Convention Wrap

Dotty Lynch, Beth Lester, Clothilde Ewing, and Dan Furman of the CBS News Political Unit have the latest from Boston.

* Kerry Heads Out

* John and Elizabeth Celebrate Anniversary at Wendy's

* Bush's Turn

* Da Bounce

* And The Money Keeps Rolling In

Kerry Heads Out: The day after John Kerry accepted his party's nomination for president, he and running mate John Edwards head out of Boston on their "Believe in America" Tour. The tour kicks off at Boston's Langone Park and then continues on a "3,500 mile bus, train, boat and plane tour – a continuous, cross-country trip reminiscent of Harry Truman's whistle stop tour across America – will trace America's Westward expansion," according to the campaign.

The "Believe in America" tour is the exit from the only slightly less bizarre-sounding "Freedom Trail" tour into the convention. Friday the two are in Pennsylvania (with Ben Affleck!). On Saturday, the two nominees move into West Virginia and Ohio and on Sunday the tour heads to Michigan. Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri – pretty much every battleground state – figures in the trip. Overall, the tour will travel through 21 states over 15 days.

As the tour moves through all 21 states, the campaign will be forced to resort to some unusual practices to stay clear, sober and dry. One week in, for example, on Friday the campaign will arrive in Colorado after an overnight train trip from Kansas City, Missouri. The candidate usually travels in style but no such luck on a train. The first stop in Lamar, Colorado? A shower break. Sounds like a great trip.

CBS News' Steve Chaggaris will be with him, showering as often as possible. Here's his reports on Kerry's grand finale in Boston on Thursday night:

Trail Byte: All was not smooth at the Democratic National Convention last night as Boston's fire marshal decided prior to Kerry's speech that there were too many people in the Fleet Center and shut it down.

Word began to spread around 8:30 PM that Boston Police were sealing the entrances and anyone who left the convention floor was not allowed back in.

Hundreds of delegates and journalists were stranded in the arena lobby, with even more outside. Even Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla. - who was mentioned by name in Kerry's acceptance speech - was completely barred from entering the building.

Some folks were just running late, while some just ran into bad luck as they left the floor to merely have a smoke, grab some food or simply use the restroom, only to find themselves shut out of the proceedings because of the lockdown.

At just after 9 PM, the 15 or so-member press pool that traveled with Kerry in his motorcade arrived with a Secret Service escort, which did them no good initially; they were met by throngs of locked out people and a row of cops – four deep – preventing them from entering the building to get in place on the stage for Kerry's speech.

"This is bull---," said one furious bystander as others in the crowded hallway screamed at the cops.

Eventually, Secret Service grabbed the press pool and escorted them to a back elevator -- trailed by others trying desperately to get inside. The campaign and Secret Service then checked each member of the pool off one by one – and kicked out non-poolers – causing renewed tension among those shut out. As the elevator door shut with the pool all accounted for, one bystander screamed "Solidarity!"

After climbing several flights of stairs and walking past the convention speakers' holding area (Kerry's daughters Alex and Vanessa were spotted hugging their father's political adviser Bob Shrum after their speeches), the pool finally made its way to the stage in time for former Sen. Max Cleland's introduction of Kerry. As for the properly credentialed delegates, journalists and former presidential candidates, they were out of luck, having to hunt down a TV to watch the speech.

The Edwards' Find the Beef: CBS News' Bonney Kapp reports that John and Elizabeth Edwards are celebrating more than just the convention and are doing it their way.

Trail Byte: John and Elizabeth Edwards mark their 27th wedding anniversary on Friday with a traditional stop at Wendy's Restaurant.. this time, it's with the Kerrys and everyone else on the "Believe in America" tour that stops in Newburgh, N.Y., for the event.

Thursday night the Edwards' watched most of the Kerry speech from Teresa Heinz Kerry's sky box at Boston's Fleet Center. Edwards chatted with former treasury secretary Robert Rubin during the DNC's Kerry film, but did appear to pay close attention to both Max Cleland and his running mate's speech-- until he was escorted to the podium.

Later, a super-sized motorcade whisked the candidates and their entourage to the University of Massachusetts for a dramatic fireworks display. "I hope they had their windows closed," a Boston Police Officer joked of near-by residents after the 20-minute extravaganza concluded before 1 AM.

While Kerry called it a night, the Edwards family carried on to a late night "Rock the Vote" concert, featuring the popular band Maroon Five. Edwards spoke for only a few minutes, where he introduced his wife and informed the young crowd, "As of a little over an hour ago, we've exactly been married 27 years."

At the road tour kickoff Friday morning in Boston, Edwards gave the convention city and Red Sox fans a kiss good-bye when he introduced Kerry, saying "I have something to say about the man who will be our next president. He hit a homerun last night. It cleared the Green Monster, sailed past the Citgo sign, and it's headed for the White House!"

