Mike Leavitt is friendly with Mitt Romney and also a prominent Republican but his background is also unique. There has never been someone chosen to run pre-election transition activities with such a strong and public resume.

The future vitality of the U.S. democratic system of government and quality of our public policies should be based on broadening the array of ideas presidential candidates from both parties and the public can evaluate, debate, and ultimately base their political decisions.

One year into Obama's term, about 200 of the roughly 500 top Senate-confirmed administration positions are still unfilled. We've seen this play before.

In attempting to craft a stimulus package... more consideration should be given to the everyday realities of working people, particularly single women heads of households.

Let us not forget that it was Obama himself who invited each of us to fulfill our end of the contract between citizen and president in an historic effort to bring about change.

Langewiesche thinks we are probably too scared for a president to reason with us -- about terrorism, about our self-defeating wish for total safety. I'm not so sure.

When we let shock or panic or a lust for vengeance guide us, we are a greater danger to ourselves than terrorists ever could be. Any terrorists. With any weapon.

If the crowds celebrating Obama's victory go home in 2009, his Administration will achieve disappointing results. The President-Elect will confront a variety of national and global crises.

"Yo, Barackulator -- you want a brew?" President-Elect Barack Obama looked up at George W. Bush, the lame-duck 43rd President of the United States, w...

The newly politically engaged youth -- groomed in an election campaign but not fashioned as a standing political force -- will be at loss as to what they can do.

The reality is setting in this week that the change movement generated by Barack Obama does not mean that everything and everybody is going to be new.

Since Barack Obama has signaled that his transition team will move quickly, it shouldn't come as a surprise that advocacy organizations are acting jus...

Barack Obama will take office facing economic collapse and wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan - a situation which could present him with an opportunity...

The second-best news I heard during these last few historic days didn't make tears stream like the moment Obama soared above 270, didn't cause me to g...

The utter and complete failure of the Bush Administration will make the upcoming transition to an Obama presidency even more challenging than usual.

Mr. Obama has, in my judgment, crossed the threshold of plausibility and credibility as both president and commander in chief.

Robert Pear has a process story in yesterday's New York Times that describes the Presidential transition process that's ongoing for both the McCain an...

The question is not why Obama has made the decision to launch a transition planning operation, but why Sen. John McCain has not. McCain assumes the presidential appointments process will somehow bend to his will.

With less than six months to go before he would be sworn in as the nation's 44th president, Sen. Barack Obama has directed his aides to begin planning...