"As we looked out over the financial landscape to find the 30 most influential people in investing, that mark looked bigger than the Babe's....For evidence that the markets fixate on Bartiromo, 39, just look to her May 1 report on a cocktail-party chat she had with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. Her revelation -- which suggested he might be less dovish on interest rates than traders had thought -- sent the Dow tumbling 88 points in minutes. But she's no one-sound-bite wonder. CEOs from the likes of Exxon Mobil and Time Warner line up for her interviews, and academics have quantified the 'Bartiromo effect' on a stock. 'Respect for her has grown significantly,' says Jim Huguet, co-CEO of investment advisory Great Companies. So has her reach: In the past year, she added a BusinessWeek column and a radio show to her empire."

"In many ways, the economy has not looked so good in a long time. The price of gas at the pump has tumbled since midsummer. Unemployment has fallen to its lowest level in more than five years. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average has finally returned to its glory days of the late 1990's, setting records almost daily....'No question that a strong economy is going to help our candidates,' Mr. Bush said in a CNBC interview yesterday, 'primarily because they have got something to run on, they can say our economy's good because I voted for tax relief.'"

"President George W. Bush yesterday sought to change the subject from the deteriorating situation in Iraq by focusing on the strength of the US economy just two weeks before America goes to the polls in mid-term congressional elections....'The economy is strong and we have a plan for victory in Iraq,' Mr Bush told CNBC, the US business TV channel. 'The other folks (Democratic party) will raise the taxes and they don't have a plan for victory in Iraq. My advice is: let's watch what happens in the poll that actually matters on November 7.'"

"President Bush said Monday that the domestic automakers need to keep their commitments to workers on health care, dismissing talk of any government bailout....'They made a private contract with their employees. They need to keep it,' Bush told CNBC's Maria Bartiromo."