Ron Elving

Before there was George, there was Sid.

George Stephanopoulos is, of course, the ABC news anchor whose $75,000 in donations to the Clinton foundation have reminded the world of his longtime ties to Bill Clinton, for whom he worked from 1991 to 1997.

But before Stephanopoulos had entered ...

Jim Wright occupies a kind of shadow territory in Washington memory. He rose to be speaker of the House, arguably the second most powerful job in the country. For a season he challenged the authority of the president on foreign policy. A master of the internal politics and practices of ...

This week we mark the 40th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. On our screens and in our memory's eye we can see the helicopters lifting the last, desperate evacuees from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.

Today, Saigon is Ho Chi Minh City, named for ...

If this Senate is getting some traction, it's not yet a threat to anyone's legislative hall of fame. Much higher hurdles loom, including highway funding, spending bills and the debt ceiling.

When the former senator, secretary of state and first lady announced for president on Sunday she smiled into the camera and said, "I'm Hillary Clinton."

Those who were hoping for a return of Hillary's family name, "Rodham," as part of her public identity might have felt some disappointment. For many ...

Hillary Clinton has made it official: she's running for president in 2016. Sen. Marco Rubio is set to announce his presidential plans Monday. In Panama, leaders wrapped up the Summit of the Americas.

When word came of Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid's decision to retire, various observers and Democratic constituencies quickly emerged with their choices for his successor as the party's Senate leader.

There were those who touted Patty Murray of Washington, the proven problem-solver and veteran legislator who has worked her way ...

They said it couldn't be done. And for more than a decade they were right.

But on Thursday, staring at a deadline that could have disrupted health care to millions of seniors, the House got something done.

It voted to fix the flawed formula for compensating doctors who provide services ...

Senate Republican Dan Coats of Indiana announced Tuesday — probably surprising no one — that he would not seek another term in 2016. Although he has been a stalwart Republican through a turbulent generation in Washington, Coats seems less at home in the hyper-partisan world of Congress today.

While Coats, ...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has apparently had enough of the fig leaf most presidential candidates wear as their unofficial spring costume the year before the election actually happens.

That is a bold stroke, but entirely in keeping with the go-for-broke style the junior senator from Texas has exhibited since first ...

Vice President Joe Biden has been more visible than almost any of his 46 predecessors in the nation's No. 2 office. He's had more access to the Oval Office and more input on policy than all but a handful.

But there is one VP duty Biden has never fulfilled, because ...

A key factor in controversies affecting presidential candidates has been the manner in which the media handled the story — and the manner in which the candidate handled the media.

You could scarcely imagine a day that better demonstrated the split personality of Wisconsin politics.

On Monday, the state Capitol building in Madison was flooded once again with an angry crowd of protesters. This time the outrage was sparked by a local police officer who shot and killed ...

Congress mustered big majorities for the Keystone XL, which you might think would mean that pipeline would soon be under construction to carry Canadian crude oil from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico.

But you would be forgetting the presidential veto, which President Obama signed on Feb. 24 with little ...

Disillusionment with Wall Street, big political parties, big deficits and big government in general began even under Republican George W. Bush, but it took a hard turn after the election of 2008.

With each week, we have come to expect another jarring outrage from the self-proclaimed Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, the new breed of terrorists that is redefining terror.

News of the group's murder of nearly two dozen Egyptian Christians captured in ...

On this holiday, we look ahead to who might enter the 2016 presidential race. Is Democrat Hillary Clinton going to run, and what Republicans might decide to enter the race?

Put it in the category of things we know for sure that just ain't so.

No sooner did the Democratic National Committee announce it had chosen Philadelphia, Pa., as its 2016 convention site than a lot of us political analyst types popped out the conventional wisdom about "appealing to a ...

This week, President Obama will propose legislative language, pre-negotiated with Congress, granting him specific permission to make war on the group calling itself the Islamic State.

If approved by the House and Senate, that language will formalize the struggle against the Sunni extremists who are also known as ISIS or ...

President Obama is expected to submit to Congress what's called an AUMF, an authorization for the use of military force against ISIS, which calls itself the Islamic State.