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 Unveils Corporate Tax Plan

* Study Finds Dems and 527 Ads Far More Negative than Bush and GOP

* Ralph Nader Campaign Says Polls Show He's Not a Spoiler

* Pew: People Really Paying Attention to Politics This Year

* The Edwards Affair Continues

Kerry Unveils First of Three Economic Proposals: A day after the Bush campaign released an ad calling John Kerry's economic policies "troubling," the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee will unveil a proposal to cut corporate taxes by 5 percent and eliminate corporate tax loopholes. Kerry says his plan would create 10 million new U.S. jobs.

The Bush campaign has been hammering Kerry in recent weeks about the cost of his proposals, his health care plan in particular, and have said the Democrat would have to raise taxes by huge amounts to pay for the programs. The Bush campaign has said Kerry's spending proposals and lack of specifics on how he'd pay for them would result in what they've dubbed a "tax gap."

Kerry will make his speech at Detroit's Wayne State University. Michigan, which went for Al Gore in 2000 by a not-too-huge margin of 5.13 percent and has 17 Electoral College votes, again looks like a battleground state. The state's manufacturing sector has been hard hit since Bush took office, and has a 6.6 percent unemployment rate.

Kerry plans to make two more economic policy speeches in coming weeks, the campaign said. In the second speech, Kerry will outline his plan to make sure that Americans have the education and training and skills to fill and create 21st century jobs. The third speech will outline Kerry's plan to restore fiscal discipline and confidence in the American economy.

In remarks prepared for delivery, Kerry said, "We now have a tax code that has American taxpayers paying to ship jobs overseas. That makes no sense. And if I am president, it will end."

By closing loopholes that allow U.S. companies to defer paying taxes on international income, Kerry says he'd increase government revenues by $12 billion annually. Those savings would allow a 5 percent reduction in overall corporate taxes – and spur job creation as a result.

Bush-Cheney spokesman Steve Schmidt called Kerry's plan a "political tax shell game" that "will do nothing to stop the outsourcing of jobs."

The AP's Ron Fournier reports that Kerry overrode the objections of some campaign aides who did not think the plan would play well politically. "Advisers inside and outside the campaign debated whether to use the $12 billion to cut corporate taxes or target it elsewhere. Some wanted a robust tax credit for employers who create jobs. Kerry opted for a scaled-down version of that initiative," the AP reports. Some aides reportedly wanted Kerry to push for middle-class tax relief to appeal to a wide range of voters.

That polls show voters think the economy and jobs are the most important issue facing the country has not been lost on President Bush, either. He heads to the Southwest for events in Albuquerque, N.M., and Phoenix on Friday where he'll tout rising home values as an achievement of his administration. Al Gore won New Mexico in 2000 by a microscopic 366 votes, or .06 percent; Bush won Arizona by 6.29 percent last time around.

Democrats Trounce Bush in Negative Ads: The Bush-Cheney campaign has defended its ads attacking John Kerry by saying that Kerry ran 16 negative ads against Bush before Bush-Cheney even got into the game. And a study out today by the Wisconsin Ad Project documents that Democrats have been clobbering President Bush in TV ads for months.

"The Democrats spent $51.3 million in the top 100 media markets during the Democratic presidential primaries … Although only a handful of ads attacked fellow Democrats in the field, half of all the ads aired by the Democratic presidential candidates had at least one negative mention of President Bush and his administration. Of the $10.6 million that now-Democratic nominee Kerry spent on advertising in his bid for his party's nomination, 78 percent of his ads had at least one criticism of President Bush."

The study also says that "of all of the Democratic presidential primary candidates, Kerry ran the most negative television advertising campaign, with less than a quarter of his spots being purely positive. Kerry's criticisms were entirely aimed at Bush, while other candidates, most notably Richard Gephardt and Howard Dean, also used spots to directly attack their Democratic primary opponents. Edwards and Clark were the most positive of the Democratic candidates."

