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.
Monday's Headlines
* Bush Heads to Pennsylvania to Stump for Specter, the Patriot Act and Himself
* Kerry's Weekend in the Sun
* Rice Warns of Election-timed Terror Attacks; Woodward Says Good News Coming at the Pump
* Gay Rights Activists Plan Convention Protests
* Four Times More Cable Live Coverage for Bush Than Kerry
Swing State and More: President Bush kicks off a very busy week with a visit to battleground Pennsylvania on Monday, where he'll take part in an official event pushing for renewal of post-Sept. 11 USA Patriot Act in Hershey before headlining a fundraiser for embattled Sen. Arlen Specter in Pittsburgh in the evening.
Previewing his take on the Patriot Act during his weekly radio address on Saturday, Bush said "implored Congress to let authorities conduct electronic surveillance and wiretaps on suspected terrorists," the Washington Post reports. "He said law enforcement agencies will be hampered if Congress does not renew the Patriot Act, parts of which will expire next year."
Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman was asked by reporters Sunday whether it was inconsistent for Bush to campaign for Specter, who has pushed to revise the Patriot Act, after spending the afternoon pushing for the renewal of the act. "These are two separate events," Mehlman said, as if that solved the problem.
Specter is facing a tough primary challenge from conservative Rep. Pat Toomey, who has the backing of several conservative activist groups, including the Club for Growth, which has poured almost $2 million into the April 27 primary.
On Tuesday, Bush does a similar political exacta with a Patriot Act event in Buffalo, followed by a Victory 2004 (the RNC's massive voter registration/get-out-the-vote effort) reception at the tony River Club in Manhattan.
On Wednesday, it's back to Washington for a day chock full of official events, including the 2004 National and State Teachers of the Year Award, a speech to the Newspaper Association of America convention, a meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan and a reception for the National Race for the Cure in the East Room.
On Thursday, the president turns from the Patriot Act to the environment with a pair of events celebrating the 34th anniversary of Earth Day, including one in Wells, Maine – not to be cynical, but that's a state that Al Gore won by just 33,335 votes in 2000 – and an official event back at the White House to hand out the President's Environmental Youth Award.
On Friday, Bush sticks with his environmental theme at an estuary reserve near Naples, Fla. – again, not to be cynical, but a state separated by a famous 537 votes in 2000 – and another Victory 2004 fundraiser in Coral Gables in the evening.
Kerry's (Sort of) Wonderful Weekend: A new nationwide poll from Zogby International (conducted April 15-17, margin of error 3.1 percent) shows John Kerry leading President Bush 47 to 44 among likely voters. The poll also finds that when "independent candidate Ralph Nader is added, Kerry and Bush are statistically tied with 44.7% for Bush, 45.3% for Kerry, and Nader with 3%." Both of these results show no statistically significant change from the poll's March results.
As the Kerry camp enjoys those numbers, the senator himself is on more complicated ground for comments he made Sunday on Meet The Press. In response to questions about releasing his war records, Kerry told Tim Russert: "I have. I've shown them. They're available to you to come and look at … People can come and see them at headquarters and take a look at them."
Kerry also discussed his use of the word "atrocities" to describe U.S. soldiers' actions during his days as leader of the Vietnam Veterans against the War. Kerry, who says he is now older and more steeped in the nuances of public speaking, said, "You know, I thought a lot, for a long time, about that period of time, the things we said, and I think the word is a bad word. I think it's an inappropriate word. I mean, if you wanted to ask me have you ever made mistakes in your life, sure. I think some of the language that I used was a language that reflected an anger. It was honest, but it was in anger, it was a little bit excessive."
The Bush campaign attacked Kerry's performance as inconsistent and contradictory, especially on the issue of Iraq policy.
The Kerry campaign did have a few light moments over the weekend. Kerry was in Florida and the result, reports CBS News' Steve Chaggaris, is a "fresh tan." Following his Sunday talk show appearance, Kerry attended church and then spoke at the Ebenezer United Methodist Church and University of Miami, where Kerry, "Rep. Kendrick, Sen. Bill Nelson and university president/former Clinton HHS Secretary Donna Shalala, spoke to a few thousand gathered at the Rock, an area of campus named after former Hurricanes' football defensive lineman Dwayne Johnson, better known as wrestler/actor the Rock.
