obama references a guy in his book who was his best friend and one of the few black people in hawaii at his HS. so researches found him, and he turned out to have since been arrested a bunch of times for drug related charges. there's no mention of obama being in his life during those periods of his arrest.
in terms of policies, my ranking of who would have the in my opinion, ranking of candidates who would have the best-worst impact on our economy:
mccain - would cut fraud, and waste, pro business, jobs, taxes, trade, etc.
guilianni- good on tax, business, and trade, but not sure on spending and pork
obama - strong in waste and pork, probably trade since he's seen the damage subsidies have on africa. liberal on regulation, spending, taxes
romney: pro taxes, poor on spending with his nationalized health care plan.
hillary quotes karl marx, is a socialist. she would set our economy back a decade or more and take us toward's the european socialist model imo. she's trying to come off as centrist, but you don't change a philosophy you've had all your life, so i think she's just trying to appeal to voters and will move back towards socialist policies once elected.
foreign policy
obama - great for european allies
guilianni - strong leader, would unite country, and would at least try diplomacy
romney- probably somewhere in the middle
hillary - strong politcal and funding support from jewish population and very pro israel hawkish comments, could spell trouble with iran and syria
mccain - too hawkish in iraq unwilling to consider options
hopefully the debates will teach us more. i tend to vote for the economy over foreign policy and social issues, but as long as it's not hillary or romney, i'm ok with whoever. my favorite is probably gov richardson, but he has no shot. it's ironic that that europe, asia, and most everyone else are moving towards more capitalist policies because of the success in the US (even France might elect a pro business conservative!), lower taxes, free trade, weakened labor policies, while we are moving away from the policies that has brought our economy success and electing fiscal liberals and socialists while and getting closer to a large govt/quasi socialist-capitalist system with class warfare, more wealth distribution socialist policies etc. that includes republicans. i wouldn't even consider bush a conservative on the majority of fiscal policies. bill clinton was more of one.