Candidate Profiles: Mike Huckabee | Barack Obama

While Iowa caucus-goers packed into gyms and churches last night to choose presidential nominees, a handful of Sen. Hillary Clinton's supporters perched on bar stools in the Thank Ya Now Saloon in Pageland, S.C., to watch the results.

During a debate at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Democratic presidential candidates battling for the party's nomination took aggressive aim at their biggest obstacle: Sen. Hillary Clinton. The senator's opponents paid little attention to each other during the two-hour October debate, reserving most of their firepower for the woman with the double-digit lead.

The morning began strangely April 16 for the thousands of students headed to class at Virginia Tech University: Snow flurries swirled through the spring air in the rolling foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains in Blacksburg, Va.

A few hours later, the campus was swirling in grief and disbelief: Thirty-three classmates and professors were dead, cut down by a deranged Virginia Tech student in the deadliest shooting rampage in American history.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi huddled inside St. Peter's Catholic Church in Washington, D.C., for a prayer service devoted to the historic events about to unfold: In a few hours, the California Democrat would become the first woman elected as speaker of the House of Representatives.

After the prayer service, Pelosi passed a handful of pro-life activists outside holding small signs with a simple message: "You can't be Catholic and pro-abortion." The congresswoman bustled by without speaking.

When Americans watch television this Christmas season, they can expect a few familiar standards: a dancing Bing Crosby, a tearful Jimmy Stewart, and a repentant Charlie Brown. In New Hampshire and Iowa, television viewers can also expect depictions of a flip-flopping Mitt Romney and a finger-pointing Hillary Clinton.

Crosby, Stewart, and Brown come courtesy of classic holiday films, but Romney and Clinton come courtesy of negative political ads aimed at jarring voters during the last four weeks before the presidential primaries begin.

The wintertime departure from Congress of Sen. Trent Lott is heating up a political environment already stickier than Mississippi in summertime.

The second most powerful Republican in the Senate announced on Nov. 26 that he would resign his Mississippi seat by the end of the year, stunning even close advisers: Lott was just one year into the six-year term he won by reelection last November. He has served in Congress nearly 35 years.

Congressman Jeff Flake killed the Perfect Christmas Tree. The Arizona Republican and fierce opponent of earmark spending made a simple argument on the House floor: The federal government shouldn't spend $129,000 to bolster an ornament-making program by local artisans in Spruce Pine, N.C., even if it helps a lagging local economy.