Barack Obama will be the host with the most on Inauguration Night. After his expected swearing-in ceremony earlier in the day on January 20, he’ll host seven inaugural balls and attend three more for a grand total of 10.

Moving among the various official parties won’t necessarily require a motorcade, though: six of them are being held in the vast Walter E. Washington Convention Center. These include Obama’s home states ball, hosted by the president-elect for invited guests from Hawaii and Illinois; Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s home states ball for guests from Delaware and Pennsylvania; the Mid-Atlantic regional ball, the Midwest regional ball, the Western regional ball and the neighborhood ball, which is for Washington DC residents and other guests.

The bargain event of the night may be the youth ball, hosted by Obama for guests aged 18-35 at the Washington Hilton, with tickets available at $75. Most of the other balls cost $150.

Rounding out the list are the Eastern ball, to be held at Union Station; the Southern ball, at the National Guard Armory, and the Commander-in-Chief’s ball for enlisted active duty and reserve military personnel, at the National Building Museum.

That last location is particularly appropriate for military guests. Before it was a museum, it was known as the Pension Building, built to serve the needs of Union veterans after the Civil War.

REUTERS/Paul Hanna (Man with Obama mask parties in Madrid)

It’s no surprise that Michelle Obama will be rooting for her husband, Barack Obama, when the Democratic presidential candidate squares off against Republican John McCain in their final debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York tonight.

What is a little startling, however, is that sitting right next to her will be Lilibet Hagel, the wife of Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel.

The Obama campaign said Lilibet Hagel, a Republican who has endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate, will attend the debate as Michelle Obama’s “special guest.”

Sen. Hagel, who considered running for president himself, is sometimes mentioned as a possible Republican secretary of state, though it would seem unlikely — but not inconceivable — that Obama might pick him for a Cabinet spot if the Democrat wins.

The decision to seat Hagel’s wife next to Michelle Obama may be designed to appeal to Republicans and independents as the U.S. presidential race enters its final three weeks.

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- - Photo credit: Reuters/Ali Jarekji (Obama stands next to Hagel during a visit to Amman, Jordan in July 2008)

MONACA, Pennsylvania - Barack Obama distanced himself on Friday from his campaign’s initially critical statement about his rival John McCain’s choice of first-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate.
 
McCain, a 72-year-old veteran Republican senator from Arizona, picked a political unknown and self-described “hockey mom” who will become the first woman Republican vice presidential candidate.
 
When the surprise decision was announced, Obama was on the tarmac at a Denver airport preparing to depart for a bus tour in the industrial Midwest with his running mate, Joe Biden. The Democratic candidate had just made history by becoming the first black to accept a major-party presidential nomination.
 
His spokesman, Bill Burton, issued a statement suggesting Palin was too inexperienced to be vice president. “Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency,” it  said.
 
The McCain campaign quickly shot back that it was “audacious” for aides to the 47-year-old first-term Illinois senator to accuse Palin of inexperience.
 
Later in the day, Obama told reporters that the campaign’s early statement was “hair-trigger” and did not reflect his sentiments.
 
“I haven’t met her before. She seems like a compelling person. Obviously, a terrific story, personal story,” he said while touring a biodiesel plant in Monaca, Pennsylvania.
 
Obama said the choice of Palin was “one more indicator of this country moving forward” and a hit against the glass ceiling that has limited women’s advancement.
 
In a phone call to Palin, Obama told her he thought she would be a terrific candidate and wished her luck “but not too much luck,” according to Robert Gibbs, his senior adviser.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/John Gress (McCain stands with his vice presidential running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in Dayton, Ohio, Aug. 29, 2008)

DENVER - John Kerry, the failed 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, took the stage at this year’s party convention on Wednesday to praise Illinois Sen. Barack Obama – whose career he helped launch — and lambaste John McCain.

Kerry, who said he had been friends with McCain for nearly 22 years, used tough words to criticize the Arizona senator’s evolution from a maverick legislator to a presidential candidate.

