It’s clear that there’s been about enough of the Bubba Factor for U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The success of this week’s mission to North Korea relied not only Bill Clinton’s renown, but on his international web of contacts.

Former President Bill Clinton’s extraordinary mission to North Korea that resulted in the freeing of two U.S. journalists marked a thaw in his relations with his former vice president, Al Gore.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo may be the only player emerging from the AIG mess as a star.

The former president has unwound his high-profile business relationship with his friend Ronald Burkle’s Yucaipa Cos., including a politically sensitive partnership tie to Dubai.

Kirsten Gillibrand is it. The new U.S. Senator from New York. The upstate Congresswoman is widely viewed as smart, tough and an up-and-comer. She is also anti-gun control, which may open her to primary challenges from more liberal Democrats next year.

When George W. Bush boarded the former Air Force One to fly home to Texas yesterday, he left behind a lot of disappointed felons, not to mention their lawyers.

By naming Dennis C. Blair as his nominee for the nation’s top spy post - director of national intelligence - President-elect Barack Obama gets a brainy, retired four-star admiral with an independent streak.

Another fixture of the Clinton administration is helping Barack Obama make his move from senator to president.

Hillary and Bill Clinton have stepped up their efforts to retire millions of dollars in campaign debt from her failed bid for the White House before she becomes the nation’s top diplomat.

Janet Napolitano, Barack Obama’s pick for Homeland Security secretary, first came to Washington 17 years ago to represent Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearings.

Fresh from his victory Tuesday, Sen. Barack Obama has tapped a fellow Chicagoan to be the White House enforcer.

Elvis Costello is bringing his talent to television.

Anne Hathaway’s recently dumped boyfriend, Raffaello Follieri, was arrested yesterday for fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

It’s been that kind of year. As the primary season is about to end, as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton could be preparing to say a graceful goodbye to the presidential race, her husband has gotten into yet another food fight.

For generations of Grunwalds, media and politics have been the family business.

Mandy Grunwald is media consultant for the Hillary Clinton campaign. She has previously worked on campaigns for Bill Clinton, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Patrick Leahy.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who quit the presidential race Jan. 10, says Barack Obama calls him every three days or so and that about 10 supporters of Hillary Clinton call him every day.

Their goal: obtain his endorsement for president.

The New York Times calls Richardson one of the biggest prospective endorsers in the Democratic Party because he is a former candidate, Hispanic governor and a superdelegate.

Richardson tells the newspaper that he is “genuinely torn.” He says he may make an endorsement next week, or not at all.

Millionaire Susie Tompkins Buell is a candidate’s dream, the sort of contributor who’s willing to give again and again and again.

“I get worked up and ask, ‘What can I do?’ and the first answer is always to give money,” Buell told The New York Times in 2004.

Buell is worked up again - this time over the prospect that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton might not get the Democratic presidential nomination.

In times of real need, the Bill and Hillary Clintons turn to Harold M. Ickes.

So it’s no surprise that Ickes, the son of Harold L. Ickes, Franklin Roosevelt’s secretary of the interior, is leading the effort to sew up Democrat superdelegates for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, in her bid for the Democratic nomination.

Like mother, like daughter.

“Her mother found her voice in New Hampshire, and Chelsea Clinton, has found hers too,” wrote Nikki Schwab of U.S. News & World Report in a story posted Tuesday on the magazine’s website.

The emergence of the 27-year-old daughter of presidential contender Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, and former President Bill Clinton, as a campaign speaker represents a significant shift in the role of the former, and possibly future, first daughter.