Politics Heats Up In August

CBS News' Dotty Lynch On An Unusually Hot Summer In Politics

(CBS)  In her latest Political Points commentary, CBS News Senior Political Editor Dotty Lynch takes a look at a surprisingly hot month for politics.

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August is the month when America goes on vacation and nothing happens in politics. Politicians are supposed to take a breather to prepare for the big Labor Day kick-off to the fall campaign season. But this year, for a number of reasons, August has become a hotbed of political activity.

The first reason has to do with President Bush's decision to use his "vacation" as a time to campaign for candidates around the country and dispel the criticism that he was taking a month off from the work of the presidency. He's visited 11 states outside Texas during August and held two highly publicized meetings – on the economy and the military – in the Lone Star state. He attacked the white-wine swillers of Martha's Vineyard as a way of pointing out how different August is in the real world of his Crawford, Texas, ranch.

Mr. Bush's trips to Oregon and California last week had the feel of October. There were protesters and pepper spray in Oregon and political hijinks galore in California, where the president raised money for embattled GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon and appeared without him at a big rally with Hispanics in Santa Ana. Democrats from Bill Clinton to the '04 wannabes are spending much of their August vacations campaigning for the '02 folks. Virtually everyone – except Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry – hit Iowa, while Kerry went to neighboring New Hampshire. This week, Dick Gephardt, Joe Lieberman and the peripatetic Howard Dean are still out on the hustings.

The second reason for a busy August has to do with the electoral calendar, which placed some very interesting primaries in August and set a slew of others for Sept. 10. As a result, candidates are already advertising and debating up a storm. This August, two high-profile incumbents, Reps. Cynthia McKinney and Bob Barr, were defeated in Georgia, while John Dingell managed to keep his seat in Michigan. Lamar Alexander won his primary in Tennessee but found himself in a tough general election battle with Democratic Rep. Bob Clement.

Fifteen states (Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina, New York, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Washington and Hawaii) and the District of Columbia will hold September primaries, and candidates are now in the final throes of charges and counter-charges. On Monday, the New York gubernatorial race got down-and-dirty with Democrat Carl McCall's running mate, Dennis Mehiel, admitting he fathered two babies out of wedlock and blaming McCall's rival, Andrew Cuomo for spreading the story. On Tuesday, Janet Reno and her Democratic primary opponent Bill McBride will hold their one and only debate.

A new factor – the first anniversary of Sept. 11 – has also been responsible for speeding up the pace in August since many campaigns will shut down their advertising around the anniversary. The political daily "Hotline" reports that at least 50 campaigns will suspend advertising before and after Sept. 11, some for as many as five days. A few, like New York Republican Gov. George Pataki, will feature Sept. 11 in paid ads. Candidates are squeezing in their negative ads now before the mandatory civility of September overtakes them.

The politics of the anniversary is also dicey. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, for example, was forced to cancel a scheduled appearance with Israeli President Ariel Sharon on Sept. 10 when it appeared the event might be politicizing the tense international situation.

And then there's Iraq. It was August of 1990 when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and 12 summers later, a new Bush administration appears to be gearing up to finish the fight. It helps a bit to tamp down the debate by putting down markers while Congress is out on recess, although the lack of other big national news has made Iraq the centerpiece of news coverage.

So August has been hot in a number of ways. And with only 70 days until Election Day, don't expect the next few months to cool off very much.