Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama, is joined by former Democratic presidential hopeful, John Edwards, at a rally today in Grand Rapids, Mich. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) Last week a fun meme went through the Twitterverse... "When Obama wins..." Well today as news broke that former presidential candidate and former senator John Edwards would endorse Barack Obama -- after months of speculation as to whether he would endorse at all -- Twitter crashed. Related?......

California is still very much in play for this 2008 presidential race, Republicans be damned. McCain does not plan on conceding the state that carries the most electoral points. Will he win CA? Not likely. Is it possible? It’s not impossible. Our own Governor thinks it’s possible. But this won’t be your typical Republican campaign run by the Republican machine that was successful in the past (the same one that concedes California from the beginning).......

Photo by Angela Radulescu via flickr. "Somebody forgot to tell Hillary Clinton the Democratic presidential race is over and Barack Obama won." So began Reuters political correspondent John Whitesides' analysis of the presidential campaign this morning. Ever since Super Tuesday, when Obama won the majority of states but lost key states like New York, California, and New Jersey, it's seemed as if no political doublespeak or even MSM pandering could stem the Obama tide.......

Senator McCain is visiting California for three days for the first time since he locked up the Republican nomination. While in the Golden State, The Man hosted a town hall meeting for military families in Chula Vista on Monday, will host a roundtable event for Hispanic small-business owners in Orange County on Tuesday, and will deliver a policy speech to the Los Angeles Foreign Affairs Council on Wednesday. Interspersed, of course, are scheduled fundraising......

Students these days are so lazy...Instead of taking it to the streets like their parents' generation and brandishing signs and making noise they're opting to stay inside, chained to their computers. Except sometimes they discover that the medium is what makes the message, and in the SGV right now students who want the Gold Line extended to Montclair have found that their campaign is positively viral. Students have created a website called I Will Ride......

Who knew that today is the 35th anniversary of the day John McCain was released by his captors as a POW in Vietnam? Probably not many people. It’s easy to imagine some of the gimmicks campaign consultants were probably tossing around to commemorate the day: McCain sits behind the controls of a replica of the fighter plane he once flew; of a modern Naval fighter plane; McCain’s congressional colleagues hold a roast for him......

Campaign Buttons, by JSF539 via Flickr Thomas Pynchon once said, "If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." But if they find you in the romantic embrace of a lobbyist and you happen to be a Senator from Arizona, it doesn't matter what they're asking, just what they are reporting and late Wednesday, the New York Times broke it wide open. In a piece that had......

Our crack political team is projecting "reason to believe" that both Rudy Giuliani and Gov. Schwarzenegger will endorse John McCain for the Republican nomination very soon. We've sorted through various flight plans and itineraries, deciphered a number of "no comments" and left several voice messages on Wolf Blitzer's cell. Schwarzenegger will endorse "within days," Sen. Lindsay Graham told reporters before McCain took off for Burbank this morning. It's unclear whether that means today, or......

Hoping to reach out to Latino voters, Barack Obama is using Spanish-language television advertising on Telemundo and Univision here in Los Angeles. The commercial began airing yesterday, and is centered around the concept of hope. The message features a Spanish-speaking narrator and the Democratic Presidential candidate hopeful delivering his words in English with subtitles. The content focus on the autobiographical, with the aim of appealing to the largely immigrant community on the basis of......

Turns out "Economic Roundtable" talks really happen at round tables. They also happen in the backyard of a campaign supporter in Van Nuys, in the case of this week's visit from Democratic Presidential nominee-hopeful Barack Obama. The Illinois Senator held the discussion a the home of Mimi Vitello, and was apparently not daunted by the large rake that rested against the wall behind him. LAist Featured Photos pool contributor Jonathan Alcorn (aka Sundogg) captured......

Sen. Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have spent the past couple days traipsing around the Golden State uncomfortably responding to allegations that their campaign is connected to a lawsuit brought last week by the Nevada teacher's union that would prevent casino workers from caucusing on the job. Many casino workers and hotel employees are members of the powerful Culinary Workers Union Local 226, which endorsed Barack Obama. The Nevada Democratic......

Mitt Romney is the consummate, cookie-cutter, robot-like Republican. Forget about eliciting animation or human emotion from this wanna-be prez. Even his campaign henchmen lack the ability to opine on, well, just about anything, as evidenced below. Romney is lucky to have 30 delegates on his side after Iowa and New Hampshire. Problem is, it takes 1,191 to win the Republican nomination. The 60-year-old former Massachusetts governor does have one or two things going for him,......

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, one of Hillary Clinton's national campaign chairs, is returning to Iowa to campaign for her, the Daily News reports. It is caucus day, so there's not much campaigning left to do. He was in Iowa the 29th-31st, came back to LA, and now he's off again. What exactly is he doing there? Is Hillary's campaign so worried about her numbers that they've put out an all-hands-on-deck, now or never call? Is......

Our city attorney is never a bore. Adding to the very long laundry list of questionable moves, such as not paying utility bills, for Rocky Delgadillo, the LA Times uncovers the story behind his legal battles that those very moves caused him. Times writer David Zahniser finds that Delgadillo has three defense funds, which he best describes as "when politicians run into legal trouble, it's not unusual to see them open a defense fund, a......

Fires raged across Southern California for the second day in a row. Helicopters joined the effort as did a Boeing 747, according to NBC TV. Also, 250,000 San Diegans were told to evacuate their homes. LAist is on top of recent developments. Fires in the region always make me think of when NBC newscaster Chuck Henry reported on the forest fires in 2003. His news van caught on fire and he and his crew had......

Núñez represents downtown Los Angeles, to the south of, and East LA in the state assembly. It is rumored he wants to run for Mayor. It is not like Democrat Fabian Núñez, Speaker of the California State Assembly, is some bogus politician with bad intentions and total self-serving motives. I am not going to argue with him for looking into universal preschool, high speed rail and global warming solutions for California; in fact, I......

Guest Day Editor Zuma Dogg will be joining LAist with a few posts throughout the day. Read his introductory interview here and check out his site as well as Mayor Sam where he contributes. He also wrote an article in the current edition of the LA Weekly Well, if I were running for mayor, I would continue to speak about the exact same things I have been talking about all year. Because since you only......

Thousands attended the Obama 2008 rally yesterday at Rancho Cienega in Crenshaw. We spoke to several Barack Obama supporters and found a variety of interests and goals bringing people together. To nobody's surprise, we found one common theme: Hope. Watch the video for more from the crowd and from Senator Obama himself.......