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That Barack Obama jog toward the political center now that he's won the Democratic nomination appears to have turned into a full-fledged dash today. And there's a lot of folks on the left side of his party that are unhappy.
But, to be Chicago kind of candid, whatcha gonna do about it?
Today, the freshman senator from Illinois voted in favor of the FISA bill that provides retroactive legal protection to cooperating telecom companies that helped the feds eavesdrop on overseas calls. Up until a few weeks ago -- let's see, that would be shortly after the last primaries settled the Democratic nomination and terminated what's-her-name's once frontrunning campaign -- Obama adamantly opposed the bill. "Unequivocally" was the word his people used.
"Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said last fall. In December, as ABC's Jake Tapper notes, Obama's office said: “Sen. Obama unequivocally opposes giving retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies and has cosponsored Sen. Dodd's efforts to remove that provision from the FISA bill."
In February, Obama voted for an amendment to carve the retroactive immunity out of the measure. And he said: "I am proud to stand with Sen. Dodd, Sen. Feingold and a grass-roots movement of Americans who are refusing to let President Bush put protections for special interests ahead of our security and our liberty. There is no reason why telephone companies should be given blanket immunity to cover violations of the rights of the American people."
Let's see, those statements were all made during that endless Democratic primary season.
After June 4, Obama said: "It is a close call for me, but I think the current legislation with exclusivity provision that says that a president -- whether George Bush, myself or John McCain -- can’t make up rationales for getting around FISA court, can’t suggest that somehow that there is some law that stands above the laws passed by Congress in engaging in warrantless wiretaps."
Never mind that it's confusing. It's supposed to be. Yes, he's usually a real good talker. But he wanted to avoid providing a clear-cut quote for future use against himself. Bottom line, today Obama voted for the measure he has so long opposed. So he was against the bill before he was for the bill.
And guess what? His primary primary opponent, Hillary Clinton from the Empire State, the one who got ditched by much of the Democratic left in favor of this new guy from Illinois who had no visible warts, she voted against the bill. Talk about retroactive regret by some.
"It's ironic so far, I suppose," one commentor wrote on OpenLeft today, "that Clinton is of late a more reliable ally than Obama." Over at Wake up America they provided a detailed accounting of the excoriating of Obama by alleged supporters on the candidate's own website.
With his vote unnecessary for victory, Sen. McCain spent the day in Ohio, of all places, which just happens to be the state that Republicans do not win the White House without. If you get our drift.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Jesse Ventura, the former pro wrestler and sometime-actor who improbably won the governorship of Minnesota a decade ago, may again roil his state's political waters. Then again, he may not.
Ventura has been hinting for months that he might make an already closely watched Senate race  between Republican incumbent Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken a three-way affair; back in May, he told Larry King on CNN, "I'm weighing it right now."
He's still weighing it as Tuesday's deadline for filing approaches; indeed, he's talking about it more than ever, leading to speculation he'll take the leap.
Our friend Ted Johnson, who writes the "Wilshire & Washington" column for Variety, recently interviewed Ventura and wrote that "he sounded like a candidate, ready to needle his opponents at every turn. He mapped out a renegade campaign strategy in which he would raise money on the Internet yet not spend more than $1 million for his bid."
Johnson quoted Ventura as saying: "I will not spend more than I earn, and that gives me I think a million dollar cap, because the salary for a senator is $170,000" a year.
We were initially confused by Ventura's math, but he's apparently referring to what he would gross over a six-year term.
The buzz surrounding Ventura grew very loud today, following the broadcast on NPR of an interview he gave David Welna Sunday in a parking lot in Minnesota. He again talked as if he had decided to run, and even offered what presumably would be one of his main messages: "All you Minnesotans take a good hard look at all three of us. And you decide: If you were in a dark alley, which one of the three of us would you want with you?"
Ventura quickly clarified that his remarks were hypothetical, and that he'll continue to weigh his options until the filing deadline. "It will come down to whether I want to change my lifestyle and go to that lifestyle or not," he said.
The prospect of another political season enlivened by a Ventura candidacy geneerated much comment, including this post on The Swamp.
As we recently noted, current polling indicates Franken -- of "Saturday Night Live" fame -- would fall short in his bid to unseat Coleman. Who knows how Ventura would scramble the dynamics; his political persona is so idiosyncratic it seems, at first blush, hard to predict.
And this might be even harder to divine -- were he to run and win, would he bother to caucus with either party on Capitol Hill?
-- Don Frederick
Good thing America's dissatisfied voters took control of Congress away from that other crowd two years ago. Because since the new party took over, congressional approval ratings have plummeted to tie a historical low.
Say what?
Weren't the outs supposed to fix things on Capitol Hill once they became the ins? And controlled all the investigations? And the agenda? And the committees?
A new poll shows that the percentage of voters  who say Congress is doing an excellent or good job has fallen to single digits for the first time in the tracking history of Rasmussen Reports.
Nine percent say that.
Which is down from 11% in May.
