sances.info

Obama started Wednesday at the Tastee Sub Shop in Edison, N.J., where he attended a roundtable with small-business owners. He ended the day mingling with some of New York's wealthiest at the Greenwich Village townhouse of Vogue editor Anna Wintour. Price of admission: $30,000.

Republican leaders, though, were only too happy to cast cap and trade as “cap and tax.” In the process, they helped scare away senators who had long supported this very idea, like Lindsey Graham. The sad paradox is that cap and trade — which trusts in the efficiency of markets — was originally a Republican policy, signed by the first President Bush to reduce acid rain, and disliked at the time by many liberals.

House Democrats are lashing out at the White House, venting long-suppressed anger over what they see as President Obama's lukewarm efforts to help them win reelection -- and accusing administration officials of undermining the party's chances of retaining the majority in November's midterm elections.

The latest flare-up of Democratic disunity has to do with how the party should respond to an explosion in government debt. This is a serious policy debate, obviously, and something of a political one, too, since both sides also have in mind November’s midterm elections. But in a more fundamental way, the argument over fiscal policy represents the churning of a cultural fault line that has defined and destabilized Democratic politics pretty much since the onset of the Great Society. And President Obama is only the latest Democratic Party leader to find himself tossed about in the tremors.

Many Americans really do despise Wall Street, BP and the oil companies and bitterly resent the outsourcing of jobs. That is not a product of the policies or rhetoric of Mr. Obama or Washington politicians. It is because they genuinely believe that in these difficult times, fat cats are privileged and protected while they are getting the shaft. It is in the interests of both the Obama administration and the business community to appreciate and address this reality.

Clinton's visit highlighted the tricky task of balancing democracy and security interests. Former Republican officials have accused the Obama administration of soft-pedaling democracy concerns in an effort to make progress on other issues with countries such as Russia and China.

WASHINGTON — There are no Secret Service agents posted next to the barista and no presidential seal on the ceiling, but the Caribou Coffee across the street from the White House has become a favorite meeting spot to conduct Obama administration business.

Seidenberg's remarks reflect corporate America's growing discontent with Obama. The president has assiduously courted the nation's top executives since taking office last year, seeking their counsel on economic policy in the wake of the recession and issuing dozens of invitations to the White House. In return, the Roundtable has generally supported the president's policies; it was the only major business group to back Obama's successful push for an overhaul of the health-care system.

It does not commit additional federal money on top of the billions of dollars already budgeted by the various agencies involved in reducing and preventing homelessness.

Has Obama indeed reinvented the art and science of winning elections, or will 2008 turn out to have been a unique moment that suited the particular gifts of one politician? The Democrats are about to lay down $50 million to find out.