Washington Wrap

Dotty Lynch, Douglas Kiker, Steve Chaggaris, Clothilde Ewing, Nicola Corless, Smita Kalokhe and Joanna Schubert of The CBS News Political Unit have the latest from the nation's capital.

The DLC, a group of party moderates organized in 1985 that is widely credited with helping put Bill Clinton in the White House, said the party would be devastated if it continues to cater to the "far left" on issues like taxes and the war against Iraq, The New York Times reports.

The DLC's warning comes in no small part as a response to the surging candidacy of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who, despite his DLC-like record as governor for most of the 1990s, has burst into the top tier of candidates though his strong opposition to the war against Iraq. The DLC and Dean have been feuding for much of 2003.

The DLC's conference did not feature any of the presidential candidates, they say, by design. DLC leaders said they did not want the candidates' presence to take attention away from their contention that the party is drifting too far leftwards.

The Times reports that the DLC leadership was not referring just to Dean, however, warning that the entire field risks being linked in voters' minds with a liberal agenda.

"It is our belief that the Democratic Party has an important choice to make: Do we want to vent or do we want to govern?" said the DLC's chairman, Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana. "The administration is being run by the far right. The Democratic Party is in danger of being taken over by the far left."

The Times reports that when a reporter asked Bayh whether the Democrats' problems were a result of GOP attacks or Democratic missteps, the senator said curtly: "Assisted suicide."

Al From, the DLC's founder, said some Democrats "refuse to learn from President Clinton's successes."

Meanwhile, although Bruce Reed, Clinton's domestic policy chief who ran the DLC both before and after the Clinton administration, said that the group's critique of Dean "has never been personal," piquing the ire of centrist Dems does not seem to be hurting Dean in New Hampshire, where he remains in a nose-to-nose race with Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

A new poll by Franklin Pierce College shows Dean and Kerry in a statistical tie in the Granite State, with Dean at 22 percent and Kerry at 21 percent. The same poll found Dean and Kerry tied at 23 percent in early May.

While all the other Democratic aspirants were in the single digits, the number of undecided voters edged upwards to 37 percent from 31 percent in the May poll.

Air Wars Over Madison: It's all quiet now, but last weekend viewers in Madison, Wis., witnessed some hot and heavy air wars surrounding the war in Iraq. The DNC went first with its ad saying that President Bush misled the American people about Iraq's importation of uranium in his State of the Union message. Then, the RNC tried to block the ad, writing to the local stations that the ad left out the Bush disclaimer that the information was based on British intelligence.

When most of the stations ignored the RNC and ran the spot, a local Republican, Jim Jalovec, from Muskego dipped into his own pocket and paid for a counter ad. CBS affiliate WISC says that he spent about $5,000 to run it on their station and estimated the total buy at $20,000, the same as the DNC ad cost. The DNC thinks the Republican buy was smaller.

The counter ad showed pictures of the World Trade Center on fire following the 911 terrorist attacks and said, "The Democratic National Committee is running ads questioning why we went to war, suggesting there was no imminent threat to America. Are they kidding?"

According to WISC-TV, Jalovec, who also self-funded ads on behalf of President Bush during the Florida recount is hoping the Republican Party will follow suit with ads defending President Bush. So far, the RNC has declined to join the fray saying the Democrats ad was more for fundraising than for message.

It's Official: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., has finally thrown her hat in the ring. According to a WHO TV poll in Iowa, Senator Clinton is more popular than all nine of the Democrats running for president in central Iowa, but despite this, she is running for re-election to the United States Senate. On Monday, the Friends of Hillary Clinton (FOH) launched a Web site to promote her work in the Senate and of course to help raise money for her re-election campaign in 2006.

The Web site, www.friendsofhillary.com, includes a photo gallery where people can see Hillary meeting and greeting throughout the state, testimonials of citizens and friends who have been impressed with her work and of course, opportunities for people to volunteer both their time and more importantly, their money.

Already one of the top fundraisers in the Democratic Party, Sen. Clinton, or possibly her "friends", have found an ingenious way to reap rewards from her bestselling book, Living History. For the bargain price of $75, contributors will get a commemorative Living History Bookmark, for $150 they can get a personally signed copy of the book, for $500 she'll even write something inside and for the discount price of $1,000 contributors can get a limited-edition, specially-bound volume, which is also personally inscribed by the marketing savvy Senator. As the website points out though, don't bother shopping for better deals on discount websites. This deal isn't available on Amazon quite yet.

A Challenger for the Mom in Tennis Shoes?: Republicans who feel they have a chance to pick up a Senate seat in Washington state should be happy to hear that Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., has decided to run against Democratic Sen. Patty Murray.

A senior Republican official tells CBS News it's "likely" that Nethercutt will challenge Murray and that the congressman will make an announcement in the next couple of days.

Rep. Jennifer Dunn, R-Wash., who declined when Republicans asked her to run against Murray this year, told The Hill newspaper: "I think he's inclined to go. My sense is that he's decided to run."

While there's already a Republican who has declared, professor Reed Davis, the state party told the Seattle Times: "The only candidate we're focused on is George Nethercutt."

Former GOP gubernatorial nominee John Carlson summed up why it's important to have a known entity challenging Murray, who won her last election in 1998 with 58 percent of the vote. "When your opponent is a two-term incumbent with $3 million in the bank, you'd better be able to raise substantial money yourself," Carlson told the Times.

Nethercutt will try to become Washington's first Republican senator since Slade Gorton was defeated in 2000 by Sen. Maria Cantwell. But political observers say Nethercutt will have a tough time since he has such a conservative voting record in a state not known for electing conservative Republicans statewide.

This wouldn't be Nethercutt's first uphill battle in politics as he was the one who defeated then Democratic House Speaker Rep. Tom Foley in 1994. However, Nethercutt promised in that election that he would only serve three terms if he beat Foley. In 2000, he broke that promise. A state Democratic spokeswoman told the Hill that, "Nethercutt has earned the nickname 'Nevertrust.'"

While polls show Murray holding a strong lead over Nethercutt, Republicans feel the woman who won in 1992 as the "Mom in Tennis Shoes" is open for attack, especially on her opposition to President Bush's tax cuts and the war in Iraq. Comments she made about Osama bin Laden, which created a bit of a firestorm in December, may also come back to haunt her.

She told a group of schoolchildren that bin Laden has "been out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. We haven't done that."

Shortly after her comments she clarified that she considered bin Laden "an evil terrorist who is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans."

Quote of the Day: "I have lunch with him. It is difficult to watch somebody eat cauliflower and what he eats for lunch every day: turkey on wheat with no mayonnaise, I mean it's just tough, you don't want to smell that stuff." – San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown on his fellow Democrat Gov. Gray Davis' eating habits.