 777 points, the most ever for a single...

Their ranks swollen after the last election, Republican governors from Florida to Alaska are undermining President Barack Obama's agenda at every turn ahead of the Democrat's 2012 re-election campaign.

Republican candidate for governor Carl Paladino rails against gay marriage and called the bumping-and-griding at gay pride parades disgusting. He also once was the landlord for two gay clubs in Buffalo. The real estate deal, first reported Wednesday by the New York Daily News, left Democrats calling him a hypocrite. Paladino's campaign said it proved that he supports gay rights, just not gay marriage. Meanwhile, a rabbi who represents an umbrella organization of ultra-Orthodox clerics said he was dropping his endorsement of Paladino because the candidate had apologized for the harsh wording of some of his comments about gays.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Progressive activists who helped elect Barack Obama president are criticizing the White House and congressional Democrats, saying they are too timid and too willing to compromise.

Election spooks lawmakers, curbs Congress spending WASHINGTON (AP) — The 2010 elections have changed the direction of government only half way through the primary season, with voter anger and economic jitters causing lawmakers to balk at their most basic duties as well as key elements of President Barack Obama's agenda.After betting their political future on a government-mandated expansion of health care to include millions more Americans, Democrats appear to have little appetite for more legislative showdowns given voter rebellion against government spending amid trillion dollar-plus annual deficits.The solution in some cases is to simply not vote. Immigration reform is too...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- The diplomatic crisis prompted by Israel's raid on a flotilla of aid ships bound for the Gaza Strip confronts President Barack Obama with a second major test by the Israeli leadership and presents yet another blow to his goal of brokering peace with the Palestinians. Also taking a hit: the president's effort to improve the U.S. image in the Arab world. Muslim countries, even U.S. allies Turkey and Egypt, are slamming Obama over his measured reaction to the raid.

Kent Hancock can't remember tougher economic times in the two decades he's sold used cars in California's Central Valley. He brings home less than half the money he cleared a few years ago and has dipped into savings to keep his business open. Hancock, 41, blames politicians for doing too little to get the economy back on track and hopes they are "sweating it a little bit. They should. It shouldn't be a guaranteed job." Hancock's frustration is evident throughout the nation's most populous state. Just a year ago, the Democratic Party looked at California as a base for adding...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Dick Cheney refuses to be a has-been. The former vice president's voice appears to carry even more weight than it did in the waning days of the Bush administration. Some people want him to be quiet and disappear. Others are cheering the public relations tour that Cheney began halfway through President Barack Obama's first 100 days, defending the Bush administration's harsh interrogation tactics and other anti-terrorism policies. Vice presidents typically fade away quietly. Not Cheney. When Obama released memos detailing Bush-era interrogation techniques and wouldn't completely rule out prosecuting or disciplining former Bush administration officials, Cheney couldn't...

Chapel Hill, N.C. (AP) -- In political debate, the side that keeps its arguments simple and repeats them again and again is likely to gain the advantage. It is an easier sale, especially when the topic is as scary as terrorism. That's how Republicans got the edge in the dispute over President Barack Obama's planned closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison. And it put former Vice President Dick Cheney on a separate but almost equal platform with the president of the United States, which is a plus any time the party out of power can manage it. Their back-to-back speeches...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- He's not being timid, that's for sure. President Barack Obama's first federal budget lays out the most far-reaching agenda for American life since Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society." But paying for it by having upper-income earners shoulder much of the cost is already provoking cries of "class warfare" in Congress. The Obama priorities reflected in the $3.6 trillion budget guarantees a fierce political battle ahead over taxes. And it assumes a fairly quick economic recovery from the worst recession in decades. The budget outline includes ambitious initiatives on energy, health care, education and climate change. It would boost...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- If only all home moves could be as quick and easy as at the White House. President George W. Bush will leave the White House on Tuesday morning and give way to Barack Obama at noon sharp. By the time the Obamas enter their new quarters a few hours later, the new first family's clothes will be hanging in the closets and their photos on display.

