Back in early 2005 — when President Bush had a pile of political capital and Barack Obama was a rookie senator learning his way around the Hart Office Building — a group of forward-looking Democrats set their sights on the West.

John Kerry’s loss in 2004 was a disappointment, of course. But there were bright spots for them, as Democrats made significant inroads in the land of Reagan and Goldwater, gaining House and Senate seats and electing nearly three dozen state lawmakers across the region.

With an eye on 2008, party strategists set to work building on that progress, mindful of two trends running their way: the region’s growing suburbanization and the rising influence of Latino voters. Democrats placed their national convention in Denver (although that was largely symbolic) and, more significantly, granted Nevada one of the coveted early spots on its presidential calendar.

The moves, along with the dispatch of a ton of money and organizing talent, clearly paid off.

Once Obama cinched the nomination — after battling then Sen. Hillary Clinton to a draw in Nevada — he campaigned harder in the Rocky Mountain region than any Democrat in memory. His reward was....

The ceremony will commence at 7 a.m. Pacific on the west front of the U.S. Capitol and will include:

•    Musical selections: U.S. Marine Band, followed by the San Francisco Boys Chorus and the San Francisco Girls Chorus.

•    Call to order and welcoming remarks: Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California.

•    Invocation: Dr. Rick Warren.

•    Musical selection: Aretha Franklin.

•    Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will be sworn into office by Associate Justice of the Supreme Court John Paul Stevens.

•    Musical selection: John Williams, composer-arranger, with Itzhak Perlman (violin), Yo-Yo Ma  (cello), Gabriela Montero (piano) and Anthony McGill (clarinet).

•    President-elect Obama will take the oath of office using President Lincoln's inaugural Bible, administered by the chief justice of the United States, John G. Roberts Jr. (For an amazing historical view of that inauguration day when that Abraham Lincoln Bible was first used, click on the "Read more" line below.)

•    Inaugural address.

•    Poem: Elizabeth Alexander.

•    Benediction: the Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Lowery.

•    The National Anthem: U.S. Navy Band Sea Chanters

After President Obama gives his inaugural address, he will escort outgoing President George W. Bush to a departure ceremony before attending a luncheon in the Capitol's Statuary Hall. The 56th inaugural parade will then make its way down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House with groups traveling from all over the country to participate.

Later that day, the Presidential Inaugural Committee will host 10 official inaugural balls. 

The Ticket's past items on the upcoming inauguration are available here. Check back regularly as we will be updating whenever appropriate and, of course, covering the events as they unfold, including providing a full speech text asap. You don't need an inaugural ticket to read The Ticket.

-- Andrew Malcolm

If Obama and Biden registered here for cellphone alerts to each new Ticket item, they wouldn't be late for their own swearing-in ceremony come Jan. 20.  RSS feeds are also available here. And we're on Amazon's Kindle now too.

The nation’s most exclusive club didn’t get its reputation for nothing.

Ted Stevens, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell and the 97 other U.S. senators count on the rest of us to use computers to file income tax returns. But senators themselves haven’t entered the computer age, at least not when it comes to the basic sunshine requirement that they identify their donors.

Campaign finance disclosure advocates are drawing attention to the issue, urging voters tell senators to pass S. 223.

As we wrote more than a year ago, senators are Luddites when it comes to using newfangled computers for public disclosure. They direct their aides to deliver campaign finance reports -- the documents can run thousands of pages -- by hand or snail mail to the Senate, which in turn delivers them to the Federal Election Commission.

The Federal Election Commission spends millions annually on couriers, an old-fashioned copy machine, and key-punchers who type names of donors into computers so that senators’ reports can be displayed on the Internet.

The process can take months.

As happens in each election, donors giving to senators in the closing weeks of the 2008 campaign won’t become public in any meaningful way until long after votes are counted.

For years, senators have bottled up efforts to force themselves to place their reports on the Net. It's an anachronism, particularly given candidates for the presidency, the House and most state offices file their reports online.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein vowed to press the issue last year when she took over the Senate Rules Committee. Forty-five senators have endorsed the idea.

