Washington Wrap

Dotty Lynch, Douglas Kiker, Steve Chaggaris, Clothilde Ewing, Nicola Corless, Smita Kalokhe and Joanna Schubert of The CBS News Political Unit have the latest from the nation's capital.

Time, featuring the headline "The Dean Factor," has take-out articles on Dean's impressive final ten days in June, when he managed to outraise the eight other Dem wannabes and create massive buzz at the same time, as well as a brief Dean family history and a story looking at the WASPy similarities between Dean and President Bush.

Newsweek, meanwhile, features Dean on its cover, apparently in mid-stump speech mode, next to a headline reading:, "Howard Dean: Destiny or Disaster?" The magazine features a take-out on Dean's wife, Judith Steinberg, a practicing physician who has thus far remained behind the scenes.

Over the weekend, Dean got more good news in Iowa, where a Des Moines Register poll of people likely to participate in the Democratic caucuses gave him the slightest of leads over Rep. Dick Gephardt. Dean was the pick of 23 percent of those surveyed, with Gephardt – the 1988 caucuses winner - right behind him at 21 percent. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts was in third place with 14 percent. The poll has a margin of error of 4.9 percent, leaving Dean and Gephardt essentially tied. No other candidate managed to break 5 percent.

One particularly disturbing figure for Gephardt: in households with a union member, Dean is favored by 29 percent, compared with Gephardt's 24 percent. Gephardt, who won the Teamsters' endorsement last week, is depending on union support in his presidential bid.

Dean also unveiled a new television ad over the weekend in President Bush's backyard. The ad will play in Austin, Texas, while Mr. Bush vacations at his ranch about a hundred miles away in Crawford. Austin is perhaps the most liberal enclave in the otherwise conservative, GOP-leaning state. Texas Democrats will hold their primary on March 9, 2004.

In the ad, Dean hits the president on the economy and foreign policy. "I want to change George Bush's reckless foreign policy, stand up for affordable health care and create new jobs," Dean says in the spot, which will cost the campaign about $100,000.

Dean is the only Democrat with ads on television, so far. In addition to the Texas spot, he ran two ads earlier this summer in Iowa (at a cost of more than $300,000), and according to Hotline's Wake-up Call plans to start running new spots New Hampshire this week. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, has two ads on in Iowa featuring country crooner Willie Nelson, who has endorsed his candidacy.

August TV: Not All Reruns: The Club for Growth will launch an attack ad campaign this week aiming to discredit Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., as he embarks Monday on his annual tour across South Dakota's 66 counties. The ad, targeting Daschle for his criticism of the Bush tax cuts, will cost the group about $50,000 and air for the entire August recess in the Sioux Falls media market, Roll Call reports.

"Part of this is to weaken his numbers in the state, but whenever he is weakened at home it forces him to be more cooperative in Washington," Club president Stephen Moore said.

The commercial, entitled "Foxhall Road," focuses on the $1.9 million house purchased by Daschle and his wife Linda, a Washington lobbyist. "It's a long way from Aberdeen to Foxhall Road," the ad begins. Meanwhile, "Tom's house is a very, very, very big house," plays in the background to the tune of "Our House" by Crosby, Stills & Nash.

The narrator says of Daschle's home, "It's a good place for Daschle to entertain Hollywood liberals and Senate pals Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton." He adds, "Daschle leads the fight against cutting taxes for South Dakota families. Maybe they don't need tax relief on Foxhall Road."

Also on the airwaves across the country, the Service Employees International Union will launch "the first issue ads of the 2004 presidential race," spending $245,000 for spots in New Hampshire and Iowa. The ads ask the early primary and caucus voters to make health care a priority issue, and feature nurses telling voters, "We won't quit until we get some answers."

The ads feature nurses urging all the presidential candidate to offer a comprehensive health care plan and explain how they will pay for it. Thus far, Gephardt, Dean, Kerry, and Edwards have offered substantial plans, while Lieberman and Graham say they will do the same. The TV spots will run from August 7-17 and echo billboards outside Manchester, Cedar Rapids, and Des Moines airports that feature local nurses demanding, "Health care better be your top priority."

Playing Hardball: Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino is going to bat for baseball and for the Democrats. According to the Boston Globe, Menino pitched an idea for Major League Baseball to schedule day games during the week of the Democratic National Convention, which Boston is hosting.

Menino hopes the allure of Fenway Park will serve as an attraction for the political visitors during convention week. "It's a treat to go to Fenway Park. It's where people want to come when they come to Boston," said Menino.

New York also tried rallying the bullpen when it requested that one of its two teams plays home games during the Republican National Convention in 2004. Spectators have suggested a match-up between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees might be appropriate, given the cities' political and athletic rivalry. However, host committee president David Passafaro worries that convention attendees might trade their political passes for sideline seats.

Menino predicts that the baseball showdown might be more eventful than the convention. "It might be a better show. More suspense," he says. Perhaps that's why he's only pitched day games, which won't compete with the evening sessions.

Maybe Reform Isn't So Bad After All: Worried about a potential 2008 presidential run by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., Republicans normally cool to the idea of campaign finance reform are now privately looking at it, reports Roll Call.

Knowing full well Clinton's fund-raising ability and fearing that a Clinton candidacy in 2008 would be impossible to overcome financially, some Republicans are talking about reforming the campaign finance system.

"It's usually conventional wisdom that Republicans can out raise the Democrats. I don't think that's necessarily the case in 2008," one GOP operative told the newspaper, adding that the fear about Clinton is that she could easily raise $100 to $200 million for a presidential race.