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- President George W. Bush will be judged on what he did. He will also be remembered for what he's like: a fast-moving, phrase-mangling Texan who stays upbeat even though his country is not. For eight years, the nation has been led by a guy who relaxes by clearing brush in scorching heat and taking breakneck bike rides through the woods. He dishes out nicknames to world leaders, and even gave the German chancellor an impromptu, perhaps unwelcome, neck rub. He's annoyed when kept waiting and sticks relentlessly to routine. He stays optimistic in even the most dire...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court took aim at one of its favorite targets Tuesday, criticizing a California-based federal appeals court for its ruling in favor of a criminal defendant. The justices threw out a decision by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Michael Robert Pulido, who was convicted for his role in robbing a gas station and killing the defendant. ...The high court said in an unsigned opinion that the appeals court ruling affirming the federal judge's action used faulty reasoning. ...Last month, the court overruled the 9th Circuit in an environmental...

Sacramento, Calif. (AP) -- Republican state lawmakers on Tuesday blocked the Democrats' $17 billion proposal to address part of California's fiscal meltdown, leaving the state on track for a cash derailment this spring. Assembly Speaker Karen Bass said she was disappointed that termed-out Republicans refused to step out of their ideological corners and accept a combination of $8.1 billion in cuts and $8.1 billion in tax increases. She said leaders would return next week to take up the challenge again. "We only have a couple of months before the state runs out of cash," said Bass, a Democrat. "And we...

Anchorage, Alaska (AP) -- Alaska's incoming senator is bullish on gun rights, wants to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling and believes less government is better. And he's a Democrat. But "definitely different than a New York Democrat," says Mark Begich. "I'm from Alaska." Begich, the 46-year-old, two-term Anchorage mayor, will take office in January after narrowly defeating 85-year-old Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in the history of the Senate. Part of Stevens' undoing in his bid for a seventh term was his conviction on federal felony charges last month. With Republican Gov. Sarah...

Jacksonville, Fla. (AP) -- Barack Obama looks and acts like a guy who expects to win. Just look at his election eve schedule. While John McCain rushed around to seven states for last-minute campaigning on Monday, Obama didn't appear before voters until after 11 a.m., the first of just three events for the day. Before that, he did radio interviews from his hotel room — then he headed out in sweat pants and a ball cap for a 45-minute workout at a gym. "What is the one thing at this point that has you a little bit concerned?" he was...

Barack Obama isn't the only one hoping to make a huge leap in importance and influence on Election Day. A Washington think tank with close ties to Obama and former president Clinton is about to publish a 50-chapter book on how to run a new Democratic administration. The Center for American Progress already has produced a 26-page document, widely distributed among Obama aides, describing what the last five presidents did on each day of his transition. And if Obama wins the presidency Tuesday, the group stands ready to fill top federal positions with some of its staffers, many of whom...

Barack Obama has pulled ahead in enough states to win the 270 electoral votes he needs to gain the White House — and with states to spare — according to an Associated Press analysis that shows he is now moving beyond typical Democratic territory to challenge John McCain on historically GOP turf. Even if McCain sweeps the six states that are too close to call, he still seemingly won't have enough votes to prevail, according to the analysis, which is based on polls, the candidates' TV spending patterns and interviews with Democratic and Republican strategists. McCain does have a path...

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens' conviction Monday on corruption charges gives Democrats a late boost in an improbable drive to win the 60-vote Senate supermajority they want as they look ahead to the new Congress. Until the jury rendered its verdict, Stevens had been in a close race with his opponent, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, in a state that hasn't sent a Democrat to the Senate in a generation. Now Begich becomes the favorite as Republicans walk away from the 84-year-old Senate veteran and Democrats and their political allies waste no time trumpeting his conviction. "Alaskans deserve better than a convicted...

Nashville, Tenn. (AP) -- Here is a foolproof way for politicians to score points with evangelical voters: Attack the media, an institution widely seen as lacking conservative Christian voices. Republican presidential hopeful John McCain and his evangelical running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have done just that at times during the campaign, with repeated jabs at the "liberal media." One way to change this perception, some church leaders, social commentators and journalists say, is for mainstream news organizations to employ — and keep — more evangelicals in their newsrooms. "Journalism has become more of a white-collar field that draws from elite...

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin tells audiences the election is about the "truthfulness and judgment" needed to be president. But the Alaska governor often stretches the truth herself. She has exaggerated the nature of Barack Obama's personal ties to a former 1960s radical and falsely claimed the Democratic presidential candidate plans to raise most people's taxes. On Tuesday, she tried rebutting the Illinois senator's criticisms of Republican presidential candidate John McCain over health care and Social Security. She said Obama was misleading and wrong, but she herself told less than the full story. To be sure, most of Palin's...

