The year after a presidential election, there’s typically few electoral contests on the calendar as politicians focus on getting some work done so they’ll have something to brag about to voters during the next election.

The few races that do occur tend to be heavily scrutinized as pundits look for something to chew over in the slow period before next year’s congressional midterms.

Today, Democrats in Virginia go to the polls to pick a candidate for the governor’s mansion, as incumbent Tim Kaine is constitutionally limited to one term. On the Republican side, Robert McDonnell faces no opposition for his party’s nomination.

Virginia, formerly solid red, is now a swing state that has elected successive Democratic governors and backed Democrat Barack Obama in last year’s presidential race.

All eyes are on Terry McAuliffe, a former Democratic National Committee chairman who headed Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential bid last year.

McAuliffe has deep pockets and a high national profile and has emphasized economic issues. But he has not played a role in state politics before, and his ties to Clinton could actually be a detriment — Obama beat her in the state’s bruising February 2009 presidential primary.

The other two candidates are less known nationally but have deeper roots in the state.

State Sen. Creigh Deeds, from the Shenandoah Valley, hopes to appeal to rural voters with a moderate record and a pro-gun stance.

Former state delegate Brian Moran, who hails from Alexandria, has run as a liberal who backs gay rights and opposes a new coal power plant.

Polls are inconclusive and turnout is expected to be light, so those pundits should probably not read too much into the result.

Voting ends at 7 p.m.

photo: REUTERS/Chris Wattie (McAuliffe at the 2008 Democratic convenion in Denver)

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Republican U.S. Senator Arlen Specter, 79, of Pennsylvania appears to face a tough run next year for reelection to a sixth term.
    
And he can blame his problems largely on his decision last month to break ranks with fellow Republicans and vote for President Barack Obama’s $787 economic stimulus package.
    
Those are the findings of a Quinnipiac University poll of about 1,000 Pennsylvania voters released on Wednesday.
 
The Connecticut-based university found that Specter, viewed as a moderate, trails former conservative congressman Pat Toomey, his likely Republican primary challenger, by a margin of 41 percent to 27 percent. Specter narrowly defeated Toomey in a 2004 primary battle.
 
Another and somewhat smaller poll by Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania was a mixed bag for Specter.
 
While the survey showed Specter leading Toomey 33 percent to 18 percent, it found that 49 percent of respondents were undecided or favored others.
    
That survey of 662 people also found that less than half — 40 percent — believe Specter deserves another term, with 46 percent saying it is “time for a change.”
    
The Quinnipiac survey showed Democrats and independents backed Specter’s support of Obama’s stimulus package. But Republicans opposed it — 70 percent to 25 percent.
 
Both surveys were conducted in recent days and had a margin of error between plus or minus of three to four percentage points.
 
“Pennsylvania Republicans are so unhappy with Sen. Specter’s vote for President Barack Obama’s stimulus package and so-called pork barrel spending that they are voting for a former congressman they hardly know,” said Clay Richards, assistant director of Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
 
Richards added, however, if Specter survives the primary, he would have a lot going for him in the general election since there currently seems to be no strong Democratic contender.
 
But Specter faces other problems.
 
He stepped into a political hornet’s nest on Tuesday when he opposed a bill to make it easier for workers to unionize, a top legislative goal of organized labor but anathema to many in the business community and his own party.
 
So if Specter wins the Republican primary, he can expect to be opposed by energized union supporters in the general election. 
 
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FLATHEAD INDIAN RESERVATION, Montana - Hillary Clinton took her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination to an Indian reservation where she received applause, thanks – and new footwear.

“You’ve gone a million miles for the Indian people — here are a pair of moccasins to help you on your journey,” Joe McDonald, president of Salish Kootenai College, said on Tuesday in presenting Clinton the gift.

A crowd of several hundred roared approval.

Drawing more applause, Clinton said, “We need a president next January who understands the obligation that the United States government has to the tribes that represent the first people of the United States.” 

As first lady, and now a U.S. senator from New York, Clinton has worked to upgrade health care, education and economic opportunities for native Americans, many of whom live in poverty.