Interestingly, the Republicans' concerns stem from a potential Clinton candidacy five years from now, while currently President Bush, with help from his Pioneers and Rangers, is on his way to the $200 million mark for the 2004 election.

One Republican source told Roll Call that in 2008, "On the Republican side, it's a wide open primary," pointing out that even a high-profile candidate like Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., would have a hard time catching Clinton if he decided to run in '08.

"Your average Republican Senator running in the primary is not going to have a George W. Bush-type financial base," said Trevor Potter, the former GOP chairman of the Federal Election Commission.

"If you look forward to a normal, contested primary with a number of people, it seems to me very logical that Republicans would continue to benefit from a working campaign finance system in the primary," Potter said.

Meantime, longtime supporters of reform feel the system needs to be fixed, regardless of whether President Bush or Sen. Clinton is the catalyst for the change.

"The reality is that candidates in both parties are going to need this system in 2008," Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer told Roll Call. "We're going to have an open seat [in the White House] and a number of candidates in both parties… so there's a practical need for this for candidates of both parties."

The Other Eight: Sen. John Kerry, the former media-ordained Democratic frontrunner, got his picture in The New York Times riding his Harley into a Des Moines rally, showing how cool and current he is. Meanwhile, his campaign is getting a little hot trying to decide how to deal with the Dean phenom.

The Boston Globe says the campaign is split with Kerry's Senate chief of staff David McKean believing that Dean's celebrity will fade, while campaign manager Jim Jordan advocates a more aggressive approach. Kerry is also playing catch-up with Dean on the Internet. Both now have on-line petitions trying to drum up support to fight the Bush administration's plans to restrict overtime pay.

Elsewhere, Sen. John Edwards continues to play grassroots politics the old-fashioned way; he's opening another 13 local campaign headquarters in Iowa to bring his total to 14. Joe Lieberman gives a big speech on Monday at the National Press Club against the leftward drift of Democrats on both foreign and domestic issues, while Dick Gephardt is working his labor contacts hard in preparation for Tuesday's candidate forum at the AFL-CIO meeting in Chicago.

Monday 8/4:
Vice President Cheney headlines a Bush-Cheney fundraiser in Salt Lake City, Utah and Sun Valley, Idaho. John Edwards attended a luncheon with Tulsa area supporters and speaks at a meeting hosted by the Transport Workers Union of America. Dick Gephardt delivered an economics speech to business leaders in New York City. John Kerry attends press event on overtime pay in Des Moines, CAS County Democrats Activist event and then a government rally for Paul Somshor in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Dennis Kucinich addressed league of conservative voters and a women's group in southern California, before heading to San Diego where he will attend a rally with environmentalists, organic food consumers and vegetarians and an additional meet and greet at the Ray and Joan Kroc Community Center. Joe Lieberman addressed the National Press Club's Newsmaker Luncheon in Washington.

Other: President Bush in Crawford for week of down time. Howard Dean begins airing ads in Texas, inviting Americans to join his campaign.

Tuesday 8/5:
All nine Democratic candidates are attending the AFL-CIO conference in Chicago.

Wednesday 8/6:
Vice President Cheney attends Bush-Cheney fundraisers in Sacramento, Calif., and Billings, Mont. Dean campaigns in Iowa and attends "Get on Board with Dean" events in Mills, Montgomery, Adams, Union and Madison Counties before heading to a MeetUp.com event in Des Moines. Edwards speaks at the New Hampshire NEA Summer Learning Conference in Bartlett, an ice cream social in Carroll County and then holds a town hall meeting in Berlin. Bob Graham and family begin weeklong Iowa vacation with an appearance at the Iowa State Fair Parade. Kerry holds fresh air forum at Victory Park in Manchester, N.H. Lieberman takes "Joe's Jobs Tour" to Des Moines, Indianola and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Other: Jerry Springer holds news conference to announce whether he will run for the Senate in Columbus, Ohio. DSCC fundraiser featuring Sen. Hillary Clinton in Seattle. Arnold Schwarzenegger set to announce whether he will run in the California recall on late night television.

Thursday 8/7:
Dean campaigns throughout Iowa and meets with State Rep. Greg Stevens in Milford before attending a reception with Dickinson County Democrats in Arnold's Park. Graham and family attend Iowa State Fair, grand opening of his Des Moines Campaign headquarters and Grillin' with the Grahams event in Des Moines. Kerry speaks at the New Hampshire NEA State Conference, then heads to the Littleton Downtown Walk, a meet and greet in Woodsville and then attends a fresh air forum in Riverfront Park in Plymouth. Other: Iowa State fair begins on Thursday and ends Sunday, August 17.

Friday 8/8:
Graham family attends National Balloon Classic in Indianola, Iowa; tours the bridges of Madison County; lunches with Democrats in Indianola and Winterset; tours the John L. Lewis Labor Museum in Lucas; attend ice cream socials in Osceola and Lucas; and finishes with Grillin' with the Grahams event in Appanoose County. Kerry campaigns in New Hampshire and attends a downtown walk in Derry, then a dinner with firefighters in Salem and finishes with a house party in Nashua.

Quote of the Day: "I'll take a drug test as soon as my opponent takes an IQ test." – Sen. Ernest F. Hollings, D-S.C., on a demand by his 1986 Senate opponent, Henry McMaster, to take a drug test. Hollings was expected to announce his retirement at a news conference today.