Authorites are calling the fire that gutted Presidential candidate Al Sharpton's offices today "suspicious."

Elian Gonzale's father was elected to the Cuban Parliament. He was one 609 Communist Party candidates who ran unopposed. All were elected--voter turnout was 97%. Critics call the election a farce.

Gary Hart will be speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City Tuesday on national security issues. The text of the speech will be available sometime after 6pm EST on Hart's new website, GaryHart News. The speech is entitled "In Search of National Security in the 21st Century."

Wednesday, January 22, Hart will be in Ames, Iowa speaking on Political Corruption and Campaign Financing.

Then he heads back to New York, and on Friday morning, January 24, he will speak at John Jay College of Criminal Justice on "Homeland Security After 9/11."

Political Wire reports on the rise of Hillary Clinton, and Republican fear that she may be a VP candidate in 2004.

We have always been a big supporter of Hillary. We chronicled her 2000 election campaign for U.S. Senate, from September of 1999 through election day of 2000, in a special section we called "Run, Hillary, Run".

We think Hillary should be President rather than Vice-President, although, keeping with our belief that the Dems need to get away from centrist candidates, we'd certainly support a Hart-Clinton ticket. But we suspect she's gunning for 2008, not 2004.

We'd like to see her change her position on the death penalty (like her husband and Al Gore, she supports it), but she is a co-sponsor of the Innocence Protection Act, and that's a good start.

Former Senator Gary Hart has launched a website on his 2004 decision. He was on ABC's This Week discussing it.

We're all in favor--Hart's bid will fuel discussion and debate--he's a very smart man. With a sense of humor:

Hart, who practices international law in Denver, has been married for 44 years. When Hart was asked earlier this month how he would answer questions about the Rice episode, he laughed and said: "Maybe it won't come up."

Mr. Hart practices law in the same building we do--we run into him in the elevator from time to time. We'll try to engage him in conversation more, and report here on anything we learn.

Update via Instapundit: Here's the link to Hart's Website.

Nathan Newman calls for respectful treatment of Democratic presidential nomination contender Al Sharpton. He raises some good points and we're considering them. The jury's still out though, as we are troubled by his anti-semitic comments over the years.

Andrew Northrup wins today's "priceless award" for his post over at The Poor Man on the 2004 Republican ticket of Bush and Cheney, and so much more.

The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that Gary Hart may jump into the race for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination.

"Hart, 66, a Denver-based attorney, is arranging a private reception for past campaign supporters at the downtown Des Moines restaurant Jan. 22 before he delivers an evening address at Iowa State University in Ames."

We think he's trying to gauge support for a run and that he has not committed to one. We're leaning towards hoping he runs. The other declared Democratic candidates just aren't knocking us out. Policy-wise, it's still too hard to tell one of the declared candidates from another.

Greenwich Time is running a poll today on whether readers think that Joseph Lieberman should be the Democratic candidate for President. Out of 215 votes cast so far, here are the results:

31.2%
Yes (67 responses)

63.3%
No (136 responses)

5.6%
Undecided (12 responses)

Even putting aside that it's not a scientific poll, and the numbers so far are small, this is not a positive sign from those in the Senator's home state.

Via Daily Kos, who found these numbers from Zogby's latest poll so astounding he blogged while on hiatus:

"Slightly more than one in three voters (35%) say they would vote to re-elect President Bush regardless of who he runs against, compared to 56% who would not vote to re-elect Bush regardless of who he runs against."

"Results also show that voters believe Democrats over Republicans are the party better able to handle jobs/economy (Democrats 43%, Republicans 36%), healthcare (Democrats 47%, Republicans 32%), the environment (Democrats 55%, Republicans 28%), and traditional values like tolerance (Democrats 45%, Republicans 30%)."

A battle is brewing between outgoing Illinois Governor George Ryan and Governor-Elect Rod Blagojevich over Ryan's continuing to grant state jobs to people even though he's leaving office next week. Today, the Illinois Senate approved Ryan's appointments.

"Gov. George Ryan's last-minute appointments to various state jobs were approved Tuesday by the Illinois Senate despite objections from the man who will take over as governor in less than a week. Gov.-elect Rod Blagojevich is exploring ways to reverse the appointments, and a lawsuit is one possibility, an aide said."

The Senate approved the three most major appointments by a vote of 47-2. Other, lower-profile appointments — many of them unpaid — were approved by similar margins.

"Ryan argues that so long as he is governor, it's his job to fill vacancies on important boards and commissions. He rejects the argument that it is wrong to saddle the new governor with people who will be making policy for years to come. In addition to making appointments that need Senate approval, Ryan has given long-term state jobs to a variety of aides and political allies."

Democratic Presidential Nomination contender Dick Gephardt has announced that win or lose his presidential bid, he will not seek re-election to Congress.

He must have another job already lined up. We'll go out on a limb and say that right now, he's probably not even in the top three and his chances are not likely to improve. He's already had his turn and came up short. He's not inspirational. He doesn't instill confidence. He lacks a distinguishing vision for the future of the Democratic party. And he, along with Daschle, helped broker the deal for support of the war. We have nothing against him personally, we just don't see him as the winning candidate.

He brings nothing new to the table.