WASHINGTON -- As he tries to become only the second Democratic president since Franklin Roosevelt to win reelection, Barack Obama is adopting much of the strategic playbook Republicans have developed and used for 40 years. Of course, on the core substance of policy -- tax rates, regulation and the size and role of government in the economy -- Obama and the post-Reagan Tea Party Republicans couldn't be further apart as the fall campaign begins.

WASHINGTON -- President Obama won late-night TV style points this week for slow-jamming his way through a campaign update on Jimmy Fallon's show. But he made a less-noticed but perhaps more noteworthy bid for youth support the day before.

NEW YORK -- During the past several months of the Republican primary campaign, presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney received a mix of positive and negative coverage, while President Barack Obama got "consistently negative" coverage, according to a new study from Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is leading in the polls, particularly in swing states. The economy is, in some ways, recovering impressively from the mega-meltdown of 2008-09.

WASHINGTON –- All of you non-Kentuckians out there have no idea what brand of deep-fried hell is about to break loose in the Bluegrass state this week and in the New Orleans Superdome Saturday. Why?

As auto repossessions go, the case of the 2004 Dodge Ram looked to be an easy one. The assignment was what industry insiders call a "voluntary repo," meaning the owner had agreed to give up his pickup truck without a fight.

WASHINGTON -- Now that Illinois has come and gone, and Mitt Romney has won, the time has come not to bury him but to praise him. Stripped of sentiment, accepting the pitiless morality of the American win-at-all-costs game, Willard "Mitt" Romney deserves t o be acknowledged for what he is: the best in the brutal presidential election business as it now is practiced.

News that Mitt Romney wants to vastly expand one of his six homes -- an expensive sea-view spot in La Jolla, Calif. -- reminded Republican veterans of a key but unreported moment in the 2008 presidential campaign, a moment with resonance this year, too. Fo ur years ago, Romney was on the short list of possible vice presidential running mates for the winner of the GOP nomination, Arizona Sen. John McCain.

NEW YORK -- If the tax cut lobby were a church (and many of its members see it that way), then its pope would be Steve Forbes, the jovial 64-year-old publisher of the magazine-and-web empire that bears his family name. But in an interview with The Huffingt on Post, Forbes said he was not in a mood to bestow his blessing on any of the four Republicans left in the race.

WASHINGTON -- Even though Mitt Romney was expected to do quite well Tuesday night -- and already is -- his camp's pre-results spin was designed to lower expectations, and to suggest that no one, not even Romney, may be able to gather 1,144 delegates (a maj ority) by the end of the nominating season in June. Facing three determined candidates, a restive electorate and foes who have plenty of outside "independent" money to keep them going, the math of reaching a majority may be too daunting.