John McCain long has backed online disclosure, said Stephen Weissman of the Campaign Finance Institute, a nonpartisan group that pushes the issue. Barack Obama also endorses it, though he came rather late to the issue, said Weissman.

More than a year later, however, online disclosure is not a reality.

Weissman spreads the blame: Republican leader McConnell and Nevada Republican Sen. John Ensign, who have balked at the concept. Reid shares responsibility for failing to push the measure to a vote, Weissman said -- an idea that Reid spokesman Jim Manley disputes.

Manley points the finger at Reid's Republican counterpart from Nevada, saying Ensign "repeatedly has blocked Sen. Feinstein's effort to bring this bill to the floor." No word yet from Ensign.

-- Dan Morain

Photo: Associated Press Pablo Martinez Monsivais

On this, the first anniversary of our Top of the Ticket blog, we are reminded of the mercurial, unpredictable nature of U.S. politics -- part of what makes what we do so fascinating.

Our goal -- one of us on the East Coast and the other on the far more important or at least less humid West Coast -- was to write about Campaign '08 virtually around the clock.

Our second-ever posting, 12 months ago today, previewed an upcoming L.A. Times/Bloomberg Poll; later in the day, we detailed the results of the nationwide survey. The findings were in line with other polls of the time.

In the Republican presidential race, which then seemed the most likely to last deep into the primary season, Rudy Giuliani was perched in first place. His lead wasn't overwhelming, but it was strong enough that he appeared certain to remain a major contender.

His liberal record on social issues loomed as an obvious liability within his party, but his tough-on-terrorism message was attracting substantial support from moderates and GOP-leaning independents.

His major headache among rivals last June was an as-yet-undeclared candidate who was riding a wave as the great conservative hope -- Fred Thompson. He ran a strong second in the poll.

Lagging far behind were John McCain and Mitt Romney, each barely with double-digit support. In our preview posting, we were especially scornful of McCain, noting sarcastically (and foolishly, as it turned out) that in the poll, he found himself "in heated competition with the 'Don't Know' category."

Meriting no mention from us was Mike Huckabee, one of several back-of-the-pack candidates barely earning any support across the country.

The Democratic race, at that point, seemed so much more cut-and-dried.

Hillary Clinton was the clear front-runner; Barack Obama was just as clearly ...

While the world of politics waits around for Sen. Barack Obama to finally get the message and give up his hopeless chase of the Democratic nomination for president because he lost yet another heartland state to Hillary Clinton, Texas Rep. Ron Paul continues to creep up on the once-presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain.

Overlooked in all the hoopla about the big Portland, Ore., music rally that Obama piggybacked onto and his winning the Forever Cloudy State in Tuesday's voting was the fact that the 72-year-old libertarian-like Republican rebel snagged two of Oregon's 27 GOP delegates.

Sure McCain got the other 25. But depending on whose count you go by, this gives Paul a total of either 21 or 28 delegates to the September Republican National Convention in St. Paul,  Minn. Maybe even a few more.

That puts Paul only about 1,245 delegates behind McCain, who weeks ago captured the necessary 1,191 delegates to guarantee him the nomination.

And as The Ticket reported Wednesday morning, Paul is careful with the dollars his loyal followers have donated. Since early 2007, these dedicated bands of imaginative fund-raisers have donated nearly $35 million and Paul still has almost $5 million of that left. Recently, he's been advertising a lot on radio. And unlike most candidates, he lives with no political debt.

So by September it may come down to mano a mano between two 72-year-olds to see who goes up against the 60-year-old New Yorker or the Illinois kid who'll be 60 in about 13 years.

--Andrew Malcolm

If anybody thought the Ron Paul Revolution had expired, they need to rethink that one.

Clearly, the 72-year-old libertarian-minded Texas representative was not going to win the Republican Party's nomination this year with his 12, 20 or 42 delegates, whomever you believe. Sen. John McCain already has enough to win the GOP nod in St. Paul in September. So Paul has taken his well-funded campaign and gone rather underground to the local level where his loyal Paulunteers are organizing and taking over numerous county party operations in several states.

