CHICAGO - As Barack Obama celebrated his compelling win in North Carolina and the unexpected closeness of the Indiana race on Tuesday night, his senior strategist said one of the campaign’s top tasks now is to court influential Democratic Party figures.
 
The Democratic senator from Illinois was seen as showing resilience after a bumpy ride in which he has struggled with questions about his former pastor’s fiery sermons and efforts by Clinton to paint him as an “out of touch” elitist.
 
Analysts said his rival Hillary Clinton, who won only narrowly in Indiana where she had been favored to do well, was likely to face increased pressure to exit the race because her showing did little to advance her argument that she would be more electable than Obama in a matchup against Republican Sen. John McCain.
 
Asked by reporters whether there would be a slew of new endorsements from the party stalwarts and officials known as the “superdelegates,” Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, was careful not to reveal too much.
 
“We’re going to be reaching out to them,” Axelrod told reporters as Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, flew back home to Chicago from his evening rally in North Carolina.
 
The Obama strategist said the message in these conversations would be a simple one: “Read the newspapers.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Chris Keane (Obama waves to supporters at his North Carolina and Indiana primary election night rally in Raleigh.)

While Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton criss-cross North Carolina hunting for votes ahead of the May 6 Democratic primary election, one prominent resident of the state is missing: John Edwards.

He’s gone to Disneyworld, for a long-planned vacation with his family.

Edwards, who withdrew from his second presidential race in January, has not yet endorsed a candidate, though both Clinton and Obama have wooed him.

Though they’re supposedly away from the political infighting while at Disneyworld, Edwards’ wife Elizabeth is keeping her feet wet.

Elizabeth, who has had a recurrence of breast cancer, is now a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, specializing in health care. While at Cinderella’s Castle she took a  break for a phone call to talk with colleagues about Republican John McCain’s health care plan.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Lee Celano (Edwards waves as he walks with his family before announcing he would withdraw from U.S. presidential race) 

INDIANAPOLIS - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Friday returned a compliment to Colin Powell after the former Bush administration secretary of state told an interviewer that he was impressed with Obama.

Obama, a first-term Illinois senator, has been criticized by Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and Republican Sen. John McCain, as lacking experience on foreign policy.

Powell told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that Obama seemed to be a quick study. 

“Sen. Obama, he didn’t have a lot of experience in running a presidential campaign, did he, but he seems to know how to organize a task and he seems to know how to apply resources to a problem at hand,” Powell said.

“So that gives you some indication that (despite) his inexperience in foreign affairs and domestic affairs, he may be somebody who can learn quickly.”

Asked about Powell’s comments, Obama described Powell as “an outstanding public servant.” 

“He’s somebody who I’ve known for some time and I have extraordinary respect for him,” the Illinois senator told reporters … So I appreciate the kind words.” 

Powell, who served as secretary of state in Bush’s first term, helped Bush to build a case with the United Nations for the Iraq war. 
 

But in “Plan of Attack,” a book by journalist Bob Woodward that gives an account of the behind-the-scenes debate within the administration about the war, Powell is described as having privately counseled Bush not to go to war because of concerns about the chaos that might ensue after an invasion. 

Even though he has served in Republican administrations, Powell is not automatically throwing his support to presumptive Republican nominee John McCain. 

“I’m looking at all three candidates, I know them all very, very well, I consider myself a friend of each and every one of them, and I have not decided who I will vote for yet,” he told ABC.

Asked how frequently he speaks to Powell, Obama said: “We’re not speaking on a regular basis but we speak occasionally and every time that we do I find it very useful because he’s somebody who I think has good judgment, loves his country and is somebody whose counsel I actively seek.”

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Photo credit: REUTERS//Frank Polich  (Obama speaks during a campaign stop in Gary, Indiana)

DENVER, Colo. - Mitt Romney , until a few weeks ago Sen. John McCain’s rival in a sometimes bitter contest for the Republican Party presidential nomination, says getting back on the campaign trail with the presumptive nominee is fun.

Romney traded blows with McCain for several weeks earlier this year before dropping out of the race and conceding defeat after losing crucial primary contests on Super Tuesday on Feb. 5.

With past battles behind them, Romney joined the Arizona senator in Salt Lake City, Utah, at a fund-raising event on Thursday, and then flew with him to Denver, Colorado.

“It’s a lot of fun again. It’s nice not to feel any pressure at all, I don’t have to worry about goofing up,” he told reporters on the flight over the Rocky Mountains.

“I can just stand behind the nominee and do my very best to support his campaign.”

Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, and Gov. Jon Huntsman of Utah stood beside McCain at the campaign stop in Salt Lake City in a show of party unity.

McCain said he hoped Romney would join him on the campaign trail in the weeks ahead as he sought to energize the party in the run up to the election in November.

He will face Democrats Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois or Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Rick Wilking (McCain (L) listens to Romney at a news conference in Denver on March 27, 2008)

NEW YORK - While  not exactly the epic Star Wars battle between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, the heated contest for the Democratic nomination for U.S. president is spawning its own cadre of action figures that can debate right in your living room.

Novelty action-figure companies are scrambling to get ready for the November election and the figures are already starting to pop up on campaign trails.

This week a supporter handed presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain a Hillary Clinton figure at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. According to The Lighter Side Co., which ships the figure, she is wearing pearls, a 3-piece suit, and will dance to a modified version of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.”

Novelty gag gifts like this are popular with U.S. college students, their makers say, so there should be no surprise that Sen. Barack Obama figures are seeing a spike in popularity.

“He makes a good action figure,” said Jason Feinberg of Jailbreaktoys.com, which will begin taking orders for its Obama figure (right) next month. “He has a little bit of the superhero thing that’s associated with action figures — the slender build, a hopeful message,” Feinberg said.

For those hoping Clinton and Obama will work out their differences,  Herobuilders.com offers “Obama and Hillary Dream Team” action figures (below).  And if you want to use the action figures as an informal polling device, individual Obama figure sales have been outpacing Hillary sales for the past three months,  according to Herobuilders.com President Emil Vicale.

“We typically know what’s going to happen in advance,”  said Vicale, whose site will start shipping a plush “Obamakinz” doll next week as well. “Last time we pretty much had to give away the (John) Kerry action figures whenever we sold a (George W. ) Bush figurine.” 

While a Hillary pet chew toy and nutcracker have also been floating around this year, oddly, we couldn’t find any action figures for McCain, a former Navy pilot and prisoner of war in Vietnam.  Not to worry though, the senator from Arizona does have a mask and bobblehead doll coming soon. 

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Photo credit: Reuters/Tim Shaffer (Sen. John McCain hands a Hillary Clinton doll that was given to him by a supporter to an aide during a town meeting event at the Springfield Country Club in Springfield, Pennsylvania, March 14, 2008.)