Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
1. Al Gore Could Be Compromise Candidate
2. McCain Considering Condi for VP?
3. Obama in Flap over Cuban Flag
4. Ron Paul Facing Challenge Back Home
5. Vince Flynn: I Like Lieberman
6. We Heard: Giuliani, Obama, Secret Service
1. Al Gore Could Be Compromise Candidate
Don't count Al Gore completely out of the presidential picture just yet.
That's the view from across the pond at The Telegraph in Britain, which outlines a scenario that could put the avowed non-candidate at the head of the Democratic ticket.
Saying the momentum has shifted to Barack Obama after a string of primary and caucus victories, Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod told The Telegraph:
"We closed a 20-point gap in the national polls in the last two weeks. The more people are exposed to his message, the better he does."
But he added: "We are up against the Clinton machine. We are the perpetual underdog and will be throughout this process. We're ready to go all the way to the convention."
The Clinton camp reportedly believes that if Obama doesn't deliver a knock-out blow before the March 4 primaries in Texas and Ohio, Hillary could win those races and regain the momentum, with many superdelegates uniting behind her to preserve party unity.
That could lead to bitter battles at the Democratic convention in August, "which could even end with Al Gore, the former vice president, emerging as a compromise candidate," according to The Telegraph.
A Clinton source told the paper: "There's a five percent chance of that happening, but that's five percent too high."
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2. McCain Considering Condi for VP?
One rumor rife in political circles is that likely Republican presidential nominee John McCain might choose Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as his running mate.
On the Feb. 11 broadcast of "Larry King Live," host King interviewed another African-American woman, Barack Obama's wife Michelle, and said:
"I arrived in Washington today from New York … and the first thing you hear is rumors. And one of the rumors is that if McCain is the nominee, he might choose Condoleezza Rice as a running mate."
Said Obama: "I hadn't heard that."
The Condi talk "is just a rumor, folks," King said. "This is Washington — it thrives on it. You live here, you know it's right."
Obama: "I don't live here."
Rice was also named as a possible GOP running mate on a recent "Charlie Rose" show on PBS, when Dr. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention said he would like to see a Vice President Condoleezza Rice.
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3. Obama in Flap over Cuban Flag
The Internet has been awash with news stories and blogs after it was revealed that a Cuban flag with the face of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara was hanging in a Barack Obama office in Houston.
Investor's Business Daily even asserted in an editorial that Obama did "permit the display of a huge Cuban flag at one of his offices, emblazoned with a mass murderer's mug" — while pointing out that the Democratic presidential candidate refuses to wear an American flag lapel pin.
But further scrutiny revealed that the office in question is run and funded by Obama volunteers and not sanctioned by the official Obama campaign.
That campaign released a statement on its Web site: "This is a volunteer office that is not in any way controlled by the Obama campaign. We were disappointed to see this picture because it is both offensive to many Cuban-Americans — and American of all backgrounds — and because it does not reflect Senator Obama's views."
However, Michelle Malkin on her Web site quoted a blogger as saying: "When you actively pander to and encourage the radical leftist elements of your party, as the Democrats have been determinedly doing for the past eight years, you're going to end up with embarrassing scenes like this."
Argentina-born Guevara was a key figure in the Cuban revolution, and after Fidel Castro came to power he oversaw the trials and executions of hundreds of Cubans, among them people associated with the previous regime of Fulgencio Batista.
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4. Ron Paul Facing Challenge Back Home
Ron Paul has received massive financial support in his run for the presidency, but he's also seeking re-election in his Congressional district — and trailing his opponent in campaign financing.
As of Dec. 31, Chris Peden, a city councilman in Friendswood, Tex., who is challenging Paul for the GOP nomination, had raised twice as much money as Paul for the congressional race.
Paul cannot use funds raised by his presidential campaign in his run for re-election to Congress.
Paul "has not represented this district for some time, in my opinion, as well as it deserves to be represented," said Peden. "And I think this district has realized that with his campaign for president," constituents are "looking for a change in leadership."
