Washington Wrap

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

Tuesday's Headlines

* Cheney Day

* PA: Specter and Toomey Fight It Out

* In Colorado It Takes More Than a Name

* Bush-Cheney '04 Hits The Road

* Convention Changes=Higher Ratings?

Cheney: The Man of the Hour: The Supreme Court hears oral arguments Tuesday over whether Vice President Dick Cheney and the White House can be compelled to release records of the administration's energy policy meetings three years ago.

The AP reports that "The White House is framing the case as a major test of executive power, arguing that the forced disclosure of confidential records intrudes on a president's power to get truthful advice." Critics have argued that the administration's fight to keep the meetings secret is part of a pattern of giving handouts to corporate interests behind closed doors.

Meantime, Cheney went to Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., on Monday to take a few jabs at John Kerry on national security issues. (This is the same college where Winston Churchill made his famous "Iron Curtain" speech in the aftermath of WWII.)

The Boston Globe reports "Cheney delivered his remarks in typically understated style, reading in a monotone voice from a prepared text. Only a few of his accusations were new -- that, for example, Kerry had voted in 1984 against certain weapons systems, a message mirrored in a blitz of Bush campaign ads unveiled in 18 battleground states yesterday. But Cheney's speech dominated the political debate -- spurring Democrats to respond even before he spoke -- and starkly contrasted the decidedly less partisan talk President Bush gave in Minnesota about broadband taxation and hydrogen cell technology."

But not everyone was happy that Cheney chose the college as the venue to issue so withering an attack on a political foe.

The Globe reports: "The speech was met with widespread applause, but afterward, Westminster College's president, Fletcher M. Lamkin, sent out an e-mail to the college community expressing his displeasure with the tone. He said he had no advance warning about the tenor of the speech. 'Frankly, I must admit that I was surprised and disappointed that Mr. Cheney chose to step off the high ground and resort to Kerry-bashing for a large portion of his speech,' the e-mail read. 'We had only been told the speech would be about foreign policy, including issues in Iraq.' An announcement on the school website about Cheney's visit quotes Lamkin as saying the vice president's office called unsolicited a few days beforehand to offer the speech."

Before howls of "all academics are liberals" reach a crescendo, a CBS News search of the Center for Responsive Politics' Web site, www.opensecrets.org, finds that Lamkin gave $300 to the National Republican Congressional Committee last July.

Cheney continues his out-of-bunker tour on Friday in Wisconsin, which, like Missouri, is a critical swing state in November. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that the vice president will attend a Republican Party fundraiser in the city on Friday.

PA Primary Day: The nation's most expensive and hard-fought U.S. Senate primary takes place Tuesday as Pennsylvania Republicans decide between the experience of moderate incumbent Arlen Specter and the passion of his conservative challenger, U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The latest poll, which comes from Quinnipiac University on the eve of the primary, shows Specter leading Toomey 48 percent to 42 percent, while 10 percent remain undecided. 617 likely voters were interviewed for the survey between April 20-24. Many analysts believe it will be a tight race with an outcome that hinges on voter turnout.

Stephen K. Medvic, a professor of government at Franklin & Marshall College, says, "Specter has a lot of the establishment operation behind him, the Toomey people have a lot of grassroots support." Medvic surmises that Specter's base of moderate supporters are "freaked out by Toomey's show of strength," and are more likely to turn out at the polls Tuesday.

On Monday both candidates campaigned across Pennsylvania by plane, stopping briefly at airports to smile for television cameras and talk to reporters in a last bid to reach voters. "If people want me to stay in office for six more years, then they are going to have to come out to vote," said Specter at Philadelphia International Airport, while Toomey predicted an upset victory "whether we have a high turnout or a low turnout."

The turnout is expected to be low but there could be lines. A new law requires people voting for the first time to present ID. If there is confusion, the voter will be given a provisional paper ballot that won't be counted for several week. So if the election is as close as the polls indicate, the outcome could be in doubt for a while.

Specter, who has had to campaign harder than he has had to recently, told the AP, "If I weren't so resolute and in such good health, you might see a battered face now."