Bush Goes Public: Ending a week of self-imposed silence, President Bush kicks off his month long campaign blitz in his "Heart and Soul of America" tour in Springfield, Missouri on Friday, to highlight his plans for a second term. The aggressive schedule, which leads up to the Republican convention at the end of August, signals the campaign's effort to counter any boost that John Kerry will get coming out of his convention, reports the Kansas City Star. (Speaking of the convention, Bush incidentally did not watch Kerry's big speech, but White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan says Bush's right hand man, Karl Rove did.)

There may be a "showdown" in Ohio on Saturday when the candidates nearly cross paths coming within about 25 miles of each other. Bush's two-day swing, the first in a series of weekly campaign outings, will take him to four battleground states: Missouri, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times looks at how the Bush campaign unveiled part of his message for the next phase of the campaign hours before Kerry gave his acceptance speech.

The Times reports: "In a new campaign speech that presages an August advertising blitz, President Bush asserts that America has 'turned the corner' and depicts himself — in contrast to Democratic nominee John F. Kerry — as a leader who delivers."

The Bush-Cheney '04 communications director, Nicolle Devenish, says Bush planned to focus on domestic issues for two weeks on the campaign trail, starting with a pitch for employers to have more freedom to offer flexible working hours. And that he will then move to discussing education, healthcare, retirement, home ownership and small business development and that by mid-August he would turn his focus to national security, reports the Times.

Da Bounce: Now that the fireworks are over and the Dunkin' Donuts at the Fleet Center is feeding commuters once again, the big action for political reporters is to find "the bounce," i.e. how much the very scripted convention will help the Kerry-Edwards ticket.

Howie Kurtz in Friday's Washington Post analyzes the process. "The pregame bounceology began weeks ago when Matthew Dowd, President Bush's strategist, said he expected Kerry to roar out of Boston with a 15-point lead and the GOP team to catch up after Bush's New York coronation. That particular spin on the ball would make a double-digit Kerry lead seem like no big deal and anything less like a Spalding that's lost its air." Team Kerry was nervously setting expectations a low as possible predicting that "there aren't that many voter who are available" to bounce. Their goal was to give information about John Kerry to those swing voters in target states, they contend, and a tiny increase in the vote will be just fine if those key voters are impacted.

Zogby America put out a poll on Thursday night which showed Kerry and Edwards ahead by five points as of Wednesday night—up from a two point lead before the convention. Most pollsters say that the highest bounce traditionally doesn't happen until several days after the convention ends when the nominee's speech and the entire convention gets heavy play on TV and radio.

Bush pollster Matthew Dowd and Gore pollster Harrison Hickman both told CBS News that in 2000 movement in the polls was very small until after the nominee's speech. Look for Bush-Cheney to try to cut into the Kerry story this weekend as the Kerry –Edwards camp try to milk the momentum for all its worth.

More Money. More Ads: Though John Kerry is no longer allowed to take donations don't take that as an indication Democrats are going to cede the advertising war to George Bush. The New York Times reports that as of Thursday when John Kerry accepted the nomination for president he was no longer allowed to raise private donations because he took the 75 million dollars in federal funds. The Democratic National Committee however, can still raise money and use it on advertising most of which can't be coordinated with the Kerry campaign

The newest DNC fundraising goal is to raise $100 million for the election. That's roughly $1 million a day until Election Day. The party can accept higher contributions from individuals ($25, 000 to the national party, $10,000 to a state party) than the campaign can and so wealthy donors will be asked to open their wallets again.

Though President Bush has five weeks before he is expected to accept public financing and end his campaign's quest for private donations Democrats are confident they can remain competitive in fundraising. Jano Cabrera, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee said, "We are going to have to make up the gap using aggressive grass-roots fund-raising efforts."

Currently the DNC has about $70 million dollars in the bank. In the next three months they plan to hold 60 fundraising events. John Kerry, John Edwards and their families will attend some of those events to attract donors. Other Democratic efforts to increase the party's bank account will be directed at state political parties, which are allowed to collect money for use in this year's presidential race. Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee explained, "You need both pockets full to maximize the ground operations." He continued, "It takes money to do it, and people are excited."

Most of the ads will be done by an independent expenditure operation in the DNC headed by former AFL-CIO operative Ellen Moran. She has hired a number of Democratic consultants including Edwards's former media advisor David Axelrod, Gephardt advisor Steve Murphy and Graham and Clark campaign pollster, Jeff Garin. These are very well connected Democrats so while they can't coordinate with the Kerry campaign they are folks who tend to know what the game plan and have many ideas of their own, perhaps, on how to do it better than their peers (and occasional competitors) inside the Kerry campaign.

Quote of the Day: "Go balloons. Go balloons. More balloons. All balloons. All balloons. Come on guys, let's move it! ... We need more balloons! F---, f---." --Don Mischer, executive producer of the Democratic convention bemoaning the delay in the balloon drop expressing his anxiety, and using Dick Cheney's favorite four-letter word, which was heard accidentally by millions of people over an open mike. (Boston Globe)