Des Moines, Iowa (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain, once renowned for his jocular sessions with journalists, appeared irritable and at times sarcastic in an interview in which he defended running mate Sarah Palin's experience and campaign ads critical of rival Barack Obama. Meeting Tuesday with the editorial board of The Des Moines Register, McCain was asked why he picked the Alaska governor, someone "who doesn't have a lot of experience." "Thank you, but I disagree with your fundamental principal that she doesn't have the experience," McCain replied before citing Palin's work as a PTA member, city council member,...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is no stranger to criticism. He gives as good as he gets. But two recent critiques of his opinion in the landmark decision guaranteeing people the right keep guns at home for self-defense are notable because they come from respected fellow conservative federal judges. The judges, J. Harvie Wilkinson of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., and Richard Posner of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, take Scalia to task for engaging in the same sort of judicial activism he regularly disdains. Wilkinson was interviewed...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- A Republican group launched a new effort Wednesday to turn Jewish voters away from Barack Obama, an ad campaign that compares the Democratic presidential candidate to Pat Buchanan but offers scant evidence of their similarities. The Republican Jewish Coalition is running an ad in dozens of Jewish newspapers that says Obama and Buchanan have views on Israel that are "dangerous, reckless and wrong." It quotes Buchanan as saying his views on Israel are a lot closer to Obama's than they are to those of GOP presidential nominee John McCain. "Concerned about Barack Obama?" the ad says over...

If there were any doubts that the sidekick was stealing the show, they were put to rest when Sarah Palin took off for Alaska with a wave from the tarmac by John McCain. His crowds suddenly dwindled. The exuberant cheering heard day after day during two weeks of joint appearances went away. And the Republican presidential candidate's schedule began to resemble the lightness of May instead of the full throttle of September. Meantime, Palin's campaign plane taking her home to Alaska was so crowded it had to let off some cargo to get the weight down. This was a striking...

It's happening around the coffee machine at work and the dinner table at home. Your hear it at football games, cocktail parties and on supermarket lines. It's consuming unmeasurable chunks of cyberspace. It's the Sarah Palin Conversation, and these days it can seem to be the only one we're having — especially women, for whom it's becoming increasingly passionate and partisan. We're having this conversation whether we love her or hate her.

The Bush administration is facing a new headache, this time in Latin America, as two leftist governments it can't ignore booted the U.S. ambassadors this week. Simmering ideological tensions between President Bush and the populist presidents of Bolivia and Venezuela boiled over this week in twin diplomatic spats that threaten U.S. counternarcotics operations in the region and possibly American energy supplies. The administration says it wants to get along with the growing number of leftist leaders in the Western Hemisphere, but Bolivian President Evo Morales and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez are having none of it, essentially responding with the time-honored...

So much for hugging in church. A day after Barack Obama and John McCain exchanged an embrace during a faith forum at a California megachurch, Obama called the U.S. economy a disaster thanks to "John McCain's president, George W. Bush," and chided his Republican rival's campaign team for trying to make him look unpatriotic and weak.

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Forget the war for the White House for a moment. Among young people, Barack Obama appears to be beating John McCain in the battle for "cool." "Obama is a tad cooler than McCain on probably 57 fronts," said Emily Goulding, 25, of Los Angeles. "Obama's better looking than McCain, Obama's more stylish than McCain, Obama's more fit than McCain. He refers to better music than McCain."

