Larry Kudlow, a right-wing market commentator on CNBC and WABC radio, has been trying to sell the idea that the market doesn't like presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and will surely tank if he's elected.

Kudlow claims: "Markets don't like Obama. If he wins alongside Democratic gains in the House and Senate, taxes are going up big time. [...] Interestingly, stocks have preferred Hillary in the Democratic fight...because markets believe they can do business with Hillary in a way they can't with Obama."

His proof? The day after West Virgina the Dow was up 66 points. But didn't everyone already know she would take West Virginia (if not by such a huge margin? Don't traders still buy on the rumor, sell on the news anymore? Do traders only belong to that dwindling club of Clinton partisans who believe West Virginia was another turn-around?

In the latest chapter of "Politicians must have something to say about everything," Hillary Clinton wants you to know that she doesn't like the fact that Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) traded down after after reporting $11 billion in quarterly earnings.

Senator Clinton -- whom I would vote for by the way -- said that "There is something seriously wrong with our economy when Exxon's record $11 billion in quarterly profits are seen as a disappointment by Wall Street."

Then, in a twist that reminded me of watching a poorly coordinated fellow slam an ice cream cone into his forehead, Clinton added that this was further proof that the gas tax should be suspended.

Has Senator Clinton seen the number of SUVs on the road? And has she noticed that 60% of people are obese? I promise you they didn't get that way by walking everywhere to save money on gas. Given the state of the federal budget -- and the increasing concern about the impact of fossil fuels on the environment -- we shouldn't be doing anything to encourage increased use of fuel.

A separate issue that may of interest to investors: some analysts have suggested that Exxon is actually understating its profits -- and boosting capital investments -- in an effort to appease politicians. If that's the case, the stock may be cheaper than it appears at first glance.

Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), whose huge profits have made it one of the most vilified companies in America, was brought down to earth today after posting disappointing earnings.

Net income at the world's largest oil company rose 17% to $10.9 billion, or $2.03 per share, from $9.3 billion, or $1.62 per share, a year earlier. Revenue rose 34% to $116.9 billion. Analysts had expected profit of $2.13 on revenue of $124.4 billion, according to Thomson Financial. Shares of the company fell.

Just because oil prices remain above $100 per barrel doesn't necessarily mean everything is going Exxon's way. For one thing, high oil prices resulted in "significantly lower" refining margins, which pushed down downstream earnings by $746 million to $1.16 billion. Lower margins also pushed down profit in Exxon's chemical business by $208 million to $1.03 billion. Moreover, spending on capital and exploration projects soared 30% to $5.5 billion "as we continued to actively invest in projects to bring additional crude oil, natural gas and finished products to market."

The problem is that's proving to be difficult. For one thing, production at the company's oil wells dropped as did natural gas production in the Middle East, The U.S., Canada, South America and Asia. This is happening as surging demand from the developing world is keeping oil prices at record levels. Exxon is "having trouble raising production, and that's not a good sign,'' Leeb Capital Management's Stephen Leeb told Bloomberg News.

The White House can certainly be a ticket to riches. Just look at Al Gore. Since leaving as vice president, he has made a bundle -- having been an early investor in Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and a board member of Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL).

And with the release with Bill and Hillary Clinton's tax returns, we are getting more data points.

Interestingly enough, it looks like Bill was a big-time private equity operator. That is, he snagged $15.4 million (since 2003) from Yucaipa Cos. That's certainly a big chunk of Bill's earnings (which amount to about $75 million during this period).

But according to Bloomberg.com, Bill's role may have been more than just an investor. In other words, he may have been an influencer on deal-making.

And why not? Isn't it convenient to have the former U.S. president on your payroll? Absolutely. No doubt, Bill is the ultimate "door opener."

Oh, and I'm sure reporters will try to get some juicy details on some of Yucaipa's deals.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

The Associated Press reports that Bill and Hillary Clinton made $109.2 million in the years since they left the White House. According to Drudge Report, Bill was the big winner. Details include:

They paid $33.7 million in Federal taxes and gave $10.2 million to charity. I would not be surprised if Clintons have had the most successful post White House cash-in of any presidential couple. No wonder she wants to get back there again. Think of how much more she could make after being president!

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter.

Hillary Clinton appeared on Jim Cramer's Mad Money recently, and faced some pretty tough questions about the economy, financial markets and regulation.

