Profiles

Four profiles, four different personalities

First, a touching look at Joe Biden and his relationship with his father.

Joe Sr. took a step that year to lift his son’s spirits and bring an added measure of dignity and respect to the high office his son now held.
“After 1972, he gave up car sales and went into real estate,” Ms. Owens said in a recent interview. “He didn’t want a United States senator to have a used-car salesman for a dad.”

Max Baucus is probably one of the most powerful members of the US Senate.

Baucus is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Staffers like to say that the committee is responsible for all the money the government raises and half of what it spends -- and that's not too far from the truth. It is the only Senate committee able to construct new funding streams, which gives it incredible authority over the country's social-policy architecture. It has control over taxes and trade, Social Security and Medicare, health reform and unemployment benefits. Even a carbon-pricing bill would probably need its sign-off.

A mixture of ambition and ambiguity as Diane Feinstein contemplates a gubernatorial run.

Will California elect a Governor who doesn't stand foursquare against bigotry and intolerance? Will California elect a Governor who allows lies to enter the public debate without standing up?

A peek into Jill Biden's world and how she balances life in and out of the spotlight.

Jill hugs the woman and says that she will tell Joe, and then she reaches out and peels off the adhesive name tag the woman is wearing. She lifts the bottom of her suit jacket, exposing a white blouse, and presses the name tag against her abdomen . ("So that I could write her a note," she explains later. "So I wouldn't lose it.")