Washington Wrap

Dotty Lynch, Douglas Kiker, Beth Lester, Clothilde Ewing and Jessica Shyu of the CBS News Political Unit have the latest from the nation's capital.

Tuesday's Headlines

* Day of the Frontrunner in Illinois

* Bush-Cheney Releases New Ad in West Virginia

* Kerry and Bush do Battle on Foreign Policy

* Sharpton Surprises Yet Again

* Kerry Packs for Vacation

Some Eyes Still on Illinois: Illinois is in the spotlight on Tuesday as the Kerry campaign celebrates winning the Democratic nomination and as Democrats and Republicans choose their nominees for Senate races. CBS News was the first to put Kerry over the top after last week's contests in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, but the Kerry campaign decided to push the nominating contest for another week, deciding that Illinois would net them the 2,162 delegates needed for nomination.

According to the CBS News Delegate Count, this is where things stand:
(2,162 delegates are needed to win the nomination)

Kerry 2244 (pledged: 1821;unpledged: 423)
Edwards 536 (pledged: 507;unpledged: 29)
Dean 159 (pledged: 118; unpledged: 41)
Clark 59 (pledged: 57;unpledged: 2)
Sharpton 27 (pledged: 22; unpledged: 5)
Kucinich 21 (pledged: 19;unpledged: 2)

Over on the Senate side, the hotly contested race for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, ridden with stories of scandal, has made this a primary to watch as well, reports the Chicago Tribune. As candidates made a last push for votes, both parties' frontrunners go into the day's contest with double digit leads, reports Roll Call. Polling from last week shows Democratic state Sen. Brack Obama and Republican Jack Ryan well in front of their competitors. Sure to help his numbers, Obama is also getting help from an estimated 12 people from Philadelphia Mayor John Street's campaign, who have traveled to Chicago for the final push.

A Mason-Dixon poll published Sunday showed Obama with 37 percent, while state Comptroller Dan Hynes and millionaire securities trader Blair Hull were in a statistical dead heat for second, with 18 percent and 16 percent, respectively. Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas and former Chicago School Board Chairman Gery Chico round out the top contenders in the seven-way Democratic race.

On the Republican side, the same poll showed Ryan with 45 percent of the vote, with millionaire paper company executive Andy McKenna and dairy magnate Jim Oberweis in a dead heat at 12 percent and 11 percent, respectively. State Sen. Steve Rauschenberger is at 7 percent.

Despite the primary, Kerry is spending Tuesday campaigning in West Virginia where he will attend a Veterans town hall event and a "Change For America" Rally.

Kerry in Person Greets Kerry on TV: The Bush-Cheney campaign announced that a new ad will greet John Kerry as he arrives in West Virginia on Tuesday. The ad, called "Troops," highlights what the Bush-Cheney campaign told reporters in a conference call was the "parallel universe of reality that the Kerry campaign operates in." The ad says, "Few votes in Congress are as important as funding our troops at war. Though John Kerry voted in October of 2002 for military action in Iraq, he later voted against funding our soldiers." It then goes on to say that Kerry voted against "Body armor for troops in combat," "Higher combat pay," and "better health care for reservists and their families." The ad concludes by echoing a main theme of the Bush-Cheney campaign attacks, with the announcer intoning that Kerry is "Wrong on defense."

Bush officials confirmed that the pictures in the ad were "stock footage and actors" playing troops due to an agreement with the Screen Actors Guild. For now, the ad will run only in West Virginia although the campaign said it may expand its run in the future. The ad will rotate in with the campaign's other ads as part of the approximately $10 million ad buy begun March 4, 2003. According to Bush-Cheney campaign manager Ken Mehlman, the ad represents part of "What will be an even more aggressive effort to correct Kerry's misstatements."

He Said, Kerry Said: On Monday, John Kerry and President Bush (and their surrogates) went after each other on the issue of foreign policy. The immediate cause was Kerry's statement last week that, "I've met foreign (sic) leaders who can't go out and say this publicly, but, boy, they look at you and say, 'You have got to win this; you have got to beat this guy; we need a new policy.' Things like that." That quote, transcribed by a pool reporter at a fundraiser, prompted increasingly pointed demands from the White House, the Bush-Cheney campaign and various Republican surrogates, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, for Kerry to reveal the names of those foreign leaders. On Monday, however, the pool reporter revealed that he had inadvertently misquoted Kerry. Kerry actually said, "I've met more leaders who can't go out and say it all publicly." Thus the crucial word – "foreign" – actually turns out to be "more." Kerry's spokesperson Stephanie Cutter reacted by saying "more leaders … could mean anybody … He was misquoted. Had he not been misquoted, this wouldn't be a story."