The study says that by and large the Bush ads so far have been mainly positive and a Pew Poll released yesterday indicated that Americans may be aware of that fact. Forty-seven percent say that John Kerry has been too critical of George Bush, while only 33 percent feel Bush has been too critical of Kerry.

Music To Ralph's Ears: The Nader campaign is pushing two new polls conducted by the American Research Group in the battleground states of New Hampshire and West Virginia that they say are "inconsistent with the chattering class view of Nader helping Bush" and back up Nader's theory that he expects to get more support from registered Republicans and independents.

A poll taken in West Virginia has the Bush-Kerry race at Bush 47 percent to Kerry 46 percent, but when Nader is added to the mix, Bush and Kerry are tied at 46 percent, with Nader getting two percent of the vote. The New Hampshire poll, which showed Bush leading Kerry and Nader by 45 to 39 to 8 percent, respectively, found that Nader gets 10 percent from independents, nine percent from registered Republicans and just four percent among registered Democrats.

But former President Jimmy Carter isn't buying Nader's theory. At the Democratic Party's Unity Dinner on Thursday night, Carter said that Nader had given him advice when he was president. "Tonight I want to return the favor by giving him some advice: Don't risk costing the Democrats the White House this year as you did four years ago," Carter said.

And AFSCME president Gerald McEntee told CBS News on Thursday that he is talking to Howard Dean about helping to finance an attempt to persuade Dean's young supporters to reject Nader and vote for Kerry.

Nader continues his ballot access tour as he travels to UNC Asheville campus and the University of South Carolina Law School on Friday and to Georgia for the weekend, where he will campaign at the University of Georgia on Saturday and Georgia State University on Sunday.

Guess What's Hot? Politics!: The latest poll from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press indicates that Americans feel the stakes of the 2004 presidential campaign are high. About 63 percent of those surveyed said it really matters who wins the election. This is up from the last presidential election when a June 2000 Pew poll showed that only 45 percent said it really mattered who won the presidency.

The increased interest is highest among Democrats, with a 22 percentage-point increase since 2000. But the increased interest can also be seen in Republicans and independents. About two-thirds of the voters polled say they have thought "quite a lot" about the presidential campaign, which is the same level of interest at the peak of the 2000 presidential campaign in October.

Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, told the AP, "The September 11 attacks have put more emphasis on Washington and the president. President Bush has raised the debate about how to handle the war on terrorism. These are issues that generate a lot of interest with voters."

The Pew poll of 1,703 adults conducted March 17 to 21, including 1,306 registered voters, has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Edwards Still the Insiders' Sweetheart: Although the Kerry camp is keeping mum on a vice presidential pick, in this week's National Journal Insiders Poll the Insiders are still sweet on John Edwards. Edwards gets 21 top votes to be Kerry's running mate, down two from last week but still well ahead of his nearest rival, Dick Gephardt, who has 13 number one votes. Of Edwards, one Insider says, "Great chemistry and North-South balance; attractive and articulate; vetted; helps in Arkansas, Louisiana, West Virginia, and forces Bush to defend himself in North Carolina." Another adds, that Edwards "doesn't pass the experience, depth vetting tests that Gephardt and Graham fly through, but he isn't boring. And on this ticket, that will represent diversity."

Rounding out the top five in the Insiders' mind are Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa and Florida Sen. Bob Graham. Those names represent an exact replica of last week's poll.

The Insiders second question of the week concerns timing of the vice presidential announcement. Insiders were asked "whether Kerry should announce his choice well in advance of the national convention or shortly before it opens. Of the 47 Insiders who responded to that question, 34 said the selection should be made early." As one Insider explains, "Name your veep now, and name your Cabinet at the convention. Kerry has to take some risks and do some unconventional things to win."

Stay tuned to see whether the Kerry campaign staff is listening to the Insiders.

Quote of the Day: "I didn't support John Kerry. President Carter didn't support John Kerry. President Clinton didn't support John Kerry. Terry McAuliffe didn't support John Kerry -- in the primaries. John Kerry earned the nomination of this party!" – Al Gore, in an e-mail to supporters.