2008 US Presidential Election.

Some of Bill Richardson’s foreign policy efforts:

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December 1984: Led a delegation to nine Latin American countries shortly after being elected chairman of the congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Late 1988: Traveled to Angola to meet with rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, who was fighting against the Marxist government.

August 1993: Traveled to Myanmar and became the first nonfamily member permitted to visit pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi while she was under house arrest.

July 1994: Met with Gen. Raoul Cedras, the head of the Haitian military who ruled the country, to urge him to step aside and allow President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to return to power. Cedras refused to step aside but left the country three months later under pressure from President Clinton

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KHARTOUM, Sudan - It’s been said that Bill Richardson would negotiate with the devil. And by some definitions, he has — several times.

New Mexico’s Democratic governor has bartered with some of the most notorious rulers of modern times: Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Yugoslavia’s Slobodan Milosevic, Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Kenya’s Daniel Arap Moi, Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko, Nigeria’s Sani Abacha and most recently, Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir. Richardson has compared himself to Red Adair, renowned for his ability to put out erupting oil well fires.

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BALTIMORE - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Friday accused Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of “timidity” regarding the security threat posed by Iran

In a speech to a retreat of conservative congressional Republicans, Romney lashed out at Clinton for telling a pro- Israel dinner that a dialogue with countries hostile to Israel — including Iran and Syria — is needed to promote peace in the Middle East.

“At this point, We don’t need a listening tour about Iran,” Romney told the Republican Study Committee. “Someone who wants to engage Iran displays a troubling timidity toward a terrible threat of a nuclear Iran.”

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WASHINGTON (AFP) - Hillary Clinton vowed to end the Iraq war and star rival Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) pledged to purge politics of cynicism as Democratic White House hopefuls landed the first blows of the 2008 campaign.

The two senators, plus former vice presidential nominee John Edwards and a host of long-shot candidates, made dueling speeches to hard-core party activists, in their first head-to-head test of a potentially historic race.

“I want to be very clear about this: If I had been president in October 2002, I would not have started this war,” said Clinton, 59, already under pressure after refusing to publicly admit her vote for the war was a mistake.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Six Democratic presidential hopefuls courted party leaders on Friday with calls to end the Iraq war but offered divergent views on how to do it, saying the debate would be a crucial test of Democratic leadership.

In separate appearances before nearly 400 members of the Democratic National Committee and hundreds of other activists who jammed a hotel ballroom, the 2008 White House contenders said Democrats in Congress must find a way to pressure President George W. Bush to stop the war.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who has been criticized for her 2002 vote authorizing the war and for being slow to turn against the conflict, promised to bring U.S. troops home if she was elected to the White House.

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HANOVER, N.H.—Contrary to President Bush’s arguments in New York yesterday that the economy is going strong, the administration’s economic policies have been a big failure for millions of Americans, says Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. “They’re not working,” the former senator from North Carolina told U.S. News Edwards, interviewed while he was campaigning yesterday in New Hampshire, admitted that there has been economic growth but said there is also a “fundamental problem. The positive fruits of growth are not being shared by the American people at large.” He said that the benefits of Bush’s policies have mostly gone to “those with capital and a high level of education.” As for those who don’t have those two assets, “you struggle,” Edwards said. His prescription includes reducing the benefits in the tax structure for the wealthy, increasing benefits for the middle class and overhauling the nation’s “dysfunctional” healthcare system, which he said imposes huge costs on everyday Americans. “We want real opportunity for everybody,” Edwards said.

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WASHINGTON (AFP) - Senator Hillary Clinton vowed to end the Iraq war if she is elected president in 2008 and the war is still raging when she moves into the White House.

Clinton, criticized by core Democrats for her vote in the Senate to authorize the war, is facing intense pressure over her stance on the conflict as she heads onto the presidential campaign trail.

“I want to be very clear about this: If I had been president in October 2002, I would not have started this war,” she said at the Democratic National Committee’s winter meeting, the first chance for the party’s candidates to trade direct political blows.

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MIAMI (AFP) - Florida, whose ballot fiasco delayed for weeks the outcome of the 2000 elections, will replace by 2008 voting machines that do not leave a paper trail, Governor Charlie Crist has said.

“Our goal is to increase voter confidence and ensure Floridians have confidence in the voting process,” said Crist, whose budget sets aside 32.5 million dollars to replace touch-screen machines that do not leave a paper count or to retrofit existing machines.

Florida, whose 25 electoral votes put President George W. Bush over the top in 2000, took a month to re-count ballots cast on mechanical machines that often made it difficult for officials to know the voters’ intent.

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WASHINGTON - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton ended 2006 with $11 million in her Senate account, money she can transfer to the presidential bid she began in January.

Clinton won her second term as New York senator in November and announced on Jan. 20 that she would pursue the presidency, creating an exploratory committee that allows her to raise money for a White House bid.

The $11 million in her Senate account gives her a clear advantage over her Democratic rivals. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) had about $500,000 in his account, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut had some $5 million that he could transfer and Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware had about $3 million.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. commander in Iraq defended his record on Thursday in the face of strong criticism from Sen. John McCain, a Republican presidential contender in 2008.

“I do not believe that the current policy has failed,” Army Gen. George Casey told the U.S. Senate’s Armed Services Committee.

“The struggle in Iraq is winnable but it will … take patience and will,” Casey told the committee, meeting to consider his nomination to be U.S. Army chief of staff.

McCain, the top Republican on the committee, said he did not question Casey’s patriotism or honor but did question some of Casey’s decisions during his time in charge.

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Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) — Senator Joe Biden, on the day he officially joined the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, may have diminished his chances by having to apologize for remarks he made about rival Barack Obama

Yesterday the New York Observer quoted Biden as saying of Senator Obama’s presidential candidacy: “You got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.'’

Obama, an Illinois Democrat, said he didn’t take Biden’s remarks personally. “But obviously they were historically inaccurate,'’ Obama said in a statement. “African-American presidential candidates like Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisholm, Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton gave a voice to many important issues through their campaigns and no one would call them inarticulate.'’

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