Political Strategy

The U.S.-British military strikes against Iraq mark the beginning of a new phase in the eight-year U.S. policy of containing Saddam Hussein. This revised policy has three parts: The threat of military force if Iraq tries to rebuild its weapons of mass destruction programs or attacks its neighbors, the Kurds or allied aircraft; U.N. sanctions on Iraq, described by the president "as among the most extensive sanctions in U.N.

Only days before the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman was due to leave Norfolk, Va., for the Persian Gulf this month, the Pentagon abruptly canceled the deployment, pleading poverty. With cuts in the federal budget scheduled to take effect Friday, Pentagon officials said they feared that sending the carrier on a six-month cruise to the Middle East would empty their operations accounts. President Obama on Tuesday alluded to the decision to hold back the Truman. "The threat of these cuts has forced the Navy to cancel the deployment," he said in a speech in southeastern Virginia, a few miles from the Norfolk naval base.

President Bush and the Democratic-led Congress are heading for another collision over the war in Iraq this month, framed by a flurry of conflicting assessments of military and political progress, and culminating in an impassioned debate over how soon U.S. forces should be withdrawn. Even before the debate has formally begun, officials on both sides are forecasting its likely course: The general who commands U.S.

With the government just weeks from running out of money to pay its bills, President Obama and prominent Republicans have started to act as if the White House has the upper hand in the current round of the battle over federal spending. In recent days, Obama rebuffed suggestions that he consider ways to sidestep the need to raise the limit on the government's debt, reinforcing his demand for a congressional vote. On Monday, he repeated that stand in a hastily announced news conference, criticizing Republicans for threatening to "blow up the economy" and insisting that "no simpler way" exists to deal with the debt ceiling.

Looking to further expand their party's political advantage, Republican officials will announce today a committee of African American leaders and experts on minority voting to develop a strategy to attract more blacks to the GOP. The group includes well-known black conservatives, such as former Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.), and activists drawn to the party in recent years by the Bush administration's outreach to African American ministers and business people.

At Crabby's restaurant in Montebello, Hector Chacon sipped from a steaming bowl of shrimp soup, trying to soothe a nervous stomach. It was election day last November in the small, working-class cities southeast of downtown Los Angeles. For Chacon, a campaign strategist for hire, it was game day. He was helping half a dozen candidates, including one particularly hot prospect: a young real estate agent trying to become Montebello's first Armenian American council member. Few seemed to be slam-dunk winners, though, and Chacon was anxious.

Political strategy of the Democrats: George Bush made this bed, let him sleep in it four more years. FRANK A. ZIMANSKI, Coronado

Hollywood's most successful director turns on a dime and delivers his most restrained, interior film. A celebrated playwright shines an illuminating light on no more than a sliver of a great man's life. A brilliant actor surpasses even himself and makes us see a celebrated figure in ways we hadn't anticipated. This is the power and the surprise of "Lincoln. " Directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Tony Kushner and starring Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th president of the United States, "Lincoln" unfolds during the final four months of the chief executive's life as he focuses his energies on a dramatic struggle that has not previously loomed large in political mythology: his determination to get the House of Representatives to pass the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery.

WASHINGTON and LOS ANGELES - It's not a TV political drama but it could be. Call it "The McKeons. " It's set in the sunny, suburban and largely conservative Santa Clarita Valley and stars Republican Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, former co-owner of a chain of western wear stores turned powerful congressional committee chairman. His wife, Patricia, long by his side during campaigns, has launched her own bid for political office at age 69. Though it's unusual to have a husband and wife on the same ballot, the race has another odd twist: Patricia McKeon's chief rival in the June state Assembly primary is a former staffer to her husband, Scott Wilk.

The Soviet Union announced today that a long-awaited meeting of the ruling Communist Party's Central Committee aimed at addressing the country's growing nationality problems will take place late next month. Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov made clear that the plenary session would seek to develop a broad political strategy on an issue which political analysts say threatens to derail President Mikhail S. Gorbachev's perestroika reform program.