“Before he ever debates Barack Obama, John McCain should finish the debate with himself,” Kerry said, listing what he described as McCain’s shifts on tax cuts, immigration, and climate change.

“Candidate McCain says he would now vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote. Are you kidding?” Kerry said. “Talk about being for it before you’re against it!”

The last line was a send-up of a gaffe Kerry himself made about being in favor of funding for the Iraq war before he was against it.

Many felt the line, which Republicans used to mock him, helped cost the Massachusetts senator the election four years ago.

Kerry gave a big boost to Obama’s career by giving the then-state senator a prime-time speaking role at the ‘04 convention.

DALLAS - With Delaware Senator Joe Biden on the ticket, will Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama make inroads with wavering Catholics in the race for the White House? 
 
In an election year that has seen both Obama’s campaign and that of his Republican rival John McCain try to woo voters of various faiths it is sure to be a question that pundits will ask in coming days.
 
Obama on Saturday chose Biden, 65, as his vice presidential running mate, ending days of frenzied speculation.  
 
Biden, originally from the battleground state of Pennsylvania, will bring not only foreign policy expertise to the ticket — he chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — but strong working-class roots and his Catholic faith.
Catholics had strongly supported Hillary Clinton in her failed bid for the Democratic nomination and a number of polls have shown a fairly close race among Catholics with Obama leading nationally by a small margin.
 
Conservative Catholics tend to line up with evangelicals on issues like abortion but there are also many liberal Catholics in America who like the Democratic Party on economic issues. 
 
Almost one-quarter of U.S. adults are Catholic but their electoral clout is somewhat diluted by their distribution.
 
According to a June report by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University in Washington, nearly four in 10 U.S. Catholics reside in New York, California and Texas, none of which are closely contested. The first two are solidly Democratic and Texas is Republican.
 
The report said states “where the Catholic vote could make a real difference are Florida, Ohio and Louisiana.”
 
Pennsylvania is widely seen as another battleground for the Catholic vote.

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(Photo credit: REUTERS/Jason Reed. Biden at a Democratic Party Debate in December)

NEW YORK - Michelle Obama won a standing ovation on Thursday when she paid a campaign visit to gay and lesbian Democratic activists to promote her husband Barack Obama’s presidential quest.

Obama, appearing at a dinner meeting of the Gay & Lesbian Leadership Council of the Democratic National Committee, cited her husband’s efforts to fight discrimination and promote equal rights for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people.

She said he supported a complete repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which only recognizes marriages between men and women and upholds states’ rights not to honor same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. He also opposes a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy toward gays in the U.S. military and was against a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, she added.

He supports full family and adoption rights for gay and lesbian couples and believes the federal government should not stand in the way of states that opt for domestic partnerships, civil unions or civil marriage, she said. The Illinois senator opposes same-sex marriage.

“Barack believes that we must fight for the world as it should be, a world where together we work to reverse discriminatory laws like DOMA and ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’” she said. “The world as it is should be one that rejects discrimination of all kinds.”

Her husband also has called for a renewed effort to fight HIV and AIDS and has said the African-American community should overcome homophobia, she said.

“Nothing we have to do over the next four or eight years is going to be easy. There will be powerful forces who believe that things should stay just as they are, that everything is fine, and that’s where you all come in,” she said.

“Your voices of truth and hope and of possibility have got to drown out the skeptics and the cynics,” she said.

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Photo Credit: Reuters/Yuri Gripas (Michelle Obama at campaign event this week in Washington)

FLINT, Mich.  - Former Vice President Al Gore, a highly respected figure in the U.S. Democratic party, was set on Monday to appear at a Detroit rally with presidential candidate Barack Obama, where he will pledge to do all he can to help Obama win the White House.

“Over the past 18 months, Barack Obama has united a movement. He knows change does not come from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or Capitol Hill. It begins when people stand up and take action,” Gore said in a letter to his supporters, asking them to help him raise money for Obama.

