Republican Party

After nearly seven years in the White House, President Bush has named 294 judges to the federal courts, giving Republican appointees a solid majority of the seats, including a 60%-to-40% edge over Democrats on the influential U.S. appeals courts. The rightward shift on the federal bench is likely to prove a lasting legacy of the Bush presidency, since many of these judges -- including his two Supreme Court appointees -- may serve for two more decades.

The presidential prospects of Mike Huckabee are rising too fast for his campaign to keep up. Word of the former Arkansas governor's victory in the Iowa caucuses Thursday night came so quickly that his staff seemed unprepared. The hotel ballroom in this city's East Village wasn't yet a quarter full, and the blue-and-white "I Like Mike" backdrop behind the podium had not been erected. Neither the candidate nor his family had reached the hotel.

Their critiques crackling with animosity, Republican presidential candidates took turns Saturday upbraiding one another -- and, much of the time, former New Hampshire front-runner Mitt Romney -- in a debate whose tension illustrated the grave stakes in Tuesday's primary for many of the men on the stage. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, came under sequential fire from Arizona Sen. John McCain on his campaign ads, New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani on immigration, former Arkansas Gov.

Here's the billion-dollar question about this city's billionaire mayor: Is he going to run for president, or what? The discussion is playing out on tabloid pages, on radio and television talk shows, and in cafes and bookstores across New York, where everyone seems to have an opinion about the presidential election. And if Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg jumps into the race, they say it will get even more interesting. "The conversation is, 'Oh, my God, is he going to do this?'

Two days before the New Hampshire primary that could make or break his White House candidacy, a combative Mitt Romney quarreled with rivals John McCain and Mike Huckabee over taxes, crime and job experience in a testy Republican debate that exposed growing animosity among the candidates. Romney's attacks set off a cascade of counter-assaults on the former Massachusetts governor, who has placed enormous stakes on winning here but has slid behind McCain in the polls.

Reeling from defeats in New Hampshire and Iowa, Mitt Romney suspended TV advertising in South Carolina and Florida on Wednesday, a money-saving move that laid bare the dire condition of his run for the White House. After a year of sparing virtually no expense in his quest for the Republican nomination, Romney's pullback amounted to an extraordinary retreat in two states that will hold crucial primaries this month -- even though he could resume advertising on short notice.

John McCain, riding high from his victory in the New Hampshire primary, got a hero's welcome Wednesday as he arrived at sunset at South Carolina's elite military college, where he was lavishly introduced by pillars of the GOP establishment. In an auditorium at the Citadel, silver-haired veterans waving small American flags greeted the former Navy fighter pilot.

Republican presidential candidates, losing the fundraising advantage their party has enjoyed for decades, are starting to feel the pinch. Tight for cash, Mitt Romney has pulled television advertising in two key states. Rudolph W. Giuliani has cut his payroll and moved staff from states that he is writing off. Even Mike Huckabee, winner of the GOP Iowa caucuses, has fallen short of his fundraising goals.

Castigated by the national party for moving their primary ahead in the nominating calendar, Michigan Republicans could inject even more volatility into the 2008 GOP presidential campaign when they go to the polls Tuesday. Although only half of the state's delegates will be seated at the Republican National Convention as punishment for flouting party rules and jumping ahead of the approved Feb. 5 date, Michigan is a crucial state for all three of the top contenders. Former Massachusetts Gov.

. -- Michigan takes its turn today as a presidential primary battleground after a week of sharpening arguments by Republican contenders over how to revive a state laid low by disappearing auto factories and jobs. With only the Republican primary a contest of consequence because of an earlier withdrawal by most of the Democratic contenders, the GOP's leading rivals have carefully tweaked their campaign messages to emphasize economic concerns.