Race for '08: John McCain

The man who would have been president returned to his old job in the Senate on Tuesday.

President-elect Barack Obama and vanquished rival John McCain talked Monday about reforming parts of the political process, but they skipped a good governance issue of mutual interest over which they sparred bitterly during their campaign: fixing the public financing system.

After weeks of tough talk and threats, Senate Democrats are poised to let Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee despite his support for John McCain — and criticism of Barack Obama — in the presidential race.

CHICAGO – During his short time in the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama forged alliances with several Republicans, but the only relationship riddled with public drama was with John McCain, who pierced the norm of Senate collegiality in 2006 with a brusque letter accusing the freshman senator of “disingenuousness.”

CHICAGO – After spending months criticizing each other, Barack Obama and John McCain sat down Monday for the first time since the Democrat won the presidency two weeks ago in an electoral landslide, and pledged to work together after a “productive conversation.”

John McCain, when he was stil a media darling, affectionately called reporters "little jerks." But for Time's James Carney and Michael Scherer, he actually meant it, according to campaign manager Rick Davis.

MIAMI — Republican governors gathered here to implore their beleaguered party to reckon with the demographic changes sweeping the country, improve their lagging technological capabilities and win their way back by offering ideas about pressing issues.

Sarah Palin used a speech before her fellow Republican governors to fondly recount her experience serving as John McCain's running mate, calling it "the honor of a lifetime."

He was an early supporter of John McCain and won some initial veep buzz before falling off the radar to run his own breeze of a reelection campaign.

With Sen. John McCain returning to the campaign trail on Thursday on stump for Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss in his runoff race in Georgia, Democrats are reminding voters and donors of a controversial ad aired by Chambliss in the heated final weeks of the 2002 campaign that shows pictures of Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, a triple-amputee from wounds suffered during his service in Vietnam, just after shots of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

Making his first public comment a week after he lost the election to Barack Obama, John McCain joked with "The Tonight Show" host Jay Leno that his defeat was "all the press' fault" and that he's "ready to go again" in 2012.

A roomful of academics erupted in angry boos Tuesday morning after political analyst Michael Barone said journalists trashed Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republicans' vice presidential nominee, because "she did not abort her Down syndrome baby."

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin pushed back against the growing number of negative leaks coming from John McCain’s former campaign staffers Tuesday, calling those who have spoken on condition of anonymity “cowards.”

Sarah Palin, in her first sit-down interview since the election, tells Fox's Greta Van Susteren tonight she's very much open to a presidential run, and hints that she may have gotten ahead of herself this year:

As I reported in my 2012 piece yesterday, Palin will make her post-election Lower 48 debut this week at the RGA in Miami.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said Sunday that she and running mate John McCain lost because the Republican ticket “represented too much of the status quo.”

WASILLA, Alaska – Though the long knives are out for her in the aftermath of the sweeping defeat suffered by the Republican presidential ticket, Sarah Palin has signaled she has no intention of fading quietly from the national scene back into Arctic anonymity.

On the day after his victory, Barack Obama faced a world in financial crisis, shooting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a nation that expected him to deliver on all his promises.

Unshackled from her role as John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin chatted at length with CNN's Dana Bash this morning in the Biltmore lobby here in Phoenix.

As McCain makes his final election day stops in Colorado and New Mexico, his campaign has set up shop at the well-appointed Phoenix Biltmore, site of tonight's party.

The St. Olaf (Northfield, Minn.) professor who, in a well-read Huffington Post item, recounted tearing down McCain campaign signs has resigned.

As his campaign rattles to an end, John McCain has never been better on the stump. Not a natural orator, McCain finally has found his voice.

They should, by all rights, have entered Election Day with their moods matching the polls: Barack Obama elated by his seemingly substantial lead and large crowds, John McCain demoralized by the specter of defeat and meager turnout.

John McCain ended a seven-state barnstorming tour before Tuesday's election with a final rally on the Yavapai County Court House steps, the same Prescott, Arizona, location where Barry Goldwater, the last son of this stateto win his party's nomination, launched his 1964 campaign. 

In what may have been their last pitch to many voters hours before the polls open, John McCain and Barack Obama talked sports during a halftime interview on Monday Night Football.

WASILLA, Alaska – The town of Wasilla, which bristled under the glare of intense media scrutiny in the weeks after John McCain tapped Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, seems to be buzzing in anticipation of Election Day.

Republicans could have used this a few weeks ago, not the night before the election, but it still provides a nice boost to Palin regardless of what happens tomorrow:

In the closing hours of the 2008 presidential campaign, John McCain attacked rival Barack Obama Monday over comments made in January about the coal industry.

Time is short and the polls are painting a grim picture for John McCain, but top Republicans believe they still see a clear path to the White House.