In Montana, there are about 56,000 American Indians among seven tribes, making up  6.2 percent of the state’s population. 

Clinton recalled that when her husband was president, he held a meeting with more than 500 leaders of Indian tribes nationwide, marking the first such talks “in many, many years.”

Clinton vowed to reverse what she said was the rollback in relations between Washington and American Indians since President George W. Bush took office in January 2001. 

“I will stand with you,” she said in asking for their support in Montana’s Democratic presidential primary next week.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

Photo REUTERS/Ana Martinez.  (Clinton, her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and their daughter Chelsea attend a Memorial Day event in San Juan, Puerto Rico, May 26, 2008)

BOWLING GREEN, Kentucky - Katelyn Jenkins got a surprise visit from Sen. Hillary Clinton on one of the biggest days of her life so far. But odds are, she didn’t even notice.

The eight-week-old girl was getting baptised on Sunday morning at the State Street United Methodist Church, where the Democratic presidential contender paused in her campaigning to attend services.

At the sight of the former first lady, the baby’s father said: “I was pleasantly surprised and amazed.”

As for the red-haired baby in her father’s arms, she slept a bit, looked around a bit and fussed a bit.

“She just knew there was a big crowd, and everyone was looking at her,” said the baby’s father, adding that he was ”possibly” a Clinton supporter. The candidate briefly chatted with the baby’s parents after the service ended.

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Photo credit:  Reuters/Jason Reed (Clinton speaks at her West Virginia Presidential Primary night rally in Charleston, West Virginia on May 13, 2008)

ROSEBURG, Oregon - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama appears ready to put his opponent, Hillary Clinton, into the past tense of the grueling primary campaign.

When asked on Saturday at a rally in Roseburg about party unity, the Illinois senator acknowledged people’s concerns about the length of the nominating process but assured them that Democrats would come out united in the end.

“It was pretty tough and hard fought,” he said about the primary season, describing the former first lady as a “formidable opponent.”

“She was relentless and very effective.”

Was? Note the use of the past tense.

Obama has not wrapped up the nomination and Clinton is still campaigning hard in the remaining primary states.

But the Obama campaign has shifted its focus, at least partly, onto a general election against Republican John McCain. Obama stopped in Michigan and Missouri this week and intends to campaign in Florida and Iowa next week, all of which are states that have already voted and will be crucial to a Democratic win in the fall.

Clinton is seen winning Kentucky on Tuesday while Obama is expected to take Oregon, at which point the campaign predicts he will have more than half of the pledged delegates needed to help secure the nomination. Superdelegates — party leaders and elected officials with the deciding vote in this close race — will follow from there, his camp believes.

Clinton has said she will stay in the race until there is a nominee. The last nominating contest is on June 3. 

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Photo credit: Reuters/Richard Clement (Obama waits to speak as he is introduced at a town hall campaign event)

WASHINGTON - Remember John Edwards? 
    He ran a spirited campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, never caught much fire and dropped out of the race about, oh, it feels like 10 years ago (actually it was January).
    The former North Carolina senator has kept a low profile ever since and has resisted entreaties from the remaining Democrats, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, for his endorsement.
    And he is still resisting, as voters cast ballots on Tuesday in his home state’s Democratic primary election, according to People Magazine, which tracked down Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth.
    Edwards, who was John Kerry’s vice presidential running mate in 2004, told People he likes Clinton’s “tenacity” but sees “a lot of the old politics” in her.
    He likes Obama, too, but “sometimes I want to see more substance under the rhetoric.”
    Bottom line, according to People, rather than endorse one or the other, Edwards and his wife will save their political capital for causes such as fighting poverty and improving U.S. health care.

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Photo credit:  Reuters/Lee Celano (Edwards, with wife Elizabeth on the right, announces his withdrawal from the Democratic presidential race in January.)

KEMPTON, Indiana - Barack Obama, vying for support from Hoosiers before Indiana’s Tuesday primary, reconnected with his roots in the state with a visit to a farmhouse owned by his family for generations.
    
The white Victorian home in rural Kempton sits on land owned by Obama’s fourth great-grandfather, who passed it down several generations within the family of Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham. Ann Dunham was from Kansas but she later moved to Hawaii, where Obama was raised.
    
