WASHINGTON - Among those who serve with them in the U.S. Senate — an institution often referred to as “the world’s most deliberative body” — endorsements for White House rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are dead even.

Thirteen of their fellow Democratic senators back Obama, the first-term lawmaker from Illinois, while 13 support Clinton, the second-term lawmaker from New York.

Twenty-one other Democratic senators are uncommitted in the race for their party’s 2008 presidential nomination.

Obama’s Senate backers include: Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Edward Kennedy and John Kerry of Massachusetts, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and John Rockefeller of West Virginia.

Clinton’s Senate backers include: Evan Bayh of Indiana, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray of Washington, Dianne Feinstein of California, Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, Bill Nelson of Florida, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Charles Schumer of New York, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

The Senate split is reflective of a nationwide Gallup tracking poll of Democratic and Democratic leaning voters after last week’s debate. It found Obama at 47 percent and Clinton at 45 percent, within the margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Senators are among the 796 Democratic super delegates — members of Congress and other party leaders — who will have a vote at the Democratic presidential nominating convention in August. They will join delegates won by Obama and Clinton in state-nominating contests. 

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, 78, managed to crack a few jokes and talk about his faith on Wednesday as he vowed to fight a recurrence of cancer and seek reelection in 2010.

“I consider it another bump in the road,” the Pennsylvania Republican told a Capitol Hill news conference called to discuss a recurrence of Hodgkin’s disease. “I’ve had a lot of bumps, and I’ve got good shock absorbers.”

Specter, who successfully battled the illness in 2005, disclosed this week he had been diagnosed with a recurrence of the cancer. His doctor said he had an “excellent chance of achieving a complete remission.”

Specter told reporters he will begin chemotherapy later this month and is confident he will again be able to keep up with his Senate duties.

Asked what keeps him going, Specter said wryly: “Got a good job, yes, faith, family, questions from the news media.”

Specter said he intends to seek a sixth term in 2010 and expects Democrats to try to make his health and age a factor. Democrats ousted a more conservative Pennsylvania senator, Rick Santorum, in the 2006 election.

Then Specter resurrected a couple of quips he used on a visit to the popular cable TV program, “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”

“He (Stewart) asked me how old I was, and I said, ‘I forget.’ And then I said I looked at my birth certificate recently and I decided not to let a little thing like that bother me because it happened so long ago.’” 

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Specter last September on Capitol Hill)

WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gushed on Tuesday that his Democratic Party has two “outstanding candidates” but fell silent about who he prefers for the presidential nomination.

Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois are battling for the nomination which could come down to who the Democratic superdelegates support — Reid is one of them so his backing could be crucial.

“I can’t hear a word you are saying. Okay?” Reid told reporters when asked the question, drawing laughter.

Reid is one of 796 superdelegates — members of Congress and other party leaders — who will have a vote at the Democratic presidential nominating convention this summer. Superdelegates will join the delegates won by Clinton and Obama in state contests nationwide.

If neither secure the 2,025 delegates needed to win the nomination by the time the convention convenes, superdelegates will end up deciding who is the party’s 2008 standard bearer.

Reid, who represents Nevada in the Senate, has remained neutral in the race. But his son, Rory Reid, a county commissioner in Nevada, helped Clinton win the state presidential contest earlier this year.

Reid brushed off a question if there would be risks to the party if the nomination race isn’t soon wrapped up.

“We have two outstanding candidates, Clinton and Obama,” Reid said. “When this is decided — I don’t know when it will be decided — but the other will step behind the other one and support them 100 percent.”

“I am totally satisfied with this process.  I think it’s been the best presidential election that I’ve been involved in,” Reid said.  

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Joshua Roberts (Reid speaks to reporters earlier this year.)
   

WASHINGTON - Tired of those seemingly endless U.S. presidential debates?

Well the leaders of one of the nation’s most unpopular institutions, the Democratic-led U.S. Congress (approval rating below 20 percent), plan to begin a series of election-year debates of their own on Monday.

However, don’t expect to see this evening clash of lawmakers on any network or commercial television station like the presidential debates. 

C-Span, the cable station devoted to covering Congress, says it will air the debate. But it was not immediately certain if it would do so live or on a delayed basis.

In a statement, organizers say the debates are aimed at fostering bipartisan discussion of “the most important issues facing the country.”

The first debate will focus on the seesawing economy, which has emerged as a top issue in this November’s congressional and presidential elections. Eight lawmakers will debate, including Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, as well as Rep. Adam Putnam, head of the Republican Conference.

“Carried out in a genuine spirit of bipartisanship, dialogues such as these can help us to fix a broken Washington,” said Putnam of Florida. 

The first of these so-called “Congress Debates,” set to begin at 8 p.m. EST, is being hosted by the House Democratic Caucus and the House Republican Conference in cooperation with the Democratic Leadership Council and Congressional Institute. The event will be held in the nation’s capital at George Washington University. 

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque

WASHINGTON - Democratic Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama interrupted their presidential campaigns on Wednesday to return to the U.S. Capitol where they shared a rare laugh together — at the expense of Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts.

Kennedy, the Democratic Party’s leading liberal and one of its most popular yet polarizing figures, endorsed Obama last month for their party’s presidential nomination.

Yet Clinton enjoyed sweet revenge in Super Tuesday’s nominating contests when she defeated Obama in Massachusetts.

“A big sigh of relief when he endorsed you,” a smiling Clinton told Obama, prompting Obama and Kennedy to join her in hearty laughter.