Paul told many workers in his presidential campaign on Feb. 8 that he was letting them go so he could concentrate on the congressional race. And he's been telling donors that he needs money for the Congressional campaign, station KHOU in Houston reported.
Many observers took that as an indication Paul was planning to drop out of the presidential race. But he decided to remain in the running after strong showings in the Washington caucus, where he received 21 percent of the vote, and in Kansas, where he got 11 percent.
As for the Congressional race, Paul told the Houston Chronicle: "I usually win without too much trouble, and we assume we will."
But Peden said about Paul: "He suddenly has awakened to the fact that he has an opponent working very hard."
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5. Vince Flynn: I Like Lieberman
Vince Flynn is the best-selling author of political thrillers centering around terrorists and secret agents, but he made no secret of his political views in an interview with The New Individualist magazine.
Discussing the Democratic Party's shift to the left from the late 1960s through the 1980s, interviewer Robert Bidinotto noted that his parents were New Deal Democrats, but more conservative, like Sen. Joseph Lieberman.
"I'm a huge fan of Joe Lieberman," said Flynn, whose latest book "Protect and Defend: A Thriller" debuted at the top of the New York Times list of fiction best-sellers.
"The Democratic Party went to the left. Very socially liberal.
"I am an individualist. I am someone who says, ‘You know what? I know quite a few gay people that I've met through one of my sisters, who is a hairdresser — and I think they are born that way.' I am like a lot of Republicans that I know. I will tell them, ‘You know what? You don't want to admit it, but you are a libertarian.'"
Asked to characterize himself politically, the Minnesota-born author — whose other books include "Act of Treason" and "Memorial Day" — declared:
"I don't think I can hide my political beliefs. While I live in one of the most liberal states in the country, I am a Republican — which means my views actually line up with most Southern Democrats."
He continued: "I am classic Irish Catholic in the sense that I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal. I don't like abortion, but I'm pragmatic about it. Do I think that we're actually going to go overturn Roe v. Wade? Possibly, but then it becomes a state issue, and it will play out however it plays out. I mean, who really likes abortion?"
Flynn observes that while he is a Republican and had supported Rudy Giuliani for the GOP nomination, he is not overly concerned about a Democrat winning the White House.
"I'm a firm believer that the republic is stronger than any one person. These people who think that President Clinton destroyed the country, that President Bush destroyed the country — or if Senator Clinton gets elected then we're moving to Canada — it's the craziest thing I've ever heard…
"You are insulting this country and what it stands for if you think that one person can go in there for four, maybe eight years, and so screw up this country that you need to go to Canada."
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6. We Heard . . .
THAT former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's official City Hall portrait remains unfinished six years after he left office — because he won't sit down for the portrait artist.
Giuliani spent a morning posing for the portrait several years ago, but it is still just a rough first sketch.
"The idea was he would come back and pose further for the actual sittings," portraitist Everett Raymond Kinstler told the New York Daily News.
"And the next thing I knew he was running for president.
"My hope was always that I get him back here."
Kinstler previously painted the official White House portraits of Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.
THAT Barack Obama's once-icy relations with the Fox News Channel have thawed.
A year ago, Fox ran a report — since disproved — that Obama attended a radical Islamist madrassa as a child in Indonesia. Obama later joined other Democratic presidential candidates in a boycott of a Fox-sponsored debate.
But since then, Obama has appeared on Fox News several times.
And it turns out that the Obama campaign and Fox News have a "brotherly" connection: David Rhodes, Fox News' vice president of news, is the older brother of Ben Rhodes, one of Obama's speechwriters, Broadcasting & Cable magazine reports.
But the connection doesn't give David an edge over competitors covering Obama, he said: "[Ben is] careful not to give me any particular insight into his job."
THAT Obama is Renegade — as far as the Secret Service is concerned.
Secret Service code names are assigned randomly by a computer — unless the protected public figure objects to the name — so there is rarely a connection between the code name and the person, according to Newsmax's chief Washington correspondent Ronald Kessler.
However, all the names within each family begin with the same letter.
Obama's wife Michelle is Renaissance. Hillary Clinton has the same code name she always had, Evergreen, and husband Bill is Eagle.
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