Washington Wrap

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

Friday's Headlines

* Kerry's Ad Strategy

* NRA, Log Cabin Republicans Meeting this Weekend

* RNC Chairman Dismisses Kerry's Chances in the South

* Kerry's Southern Swing

* Democrats Duke it Out with GOP on the Web

* Liberal Radio Fights to Stay on Air While Democrats Fight for House and Senate

Kerry's Ad Strategy: As the Bush team scales back its ad buys, the Kerry team is ramping up its airwave strategy. Reports the Washington Post: "Sen. John F. Kerry will begin using new images to introduce himself to voters with an intensified ad blitz in the next two weeks just as President Bush scales back his media offensive."

The goal of the ad campaign will be to introduce Kerry's biography to voters as "internal polls and focus groups showing that voters know little about his candidacy." The new ads will build on "findings that voters are receptive to his military résumé and 'New Democrat' message of fiscal restraint and national security might."

At a breakfast in New York on Thursday, reports CBS News' Steve Chaggaris, Kerry told major donors (think $25,000) that "A lot of people don't really know who I am … Their goal is to define me and make me unacceptable … Our goal has to be to keep that acceptability."

CBS News has also learned that the Kerry team, which has been polling and focus-grouping up a storm this month, will add another pollster to its team: Diane Feldman, a DC-based Democratic pollster who worked for Bill Bradley's 2000 campaign, will join longtime Kerry Massachusetts pollster Tom Kiley and Kerry's primary campaign pollster Mark Mellman.

Also on Thursday, Kerry traveled to Washington to speak at Howard University and for a private meeting with Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. At Howard, reports Chaggaris, Kerry was asked by a student about the similarities between Vietnam and Iraq. Kerry responded, "Well, it's not Vietnam yet - and I underscore yet - and there are a lot of differences, a lot of differences. But I think this administration is making mistakes of judgment and stubbornness that increasingly pushes towards the potential of developing into a much more difficult situation than it has to be."

The Kerry campaign tried to bar the press from following him to his meeting with McCarrick, who heads the Catholic Church's task force examining possible sanctions for politicians who stray from the church's teachings. The meeting was changed from Kerry's home to McCarrick's office and an aide to the Cardinal told reporters that the he was upset by the media attention and wanted the visit to be a "private pastoral session."

The Boston Globe takes a look at the meeting and the potential pitfalls for Kerry as a pro-choice Catholic running for president.

Meeting Coast to Coast: With the National Rifle Association and the Log Cabin Republicans meeting this weekend, it has become ever more apparent who holds Bush/Cheney's favor this election year. The N.R.A. opens its annual meeting in Pittsburgh on Friday, where it will celebrate the right to bear arms and kick off its campaign to re-elect President Bush.

Titled "NRA04 -- Freedom's Steel," it is no accident, N.R.A. officials said, that this year's convention is being held in Pittsburgh, the New York Times reports. Two-thirds of the attendees are expected to come from within a 100-mile radius that spans three battleground states: Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. "These are states where the N.R.A. can make a difference," said G. Terry Madonna, director of the Keystone Poll at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa.

The highlight of the convention will likely be Vice President Dick Cheney's keynote address on Saturday night.

Meanwhile, the Log Cabin Republicans are kicking off their national convention in California, titled the "Sun, Fun, Freedom & Fairness." After challenging the Bush administration earlier this year on a proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, the group has been at odds with the administration and has so far withheld an endorsement, reports the Atlanta Journal Constitution. There will be a number of keynote speeches throughout the three-day event, none of which will be given by a member of the Bush administration.

RNC/GOP Southern Strategy: The chairman of the Republican Party, Ed Gillespie, dismissed Sen. John Kerry's chances of winning any Southern states in November, saying the presumptive Democratic nominee is not aligned with the region on issues ranging from economic policy to foreign affairs.

Gillespie, in Miami for the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, said of Kerry in a conference call with reporters on Friday: "He is incredibly out of touch with voters in this region and it is highly unlikely that he will carry any of these states."

Gillespie was meeting in Miami with representatives from Southern states to plot strategy both on the presidential race and the key Southern Senate races, at least four of which are surprisingly tight at this point. He called the South a "critically important region" for the Republican Party. As Gillespie pointed out, the region has 161 Electoral College votes, or 61 percent of the total needed to win the presidency.