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As we wait with bated breath for the Associated Press to come down from the mountain with its own rules for "fair use for bloggers," Patrick Nielsen Hayden gives us a sense of what the AP considers fair use (found via Boing Boing). Apparently, for quite some time, the AP has had up a page that lists out prices for quoting AP text. I will quote the list prices, and hope I don't get a DMCA takedown: 5-25 words: $ 12.50 26-50 words: $ 17.50 51-100 words: $ 25.00 101-250 words: $ 50.00 251 words and up: $ 100.00 Oh,...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- This month's trial of former state Sen. John Ford on corruption charges could last up to a month. Ford is accused of taking $800,000 in consultant payments from TennCare contractors to promote those private companies' interests with the state's expanded Medicaid program. Ford was known for his flashy attire when he was a lawmaker. On Monday he was led into court in a dark green jumpsuit with his hands cuffed behind his back. He was convicted earlier this year of taking $55,000 in bribes during the unrelated federal Tennessee Waltz investigation and is serving a 5 1/2...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama tried to please a pro-Israel crowd this week by saying that Jerusalem should be the capital of Israel and that the holy city should not be divided. That angered Palestinians, who claim part of the city, and Obama clarified his remarks to say that the fate of Jerusalem should be a matter for negotiation. That angered some Israelis and their U.S. supporters. By week's end no one was happy. WHAT HE SAID: Obama told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hillary Rodham Clinton — former first lady, New York senator and Democratic presidential candidate who won 18 million votes — is not your typical mouthpiece. Never has been, never will be. When she formally bows out on Saturday and endorses Barack Obama, she will speak of party unity and do her part for the nominee. But with her own stature and political future to consider — including the possibility of joining him as his running mate — everything Clinton does for Obama going forward is also a shadow campaign for the next phase of her career. "It's...

The AP gives us a story about some so-called “documentary” about what evil befell the poor folks of Crawford, Texas, after Governor George W. Bush bought his ranch property there. I’ll start right out with the key section that pretty much describes what we’re dealing with, a quote by the director of this film. “I wanted to do a film indicting Bush for this political stagecraft, using this town as a prop.” A guy that wanted to exploit the kind folks of Crawford, Texas is being presented as a wonderful fellow by the press? Say it isn’t so! Naturally, the...

Hillary Rodham Clinton, who ran for the presidency with the aura of inevitability, faces the reality of being one of 100. For the first time since she was elected to the Senate in 2000, the former first lady is no longer the candidate with the best shot of capturing the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. That title belongs to someone else. She's still simply the junior senator from New York with no committee chairmanship, the coin of the realm bestowed by seniority. At least for a while. As she walks the familiar marble halls of Congress, from news conferences to committee...

Columbus, Ohio (AP) -- Republican John McCain has been slow to take advantage of his potential head start for the presidency against Democrats, who are better organized and generate more excitement among voters. McCain enters a November-focused campaign with distinct disadvantages, his aides and advisers acknowledge: his party's unpopular incumbent president, his unwavering support for the war in Iraq and the Democrats' unmistakable fundraising potential. Yet the Arizona senator and his party have inched toward blunting the shortcomings instead of racing to erase them. "This has given us time," said Frank Donatelli, vice chairman of the Republican National Committee and...

Two weeks before the final primary in their marathon battle, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton were campaigning hard Wednesday. Both were in Florida, but their goals could hardly have been more different - or said more about how each one hopes to bring their historic race to a close. Obama, feeling sure of the Democratic nomination, was trying to stake an early claim to a state that could be crucial in the general election against Republican John McCain. Clinton, insisting she can still be her party's nominee, was making a plea for the state's disputed primary results to be...

SACRAMENTO, (AP) -- Barbara Gonzel has lived in a two-bedroom duplex in northwest Los Angeles for 13 years, protected from the region's soaring housing costs by the city's rent-control ordinance. That could change, and Gonzel could find herself paying hundreds of dollars more in monthly rent, if voters approve one of two property rights initiatives on the June 3 primary election ballot. One of the measures, Proposition 98, is supported by landlords and business owners and contains a provision that would phase out local rent-control ordinances for apartments, duplexes and mobile home parks. It also would eliminate tenant-protection rules that...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman — who quit the Democratic Party 12 years ago to become a Republican — has accused likely Democratic opponent Al Franken of changing positions, demeanor and rhetoric in his attempt to win a Senate seat. Coleman makes the charge in a fundraising e-mail sent out this week with the subject line, "It's Hard to Deny this Kind of Evolution." "After decades of carrying the flag for radical left-wing causes, his extremely liberal viewpoints are couched in softer, more acceptable terms," Coleman writes of the former "Saturday Night Live" star. "And for the most...

Apex, N.C. (AP) -- People who suggest Bill Clinton might be hurting his wife's presidential bid more than helping it haven't spent much time in the small towns where he draws adoring crowds of Democrats who wish he could serve a third term. While the former president has angered some blacks with his comments about race, many voters in North Carolina, Indiana and elsewhere express deep affection for him, the last Democrat to occupy the White House in nearly three decades. They often cite him as the main reason for supporting Hillary Rodham Clinton over Barack Obama. Surely in the...