Washington Wrap

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

Monday's Headlines

* New Kerry Ads

* Cheney Touts Patriot Act and Slams Kerry

* South Dakotans Vote On Who Will Fill Janklow's House Seat

* Veep Watch: The Vetting Goes On

* Alexandra Takes On

New Kerry Ads: Hello little blonde girls and business casual. Goodbye Vietnam buddy Del Sandusky and mustard-colored winter jackets. John Kerry's new ad, "Optimists," includes two shots of young blondes and a variety of business casual outfits – all packed into 30 seconds. The ad, which begins Tuesday and will run in 20 states, is part of an $18 million buy for the month of June. The campaign also announced that it will begin running a 60-second bio ad first released last month in Virginia. This brings the Kerry camp's total to 21 states with paid advertising.

"Optimists" has four main messages, all of which Kerry has been touting on the stump: job creation, lower health care costs, "independence from Middle East oil" and "in the world, a strong military and strong alliances – to defeat terror." The music swells as Kerry is seen shaking hands, meeting voters and talking in front of an aircraft carrier – presumably to appeal to veterans. On a conference call with reporters, campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill said the ads would continue the theme "together we can build a stronger America."

Tooting their own horns a bit, pollster Mark Mellman said that Kerry's previous ads have helped boost his numbers in battleground states. Citing polling from Annenberg and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, Mellman told reporters that "we didn't expect horse race numbers to change" but the "evidence is clear that John Kerry's ads in battleground state have been a real benefit." "Optimists" and the 60-second bio spot aired in May were produced by Kerry's new ad team of and Shrum, Devine and Donilon and Squier, Knapp, Dunn.

The 45-minute ad conference call included a few other interesting tidbits. Per adviser Tad Devine, the $18 million ad buy will almost certainly include other ads yet to be announced and the campaign may go into more states as the race progresses (Tennessee was mentioned by a reporter). And, asked how the campaign can criticize the Bush-Cheney campaign's negative advertising when Kerry ran negative ads in Fall 2003, Devine replied simply "our ads are true." Stay tune to see whether the BC04 team agrees with that assessment.

While these mostly domestic ads hit the airwaves, Kerry continues his emphasis on national security on the stump. He is in Tampa and Kansas City on Wednesday, gives a speech on military readiness on Thursday in Independence, MO, and hosts a Veterans for Kerry event on Friday in Minneapolis, Minn.

Cheney Hits the Trail: Campaigning in Kansas City on Tuesday, Vice President Dick Cheney said the controversial USA Patriot Act is a vital weapon in the war against terror and slammed John Kerry for criticizing the post-9/11 law, which he voted for in the U.S. Senate. Cheney's speech comes on the heels of a Bush-Cheney ad attacking Kerry for changing his position on the Patriot Act as a presidential candidate.

In remarks prepared for delivery, Cheney said: "In a statement supporting the Patriot Act, Senator Kerry said the law would, 'make it a lot more difficult for new terrorist organizations to develop.' I won't be saying this very often in the next few months - but Senator Kerry was right...The Patriot Act has been crucial in many of our successes. Yet Senator Kerry has chosen this moment, after these victories, to share his second thoughts on the Patriot Act. He now calls the Patriot Act a 'blind spot in the American justice system.' He now says he wants to let vital elements of the Patriot Act expire at the end of next year. What he hasn't shared, however, is a single example of the Patriot Act actually being abused."

Kerry's campaign plans to use Cheney's speech to highlight a report in this week's Time magazine that says the vice president's office might have been involved in awarding a multi-billion dollar, non-competitive defense contract to Halliburton Corp., the oil services giant that Cheney ran before taking office.

Time reports it "has obtained an internal Pentagon e-mail sent by an Army Corps of Engineers official—whose name was blacked out by the Pentagon—that raises questions about Cheney's arm's-length policy toward his old employer. Dated March 5, 2003, the e-mail says 'action' on a multibillion-dollar Halliburton contract was 'coordinated' with Cheney's office. The e-mail says Douglas Feith, a high-ranking Pentagon hawk, got the 'authority to execute RIO,' or Restore Iraqi Oil, from his boss, who is Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. RIO is one of several large contracts the U.S. awarded to Halliburton last year. The e-mail says Feith approved arrangements for the contract 'contingent on informing WH [White House] tomorrow. We anticipate no issues since action has been coordinated w VP's [Vice President's] office.' Three days later, the Army Corps of Engineers gave Halliburton the contract, without seeking other bids. TIME located the e-mail among documents provided by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group."

The vice president's office denied any inappropriate activity by Cheney or anyone working for him. Appearing on "Today," Cheney spokeswoman Mary Matalin said: "I can tell you that the vice president of the United States in that office or when he was Secretary of Defense had no operational involvement with letting of any contracts. This is the politicizing of Halliburton, which is a shame."

The Kerry camp has Sen. Pat Leahy of Vermont and former Deputy Defense Secretary John White doing a conference call on Tuesday in an effort to keep the story alive.