"This is perhaps the first presidential campaign event in history held at a location named after a WWF/WWE wrestler (just a guess)," reports Chaggaris. On Monday, Kerry will be joined by Sen. Joe Lieberman for a fundraiser in Juno Beach before holding a town hall meeting at Palm Beach Community College-Lake Worth. He'll also make a brief stop in Atlanta on Monday night before returning to Tampa Tuesday morning.
Rice Warns of Possible Election-timed Terrorism: National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice warned on Sunday that terrorists could time an attack to the upcoming U.S. presidential election in hopes of achieving the same kind of political impact they had after the March 11 Madrid train bombings, which cost stalwart U.S. ally Jose Maria Aznar's party its hold on power.
The opportunity for terrorists to try to influence the election, as was the case last month in Spain, appears to be an opportunity that would "be too good to pass up for them," Rice said, according to the AP.
"I think that we do have to take very seriously the thought that the terrorists might have learned, we hope, the wrong lesson from Spain," Rice told Fox News, the AP reports. "I think we also have to take seriously that they might try during the cycle leading up to the election to do something," she said.
"We are actively looking at that possibility, actively trying to see - to make certain that we are responding appropriately," she said.
The AP reports that Aznar, also on Fox, said, "I told George Bush, and (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair and other political leaders to be extremely careful before elections ... and to be very vigilant."
On the plus side, Bob Woodward told Mike Wallace on CBS' "60 Minutes" that Saudi Prince Bandar has promised the president that Saudi Arabia will lower oil prices in the months before the election – to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on Election Day.
Woodward says that Bandar understood that economic conditions were key before a presidential election. "They're [oil prices] high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly," Woodward said.
More Protests Expected This Summer: In addition to anti-war demonstrations, President Bush will also face gay activists who are planning protests and other attention-grabbing events during the Republican convention in New York City this summer, reports the Associated Press.
Driving their decision is President Bush's effort to ban same-sex marriage. Many gay activists see the convention as an ideal forum to not only stage protests, but also to raise money and to stimulate the national debate.
"We're definitely going to use the convention as an opportunity to get our message across and as an opportunity to convey what this election means to gay families," said John Marble, a spokesman for the National Stonewall Democrats, a gay political group.
The Log Cabin Republicans, a group of gay and lesbian Republicans, wrapped up their national convention in California this past weekend and many members left the meeting feel conflicted about giving President Bush their endorsement or votes in November, the Chicago Tribune reports.
"According to the opinions expressed in discussion sessions and in individual interviews, many members are bitterly divided between their deep loyalty to the GOP and their deep anger at feeling they were being sacrificed to placate the religious right wing of the party."
The decision on whether to endorse Bush or withhold any endorsement will be made by the 22 members of the Log Cabin board of directors during the Republican National Convention in August.
The AP reports that some gay rights organizations are also planning to go to Boston during the Democratic convention, which begins July 26.
John Kerry is opposed to gay marriage, but is also against a federal constitutional amendment to ban them. He supports civil unions.
Bush Live: As if there weren't enough advantages to being the incumbent, The Washington Post reports that President Bush garners three times more live cable TV coverage than John Kerry. The Post used a video monitoring service to analyze coverage from March 3, when Kerry secured the Democratic presidential nomination, through April 16. Bush had 12 hours and 11 minutes of live cable news coverage, while Kerry had 3 hours and 47 minutes.
Media outlets, including ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and NBC, often jump in and out of Kerry's appearances, showing just minutes of major addresses. His April 6 speech on job creation garnered 2 minutes on Fox News and 3 ½ minutes on MSNBC. Meanwhile, an everyday stump speech by Bush in New Mexico on March 26 drew 35 minutes on CNN and Fox News.
Bush "is a candidate 100 percent of the time," said Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter. "Every time a White House official goes out on that lawn to talk to a reporter, we should have equal time."
The situation is expected when a candidate runs against the commander in chief, but there's a "distinct difference" in the coverage of Bush, said CNN senior vice president Sue Bunda. "We have a president, a commander in chief, with 100,000-plus troops deployed around the world in a war situation … There's a breaking-news quality to when the president speaks. Easter Sunday, he comes out after church, and we all take it."
Quote of the Day: "Jerry got high and Jerry's dead. I went hunting and I'm still Ted." – rocker Ted Nugent at the NRA convention this weekend on the differences between himself and the late Jerry Garcia. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).