Message for Readers

You see the bits of speeches and lengthy debates on TV. But what's it really like behind the scenes of the presidential campaigns?

We're going to find out. Times correspondents travel the country with the candidates all the time. They turn out insightful stories like this one by Maria LaGanga on Bill Richardson or this one by Mark Barabak on Barack Obama or this one by Michael Finnegan on Mitt Romney or this one by Robin Abcarian on Joe Biden.

In the coming weeks and months, Top of the Ticket will be there too, taking you inside the stories on the website and in the newspaper. We're going to interview our correspondents about what life is like on the political trail today. Regular Q and A's. What's a typical day like? How do candidates decide where to go and what to say? What are the candidates like when they're not onstage and the cameras are turned off?

But we want your help. This blog is a two-way street.

What would you like to know about life on the political road these days? Give us your questions in the Comments section below and we'll add them to the list. Then check back in the coming weeks to get your answers.

Thanks.

--Andrew Malcolm

Summer travel

For many, the beach beckons on the first weekend of official summer. Or a barbecue. Or a ballgame.

For Chris Dodd, there's this: today, the Democratic presidential hopeful gives a big speech (title: "Rekindling The Flame --- A Call for A New American Patriotism") in Nashua, N.H. Then, as long as he's there, he'll paint some murals in town with community activists, according to his campaign's website.

Tonight, Dodd's got a "meet and greet" at a home in Manchester, N.H., and Sunday he's got two similar events elsewhere in the state. In other words, he'll be shaking a lot of hands and making a lot of small talk.

Say what you will about candidates for the White House, they pay some heavy dues.

It'll be variations on the same theme for most of the other contenders this weekend. Several will be scarfing up donations hither and yon, given the impending end of the second quarter fundraising period (June 30) and the attendant folderol over who totaled how much.

The rich lawyer and his poverty center

John Edwards, the former senator and current multi-millionaire who's made poverty a key campaign issue, used his nonprofit Center for Promise and Opportunity as a political base to develop his presidential run for 2008.

A hard-hitting page one article in today's New York Times reveals how the main beneficiary of the organization to fight poverty was actually Edwards himself. He used the center to build and maintain a shadow political organization with his staff employed there and his frequent travels paid for. According to the article by Leslie Wayne, the poverty center covered Edwards' expenses while he traveled internationally to meet with foreign leaders, hired consultants, attacked President Bush and traveled frequently to Iowa.

"It all adds up to a remarkable feat of keeping a presidential candidacy alive without any of the traditional bases for it," Ferrel Guillory of the University of North Carolina told the Times. And Wayne wrote, "Edwards pushed at the boundaries of how far such organizations can venture into the political realm."

This afternoon the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) issued a statement defending Edwards as "a steadfast ally," especially in the fight to raise the minimum wage and rebuild the Gulf Coast from Hurricane Katrina.

"In making poverty the defining theme of his campaign," association president Maude Hurd said, "Senator Edwards has shown his true colors. It is a sad statement that someone working not only to raise the issue of poverty, but to offer ambitious solutions and his (sic) put his feet on the ground to end it is attacked rather than applauded."

--Andrew Malcolm

Photo: John Edwards; Credit: Paul J. RichardsAFP/Getty Images

L.A. story

Hillary Clinton kept an audience of some of America's most important public officials waiting for almost an hour today. But anyone with even an ounce of experience with traveling to Southern California --- and then driving about town --- probably would cut her some slack.

The Democratic presidential candidate was scheduled to make a 1:15 p.m. speech to the U.S. Conference of Mayors convention at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel.  The New York senator had flown cross-country from Washington after late legislative votes Thursday but, according to one of her aides, the flight was late getting into Van Nuys Airport. Then, she and her entourage faced the daunting task of negotiating Friday afternoon traffic to make it to Century City.

The Times' Scott Martelle was there, and he reports that the luncheon program began without her. Then, for several minutes, the dias simply went dark; folks finished their meals as they waited for Clinton to show up.

Conference president Douglas Palmer, mayor of Trenton, N.J., provided an update for the crowd, which included Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

"Right now, mayor, she's just stuck in traffic," Palmer said. "I don't know, mayor .... come on, you could have got the (police) motorcycles" for her.

Now a Casper doctor has the least Senate seniority

In a wonderfully get-along Western way, Wyoming's Democratic governor, Dave Freudenthal, appointed a Republican as the Cowboy state's new U.S. senator today. He's John Barrasso, a 54-year-old orthopedic surgeon and conservative state legislator from Casper. He replaces Craig Thomas, a Republican who won re-election last fall but died recently of leukemia.

Under Wyoming law, the party of the deceased lawmaker presents a slate of three candidates to the governor who chooses one to serve until a special election, in this case in November next year. The winner of that special election (Barrasso has said he will run) will serve the remainder of Thomas' unexpired term through 2012.

This system, which honors the most recent vote of Wyoming citizens, contrasts with many other states, including California, where the governor appoints the next senator, usually from the governor's own party regardless of the departed lawmaker's party. In an age of thick partisanship and slim legislative majorities in Washington, such political decisions can have far-reaching consequences.

For instance, last winter when Democrat Tim Johnson of South Dakota suffered a stroke, his replacement would have been named by a Republican governor, potentially shifting the balance of power for the entire U.S. Senate.

