Presidential Elections 2008

Labor union officials and some liberal activists were seething Tuesday over Barack Obama's choice of centrist economist Jason Furman as the top economic advisor for the campaign. The critics say Furman, who was appointed to the post Monday, has overstated the potential benefits of globalization, Social Security private accounts and the low prices offered by Wal-Mart -- considered a corporate pariah by the labor movement.

President Obama's campaign fund moved Wednesday to distance him from the burgeoning scandal involving Texas businessman R. Allen Stanford, donating the value of Stanford's $4,600 campaign contribution to a Chicago charity.

Memories of 1980 at Occidental College's Haines Hall have the standard fragments of the era: stereos blasting the B-52's through the dorm, pot-fueled bull sessions about the revival of draft registration, late-night cramming for economics exams. That otherwise private nostalgia took on public significance this month when a former Haines Hall resident from Hawaii known at the time as Barry announced that he was forming an exploratory committee to run for president of the United States. U.S. Sen.

Hillary Rodham Clinton has written off $13.1 million in personal funds she lent to her failed presidential campaign, new disclosure reports filed with the Federal Election Commission show. Clinton lent the money in several installments last spring as she fought Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, a battle she ultimately lost. The former first lady and New York senator has been working to pay off the debt to clear the way for confirmation as Obama's secretary of State.

Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, Alaska, she startled a local music teacher by insisting in casual conversation that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth created 6,000 years ago -- about 65 million years after scientists say most dinosaurs became extinct -- the teacher said.

John McCain was training in his AD-6 Skyraider on an overcast Texas morning in 1960 when he slammed into Corpus Christi Bay and sheared the skin off his plane's wings. McCain recounted the accident decades later in his autobiography. "The engine quit while I was practicing landings," he wrote. But an investigation board at the Naval Aviation Safety Center found no evidence of engine failure.

In his books, speeches and campaign commercials, Sen. Barack Obama often harks back to his days as a civil rights attorney. It is fundamental to his autobiography, displayed on his campaign website and woven into his appeals for votes. In one of his television ads leading up to the South Carolina primary, Obama recalled "working as a civil rights attorney to make sure that everybody's vote counted."

Outside her Bel-Air home, Nancy Reagan stood arm in arm with John McCain and offered a significant -- but less than exuberant -- endorsement. "Ronnie and I always waited until everything was decided, and then we endorsed," the Republican matriarch said in March. "Well, obviously this is the nominee of the party." They were the only words she would speak during the five-minute photo op. In a written statement, she described McCain as "a good friend for over 30 years."

Fred Adams, a retired Drake University history professor, wandered across the street from his house for a neighborhood party the Sunday before Christmas -- 5-8 p.m., food and drinks -- where he spotted Tammy Gentry. "I saw my opportunity," Adams said later, "and I took it." Adams knew Gentry was leaning toward former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina in Thursday's first-in-the-nation caucuses. But her husband, Brian, was backing Sen.

A political insider tapped by Barack Obama to vet potential running mates resigned Wednesday, saying he wanted to prevent a controversy over his personal finances from hurting the Democratic presidential candidate's campaign. The unpaid advisor, Jim Johnson, was chosen by Obama last month to serve on a three-member team screening prospective nominees for vice president.

James Dillon, a onetime Republican activist who grew disgusted with politics, was so inspired by Barack Obama's candidacy that he joined the campaign's massive volunteer army, hosting house parties and recruiting supporters. But beyond influencing the November election, Dillon thought he was joining a new political movement that would be mobilized for big goals -- to end poverty or fix the healthcare system, or maybe to end the U.S. reliance on foreign oil.

More than 60% of Californians who were eligible to vote cast ballots in the Nov. 4 presidential election, the highest turnout since Richard Nixon and George McGovern competed for the office in 1972, elections officials reported Tuesday. The total includes all qualified citizens, including those who had not registered to vote. The percentage of registered voters who cast ballots statewide was 80.6% -- 81.9% in Los Angeles County.

A rainbow runs through Tyler Winograd's veins. His mother, Maile, is half black and half Chinese American. His father, Jeff, is white and grew up Jewish in Evanston, Ill. "I always check 'Other' on my college applications," Winograd said. But on election day, Winograd was filling out a different kind of form. The 18-year-old accompanied his parents to the polling place across the street from their Glencoe, Ill., home to cast a ballot for president for the first time.

A Roman Catholic priest told parishioners they should not take Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democrat supports abortion, and supporting him "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil." The Rev. Jay Scott Newman said in a letter distributed Sunday at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenville that they were putting their souls at risk.

In his first interview since he conceded the presidential election, John McCain said that Sarah Palin did not damage his campaign, and he dismissed aides' anonymous criticism of her. "I'm so proud of her and I'm very grateful she agreed to run with me," McCain told Jay Leno during a "Tonight Show" interview. "She inspired people; she still does." McCain alluded to the difficult political environment for Republicans nationwide and said, "I could tell you a lot of things that we may have made mistakes on."

As they review the results of Tuesday's election victories and begin looking toward future campaigns, some Democrats have settled on a rallying cry: Texas is next. It sounds improbable for the Republican bastion that produced President Bush and served as an early laboratory for Karl Rove's hard-nosed tactics.

Daniel Tavares Jr. served 16 years in a Massachusetts prison for killing his mother with a carving knife. He associated with racist inmates, but Tavares expressed universal hostility: He repeatedly threatened to kill or maim his father, various state officials and prison guards. His father called him "pure evilness." Tavares, 41, was released from prison in June.

In the wild ride that is the McCain presidential campaign, Steve Schmidt has been at the wheel, steering -- some say careering -- from Paris Hilton to Sarah Palin, from abrupt "suspension" to abrupt restart. Schmidt is McCain's day-to-day operations boss.

Regardless of what I did for a living, I would have been following the presidential campaign -- obsessively. It's a deep-seated disorder, one that probably took root when the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon face-off unfolded before my 9-year-old eyes. As this similarly memorable race played out, I was allowed a vantage point made to order for such a character defect: blogger. It's an evolving craft, with few set-in-stone rules.

As he vaulted into national acclaim with his 2004 Democratic convention speech, Barack Obama directly took on the assumption that his party should cede religious voters to the Republicans. "We worship an awesome God in the blue states," he said, pointedly adopting words from a song familiar to churchgoers, particularly younger ones.