Hollywood's most successful director turns on a dime and delivers his most restrained, interior film. A celebrated playwright shines an illuminating light on no more than a sliver of a great man's life. A brilliant actor surpasses even himself and makes us see a celebrated figure in ways we hadn't anticipated. This is the power and the surprise of "Lincoln. " Directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Tony Kushner and starring Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th president of the United States, "Lincoln" unfolds during the final four months of the chief executive's life as he focuses his energies on a dramatic struggle that has not previously loomed large in political mythology: his determination to get the House of Representatives to pass the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery.

After months of laboring to define Mitt Romney, Democrats head into their national convention this week hoping to fuse his image with that of the Republican Party and its unpopular congressional caucus. Obama's team plans to portray the Republicans as an association of ideologues hoping to return to power with the election of a pliant White House servant who would follow a conservative, tea-party-driven agenda. In the Democrats' version of the campaign, Romney is a man with little substance who has subordinated himself to the party's most right-wing forces.

After a month in which some prominent Democrats op- enly questioned President Obama's campaign strategy, the mood at the White House has risen, with strategists believing their efforts to define Mitt Romney as a corporate outsourcing specialist are proving a success with swing voters. The shift can be seen in several recent polls that have shown Obama ahead in key states and moving upward nationally. In Gallup's daily tracking poll, for example, Obama has taken a 48%-44% lead over Romney, the first significant lead that either candidate has held since late April in Gallup's survey.

The subject was reproductive rights, the audience was fervently pro-choice and the panelists were activists from Planned Parenthood, the National Organization for Women and the ACLU. But although the players may have been typical, the game plan was anything but. What was billed as a political strategy session last month by the L.A. chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women seemed to unexpectedly open a new front in an old war over access to abortion: Personal confession.

In a footnote to the long and often caustic Republican primary contest, Mitt Romney surpassed the number of delegates needed to clinch the presidential nomination Tuesday night by winning the Texas primary. The former Massachusetts governor, eager to challenge President Obama in what figures to be a close and expensive general election, hailed the milestone at a fundraiser in Las Vegas. "This was a big day, by the way, 1,144, we finally got there," Romney told donors who had raised as much as $250,000 each to attend the first event of the night with developer Donald Trump at his hotel just off the Strip.

WASHINGTON and LOS ANGELES - It's not a TV political drama but it could be. Call it "The McKeons. " It's set in the sunny, suburban and largely conservative Santa Clarita Valley and stars Republican Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, former co-owner of a chain of western wear stores turned powerful congressional committee chairman. His wife, Patricia, long by his side during campaigns, has launched her own bid for political office at age 69. Though it's unusual to have a husband and wife on the same ballot, the race has another odd twist: Patricia McKeon's chief rival in the June state Assembly primary is a former staffer to her husband, Scott Wilk.

In "Brown Presses His Case for Affirmative Action" (April 11) The Times once again falls prey to the ploys of this ultra-slick politician. While the circumstances of Assembly Speaker Willie Brown's youth in Texas are undeniable, the implication of similar conditions existing in California, in any form, represents another instance of demagoguery a la co-Speaker Brown. Affirmative action programs divide our state's population into the "haves vs. have-nots," a political strategy too often used by the Democratic Party on the state and national levels.

At Crabby's restaurant in Montebello, Hector Chacon sipped from a steaming bowl of shrimp soup, trying to soothe a nervous stomach. It was election day last November in the small, working-class cities southeast of downtown Los Angeles. For Chacon, a campaign strategist for hire, it was game day. He was helping half a dozen candidates, including one particularly hot prospect: a young real estate agent trying to become Montebello's first Armenian American council member. Few seemed to be slam-dunk winners, though, and Chacon was anxious.

Mitt Romney and his supporters moved to prop up his faltering campaign Friday, unleashing millions of dollars of ads across Iowa and trying to connect personally with the voters who will cast the nation's first ballots in January. A Romney-sympathetic "super PAC" -- an independent group that can raise unlimited sums -- launched a $3.1-million, three-week ad buy across the state. The 30-second television commercial contrasts Romney's job-creation record with President Obama's. Romney's campaign unveiled a 60-second radio ad that touts his budget plan, business background and electability.