Obama S Chief Strategist

President Obama and his congressional allies are entering the next phase of their push to overhaul healthcare with lower expectations of what can be accomplished -- but with far greater certainty that significant legislation will be enacted by the end of the year. After a long summer of raucous protests, discouraging poll numbers and unplanned tactical shifts, administration officials and Democratic leaders now are focusing on their two greatest challenges: scaling back the overall cost, and developing alternatives to the government-run insurance option that liberals have championed.

President Obama and his congressional allies are entering the next phase of their push to overhaul healthcare with lower expectations of what can be accomplished -- but with far greater certainty that significant legislation will be enacted by the end of the year. After a long summer of raucous protests, discouraging poll numbers and unplanned tactical shifts, administration officials and Democratic leaders now are focusing on their two greatest challenges: scaling back the overall cost, and developing alternatives to the government-run insurance option that liberals have championed.

For inspiration, Barack Obama looked to John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton as he wrote -- and rewrote -- the speech he will deliver tonight at the Democratic National Convention. But the historical weight of Obama's address to party loyalists packed into a football stadium exceeds anything faced by those soon-to-be presidents when they accepted their parties' nominations in 1960, 1980 and 1992. In a nation defined by racial divisions since its founding, Obama is the first African American to win a major party's White House nomination.

It was clear why Barack Obama's campaign barred television crews from a Beverly Hills mansion at twilight Tuesday as the Democratic presidential nominee mingled with movie stars on a giant terrace overlooking Los Angeles. The cocktail reception was part of Obama's biggest night of Hollywood fundraising so far, an evening capped with a live performance by Barbra Streisand at the Regent Beverly Wilshire. But it came fraught with risk. As if on cue, John McCain used the Illinois senator's lucrative detour from battleground states to Beverly Hills to mock Obama's professed solidarity with working people "just before he flew off to Hollywood for a fundraiser with Barbra Streisand and his celebrity friends."

On the eve of the Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama on Sunday framed the November election as a choice between watching the nation "get run into the ground" under another Republican president or "solving the big problems" that America faces. Obama also gave a preview of the speech that his wife, Michelle, will give tonight at the Denver gathering, describing it as a biographical sketch of them that could reassure voters wary of his candidacy. "You'll have a sense of who she is, and what our values are, and how we're raising our kids," Obama told a few hundred supporters gathered under weeping willows here in a lakefront park.

Even as he mounts unceasing attacks on his Republican rival, Barack Obama is ignoring the person on the ticket who is the center of attention: Sarah Palin. A few syllables are all Obama expends on the Republican vice presidential nominee. He'll mention "McCain-Palin" when he's on the trail; beyond that, her name is practically taboo. Last week, Obama rolled out what his campaign billed as a more aggressive persona. And he is indeed denigrating John McCain at every turn. Given his new eagerness to slash at McCain's record, his silence on Palin's is even more conspicuous.

It was clear why Barack Obama's campaign barred television crews from a Beverly Hills mansion at twilight Tuesday as the Democratic presidential nominee mingled with movie stars on a giant terrace overlooking Los Angeles. The cocktail reception was part of Obama's biggest night of Hollywood fundraising so far, an evening capped with a live performance by Barbra Streisand at the Regent Beverly Wilshire. But it came fraught with risk. As if on cue, John McCain used the Illinois senator's lucrative detour from battleground states to Beverly Hills to mock Obama's professed solidarity with working people "just before he flew off to Hollywood for a fundraiser with Barbra Streisand and his celebrity friends."

One day after Mitt Romney narrowly won the Iowa Republican caucuses, President Obama's chief campaign strategist unleashed a withering attack on the candidate, casting him as a soulless flip-flopper whose main interest is personal “advancement. " “Taking two positions on every issue, one on the left and one on the far right, doesn't make you a centrist," David Axelrod, who was also the architect of Obama's 2008 victory, told reporters in a conference call Wednesday. “It makes you a charlatan.” Axelrod rejected any notion that Romney is now the presumptive Republican nominee, saying that Romney has failed to demonstrate broad support among GOP voters.

Perhaps the most attention-getting Super Bowl ad - other than that dog blackmailing his owner with tortilla chips to keep quiet over a felinicide, of course - was Clint Eastwood's paean to a resurgent auto industry in Detroit. The ad featured Eastwood leveraging his cinematic persona to the hilt, emerging from the shadows while praising and challenging Americans at the same time. “It's halftime in America too,” Eastwood rasped during halftime at the Super Bowl in a manner reminiscent of the Detroiter he played in “Gran Torino.”  “Seems that we've lost our heart at times.

Even as he mounts unceasing attacks on his Republican rival, Barack Obama is ignoring the person on the ticket who is the center of attention: Sarah Palin. A few syllables are all Obama expends on the Republican vice presidential nominee. He'll mention "McCain-Palin" when he's on the trail; beyond that, her name is practically taboo. Last week, Obama rolled out what his campaign billed as a more aggressive persona. And he is indeed denigrating John McCain at every turn. Given his new eagerness to slash at McCain's record, his silence on Palin's is even more conspicuous.

For inspiration, Barack Obama looked to John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton as he wrote -- and rewrote -- the speech he will deliver tonight at the Democratic National Convention. But the historical weight of Obama's address to party loyalists packed into a football stadium exceeds anything faced by those soon-to-be presidents when they accepted their parties' nominations in 1960, 1980 and 1992. In a nation defined by racial divisions since its founding, Obama is the first African American to win a major party's White House nomination.

On the eve of the Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama on Sunday framed the November election as a choice between watching the nation "get run into the ground" under another Republican president or "solving the big problems" that America faces. Obama also gave a preview of the speech that his wife, Michelle, will give tonight at the Denver gathering, describing it as a biographical sketch of them that could reassure voters wary of his candidacy. "You'll have a sense of who she is, and what our values are, and how we're raising our kids," Obama told a few hundred supporters gathered under weeping willows here in a lakefront park.