In his application, Barrasso said, "I believe in limited government, lower taxes, less spending, traditional family values, local control and a strong national defense." The other two candidates submitted by Republican officials were Cheyenne attorney Tom Sansonetti and former state treasurer Cynthia Lummis, according to Associated Press.

Barrasso takes office immediately.

--Andrew Malcolm

Family Ties

It's not just the presidential candidates who are enduring the grueling rituals of running for office these days. It's their families too. Or some of them anyway.

Families (those whose members don't get DUI's anyway) can be very helpful as surrogate campaigners, drawing media and voter attention in places the candidate can't reach. And they can also present a pleasant backdrop for the candidate to display him or herself as a regular person with family values.

For the moment Mitt Romney, his wife of 38 years Ann, their five sons, their wives and children are the most obvious on the campaign trail. The sons all write a blog, Five Brothers, about their family and travels and participate in family videos on the Mitt TV section of the website. One recent entry includes Ann's recipe for meatloaf cakes, said to be the former Governor's favorite meal. This summer son Josh is driving an RV to all 99 Iowa counties.

Constitutional chaos!!!

Well, not quite yet. But in the spirit of the fevered speculation spurred by Michael Bloomberg's dance with a possible independent presidential candidacy, let's take the conjecture to the Nth degree, just for the fun of it.

Let's pitch forward to Election Day, 2008, and suppose the multi-billionaire Bloomberg has waged a major bid against Democratic and Republican nominees who appealed to their party bases, but not much else. Let's also suppose that, aided by massive spending on ads and aggressive help from like-thinking California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, he wins the Golden State. Finally --- and we concede we're really stretching here --- let's suppose that thanks to another torrent of ad money and an excruciatingly close three-way fracture in the electorate, Bloomberg squeaks out victories in one of the closely contested big states in the past two election: Ohio or Florida.

That's it; he just carries two states. But here's what that could mean, if the Republican and Democrat roughly split up the rest of the 48: no candidate gets the 270 Electoral College votes needed to claim the White House.

Has the weeding begun?

Iowans for Tax Relief and the Iowa Christian Alliance have taken the first of what will eventually be the same step by many groups to begin weeding out the overcrowded field of presidential candidates appearing in debates. There are 18 of these folks already with Fred Thompson, Al Gore and what's-his-name the rich guy from New York as future possibles.

Any more candidates and they're each likely to get 10 seconds apiece to explain tax policies.

Anyway, the two Iowa groups have dumped Rep. Ron Paul from their forum next week. The reasonable reasons given were his scant organization of two people and no office in Iowa, not to mention his low ranking in polls where he is an asterisk. He has visited Iowa once this year while Tommy Thompson, another also-ran, for example, has at least visited 53 of Iowa's 99 counties. The tax group's vice president, Ed Failor Jr., said they decided to invite only "credible" candidates.

You may remember Paul from his frank suggestion in one Republican debate that the U.S. invited the 9/11 attacks by bombing Iraq. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani seized the moment for a dramatic outburst of outrage, much replayed later.

Renegade Joe

Much to the chagrin of many Democrats, especially anti-Iraq war activists, Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut continues to chart his own course. And the path he's on, and the anger it sparks, were on vivid display Thursday night when he co-hosted a Washington fundraising dinner for ... a Republican.

Lieberman, the Democrat-turned-independent, announced several weeks ago his endorsement of GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. She faces a potentially tough reelection battle and, with Democrats keen on expanding their razor-thin Senate majority, the race figures to be one of the most closely-watched in 2008.

So it was bad enough, for Democrats, that Lieberman would back Collins. But headlining her fundraiser was a proverbial poke in the eye.

MoveOn.org, the feisty online liberal acitvist group, responded with an e-mail, blasting Lieberman and soliciting donations for her expected Democratic opponent, Rep. Tom Allen.

Collins presents an inviting target to MoveOn and other staunch foes of the Bush administration's Iraq policy because polls have found the war especially unpopular in New England. True, Collins has been popular in the state. But Allen also is a heavy hitter politically --- he won re-election in November with about 63% of the vote.

Bill rides to the rescue?

We haven't seen much of Bill Clinton around his wife's campaign so far. He's quietly been doing closed fundraisers with big-hitters, a bio video for HillaryClinton.com and issued email appeals for funds. They've only appeared together at a civil rights rally in Selma. So she could be seen as her own person.

But all that's changing, as Top of the Ticket wrote the other day. Is it the polls? The boos over her war stance at the leftie rally in Washington this week?

An Associated Press story today confirms the former president is now expanding his involvement even more, planning three days with her in Iowa early next month, where her campaign has had problems, and traveling together to appear jointly in New Hampshire. "The president's plan all along was to gradually escalate his involvement," a spokesman claims.

Clinton has cut back on his lucrative speechmaking, which earned him millions last year, and finished a book on civic activism to clear the decks for more time on the campaign trail. He is a huge draw among Democrats.

But, as we've already noted, there are very real dangers to this strategy, the wife looking like she needs help from her husband. And Bill Clinton's public presence tends to overshadow anyone else in the vicinity, including the actual candidate. The senator's campaign, which could conceivably face early losses in both Iowa and South Carolina, has clearly decided the pluses of the president's higher profile outweigh the negatives, at least during the primary season.

Later in a general election campaign, the obvious presence of the former president could create the appearance of a mere drive for a third Clinton term. And that would be something else.

--Andrew Malcolm

Photo: Ex-President Bill Clinton; Credit: Jamison C. Bazinet/AP