TOXIC  —  For the last week it's seemed that Sens. Clinton and Obama were adhering to their tacit truce, continuing the primary campaign but avoiding the harsh exchanges that make later party unity a dimmer and dimmer prospect.  Clinton particularly had deescalated her rhetoric.

Quietly, Obama Begins The Quest To Find A Running Mate  —  Very quietly, Sen. Barack Obama has begun the process that will end in his choosing a running mate, Democrats inside and outside the campaign said.  —  Obama has sworn a small group of his senior staff to secrecy.

I'd like wife to take my seat: Kennedy  —  Ted Kennedy has made clear to confidants that when his time is up, he wants his Senate seat to stay in the family - with his wife, Vicki.  —  Multiple sources in Massachusetts with close ties to the liberal lion say his wife of 16 years has long …

Many Florida Jews Express Doubts on Obama  —  BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. — At the Aberdeen Golf and Country Club on Sunday, the fountains were burbling, the man-made lakes were shining, and Shirley Weitz and Ruth Grossman were debating why Jews in this gated neighborhood of airy retirement homes feel …

McCain Won't Play by Obama's Rules  —  WASHINGTON, D.C. — When one of the Democratic Party's most astute strategists this week criticized John McCain for attacking Barack Obama's desire to engage Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, I asked what the Republican presidential candidate ought to talk about in this campaign.

Petraeus: Diplomacy, Not Force, With Iran  —  Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, President Bush's nominee to lead U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, supports continued U.S. engagement with international and regional partners to find the right mix of diplomatic, economic and military leverage …

Kennedy Talked, Khrushchev Triumphed  —  IN his inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy expressed in two eloquent sentences, often invoked by Barack Obama, a policy that turned out to be one of his presidency's — indeed one of the cold war's — most consequential: “Let us never negotiate out of fear.

Where right sees bogeyman, GOP sens. see go-to guy  —  Despite his reputation outside Washington as a liberal ideologue, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) is revered by his adversaries on Capitol Hill for being the chamber's greatest dealmaker and Republicans sensed his absence as much as Democrats did Wednesday.

Ellen DeGeneres weds: McCain walks me?  —  Ellen DeGeneres, who hosts a popular daytime television talk show and has announced on-air that she will marry her girlfriend, broached the question of gay marriage today with Republican John McCain, the party's presumptive presidential nominee.

Energy Watchdog Warns Of Oil-Production Crunch  —  IEA Official Says Supplies  —  May Plateau Below Expected Demand  —  The world's premier energy monitor is preparing a sharp downward revision of its oil-supply forecast, a shift that reflects deepening pessimism over whether oil companies can keep abreast of booming demand.

Senate approves war funding, GI bill  —  The Senate has overwhelmingly passed a new GI bill and billions in new domestic spending as part of the $165 billion Iraq war funding bill pending before Congress.  —  In two subsequent votes, the Senate passed the war funding portion of the bill …

Viral e-mails attack Obama's life story  —  The main obstacle standing between Barack Obama and the White House was distilled into five words by a local television correspondent in South Charleston, W.Va., earlier this month.  —  Prefacing a question about the challenges of winning over white …

The California marriage decision and basic civics  —  The Brookings Institutions' Ben Wittes has an article in The New Republic decrying the decision of the California Supreme Court striking down that state's discriminatory marriage law.  Wittes' criticism of the decision reflects …

Obama's Troubling Instincts  —  Barack Obama is ambling rather than sprinting across the primary-season finish line.  It's not just his failure to connect with blue-collar Democrats.  He has added to his problems with ill-informed replies on critical foreign policy questions.

Vice Presidential Matchups: Virginia  —  Here's a look at our May 2008 4×4 matrix of Vice Presidential possibilities in Virginia.  —  There's a finite limit to the number of names we can test in a given poll; we're aware not naming Jim Webb in Virginia (or Bill Richardson in New Mexico, among others) seems an oversight.