The polls close at 8 p.m. EDT.

What's In a Name: In politics, it is rare that coming in second place is a good thing. But Republican Bob Schaffer has found good news in a new Rocky Mountain News/News 4 poll that shows if the election were held today, Democrat Ken Salazar would beat him for the open U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Ben Nighthorse Campbell. That's because the poll, conducted by the Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies, shows that Salazar would also beat Republican Pete Coors, but by an even wider margin.

The poll of 600 registered voters was conducted last week and showed Salazar beating Schaffer by 11 percentage points, 48 to 37. Meanwhile, he topped Coors by 16 points, 52 to 36. The poll's margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points. Coors spokeswoman Cinamon Watson said the campaign was "very pleased" with the results, seeing that Coors "had only been in the race a couple of days" when the poll was conducted. In truth, Coors had been in the race a week when the poll began on April 20 and continued for four days.

One expert said he anticipated that the famous Coors name would provide a bigger boost that the poll numbers indicate. "You would expect with name identification and all of that, it would have helped Coors out of the chute," said John Straayer, a political science professor at Colorado State University.

Bush to Visit Midwest Battleground States: President Bush will embark on a four-state tour of key battleground states in the Midwest beginning May 3. Bush will campaign in Iowa (7 electoral votes), Michigan (17), Ohio (20) and Wisconsin (10). Bush's re-election campaign has already spent millions on television ads in these and other Midwestern states. There are 54 electoral votes up for grabs from the four states on the tour.

"The president is looking forward to getting out of Washington again and meeting people across the Midwest," a source close to the re-election campaign told the Toledo Blade earlier this week. "He is looking forward to discussing his positive agenda of winning the war on terror and growing the economy."

The four-state bus tour will make a stop in Ohio on May 4. This will be the 17th visit to Ohio by the president since taking office, and follows a visit by Democrat John Kerry. Another stop scheduled for the week of May 3 is Wisconsin, where the president has visited ten times since taking office.

Democratic Convention Hopes to Lure Viewers: After decades of declining ratings, planners for this summer's Democratic National Convention in Boston hope that new technology and streaming video will increase television coverage and, by extension, viewership.

The Boston Globe reports that the event will feature "remote feeds from around the country, a giant multimedia screen behind the main stage, and a few smaller podiums located at several spots inside the FleetCenter to create fresh camera angles for television coverage."

As veteran Democratic convention planner Ricky Kirshner told the Globe, "I'm not sure anymore that we really make news, because you know who the nominee's going to be… We are challenged with coming up with a creative way for people to be interested. … You try to do something that's never been seen before." To do this, "Footage of historic places in the Boston area -- including the downtown Boston site of the nation's first public school and Revolutionary War battlegrounds in Lexington and Concord -- will be piped into the FleetCenter, and to television viewers nationwide." Kirshner told the Globe, "The challenge is to give them something to cover."

But what surely will get coverage are Democratic charity fundraising plans that are raising a few eyebrows. Reports Roll Call, "Borrowing a page from House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, Senate Democrats are combining a children's charity and a big-dollar event for elite donors during their national convention in Boston this summer. And like DeLay, the Democrats, led by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), who is chairing the event, are drawing scrutiny from campaign-finance watchdog groups for their activities."

The event, called "Rockin' on the Dock of the Bay," will raise money for cancer research and treatment. A donation of $100,000 will "get you eight backstage passes and a photo op 'with major talent,' 25 VIP lounge passes which include 'private balcony access, premium bar, seated viewing, and personal wait staff,'" and much more. Lower-dollar donations also receive lesser ticket packages.

Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a watch dog group, told Roll Call that it will "take a hard look" at the plans. Although Wertheimer says there are major differences between the Democrats' efforts and DeLay's, which was set up solely for the purpose of convention partying, that is unlikely to quell media interest in who attends the event.

Quote of the Day: "You know, studies have shown that 70 percent of women masturbate, as do 90 percent of men." -ex-Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, staying on message, 4/26 (Lawrence Journal-World via Hotline's Wake-Up Call!)