Regardless of the misquote, high-profile Kerry supporters called the New York Times to back up the senator. Richard Holbrooke told the Times, "It's so obviously the truth what Kerry said, and the Republicans are just having fun with it — everybody knows it's true. In the last six or seven months, I've been in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Europe. I've met with leaders in all of those regions, and they have overwhelmingly — not unanimously but overwhelmingly — said that they hope that there's a change in leadership."

But lest anyone think the misquote/clarification would put an end to the foreign policy sniping, both campaigns continued to go after each other. A White House spokesman, Suzy DeFrancis, told the Los Angeles Times "that Sen. Kerry has affirmed the quote by his own reaction to it … He's had plenty of time to disavow it if he didn't agree with it … so I think he was clearly probably describing foreign leaders." And the Kerry campaign issued a statement on Monday night saying, "Despite the inaccurate report, the fact remains that this President has taken squandered the good will of 99% of the world in just two short years." That came after Kerry said on Monday that President Bush was using September 11 as a "political prop," reports the Washington Times.

Clearly, the Kerry is determined not to cede ground on foreign policy, perhaps because a new New York Times/CBS News poll shows President Bush leading among voters in terms of foreign policy. The poll found Bush continuing "to enjoy an advantage over Mr. Kerry in managing foreign policy, and in protecting the nation against terrorism. Indeed, fighting terrorism remains Mr. Bush's greatest area of strength." With Kerry on the run in terms of foreign policy, that's exactly where the White House wants to be and exactly the opposite of what Kerry is trying to convey about his candidacy.

Sharpton "Almost" Folds: After weeks of sporadic campaign events, Al Sharpton almost stuck to the script on Monday when he and John Kerry met for more than a half hour in Washington. But of course "almost" is the magic word. While ceding the nomination to Kerry and pledging to campaign for him in the fall, Sharpton vowed to continue pursuing delegates for the purpose of promoting his urban agenda at the Democratic National Convention this summer. In other words, he will stop attacking Kerry, but he will continue running for president.

"Now that we have resolved who our nominee will be we can move on to developing in detail what the Democratic Platform will be," Sharpton said in a press release sent to CBS News. Interestingly enough, word of the endorsement first broke through a Kerry campaign press release, which seemed to jump the gun a bit. "I welcome his endorsement and thank him for helping to unify the Democratic Party toward our common goal: to beat George Bush in November and put America back on the right track," Kerry said in the release.

Meanwhile, Sharpton campaign manager Charles Halloran said it's unclear how much his candidate will continue to campaign and at what point he would shift to campaigning for Kerry, reports the Chicago Sun Times. "I don't know how much time he will have," Halloran said. "He's got a lot of TV and radio offers to deal with." Speaking of TV, Sharpton's campaign told CBS News that Sharpton will travel to LA on Thursday to discuss the possible launch of a radio or television talk show.

Vacation: Cancel the Sunscreen: John Kerry is packing his bags and leaving the campaign trail for a little bit of R & R. The good news for the battle weary Kerry press corps is that they get to take some rest as well. The conventional wisdom pointed to a vacation in a warm and sunny climate and the battleground state of Florida was first on the dream list. Kerry's purchase of shorts and seven substantial books over the weekend only added to the excitement that maybe the senator would enjoy reading his new purchases on the beach.

Instead, he'll be reading the books in "mostly sunny" Ketchum, Idaho, where he and his wife share a house. Although Ketchum enjoys most of its fame as the final residence of Ernest Hemingway and as the gateway to the famous ski resort Sun Valley, hitting the slopes doesn't look likely. According to the forecast, the sun is hoping to make an appearance for the majority of the trip and mother nature must have known how much they wanted water and will serve up a bit of rain for good measure. All is not lost though. According to Tourist Information, the great outdoors is at everyone's doorstep. "Wherever you stay in Ketchum, you're close to everything in a compact area that is surrounded by wilderness."

Quote of the Day: "You've done a nice job decorating the White House" – Jessica Simpson to Interior Secretary Gale Norton, according to sources (Washington Post).