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Obama's closest advisor, David Plouffe. Asked about Plouffe's influence in the Obama White House one aide says that Plouffe's imprint is on "everything." For the last 18 months Obama has kept the 2012 election in mind in his actions and kept a campaign focus, on the advice of Plouffe. George W. Bush's advisor, Karl Rove, does not see this positively, as he says it kept the president from governing. One issue on which there is considerable questioning is why President Obama did not support the recommendations of the president's Simpson-Bowles commission on deficit reduction. Though it remains conjecture, it may be because of Plouffe's and other election related advice that reducing deductions- or what are called tax expenditures- as suggested by Simpson-Bowles would be politically unpopular. If true this may be ways in which running for office long before the election date may affect necessary action in governing. The political calculations when allowed to go rampant can distort the needed actions of responsible governing, and lead to timidity, indecision and lack of leadership. ...

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As she runs for president in 2016, Hillary Clinton faces a difficult challenge- to give Democrats a third term in the White House. Presidents elected for a third term such as Truman who followed Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and president George H.W. Bush who followed Ronald Reagan, were helped by the popularity of the president from their party who preceded them. Reagan's popularity rating was 57%, in the month preceding the election of George H.W. Bush, according to Gallop poll. Truman continued the popular policies of FDR, and took a strong foreign policy direction with the help of a capable team led by Marshall and Acheson in responding to the Soviets in the Cold War, before the 1948 election. In that election Truman upset political pundit predictions. He also brought an extraordinary tenacity in the rail tour across the U.S. and on the campaign trail. Hillary Clinton faces the 2016 election with president Obama's popularity rating at 46%, with only 32% saying the country is on the right track, in the WSJ poll. This means Clinton will have to distance herself from Obama to some degree. Other issues include her age 67 years, and the sense that she is somehow from the past in U.S. politics, offset by the experience she now brings. Hillary's popularity rating show 44% having a positive image in a WSJ-NBC poll of March 2015, down from 56% when she gave up her position as Secretary of State in the Obama administration. Her main Republican challenger, Jeb Bush, has only a 23% favorable rating in the same WSJ/NBC poll. Hillary's strategy for 2015 is to avoid large gatherings and try to meet people in small groups in this election campaign, so that she can bring a personal touch and come alive as a candidate relating to the everyday aspirations of working people. Hillary's election will depend on whether she can mount the kind of campaign Truman fought and relate directly to ordinary voters....

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Ms. Park Geun-hye of the conservative party was elected president of S. Korea on Dec. 19, 2012. She received 51.6% of the vote compared to 48.0% for liberal candidate Moon Jae-in with about 87% of votes counted. Issues in the election included the high amount of household debt, welfare payments, high cost of student tution, and lack of jobs for new college graduates. Both candidates favor moderate policies towards N. Korea and the communist neighbor was not a factor in the election. The focus is on uncertainties about the economy and regional disparities between the southeast and southwestern provinces.

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The Romney campaign is trying to keep Obama's support among Hispanics and Latinos to 65-70%. Latino leaders say Romney's positions on immigration during the primaries, when he chose to go to the right of Governor Perry, have affected their perceptions and his more recent centrist positions are being discounted. Republicans are awakening to their weak position in the fastest growing demographic in the U.S. Positions on abortion, gay marraige and religion are affecting a portion of the Latino vote. One question is how enthusiastic is the voter turnout, especially because president Obama failed to take up immigration reform in his first term and gave it a lower priority.

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The president of Ohio Christian University, Mark Smith, says there are six different faith groups out there in Ohio supporting Romney, and there remains a high level of intensity driven by a desire to protect religious liberty from an enroaching expansion of the state. He says the public fight of the Obama administration with Catholic hospitals and charities was seen as a threat by evangelical Christians. The evangelical vote makes up 30% of the vote in Ohio, 31% in Iowa, and 26% in Wisconsin.

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The New York Times reminds readers that Newt Gingrich- who criticized Romney's record at Bain Capital- was himself on the advisory board of private equity firm Forstmann Little. This editorial describes Santorum, Romney and Gingrich as corporate candidates who had close ties to private equity or lobbying firms.

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The stark differences in the policy positions of the two major parties in the U.S. seen emerging in the television debates. Trump vocal on immigration calling for large deportations. Sanders and Clinton vocal on the struggles of the middle class and white working class.

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A Whirlpool appliance factory in Amiens in the Somme region is slated for closure and relocation to Poland. Emmanual Macron made a surprise visit to the factory to talk to worker representatives. He says he cannot prevent the closure but can work to arrange for good terms for the closure. Marine Le Pen the far right candidate also visited the site at the factory gates where workers were on strike. Afterwards Macron said "I try to fix problems, not to exploit them."  Macron has come under criticism in the French press for taking too much for granted in the second round and not fighting for support the way he had earlier. Le Pen has appealed to workers facing factory closure and areas that have been neglected as factories closed in previous years. In the north and northeast smaller towns and areas neglected in the tech boom and facing deindustrialization have turned to Le Pen. Macron's effort to go into these areas is part of his style and his conviction that the problems have to be tackled in the deindustrialized areas, and to break the image that the National Front is striving to create of a candidate from investment banking that does not understand workers. ...

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The sixth Republican television debate showed Ted Cruz and Donald Trump debating each other vigorously, and New Jersey governor Christie also making effective points. Topics discussed included whether birth would be an issue for Cruz, and "New York values." Candidates focussed attention on Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front runner.

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Dan Balz describes the resilience of Donald Trump's candidacy, and the contest between Cruz and Trump, both tapping into anger at the grassroots. He points to the little headway made by the other candidates, Rubio, Kasich, Bush and Carson. Trump's high moment was when he described the way New Yorkers handled the 9/11 collapse of the World Trade Center and other buildings. Cruz passionately handled questions on the birth issue- being born of an American mother in Canada- and the loan from Goldman Sachs, coming out stronger than before.

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U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, wins by 84% to his challenger's 16% of the vote in the Republican primary for his House seat of Janesville, Wisconsin. The challenger Nehlen, an executive at a water filtration company, adopted many of Trump's positions including building a wall and had the support of the group Tea Party Patriots. Trump lost to Ted Cruz in Wisconsin and lost in the 1st congressional district covering Janesville by 19 percentage points. Janesville, is a former industrial working class town that has lost many factory jobs over the years, and this election shows the trade issue is not the only issue on people's minds when they vote. That it is easy for a candidate to use it as wedge even when they do not mean what they say by outsourcing themselves, or have few real solutions- especially as public opinion in both parties is opposed to a shift of jobs overseas for the last decade. Ryan said about his win- "I'm a local guy, people know who I am, they know what I believe in and they know I mean what I say and I say what I mean and I don't do it in a mean way." Some Republican experts say Ryan's job of winning his seat very easily, protecting the congressional majority of Republicans, and dealing with Trump as the nominee, is the hardest job in politics. ...