Senator Clinton shined. She came across as well-informed, and Cramer spent most of the interview agreeing with Ms. Clinton -- impressive given that he also spent an entire interview giving attaboys to Ron Paul.

Senator Clinton was also impressive in her discussion of executive compensation where she lashed out at excessive compensation without banging the populist drum that gets many Democrats a bad rap. She explained that executives should be rewarded for creating great wealth for shareholders and that the "pay for pulse" compensation at many of these financial companies threatens to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

Be sure to watch the video, regardless of what you think of Hillary: you'll probably be impressed.

Whatever your political ideology happens to be, I think we can all agree on one thing: Given the complex economic issues currently facing our country -- many of which will continue to be important for the foreseeable future -- our next president must be someone who understand economics.

To that end, the latest issue of Barron's looks at the backgrounds of each candidate (subscription required), showing something troubling: McCain's financial expertise is pretty much limited to having married a rich woman. That's a good strategy to be sure, but not necessarily the best background for someone charged with dealing with the current mess. Advising struggling homeowners to scan the obituaries in search of newly widowed socialites might not go over well.

Then there's Barack Obama whose experience in the market is, according to Barron's, pretty much limited to having once lost $13 thousand on stocks acquired through a blind trust. Barron's writes that "Small wonder he's giddy to raise taxes on interest and dividends. Obama has little skin in the game ... He's as insulated from his own dividend and capital gains proposals as a penguin is from the cold."

Hillary Clinton's net worth is very high, but she owns little stock. Her experience on the board of directors at Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) is intriguing but, looking at the available information, one thing is clear: None of these candidates can be considered an economics expert, something that we badly need, although George W. Bush's MBA from Harvard did little to avert the current mess.

Perhaps we'll get our economics expert from the other half of the presidential ticket. Private equity titan Mitt Romney is rumored to be a possible pick for John McCain, and there is some speculation that Barack Obama could pair up with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Seeking to change the subject from her foreign policy exaggerations, Sen. Hillary Clinton turned her attention to domestic matters, proposing a $30 billion plan to help state and local governments reduce the number of foreclosures.

Moreover, she proposed creating a "high-level emergency working group" comprised of former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan "father of the mortgage crisis" Greenspan, former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and reported Barack Obama supporter/ former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker. The New York senator thinks the world needs another government study whose recommendations will be ignored.

"As much as she focused on ways to ease the mortgage crisis, Senator Clinton also dwelled on what she called 'a crisis of confidence in our country,' and portrayed herself as the candidate best able to address the economic problems of middle-income and economically struggling families," according to The New York Times.

Voters, though, are showing a lack of confidence in her. Odds of her winning are slim and none, according to Politico and other political media. That being said, the housing crisis and high oil prices will be the top issues in the campaign. Expect a billion or so commercials on the topics between now and November.

Freelance writer Jonathan Berr edits the blog Ketchup and Eggs.

Over the past ten years, eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY)'s CEO, Meg Whitman, has had a love / hate relationship with eBay users. No matter what your personal thoughts are regarding Whitman, you have to give it to her; she did take eBay to levels no one would have dreamed possible just ten years ago.

Well, her tenure at eBay is coming to an end, and her next move is into politics, working high up in Senator John McCain's Presidential campaign.

Back in January, Whitman announced that she would be stepping down from eBay to pursue philanthropy and politics, and her first big step is going to be serving as co-chair of Senator McCain's national presidential campaign.

While we still have not reached the point of McCain being announced the official Republican candidate for the upcoming election, it is all but a forgone conclusion that McCain is going to be the Republican's choice for November's pivotal election in America. After a rocky eight years with George Bush running the show, the Republicans are definitely going to have their hands full with this year's election, and Whitman is coming on board to have a leading role in the campaign's financing and policy development.

Tuesday's primary victories in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island gave Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-New York, about all her campaign could hope for: solid performances and a chance to close the delegate gap in the next primary, in Pennsylvania on April 22.

Still, the delegate math remains rough for the candidate seeking to become the first woman nominated for president by a major U.S. political party. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, leads in delegates, 1477-1391, including pledged superdelegates, according to a Washington Post tally, and the Clinton campaign's strategy will now be to try to close the delegate gap to 60 or so with a win in Pennsylvania. Two caucuses, Wyoming and Mississippi, occur before the Pennsylvania primary, and Sen. Obama is expected to win each and increase his delegate lead heading into Pennsylvania.