Gillespie was asked if naming North Carolina Sen. John Edwards as his running mate would help Kerry win the South. "John Edwards won't even help John Kerry win North Carolina. He is no more likely to deliver any of the states in the South than Al Gore was to win his own Tennessee in 2000," Gillespie responded.

For his part, Kerry tried to distance himself from the dreaded "L" label on Thursday, telling big-time Democratic donors that he is "not a redistribution Democrat." The New York Times reports Kerry will "soon start an aggressive campaign to define himself as a centrist, in hopes of peeling moderate Republicans from President Bush."

The Times reports that "Kerry said he would cite his bipartisan credentials and pitch himself as a fiscal conservative to counter the Bush campaign's portrait of him as a waffling tax-and-spend liberal. 'Fear not … I am not somebody who wants to go back and make the mistakes of the Democratic Party of 20, 25 years ago. Nor am I somebody who believes that Washington has all the answers.'"

The Times says Kerry promised he would not run a "mealy-mouthed" or "namby-pamby campaign."

"Their goal is to define me and make me unacceptable," he said. "Our goal has to be to keep that acceptability."

Kerry Campaign's Southern Swing: After Gillespie's preemptive strike, the Kerry campaign will head south on Sunday to the sunny realms of Florida, Georgia Louisiana and Texas. On Sunday, Kerry will appear live from Miami on Meet the Press. On Monday, reports CBS News' Steve Chaggaris, Kerry will visit Palm Beach County and Atlanta on Monday, Tampa and Miami on Tuesday, Louisiana on Wednesday and Houston on Thursday before returning to Washington, DC on Friday. And the week is heavy on the fund-raisers (one a day from Sunday through Thursday.)

The Kerry campaign's Mark Kornblau says the focus on Florida next week should signal that "Anyone who sees John Kerry spending three jampacked days campaigning all around Florida will understand that he plans to win the state in the fall and to compete there heavily between now and then," reports the Miami Herald.

CBS News has heard reports that the campaign isn't sure that Florida is winnable; this trip seems designed to counter those rumors. Kerry will be joined by former rivals Sen John Edwards, Joe Lieberman and Bob Graham. Lieberman will be with him in Palm Beach county the home of the butterfly ballot and Graham will accompany him throughout the trip reports the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. With President Bush heading to Florida next week and RNC Chair Ed Gillespie there today, the Sunshine state might just think that it is October instead of April.

Dems Hit Bush on 'Mistakes' via Web: In this broadband age, television and radio are no longer the sole domains for video advertisements in political campaigns. As anyone who's been following politics the last couple of years knows, web videos – not ads, per se – are a cheap, effective way for the parties and candidates to get their messages out.

Today it's the DNC's turn, with a new ad on their website using video from President Bush's press conference on Tuesday when he appeared stumped when asked to point out any mistakes his administration has made in the last three years.

The spot, "Mistakes were made," lists "suggestions" for Bush if he's asked the question again, including some of the more famous (or infamous if you're a Democrat) lines of his presidency: "Mission Accomplished," "We Found weapons of mass destruction," "Bring 'em on."

The web ad ends with a graphic reading, "Credibility is on the ballot this November."

Back on the Air In Chicago: After being pulled off the air in Chicago and Los Angeles following a disagreement over payment, liberal radio network Air America filed suit against MultiCultural Radio Network Wednesday in New York State Supreme Court. In its lawsuit, Air America claimed its payments were made and that MultiCultural removed the network's signal in Chicago without notice and changed the locks on the station's offices. The AP reports that Air America obtained a temporary restraining order Thursday forcing Multicultural to put them back on the air in Chicago. Air America Chairman Evan Cohen said the company had not asked the court to act in Los Angeles, and was pursuing other options there, including finding a new "more responsible and mature" business partner.

If Air America's money troubles continue, maybe the liberal network should look to their friends the Democrats, who according to The New York Times, appear to be keeping pace financially with their Republican rivals in crucial Senate races, including those in Florida, North Carolina and South Dakota. New data from the Federal Election Commission shows competitive fundraising in the first quarter. Democratic campaign leaders said they were encouraged by the quarter's fund-raising results to consider the possibility that Democrats might win control of both the House and Senate in November. "We're within grasp if we do the things we need to do in fund-raising and stay disciplined with how we do it," said Sen. Jon Corzine of New Jersey, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Quote of the Day: "I am looking forward to putting [together] Terminator Four." --Arnold Schwarzenegger, on his new appointments to the California Film Commission, including Danny De Vito and Clint Eastwood (Los Angeles Times).