Opinion - RealClearPolitics.com

While President Obama was in Russia this week, a new czar was born.

In 2000, Jon Corzine spent tens of millions of his personal fortune to vault himself from political obscurity to the United States Senate. In 2005, he spent millions more to jump from Washington to Trenton and become New Jersey's governor. This year he's opening his wallet again as he looks to overcome a steep deficit in the polls to win re-election, in what could be the ultimate test of whether money trumps all in politics today.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to begin questioning a nominee for the United States Supreme Court for the third time in four years. Hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor begin Monday, though backroom strategizing and public persuasion efforts have transpired for weeks.

During his two months on the campaign trail as Barack Obama's running mate, Joe Biden was fond of sharing his father's witticisms with audiences to illustrate a point. One of the more common ones went something like this: "Don't tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I'll tell you what you value."

It took the story of one firefighter to expose the tension between fairness and affirmative action.