South Dakotans Head to the Polls: Voters in South Dakota decide on Tuesday who'll fill the seat of former Rep. Bill Janklow, who resigned earlier this year after being convicted of manslaughter for killing a motorcyclist in an automobile collision last summer. The last polls showed Democrat Stephanie Herseth leading Republican Larry Diedrich, and Diedrich himself told a newspaper over the weekend that he does not expect to win.

Dietrich told the Capitol Hill newspaper "The Hill" "I think as long as it's close, I don't think I have a lot of opposition at all," referring to the fact that even if Herseth wins, there will be another election is November and her most likely opponent would be one Larry Diedrich.

The Hill reports: "Pointing out that he was 30 points behind Herseth when he entered the race in late January, Diedrich said that as his name recognition has jumped, so have his poll numbers. What matters, Diedrich said, is that South Dakotans see that momentum is on his side. If he loses by a narrow margin, he added, voters will think the June 1 election came too soon. Democrats dismiss Diedrich's logic, countering that the Republican has all the advantages going into the special election."

Republicans have a significant voter-registration margin in South Dakota and in Tuesday's 25 state House and Senate primaries, "there are far more competitive Republican than Democratic races" the Hill reports. "Strategists from both parties said that should drive up Republican turnout more than usual."

Veep Watch:> The Chicago Tribune's Jeff Zeleny reports that the Kerry campaign's vetting team has commissioned copies of the Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, local paper going back 20 years in their attempt to check out Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack. The paper used to run a column called "Mayor's Moments" written by Vilsack and chronicled his rise in politics, starting with his work as mayor. The team has also taken a look at the public writings of Christie Vilsack, a former columnist for the afternoon daily in Henry County.

Vilsack, who the CW has put on the Kerry short list, is head of the Democratic Governors' Association and will head the Democratic Platform hearings, but has not run for national office. Also, his background is not as well known as the other assumed short-listers like John Edwards, Dick Gephardt and Bob Graham.

The Charlotte Observer has a puff piece on hometown favorite John Edwards, saying that "political etiquette prevents Edwards from even talking about the vice presidential spot," but says that many Democratic state chairmen aren't holding back their praise for Edwards, who is making the rounds of state party dinners and meetings.

"It was like working the rope with Elvis Presley," says Mike Erlandson, state party chairman in Minnesota, where Edwards drew 3,000 Democrats on May 22. "People just wanted to touch him and get his autograph. ... If you had taken a straw poll after he spoke, he would have been the resounding choice (for vice president)."

And the Washington Post today lists North Carolina as a Presidential battleground state. Neither campaign has advertised there but polls show that if Edwards is on the ticket the state becomes competitive. Is the Post assuming that will be the case?

Alexandra Polier Unplugged: The woman whose name was made famous by false rumors of an affair with Sen. John Kerry is now investigating how the story started. Alexandra Polier, a former AP reporter, reveals the fruits of her investigation in an article this week in New York magazine. Her conclusion? "As I began to trace the rumor, I learned that the vaguer it was, the easier it was to spread. … No single person had to have engineered this. First came a rumor about Kerry, then a small-time blogger wrote about it, and his posting was read by journalists. They started looking into it, a detail that was picked up by [Matt] Drudge-who, post-Monica, is taken seriously by other sites like Wonkette, which no political reporter can ignore."

Although Polier's conclusion about the rumor chain is not particularly breaking news, she does fill in some holes in the story. Polier first met Sen. Kerry at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The Senator bought her a drink and the two discussed politics, his possible presidential bid and her career. Back in the U.S., Polier was invited to a fund-raiser where she saw Kerry and met his finance director, Peter Maroney. After the funder, Kerry invited her to dinner with his group. Seated between Kerry and Maroney, Polier explains, "I hoped it was my wit and enthusiasm, not my blonde hair and long legs, that got me a seat at the table. I felt like a serious player."

Serious player or not, Polier and Maroney did start dating – but nothing happened between Polier and Kerry. As she explained to Kerry spokesperson Stephanie Cutter when the story broke, the two had never even been alone together. Of Cutter, Polier says, "Cutter sounded young and hard, and I imagined her like Lara Flynn Boyle on The Practice."

As Kerry's presidential campaign heated up, the Maroney-Polier relationship died down. Polier became engaged and moved to Kenya to be with her fiancée. The rumors surfaced months later and swirled around the US, UK, Kenya and, most crucially, the Internet. Concludes Polier, "I started out as an ambitious young woman inspired by politics and the media. I've ended up disenchanted with both … I am struck by the pitiful state of political reporting, which is dominated by the unholy alliance of opposition research and its latest tool, the Internet."

Quote of the Day: "Interrogation is not a Sunday-school meeting."- Sen. Trent Lott on the treatment of prisoners in Iraq, saying too that he saw nothing wrong with holding a security dog close to a prisoner "unless the dog ate him." (The Hill)