Washington Wrap

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

Tuesday's Headlines

* Kerry Hits Bioterrorism in the Battleground

* Battle of the Surrogates

* Democrat Herseth Wins a Squeaker in South Dakota House Race

* For Karl Rove and Matthew Dowd, History as Prelude is the Rule

* Nader Takes on Paperless Ballots

Kerry Goes Bio: Moving from nuclear weapons to bioterrorism, Sen. John Kerry will speak on that subject in Tampa Bay on Wednesday. According to a copy of the speech received by CBS News, Kerry will say, "I will work with our allies to strengthen the bio-weapons ban and to improve security in labs that handle dangerous pathogens." While in town, Kerry will also pick up the endorsement of the International Association of EMTs and Paramedics, whose 7,000 members work in 14 states (no doubt some of which are battlegrounds). This is Kerry's 17th trip to Florida since he began campaigning for the presidency.

While Kerry hangs in Tampa, his wife, Teresa, will be in Charleston, W. Va., meeting with military families. THK was in Ohio on Tuesday, where she "met military families at the Austintown library and later attended a private reception with campaign supporters," the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.

On Thursday, Kerry will deliver his third - and final - policy speech on his national security tour, this time on strengthening the military, reports CBS News' Steve Chaggaris. Kerry will also attend a rally in Kansas City and speak at the Truman Museum in Independence. And coming up, a star-studded gala is planned for Monday night in Los Angeles. The event is expected to feature Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Willie Nelson and Billy Crystal.

Surrogates Duke It Out Left and Right: As the Democratic group Campaign for America's Future kicks off its "Take Back America" conference in Washington on Wednesday - featuring Howard Dean and George Soros, among others – Republicans begin a concerted and coordinated effort to slam presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry.

The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reports: "The Republican National Committee, along with House and Senate Republicans, are preparing a two-week counter-offensive against Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and key supporters. The two-pronged strategy will rely heavily on House and Senate Members taking to the floor to highlight statements made by Kerry surrogates that — in the view of the GOP — paint the Democratic nominee as out of step with the American public."

Roll Call also reports that the RNC has distributed a memo regarding Soros, the billionaire financier who has donated at least $15 million to groups working to defeat President Bush in November. The memo refers to Soros as the "Lord of the Democrats." The memo "details some of Soros' issue positions, including his support for legalizing some drugs – it calls him the Daddy Warbucks of the movement - as well as for other hot-button social issues such as assisted suicide, gun control and abortion. Members are being encouraged to use floor speeches, one-minutes, and special orders to advance this theme."

The second part of the GOP plan "is a 'longer-term strategy pointing out that the first line of attack [for Kerry and his surrogates] is to blame America first,' one informed Republican strategist said. In the coming week, the source said, lawmakers will be provided with a document that includes statements to back up this theme.

The four-page memo, obtained in advance by Roll Call, presents a timeline of quotes, starting in June 2002 and running through last month. It includes quotes by Kerry, his campaign operatives and other leading national Democrats including former Vice President Al Gore and New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D)."

Back on the Democratic side, Campaign for America's Future holds its three-day conference in Washington beginning June 2 featuring speeches (in addition to Dean and Soros) by MoveOn.org's Wes Boyd and Joan Blades, Sen. Hillary Clinton, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, Arianna Huffington and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, among many, many others.

Democrat Wins South Dakota Special Election: Democrat Stephanie Herseth won a special election Tuesday to fill former Rep. Bill Janklow's seat in Congress. Janklow resigned earlier this year after being convicted of manslaughter for killing motorcyclist Randolph Scott in a collision last August. Herseth, who lost to Janklow in the 2002 Congressional race, beat out her Republican opponent, Larry Diedrich, by a mere 3,000 votes. 230,000 votes were cast, with Herseth receiving 51% of the vote to Diedrich's 49 percent.

When Diedrich entered the race in February, polls showed him trailing Herseth by 29 points. The Rapid City Journal reports that "Herseth will start work in Congress immediately, but she and Diedrich will square off again in the Nov. 2 general election." In fact, Herseth's win might work to her disadvantage, because, as the Journal reports, "while [Herseth] will report for duty on Capitol Hill, Diedrich will keep a full-blown campaign running in South Dakota...[and] Tuesday's close results should keep the money flowing into [his] campaign."

In Herseth's acceptance speech, the new congresswoman told a crowd of supporters, "we proved you can run a positive, truthful campaign based on issues not negative attacks. . . . We did it . . . because that is the South Dakota way and it should be the national way," reports the Sioux Falls Argus Leader.

Hitting the History Books: White House political czar Karl Rove is known for his voracious appetite for American political history. So, it should come as no surprise, as the St. Petersburg Times reports, that two years ago he dispatched chief Bush-Cheney strategist Matthew Dowd to the presidential libraries of Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush to scour their old memos, polls and organizational plans.

Ron Kaufman, political director for former President George Bush, said the Bush-Cheney team is obsessed with history. "They have looked at every re-election campaign back to Julius Caesar," Kaufman said. "They have learned from each one of them."

The St. Pete Times reports: "As he sifted through the boxes and file folders, Dowd found a rich history of modern campaigns - evidence of shrewd planning, personal squabbles and a few missed opportunities. The hundreds of old papers revealed the problems of unclear leadership (Bush 1992), the danger of failing to respond to voters' concerns (Ford 1976) and the risk of starting late (Bush 1992). Those lessons have been incorporated into the Bush-Cheney campaign and can be seen in its early, aggressive start.

"The Ford papers indicated a lack of early planning, that his advisers were consumed by Reagan's candidacy and were surprised by the emergence of Democrat Jimmy Carter. The papers showed a lack of coordination between the campaign and the White House and indicated that Carter had done a better job addressing voters' desire for leadership and vision than Ford. By contrast, the 1984 Reagan papers showed good coordination between the White House and the campaign. The campaign was disciplined and communication between the White House and the campaign was limited to a few people. The 1992 Bush papers revealed some of the same problems as the Ford campaign - a late start and management difficulties."

Nader's Newest Issue--Paperless Electronic Voting Machines: Ralph Nader has been pushing a number of issues in recent days as he tries to garner publicity and momentum in his attempt to qualify as an independent candidate for President. He has urged the 16-year-old vote, a troop pullout from Iraq and fan revolts against the commercialization of organized sports. His latest issue is doing away with those paperless electronic voting machines, which has attracted a lot of grassroots attention.

His campaign released a letter Nader sent to President Bush and Sen. John Kerry asking them to join him in a number of safeguards, including: "1) that all electronic voting machines must have a voter verified paper ballot if they are going to be used in the 2004 election, 2) that scientifically accurate exit polls should be randomly conducted throughout the United States especially in jurisdictions where electronic voting machines are used. Not only will this serve as a deterrent to intentional manipulation of the vote count, but these exit polls will provide a check and balance that will insure voter confidence in the results. If there is a significant discrepancy between the electronic vote count and the exit poll, a recount of the original voter verified paper ballot should be conducted to ensure an accurate vote count with which the voters can have confidence and 3) that all software that is used to count the vote should be open source software, not corporate trade secret software."

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports on a number of anti-Nader groups being organized by Democrats including "Focus on Ballot Qualification" a group of Democratic lawyers who are "quietly lining up election law experts in key states to ensure Mr. Nader and other third party candidates follow the letter of the law in getting their names on ballots."

Quote of the Day: "I care about the environment as much as anyone, but I think it's sad when the big global warming movie is less believable than Shrek 2." -- Jon Stewart, on one of the political films of the moment, "The Day After Tomorrow." ("Daily Show")