Just the fact that Clinton and Obama acknowledged each other sparked interest since they seemed to avoid each other last week when President George W. Bush delivered his final State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress.

Clinton and Obama returned to the Senate in a failed Democratic bid to pass an economic stimulus package somewhat bigger than the one approved last week by the House of Representatives.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the leading Republican presidential candidate, did not bother to return to Congress. Republican aides noted that a “nay” vote by McCain was not needed to defeat the Democratic measure.

His Senate office spokeswoman Melissa Shuffield did not explain why he missed the vote, despite his plane landing an hour before the vote began. “His absence would not have affected the outcome, as he would have opposed cloture,” she said.

Such a vote could draw criticism on the campaign trail since the Democratic measure would have expanded proposed tax rebates to include retirees and disabled veterans. And Clinton’s campaign wasted no time issuing a statement blasting him.

“By failing to stand up as the deciding vote, John McCain let our families down,” said her spokesman Phil Singer. 

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Joshua Roberts (Clinton leaving the Senate after the vote); Rick Wilking (McCain at a news conference earlier in Phoenix).

Vice President Dick Cheney received a sustained standing ovation from fellow conservatives on Wednesday, prompting the often-criticized vice president to joke about himself.

“A welcome like that, it’s almost enough to make me want to run for office again,” Cheney said, drawing laughter. “Almost, almost.”

Polls show most Americans disapprove of Cheney just as they do of his boss, President George W. Bush.

But Cheney was embraced at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank, where he urged Congress to pass a White House-backed surveillance bill. But first he subjected himself to some self-deprecating humor.

“I hold an office that has only one constitutional duty — presiding over the Senate and casting tie-breaking votes,” Cheney said.

“Before the Constitution was written, some, including Benjamin Franklin, believed that the vice presidency was entirely unnecessary.  He said that if the office were to be created, anyone who served as vice president should be addressed as ‘Your Superfluous Excellency.’”

“That’s better than some of the things I’ve been called,” Cheney said, drawing more laughter.

Yes, because outside a group of demonstrators chanted, “Fire the liar, impeach Cheney.”           

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she’s drawing heat from fellow Democratic lawmakers as well as people across the nation for refusing to move to impeach President George W. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney.

“I go through airports, and people have buttons as if they knew I was coming,” Pelosi said with a smile, mimicking a protester pointing to an “Impeach” button on their chest.

But the California Democrat said she is sticking to her position that trying to remove Bush or Cheney would be divisive, and she added, most likely unsuccessful. If the House voted to impeach Bush and Cheney, a two-thirds vote would be needed in the closely divided Senate to oust them.

Many Democrats and civil liberties groups have accused the Bush administration of misleading the United States into the Iraq war and violating the rights of U.S. citizens with its warrantless surveillance program. The White House denies the charges.

In helping Democrats win back control of Congress in 2006 from Republicans, Pelosi said she would not push for impeachment despite a number of calls to do so.

Speaking with reporters, she recalled that she wanted to focus on unifying the nation, passing the Democrats’ legislative agenda — not picking an impeachment fight with the White House.

“It was my belief that an impeachment of the Vice President or the President … would be very divisive in our country, and that is what I believed then,” Pelosi said. “It should have come to no surprise when I became Speaker I said it again, and I continue to hold that view.”

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- Photo credits: Reuters/Jim Young (Bush and Cheney talking about the economy in the White House Roosevelt Room on Friday); Larry Downing (Pelosi takes control of the House as Speaker on Jan. 4, 2007)

U.S. House of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, paused when asked what she’s looking for in the next president to help produce a more productive Congress.

Then she said with a grin and without naming names, “The first trait, I would say, is that we want it to be a Democrat who shares the values of the American people.”

Pelosi, who has had a number of spats with Republican President George W. Bush, added, “I put value on a president who can bring people together.”

But she does not intend to endorse a presidential candidate until her party selects its nominee.

Still, Pelosi told reporters on Thursday: “Any measure of a great president, I think, should be one who has a vision, he or she … that takes us to a new horizon, thinking in a bigger and more entrepreneurial way about the future.”

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– Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (Bush and Pelosi at a bill signing in December.)

U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, having failed for a second time to win the White House, says he’s  ready to return to Congress after months on the campaign trail and work full time as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

“I am not going away,” Biden, 65, declared in a statement early on Friday after finishing a disappointing fifth in the Iowa caucuses on Thursday night.

“I’m returning to the Senate as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and will continue to ensure that we protect the nation’s security and show our country that Democrats know how to keep America safe, keep our commitment to our troops and restore our country’s respect in the world,” said Biden, first elected to the Senate in 1972.

Biden, who unsuccessfully ran for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination, has been widely mentioned as a possible secretary of state if his party captures the White House in November.

But the independent-minded senator, a leading critic of the Iraq war, has said he would prefer to remain chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee where he could freely offer his advice and criticism about U.S. foreign policy regardless who is the next president.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul — the soft-spoken Texan who has opposed the Iraq war and a ban on same-sex marriages — had something to cheer about in losing the opening round in the race for the U.S. presidency.

Though Paul finished fifth in the Iowa Republican caucuses, the 72-year-old maverick placed far ahead of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is running first in national polls.

With more than 85 percent of the precincts reporting, Paul had 10 percent of the vote compared to 4 percent for Giuliani who spent little time in the state. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee won with 34 percent.