Quietly, beneath the political radar of the Republican Party establishment and mainstream media, they're laboring at the local level. Last month Paul forces read the party rule book in Missouri and elected about a third of the delegates to the state convention that will pick the delegates to the national convention.

Last weekend in Nevada they drove through a rules change in the state party convention that halted the approval of pre-approved slates of convention delegates as a means to eventually substitute their own supporters to travel to St. Paul and boost Paul's delegate totals for platform and other struggles this fall.

Using sophisticated communications techniques on the Nevada convention floor in Reno, Paul supporters transmitted mass text messaging to maneuver and direct their troops. When Paul appeared to speak, the ovation was thunderous.

At other times they shouted down the convention chair, Sen. Bob Beers. Taken by surprise the convention organizers and the McCain camp, which for instance had no supply of campaign signs to compete with the blizzard of Paul signs, eventually adjourned the convention in chaos without electing any delegates.

The excuse was the expiration of the convention's contract with the host casino. No new convention date was announced. The Ron Paul crews move on to their next target.

--Andrew Malcolm

                                                                                                                  Photo Credit: RonPaul.com

Clearly spooked by a few of Rep. Ron Paul's second-place finishes kind of close behind him, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

Romney was so flustered in his dropout speech to the Conservative Political Action Committee in Washington Thursday, that he didn't even mention Ron Paul.

That's not unusual, actually. Hardly any other candidate and virtually no major media, especially CNN, has mentioned his name for the last year, so terrified are they of his stare and his libertarian-like views, including downsizing the federal government, bringing American troops home and abolishing the Federal Reserve.

Sometimes it seems almost like a media conspiracy to ignore the former ob-gyn. Except for not one....

This could be a big weekend for Rep. Ron Paul's longshot but determined campaign to acquire some Republican delegates in the race for his party's presidential nomination.

The 72-year-old, 10-term Texas congressman has been largely dissed and dismissed by party politicians and the media in this lengthening primary race. But his loyal followers have been more than generous in recent weeks, donating nearly $20 million in the last three months of 2007 to make him the most successful GOP fundraiser then and the only one to increase his donations every quarter last year.

According to Paul's website, supporters have given an additional $5 million-plus since Jan. 1.

On Friday, Republicans started three days of caucusing in Maine, a largely ...

Now that the South Carolina Democratic primary is only four days away, Sen. Hillary Clinton has high-tailed it out of that state for a few days. Say what?

Some see the strategy as a hedge against a loss there Saturday to Sen. Barack Obama, who's shown increasing strength in the African-American community, which makes up about half of that state's Democratic voters. After losing in New Hampshire and Nevada, South Carolina has become something of a must-win for Obama, as he eyes future votes in Georgia and Alabama, also with large black populations.

Clinton spokesmen deny they're conceding anything in South Carolina. In fact, they will have several surrogates in-state including....

LAS VEGAS -- Amid all the confusion of the Nevada Democratic caucuses, from people leaving in frustration to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama each claiming separate victories, an interesting pattern emerged. And building on what happened in the "non-primary" that Democrats conducted in Michigan, it is going to make next weekend's South Carolina primary "verrrrry interesting," as Arte Johnson used to say.

Nevada's caucus was the first full Democratic presidential nominating contest to include a significant number of black voters, and Obama won overwhelmingly here in predominately black Precincts 4028 and 4461, reflecting what national polls show has been a significant shift in support by black voters from Clinton to Obama.

Obama was similarly strong in in last week’s Michigan primary. "Uncommitted" –- seen largely as votes for Obama and John Edwards, whose names were not on the ballot –- took 68% of the African American vote, with Clinton getting 30%, according to exit polls. But those results came in a race in which only half the candidates were on the ballot and no one was awarded any delegates, dampening turnout.

On Saturday, the votes mattered. Obama’s success among black voters wasn’t enough to give him the win. About 8% of Nevada residents are African American, compared with nearly 13% nationally. But Obama’s growing support among African Americans could shape ...