Political Platforms

Slowly over the last few weeks, some of Barack Obama's most fervent supporters have come to an unhappy realization: The candidate who they thought was squarely on their side in policy fights is now a president who needs cajoling and persuading. Advocates for stem cell research thought Obama would quickly sign an order to reverse former President Bush's restrictions on the science. Now they are fretting over Obama's statement that he wants to act in tandem with Congress, possibly causing a delay.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards have been sniping at each other for months over healthcare, but there's one thing the top Democratic presidential candidates agree on: Americans of all ages should have the choice of buying a government-run plan modeled on Medicare. The idea, which would set up a competition between a new government plan and private insurance programs, has been overshadowed by the political horse race.

With the presidential campaign going full tilt, a new government report on a big national problem is usually followed by volleys of rhetoric from the candidates. But on Tuesday, when the annual report on the precarious state of Medicare and Social Security came out, the reaction was not exactly deafening.

Barack Obama, as he introduces himself to the broader voting public, is emphasizing centrist -- even conservative -- positions on hot-button issues. In recent weeks, he toughened his stance on Iran and backed an expansion of the government's wiretapping powers. On Wednesday, he said states should be allowed to execute child rapists. When the Supreme Court the next day struck down the District of Columbia's ban on handguns, he did not complain.

The competing tax plans laid out by Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain would both add trillions of dollars to the national debt and could add to the tax system's complexity, a nonpartisan tax research group concluded Wednesday in a newly released report. Both campaigns assert that their plans to continue many Bush-era tax cuts and offer new reductions would aid the economy without massive new spending.

As her chances of becoming vice president recede, some of Hillary Rodham Clinton's supporters are pushing for the Democratic Party's new platform to state that the primary elections "exposed pervasive gender bias in the media" and to call on party leaders to take "immediate and public steps" to condemn future perceived instances of bias.

It's not exactly the language they preferred, but a group of women who had supported Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential bid is happy with a proposed Democratic Party platform plank that denounces sexism. The women, part of a political group called WomenCount, were unhappy with the way Clinton was treated during the Democratic primary. They contend that TV personalities, bloggers and others demeaned her because she's a woman.

The Democrats seeking the White House may be united in opposing the war in Iraq. But that hasn't stopped them from fighting over the conflict. It is a skirmish over judgment, character and political mettle. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois stresses his opposition to the invasion from the start and says those who voted to authorize the war, only to come around later, are at least partly to blame for today's problems.

A struggle for control of the evangelical agenda intensified this week, with some leaders declaring that the focus has strayed too far from their signature battles against abortion and gay rights. Those issues defined the evangelical movement for more than two decades -- and cemented ties with the Republican Party.

He is indisputably the most liberal Democrat running for president in 2008. He wants the U.S. out of Iraq -- and fast. He supports national health insurance. He's against the death penalty. And Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich is for abortion rights. At least, now he is. As recently as five years ago, the Ohio Democrat was so far from liberal orthodoxy on abortion policy that he earned a 90% rating from the nation's leading anti-abortion advocacy group.