Douglas Brinkley, a well-known presidential historian and professor at Rice University, says it's not sure that Obama would have won the Democratic nomination without Kennedy's endorsement and that noteworthy part of his speech.

CNN: Is Camelot's future in Obama's hands?

In a forthcoming study of voters undertaken after the recent presidential elections, Nonna Mayer, a professor at Sciences Po, argues that the increase in support for the National Front can almost entirely be put down to a shift in the allegiance of working-class women.

ECONOMIST: Women are flocking to Marine Le Pen

"Obviously, to be able to learn from our history, to avoid the mistakes of the past, they need to process those things more quickly, " said Benjamin Hufbauer, an associate professor at the University of Louisville in Kentucky who wrote a book about presidential libraries.

WSJ: Email Trove Is Big Job for Bush Library

Incumbent President Jakaya Kikwete is expected to win the presidential poll, although he faces a strong challenge from former priest Willibrod Slaa and university professor Ibrahim Lipumba, among six opposition candidates.

BBC: Tanzanians elect first albino to parliament

And I think he's actually got a good resource base of donors that are willing and probably will give money for both the transition effort, but also the inaugural campaign as well, " said David Lewis, a professor of political science at Vanderbilt University and author of "The Politics of Presidential Appointments.

CNN: Obama fundraising moves to transition, inauguration phase

"Folks that have done the mea culpa, have stepped up early and said 'I made a mistake', they are not judged as harshly, " says Robert Watson, professor of American studies and author of Affairs of State: The Untold History of Presidential Love, Sex and Scandal.

BBC: Petraeus affair: Is this sex scandal different?

Professor Bill Benoit at University of Missouri at Columbia is a long-time observer of presidential politics.

NPR: GOP Presidential Fundraising Struggles

In my reporting for the story, the closest I came to a system of determining worse and better on the candidate level came from Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a professor at the Annenberg Public Policy Center, who has pioneered much of the academic work on deception in presidential campaigns.

FORBES: Are There Questions Political Reporters Shouldn't Try to Answer?