Presidential Campaigns

Submitting to fiscal and political reality, Newt Gingrich's campaign announced Wednesday that he would soon end his presidential run, awash in debt and having won only two states. The former House speaker's bid was unlike any in recent memory - part presidential campaign, part book-signing and movie-screening junket, and part tour of the nation's zoos. It repeatedly imploded, but almost as repeatedly resurrected, seemingly by the sheer force of Gingrich's will. Along the way, he first boosted his standing as a GOP elder statesman after years offstage, but toward the end risked damaging his image with his drawn-out departure.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court and the Obama administration are set for another politically charged clash Wednesday as the justices take up Arizona's tough crackdown on illegal immigrants. It will be a rematch of the attorneys who argued the healthcare case a month ago, and another chapter in the partisan philosophical struggle over states' rights and the role of the federal government. And once again, President Obama's lawyers are likely to face skeptical questions from the high court.

President Obama displayed quick damage-control reflexes last week when he called out Democratic pundit Hilary Rosen for claiming that Ann Romney, mother of five, had "never worked a day in her life. " It was "the wrong thing to say" and "not something I subscribe to," the president said. He also rolled out the old chestnut that almost always gets invoked amid ugly battles over motherhood and women's career choices. "There is no tougher job than being a mom," he said. Might we possibly consider retiring that idea?

Rick Santorum announced Tuesday that he would suspend his presidential campaign but vowed “we are not done fighting.” “While this presidential race is over for us, for me…we are not done fighting,” Santorum said. “ We are going to continue to fight for those voices…. There's a lot of greatness, a lot of greatness in this country.” In a somber news conference in Gettysburg, Pa., the conservative Republican said he and his family had made the decision to enter the race during a discussion over the kitchen table, and that it was similarly a family decision to end the campaign.

We got our first real glimpse this week of how President Obama and his now-almost-certain Republican rival, Mitt Romney, intend to wage their campaigns in the lead-up to the general election. In a speech Tuesday, Obama painted Romney as an out-of-touch patrician who doesn't care much about the troubles of hardworking people low on the income ladder. Romney soon fired back, painting Obama as an out-of-touch liberal who doesn't care much about the struggles of honest businessmen who want to create jobs.

A tantalizing question is spicing up talk shows and opinion columns as Mexican voters prepare to elect a new president: Will the government spring a "June surprise" by finally nabbing Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman? Guzman, you might recall, is the world's most wanted drug suspect — on the lam since escaping a Mexican federal prison in a laundry cart in 2001. He allegedly sits atop a vast crime network reaching into the United States and across much of the globe, and is ranked by Forbes magazine as one of the world's richest men. In other words, Guzman would be a sweet trophy for President Felipe Calderon, who could use a big score before voters head to the polls July 1. Calderon's conservative National Action Party, or PAN, and its presidential candidate, Josefina Vazquez Mota, trail in the polls, even though formal campaigning hasn't begun yet. Far ahead is Enrique Peña Nieto, a former governor who hopes to guide the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, back into power after 12 years on the sidelines.

Who's ready to go to war with Iran? Oh, I forgot. Since we now have an army of professionals, none of the rest of us is actually required to go to war. And, since we now allow commanders-in-chief to unilaterally send that army into battle whenever they please, members of Congress don't have to bother voting for a declaration of war. War has become a matter of presidential choice. That's why we should take seriously what the candidates for president have to say about attacking Iran.

  With his presidential aspirations riding on support in the Deep South, Newt Gingrich opened his final one-week dash to the crucial Georgia primary on Wednesday with a states' rights appeal laden with racial symbolism. His setting was the ornate chamber of Georgia's House of Representatives, where Gingrich told lawmakers that he would fight for a "very strong" states' rights platform at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. "I want to return power back home to an extraordinary degree," said Gingrich, a former U.S. House speaker who represented Georgia in Congress for 20 years.

The videos feature some of Russia's most famous actors, writers, directors, musicians and other VIPs, all united by the heartfelt slogan: "Why I am voting for Putin. " Violist Yuri Bashmet compares Russian leader Vladimir Putin to the great violin-maker Antonio Stradivari, saying that his "golden period is yet far ahead. " One of the country's most loved actors, Oleg Tabakov, says Putin has his vote in the March 4 presidential election because he "wants to be good and honest.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, 57, has evolved from outside political agitator to presidential advisor and host of MSNBC's weekday news show "PoliticsNation," which he took over last August. Sharpton, known to friends as "Rev," also heads the civil rights organization National Action Network and Syndication One's eponymous radio show that broadcast weekdays to 40 markets around the country. How has having your own show on MSNBC affected your image? I think people understand firsthand what I'm saying my positions are and those of my guests.