In this June 4, 2008 file photo, Antoin "Tony" Rezko returns to the Federal Courthouse in Chicago, Wednesday, June 4, 2008. These days, presidential candidates can expect to have every personal relationship inspected like a crime scene on "CSI." Then, whether there's evidence of a misdemeanor, a felony or nothing at all, those relationships will be used for political purposes. This is especially true for Barack Obama, a newcomer to the national scene. Voters haven't had years to form an impression based on what he has said or the legislation he's passed, but they can take a look at the people around him. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File)
By CHRISTOPHER WILLS – 1 day ago
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Who’s Tony Rezko? William Ayers? Few Americans know, but they probably will by Election Day.
Rezko is a Chicago businessman, convicted of more than a dozen charges this week. Ayers is a professor — and former member of the radical Weather Underground. Both have ties to Barack Obama and may well show up in anti-Obama ads you’ll be seeing before long.
These days, presidential candidates can expect to have every personal relationship, new or ancient, inspected like a crime scene on “CSI.” Then, if there’s political hay to be made, a version of the details is quickly out.
Republican John McCain has his own potential problem people whom Democrats may try to exploit. In some cases, they have been for years.
For example, there’s Charles Keating Jr., a wealthy savings and loan executive from Arizona who was the focus of a congressional ethics investigation in which McCain was ensnared in the 1980s. Rick Davis and Charlie Black, two men in the inner circle of McCain’s campaign, are former lobbyists — hardly a crime but still fodder for critics who want to undermine McCain’s self-portrayal as a senator fighting to lessen big money’s influence on politics.

ap.google.com

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama was poised last night to claim victory in the Democratic presidential race, defeating Hillary Clinton after a marathon primary campaign and becoming the first black nominee for the White House in American history.
With polls set to close yesterday evening in Montana and South Dakota, the Illinois Senator stood just nine delegates shy of reaching the 2,118 delegates needed to become the Democrats’ presumptive nominee.
Mr. Obama was expected to easily surpass the Democrats’ magic number after polls closed in the two western states, where he was expected to win at least half of the 31 pledged delegates up for grabs.
Mr. Obama edged to the threshold of victory after a chaotic last day of voting and backroom political dealing dominated by wild speculation about when Ms. Clinton would end her campaign, and what she wanted as a consolation prize.
In a private conference call with Democratic lawmakers from New York, Ms. Clinton said she would be “open to” becoming Mr. Obama’s vice-presidential running mate if it would help the Illinois Senator win the upcoming general election campaign. “They have to be together in some capacity,” said Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe.
Ms. Clinton’s campaign insisted the former first lady would not admit defeat during a speech last night in her home state of New York. Instead, several Clinton aides said the New York Senator wanted to exit the race on her own terms after assessing her political options.
Still, there was confusion even within the Clinton camp about how the race would conclude.
“If Senator Obama gets the number, I think Hillary Clinton will congratulate him and call him the nominee,” Mr. Mc-Auliffe said. Just minutes later, Ms. Clinton’s campaign issued a terse statement denying she would formally concede.
One senior strategist, Harold Ickes, said Ms. Clinton may suspend her campaign and acknowledge Mr. Obama as the likely nominee, but still challenge the distribution of disputed delegates from Michigan.

nationalpost.com

In an interview with National Journal Contributing Editor Linda Douglass that airs today, Gary Hart , a Barack Obama backer, makes a couple interesting assertions:
Assuming Hillary Clinton does not have the most delegates by convention time, she should be allowed to place her name in nomination and then graciously cede to Obama at the convention.
And Hart said that if the results in PA and NC are racially-polarized, it may reveal a general election vulnerability about Obama that Democrats should consider.
Q: You know the pundits and the political operatives are all saying that Obama’s prospects have been badly damaged by the Reverend Wright controversy- and that whites are less comfortable with him than they used to be. So if Pennsylvania has a racially polarized outcome, and then if North Carolina, which Obama is expected to win, has a racially polarized outcome. Does that reveal a general election vulnerability that the Democrats should consider about him?
A: I think it would. But on the other hand, as a supporter of his, I hold out a remote hope that he might win Pennsylvania. Now I’m probably alone in that prospect. But the polls are narrowing. And you could reverse that question and say, in spite of the sort of psycho-drama, I think over-inflated, about reverend Wright, endlessly looped for a week or two on the cable networks. What if he proves that the damage to White voters’ support was not affected- that there was no damage, and went ahead to demonstrate strength across the racial boundaries. I think all that says is, many people in the media overplayed that story.
Q. But if the reverse is true, that is, if it is racially polarized?
A. Then it’s a problem. Then it’s a problem..
Posted at 11:47 AM
Assuming Hillary Clinton does not have the most delegates by convention time, she should be allowed to place her name in nomination and then graciously cede to Obama at the convention.

hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com

Joy Behar got right to the heart of the matter that could ultimately decide the election.
“I understand,” Behar said to presidential candidate Barack Obama, “that you’re related to Brad Pitt, in some way.”
What The View host – who, along with her colleagues, welcomed the Democratic Illinois U.S. senator to the ABC daytime show Friday – was referring to was a claim by the New England Historic Genealogical Society that Pitt and Obama are distant cousins, linked by one Edwin Hickman, who died in Virginia in 1769.
“Are you related to Brad Pitt?” pressed Behar, according to clips provided by ABC.
“I guess we’re ninth cousins, something, removed – or something,” said Obama, 46, adding modestly, “I think he got the better-looking side of the gene pool.”
The comment prompted the show’s matriarch, Barbara Walters, to tell the senator: “We were saying just before you came out – maybe we shouldn’t say this. But we thought you were very sexy looking.”
Behar also asks if Obama is tough enough to withstand the rigorous attacks that can come in a presidential campaign.
Says Behar, “When John Kerry was running for office, I said to him, in a similar situation, … ‘John, are you going to be able to withstand the attack machine on the Republican side?’ … And he said yes. And then he was Swift-boated. And, as you can see, he’s not our president.”
“I noticed,” replies Obama.
“I ask you the same question,” says Behar. “How tough are ya?”
“You know, I’m a pretty tough – I’m skinny but I’m tough.”
After the audience laughter subsides, he says, “I think that the way to handle attacks, wherever they’re coming from – and, you know, there’ve been some tough punches thrown in this Democratic primary … – the way I like to handle attacks is to answer honestly, swiftly, forcefully and truthfully. I think the truth is a powerful weapon.”

people.com

PARIS: U.S. Senator John McCain said Friday that any breach of passport privacy deserves an apology and a “full investigation.”
McCain's comments came as the U.S. State Department said that the passport files of McCain and two other presidential candidates — Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton — have been breached.
Reporters asked McCain about the breach of Obama's passport details after he met Friday with the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. It was unclear whether McCain was aware that his own passport files had also been breached, as the U.S. State Department confirmed.
“If anyone's privacy is breached, then they deserve an apology and a full investigation and I believe this will take place,” said McCain.
“The United States of America values everyone's privacy and corrective action should be taken,” he said.
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the individual who accessed Obama's files also reviewed McCain's file. The employee has been reprimanded, but not fired, McCormack said.
“We are reviewing our options with that person” and the contract employee's employment status, McCormack said.

iht.com

Monday February 25 2008
By JIM KUHNHENN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - A photograph circulating on the Internet of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama dressed in traditional local garments during a visit to Kenya in 2006 is causing a dustup in the presidential campaign over what constitutes a smear.
The Associated Press photograph portrays Obama wearing a white turban and a wraparound white robe presented to him by elders in Wajir, in northeastern Kenya. Obama’s estranged late father was Kenyan and Obama visited the country in 2006, attracting thousands of well-wishers.
The gossip and news Web site The Drudge Report posted the photograph Monday and said it was being circulated by “Clinton staffers” and quoted an e-mail from an unidentified campaign aide. Drudge did not include proof of the e-mail in the report.
“I just want to make it very clear that we were not aware of it, the campaign didn’t sanction it and don’t know anything about it,” Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said in a teleconference with reporters. “None of us have seen the e-mail in question. If anybody has independent reporting that they’ve done on it I would welcome it.”
Obama, in an interview with WOAI radio in San Antonio, Texas, said voters are “saddened when they see these kind of politics.”
“Everybody knows that whether it’s me or Senator Clinton or Bill Clinton that when you travel to other countries they ask you to try on traditional garb that you have been given as a gift,” he said. “The notion that the Clinton campaign would be trying to circulate this as a negative on the same day that Senator Clinton was giving a speech about how we repair our relationships around the world is sad.”
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe accused Clinton’s campaign of “the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election.”
Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams said the Obama campaign’s reaction was inflaming passions and distracting voters.
“Enough,” Williams said in a statement. “If Barack Obama’s campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed. Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely.
“This is nothing more than an obvious and transparent attempt to distract from the serious issues confronting our country today and to attempt to create the very divisions they claim to decry.”
In a teleconference with reporters, retired Air Force Gen. Scott Gration, an Obama adviser who accompanied the Illinois senator to Kenya two years ago, said the senator was there to learn how tribes were organizing themselves.
“And in the course of this, Senator Obama was given an outfit and as the guest that he was, the great guest, he took this outfit and they encouraged him to try some of it on,” Gration said. “It was a thing that we all do.”
In December, two Clinton Iowa volunteers resigned after forwarding a hoax e-mail that falsely said Obama is a Muslim possibly intent on destroying the United States. Obama is a member of the United Church of Christ and says he has never been a Muslim, but false rumors about Islamic ties are circulating on the Internet.

guardian.co.uk