In 187-delegate Pennsylvania, the demographics favor Sen. Clinton -- she's leading in statewide polls there - - and the Clinton campaign likes its chances. Pennsylvania has a large working class -- which, along with women voters and Latin-Americans, forms the bulk of Clinton's base. If Sen. Clinton registers a solid win in Pennsylvania, she can make the case that although Sen. Obama has the delegate lead, she has won in the major states of New York, California, Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and probably would have won in Florida, had the delegate count been included in the Democratic Party's nominating process. That big-state coalition, and the fact that she's the candidate of the working class, would be two strong philosophical points as the campaign attempts to secure pledges from the to-date 353 un-pledged superdelegates. (Note: The number of un-pledged delegates is likely to decline by the end of the primary season on June 3.)

The New York Times reports that Hillary Clinton is giving off signals that her campaign for President could be nearing an end. It's hard to know if this veil of tears is just Hillary using the crying gambit -- as she did in New Hampshire -- in the pages of her hometown newspaper. But as she acknowledges in the article, running for President is a marathon from which the fittest political athlete emerges victorious.

The Times article helps highlight a critical difference between Clinton and Obama which may explain why Obama is proving himself to be the fitter of the two Democratic candidates. With Clinton, it appears that the voter's job is to help her to realize her ambitions by giving her money or votes. By contrast, Obama presents himself as the vessel for achieving voter's hopes. In short, with Hillary it's about what voters can do for her. And for Obama, it's about what he can do for voters.

The effect of these different approaches is that Clinton appears tired as she struggles to break an 11 state losing streak in the upcoming March 4th primaries. It's as though she needs the voters to give her the strength to keep going and that evidence of insufficient support saps her strength. By contrast, Obama looks like he hasn't really broken a sweat as he goes from victory to victory.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who proved that presidential politics is a lousy investment, is poised to endorse Republican front-runner and his one-time rival John McCain, according to the New York Times.

This is hardly a shock.

Republicans, with the exception of Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul, are rallying around the Arizona senator who is their party's best hope of keeping the White House. The GOP has a lousy history, though, with Arizona senators running for president. Barry Goldwater was trounced by Lyndon Johnson in 1964 and odds are growing that McCain will get a whooping equal too or potentially worse at the hands of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

Hillary Clinton's chances of becoming the next president of the United States are fading fast.

Barack Obama swept the so-called Potomac primaries yesterday in Maryland, The District of Columbia, and Virginia, humiliating the New York senator by double-digit margins. On the Republican side, John McCain won a decisive victory over rival Mike Huckabee further cementing his front-runner status. The real story of the election, though, is the surging popularity of Obama.

The exit polls in the latest primaries probably are scaring the Clinton campaign to death. As The New York Times noted, "he received majority support from voters across all income and education levels, as well as across political ideologies, from those who described themselves as liberal, moderate and conservative Democrats. And independents, who were allowed to vote in Virginia's Democratic primary and accounted for 2 in 10 voters there, supported Mr. Obama two to one over Mrs. Clinton."

One of the Democratic Party's worst nightmares regarding the 2008 presidential election is coming to fruition: Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) will be the Republican Party's nominee.

Some investors / readers may argue that as a moderate, somewhat rebellious Republican and an advocate of the Iraq War, McCain will be a fairly easy candidate for the Democrats to oppose. Well, to borrow one of Vice President Gore's renowned, low-key allusions, Now, I can see you really haven't researched the matter thoroughly.

True, the short-term forces -- issues -- are against McCain. The economy is barely growing, or is already in a recession, and the Iraq War continues with little certainty regarding its outcome or ultimate impact. Further, because there's a Republican in the White House, the American people -- if decades of political science survey research mean anything -- will blame the party in power for not having solved the above problems, and this will take votes away from McCain.

It is not a revelation to state that Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-New York) campaign has stumbled and is reeling.

It would be a revelation to argue that despite all of the advantages that public policy experience, party apparatus, and political contributions affords, Hillary Clinton could lose the 2008 Democratic Party Nomination, and to an upstart at that.

When one is trained in public policy and economics, you tend to view the world, at least the economic and political worlds, through a social science prism, and with that lens one can detect three Clinton campaign errors that have led to the current nomination process state-of-things.

The economy
To-date, the Clinton campaign has failed to emphasize Clinton's biggest strength: how she would fix an ailing U.S. economy. Clinton has at least five policy proposals that speak directly to what many Americans need economically; she'll have to emphasize these to secure the nomination.