The Kempton farmhouse was built by William Riley Dunham, a great uncle of Obama. After the Dunham family gave it up, it was used at one stage as a funeral home and was recently purchased by Sean Clements, who plans to spruce it.
    
As part of an effort to show a folksier side of the Illinois senator, the campaign planned the visit to the house as an outdoor potluck dinner with Clements and his family and friends.
    
But the weather didn’t cooperate. It was chilly with big gusts of wind that toppled the foldup tables set up in the back yard. So the tables had to be taken down and the dinner was scrapped in favor of a walk-around tour by Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their two daughters, Sasha, 6, and Malia, 9.
    
But there were no shortages of other opportunities to show the “regular guy” side of Obama, who has said he is determined to counter efforts by his opponents to portray him and his wife as “elitist, pointy-headed intellectual types.”
    
The Obamas visited a picnic gathering in Noblesville at lunchtime. In the evening, they stopped by a roller-skating rink for an “ice cream social” with supporters. Obama did not skate, though his daughters did.

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Photo: Reuters/Jason Reed

NEW ALBANY, Ind. - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Wednesday brushed aside Hillary Clinton’s attempts to portray him as someone who lacked toughness and could not stand the heat of the media glare.

Clinton, who depicts herself as a fighter in her campaign speeches, has pounced on the Illinois senator’s critique of a television debate last week in which he was put on the defensive about issues such as whether he wears a flagpin and the fiery rhetoric of his pastor. She accused him of not being able to handle media scrutiny.

But Obama said it was the New York senator and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who have been thin-skinned about press questions.

“Nobody has complained more about the press about questions at debates, about being mistreated than Senator Clinton has or President Clinton. And so we have been pretty tame in terms of taking our shots and just rolling with them,” Obama told reporters while campaigning in Indiana, which holds its primary on May 6.

Clinton has tried to underline her message that she is the tougher candidate by running an ad featuring images of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

The Republican National Committee has weighed in as well, suggesting Obama tries to dodge hard questions from the media.

“I know that people like to talk tough and use a lot of rhetoric about fighting and obliterating and all that stuff. You know that I have always believed that if you are tough, you don’t have to talk about it,” Obama said.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

- Photo credit: Reuters/John Gress (U.S. Democratic candidate Barack Obama speaks at his Pennsylvania primary election night rally in Evansville.)

SCRANTON, Pa. - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama kicked off a day of campaigning in Pennsylvania by dropping by a Scranton diner for a breakfast of waffles, sausage and orange juice.
 
But the press corps went hungry — hungry for an answer that is.
 
The Illinois senator brushed aside a question from one reporter on his reaction to former President Jimmy Carter’s description of a positive meeting with leaders of the Islamist Palestinian group Hamas.
 
“Why can’t I just eat my waffle?” Obama replied.
    
Reporters traveling with the Illinois senator, fighting with his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton over Pennsylvania ahead of its vote on Tuesday, are venting frustration over a lack of access to the candidate lately. Obama has not held a press availability in 10 days, though he has given dozens of interviews to local press in Pennyslvania.
    
Republicans have pounced on Obama’s “waffle” comment, suggesting he is evading tough questions.
    
“Today, Obama continued to dodge questions from the media, responding that he just wanted to eat his waffle,” the Republican National Committee said in an email sent to reporters that included press accounts of the waffle incident at the Glider diner.
    
Both Obama and Clinton are far less accessible to the media than presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, known for holding lengthy question-and-answer sessions with reporters on his Straight Talk Express bus.
    
The sessions last so long that some reporters say they run out of questions.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

Photo credit: Reuters/Tim Shaffer (Obama greets Pennsylvania supporter)

PHILADELPHIA — Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Clinton stopped by a dance class at the Westside YMCA in West Philadelphia on Friday. Tell us what you think — can Hillary dance?

Earlier in the day, she presented a $4 billion anti-crime plan that she hopes will halve murder rates in big cities. She was accompanied by Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, a key ally in Clinton’s bid to win over black voters from her rival Barack Obama.