Washington Wrap

Dotty Lynch, Beth Lester and Allison Davis of the CBS News Political Unit have the latest political news from the nation's capital.

*Iowa for Bush

*My Turnout is Bigger than Your Turnout

*McCain's new Project

*Quote of the Day

Iowa Last This Time: CBS News has now estimated that President Bush can add Iowa to his column giving him 286 electoral votes to John Kerry's 252 electoral votes. The state which weighed in on the election season first with its caucus system in January appears to be the last one to report its decision in November. Iowa is still counting ballots and will continue to count provisional ballots through at least next Tuesday.

The Des Moines Register reports Friday that, "Unofficial results Thursday showed Bush defeated Kerry in Iowa by 14,045 votes. That tally will keep changing through Tuesday, as special precinct boards across the state continue to meet to count 15,264 provisional ballots and as many as 50,000 uncounted absentee ballots."

The Register quotes a spokesperson for the Iowa (Democratic) secretary of states office as saying, "There's no one here that is holding out any belief that what numbers do come in are going to change the result. All we care about is that the votes are counted."

My Turnout is Bigger Than Your Turnout: The Columbus Dispatch reports that that Democrats were "scratching their heads yesterday, wondering how Sen. John Kerry lost Ohio to President Bush by 2 percentage points." We met every single one of our goals," said Brendon Cull, a Kerry Ohio campaign spokesman. But Republicans did even better," the paper says.

Kerry won more votes than any Democrat in state history - 2.65 million. But Bush received 130,650 more. An analysis of the election results shows voter turnout increased from 2000 in all 88 counties, but the biggest percentage increases occurred in Bush strongholds, namely fast-growing suburban counties around Columbus and Cincinnati.

While Kerry racked up bigger margins that most Democrats in Cuahoga and Hamilton counties, Bush "swamped him everywhere else." He carried 72 of 88 counties and increased his 2000 vote in 78 counties.

"The old model is out the door," said Mark R. Weaver, a GOP strategist." Ohio's population is changing, it's moving and the dynamics are different."

As in other states President Bush received strong support from evangelical Christians, in Ohio's largely conservative rural and exurban counties. The turnout was 5.6 million, or 70 percent, of Ohio's 8 million registered voters cast ballots.

Evangelical women were one of the keys to Bush's margins. "This election was determined by evangelical women with deeply held religious beliefs on issues - especially, abortion and the sanctity of marriage," said Dr. Janice Crouse, spokeswoman for the Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee.

Dean Lacy, a political-science professor at Ohio State University, told the Dispatch that a proposed amendment to the Ohio Constitution to ban gay marriage helped turn out Bush's base.

McCain's Next Target: The non-partisan, not-for-profit group, Democracy 21 distributed an email Friday morning promoting an op-ed piece that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has written for USA Today on Thursday. Democracy 21 is pointing out that McCain will now start working on restricting the spending of the 527 groups which played a significant role in campaign 2004.

This election was the first to operate under the new campaign finance reform law, BICRA, which was passed in March of 2002. In his USA Today editorial, McCain touts the success of his reform bill saying, "Today, soft money is illegal in federal campaigns. No longer can a president, senator, member of Congress or head of a national party solicit huge sums of unregulated money for a federal campaign." But he also highlights his next target as a result of this election - 527 groups. McCain writes, "A new problem has emerged in the form of tax-exempt 527 groups, named for a section of the tax code for a category of non-profit political organizations. The 527 groups illegally raised and spent tens of millions of dollars in soft money on ads and partisan voter-mobilization efforts to influence the presidential election."

McCain, just reelected to another six year term in the Senate, seems to be committed to his goal of being remembered as something more than "just another Chairman of the Commerce committee."

And according to a local newspaper in Manchester, McCain will return to New Hampshire in two weeks.

Quote of the Day: "Rest is overrated." --Elizabeth Edwards on the campaign trail after her brother, Jay Anania, urged her to take a break. (WP)