Obama And Dean Team Up To Recast The Political Map  —  Sixteen months after he launched his campaign for the White House, Sen. Barack Obama may, just now, be entering his campaign's most perilous stage.  Facing a rift of sorts within the Democratic Party and concerns over the scope of his political base …

GOP fears Obama's money machine  —  With Hillary Clinton's campaign coming to an end this weekend, Barack Obama's rise as the Democratic nominee brings serious bad news to a new group — John McCain's finance team.  —  A review of campaign finance data offers not one ounce of good news …

Obama Confronts Lieberman On McCain Advocacy, Tone, on Senate Floor  —  Sen. Joe Lieberman, the self-described “Independent Democrat” who caucuses with the Democratic party in the Senate even though he has endorsed Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, got some tough talk from Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois …

PHASE II  —  The Senate intel committee's Phase II report on pre-war intelligence on Iraq is just out.  We'll be bringing you more through the day, but if you're eager to take a look, you can find the reports here:  —  “Report on Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq by U.S. Government officials …

Obama the naive  —  His views on world affairs ignore history and imperil the U.S. and our allies.  —  » Discuss Article Barack Obama's willingness to meet with the leaders of rogue states such as Iran and North Korea “without preconditions” is a naive and dangerous approach to dealing with the hard men who run pariah states.

Obama's ‘Identity’ Beat Hillary's ‘Identity’  —  “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position.”  —  Be that as it may, what remains is that the candidacy of the first liberal white woman to run for president is about to lose, defeated by, yes, a black man.

‘She Could Accept Losing.  She Could Not Accept Quitting.’  —  In a campaign of near-deaths and premature obituaries, the night of May 6 will be remembered inside Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign as the moment it really ended.  —  The staff had settled into the war room at the campaign's Arlington headquarters.

Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control  —  Bush wants 50 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractors  —  A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely …

HOW ‘LIBERAL’ CARE WOULD KILL TED  —  IRONICALLY enough, the dangers of the lib eral health-care agenda are being made clear by the care that a liberal icon, Sen. Ted Kennedy, has received since his brain seizure last month.  —  One day after an MRI detected a tumor, Kennedy was quickly diagnosed …

FIRST THOUGHTS: OBAMA'S WIDER MAP  —  From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro  —  *** Obama's wider map: About two months ago, we unveiled our early look at the electoral map.  And this being the second official day of the general election, now's as good a time as any to see where we stand in the McCain vs. Obama race.

How Obama Did It  —  Barack Obama was campaigning last October in South Carolina when he got an urgent call from Penny Pritzker, the hotel heiress who leads his campaign's finance committee.  About 200 of his biggest fund raisers were meeting in Des Moines, Iowa, and among them, near panic was setting in.

The Meaning Of Box 722  —  For at least six months now I've been planning, and putting off, this post.  The imminent occasion of the first African American major-party nominee forces my hand.  It's time for me to help give a sense of just how far we have come.