“From now through Election Day, I intend to do whatever I can to make sure (Obama) is elected president of the United States,” Gore said in the letter, which was made available to reporters by the Obama campaign.

The letter marked the first time that Gore has said publicly he was supporting Obama. 

The former vice president, who served with former President Bill Clinton, remained neutral as Clinton’s wife, Hillary Clinton, and Obama battled for the Democratic nomination. 

Since losing his own bid for the White House to President George W. Bush amid the disputed Florida voting in 2000, Gore has become a hero to many in his party. He has been a vocal advocate of actions to combat global warming and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in that area.

Obama said in April that he consulted regularly with Gore and also said he would strongly consider inviting the former vice president to serve in his administration should he win the White House.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Denis Balibouse  (Al Gore at news conference in Geneva, March 11, 2008)

CHICAGO - Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama went to church on Sunday and joked about being “too black.”
 
In a Father’s Day speech to several thousand people at the predominantly black Apostolic Church of God, Obama talked about how people need to have high expectations for themselves then shared a few anecdotes about running for president.
 
“You remember at the beginning, people were wondering — how come he doesn’t have all the support in the African American community. You remember that?” he said to shouts of “oh yeah.”
 
“That was when I wasn’t black enough. Now I’m too black,” he said to laughter and applause.
 
Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president if elected in November, is the son of a Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas.

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Photo credit: Reuters/John Gress (Obama speaks at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago on June 15, 2008)

BRISTOL, Va. - Basking in his new status as the Democratic standard-bearer, Barack Obama announced on Thursday that his party will adopt the same restrictions on donations that his campaign has put in place.

Under the new policy, the party will no longer take contributions from registered lobbyists or special-interest political action committees. 

Obama talked of the change as he touted his plan to overhaul the health care system during a visit to Bristol, Virginia.

He said pharmaceutical companies, health-maintenance organizations and other interests had too much clout in Washington and were the reason for the failure of past efforts to change the health system.

“If we’re going to make real progress, this time must be different,” he said.

“As the Democratic nominee for president, I’m announcing that going forward, the Democratic National Committee will uphold the same standard. We won’t take another dime from Washington lobbyists or special interest PACs,” Obama said.

“They will not fund my party. They will not run our our White House. They will not drown out the voices of the American people,” he said.

Obama’s visit to the state two days after capturing the Democratic nomination highlighted his hopes of putting the historically Republican-leaning state into play in the general election.

Bristol is a rural town in the southwestern part of the state.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Obama steps out of car)

GUAYNABO, Puerto Rico – Miles from the Democratic Party’s machinations to decide whether she will get her votes counted in the disputed primaries of Florida and Michigan, Hillary Clinton on Saturday smiled and clapped her way through the streets and small towns of Puerto Rico.

Clinton, who trails front-runner Barack Obama by what most consider an insurmountable gap in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, waved from a campaign truck at bystanders who gathered in the steamy afternoon heat to cheer her on.

Accompanied by loudspeakers blaring “Hillary Clinton, La Proxima Presidenta,” pounding music and trucks carrying photographers, television crews and reporters, Clinton cruised the palm tree-lined streets in towns around San Juan for hours past fruit vendors and fisherman who paused to point and smile.

Supporters honked car horns and waved banners while small children jumped up and down. One woman rushed up to Clinton and presented her with a giant bouquet of flowers.

“Si, si, si,” exclaimed Blanca Rivera, 69, standing by the side of the road in Guaynabo, when asked if she planned to vote for the New York senator in Sunday’s primary. “Si, si, si.”

Clinton is heavily favored to win Puerto Rico’s primary, although the result is not expected to make a significant dent in Obama’s lead among delegates to the party’s nominating convention.

Clinton remained well out of questioning range of reporters who might have asked her about the Democratic Party’s rules committee, meeting in Washington to decide the future of the primary results in Florida and Michigan. Clinton won both primaries, but the contests were held earlier than party rules allowed and the results were invalidated.

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Photo: REUTERS/Ana Martinez (Clinton appears at a rally in Puerto Rico)