U.S. House members who are trying to make the step up to the Senate this year are finding themselves on the defensive about Washington experience that traditionally has been a big asset.

When Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney decried President Barack Obama as beholden to the nation's teachers' unions and unable to stand up for reform, he glossed over four years of a relationship that has been anything but cozy.

President Barack Obama delivered his harshest rebuttal yet to rival Mitt Romney on Thursday, dismissing his challenger's claims as "a cowpie of distortions" while seeking to rekindle the all-but-faded Iowa magic that launched him in 2008. Escalating his criticism of Romney's background as a venturecapitalist, Obama said it wasn't adequate preparation for the presidency.

Mitt Romney's vice presidential search has entered a new phase: auditions.

The battle between President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney will be the most expensive presidential contest ever — by a long shot.

The Obama administration is sidestepping an election-year confrontation with the hotel industry and other pool owners to give them more time to comply with access rules for the disabled.

The story line on the Republican Senate race in Texas is a now familiar one: A veteran politician supported by the GOP establishment is challenged by a young insurgent backed by national conservative groups.

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida is planning a swing-state summer bus tour that will also roll through South Carolina, the early presidential primary battleground.

TITLE: "Day One: Part Two."

Four years ago, Heather Wilson gave up her House seat from New Mexico to make a run for a rare opening in the Senate. She lost in a bare-knuckled Republican primary. This year she has the luxury of sitting back as the Democratic successor to her House seat takes a similar gamble.

Democratic governors pledged $1 million on Thursday to pay for Wisconsin television advertisements in a final push to recall Republican Governor Scott Walker, who has a small but consistent lead in polls before the June 5 vote.

A fifth day of jury deliberations got under way on Thursday in former U.S. Senator John Edwards' campaign finance case, which legal experts have said could expand the definition of what qualifies as campaign contributions.

The U.S. House of Representatives will vote on renewing historically low individual tax rates before its August recess, a top Republican said on Friday, in what will be the opening gambit of a months-long, pivotal fight over tax policy.

Most Americans, no matter what their political party, believe there is too much money in politics and reject the idea that people should be allowed to spend what they want, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Thursday.

(Reuters) - The email did not mince words. It came from an officer at a California teachers union, and he was irate.

The Republican Party's fundraising arm working to elect its candidates to the U.S. House of Representatives raised $6.9 million in April, slightly more for the month than its Democratic counterpart.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday staunchly defended his foreign policy record against Republican election-year criticism that he has overseen a decline in American power in the world.

Virginia's Tim Kaine was one of the first state governors to endorse Barack Obama for president in 2008, he worked with Obama as head of the Democratic National Committee, and he is still one of the president's leading supporters.

President Barack Obama said on Thursday he will nominate Allison Macfarlane, an expert in nuclear waste, as the nation's top nuclear safety cop, seeking to turn the page on a period of bitter acrimony at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

A Senate panel voted on Thursday to authorize $525.8 billion in defense spending for the 2013 fiscal year, blocking President Barack Obama's proposed Air Force cuts while reducing Pentagon civilian personnel to stay within the president's budget limits.