Only 3% of independents say Congress is doing a good or excellent job, half the previous month's rating.
A majority of Americans (52%) say House and Senate members are doing a poor job, which ties the record high for that dubious rating.
A whopping 72% believe members of Congress are more interested in furthering their own careers than doing public good. And only 14 of every 100 Americans think senators or representatives are genuinely interested in helping real people.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of their public service.
The big unanswered question:
If such an overwhelming percentage of voters are so dissatisfied with the congressional work of a Democratic majority they elected just two years ago, a worse rating than even the scandal-plagued Republicans had in 2006, what does this do to the conventional wisdom that 2008 is a year for substantial gains by Democrats in both houses?
Will voters buy the argument that the 2006 majority led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid didn't work. So maybe another one will?
Do GOP members appear so dispirited they don't present a realistic alternative?
Or will dissatisfied voters, for once, turn on incumbents from both parties?
What do you think?
--Andrew Malcolm
Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon, a potentially endangered Republican in November's election, raised many an eyebrow recently with an ad that included an unexpected cameo.
"Who says Gordon Smith helped lead the fight for better gas mileage and a cleaner environment?" asks a narrator. "Barack Obama."
TV viewers in the Beaver state then saw a flash of Obama's face and his campaign Web site as the ad went on to say the two lawmakers had teamed up "and broke through a 20-year deadlock to pass new laws that increase gas mileage for automobiles."
 Despite Smith's effort to scramble the partisan divide, it's comforting to know that in some cases, the old rules still apply -- such as a conservative Republican from Texas invoking a tried and true symbol of California liberalism, Sen. Barbara Boxer, as a way to raise money.
Boxer did her part to rate such a mention. On the Web site for a political action committee she set up, she recently conducted an online "Choose a Challenger" contest. Participants were given a list of various Democrats challengers trying to win GOP-held Senate seats this year and asked to vote on which one should be singled out for fundraising help by the PAC.
Down in the Lone Star State, Democrat Rick Noriega launched an effort to stack the deck. As part of his longshot bid to topple GOP Sen. John Cornyn, he urged backers to cast ballots for him in Boxer's tourney; a win, he said in an e-mail, could funnel "tens of thousands of dollars" into his coffers.
Not surprisingly, the Cornyn camp got wind of this and sought, in turn, to use it for its own financial advantage.
A solicitation to potential donors notified them that Noriega "is enlisting California Liberal (sic) Barbara Boxer’s help to raise money. The note continued: "Barbara Boxer, the one who opposed Chief Justice Roberts' nomination to the Supreme Court and verbally assaulted Justice Alito during his confirmation process."
"But it gets worse. You know what Senator Boxer is up to now? To quote her own website: 'I want you to know that I won't give up in our fight to stop the drilling…'
"Gas is approaching $4.10 a gallon with no end in sight and Rick Noriega is asking for help from Barbara Boxer, who is leading the charge to stop domestic drilling making us even more dependent on foreign oil?"
"While Rick Noriega is counting on Californians to help his campaign, John Cornyn is counting on Texans just like you."
Sounds like Cornyn would be loathe to get caught in the same elevator with Boxer.
But here's another side of Washington. Cornyn is the vice chair of the Senate Ethics Committee that Boxer heads. And about a week after the missive excoriating her, Cornyn's Capitol Hill office issued a release touting an amendment they were jointly offering to require members of Congress to publicly disclose their residential mortgages (a touchy topic these days in the Senate).
The release included both of their names in its headline, provided quotes from each promoting their mutual cause and offered nary a hint of discord between the two.
Noriega, by the way, triumphed in Boxer's contest (for the results, go here).
--Don Frederick
Power is perishable, and when politicians exit the stage, it often doesn't take long -- especially in Washington -- for their importance to be only vaguely recollected.
 So with the death today of former Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina at age 86, we offer some reminders of the central role -- for good, ill or a combination of both, depending on one's viewpoint -- he played in public policy and political discourse (The Times' obituary can be read here).
Back in the late 1990s, the Almanac of American Politics said flatly of Helms that "no American politician is more controversial, beloved in some quarters and hated in others...."
This, at a time when Bill Clinton was deep into his presidency.
First elected to his Senate seat in 1972, aided by Richard Nixon's landslide in that year's presidential election and the increasing GOP appeal to the South's conservative ethos, Helms at first was chiefly known for his staunch -- and often colorfully expressed -- opposition to abortion rights, gay rights and a raft of other liberal causes.
He truly became a figure to be reckoned with, however, through his tenure on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (he eventually became its chairman). As the political almanac put it, he used his seat "to conduct something like his own foreign policy." During Ronald Reagan's presidency and the administration of George H.W. Bush, Helms and a band of loyal aides "developed their own sources and attempted to manipulate State Department appointments to help the contras in Nicaragua and rightists in El Salvador."
Helms was revered on the right. In comments on MSNBC today, Pat Buchanan judged him "the second most important conservative of the second half of the 20th Century" (the first, of course, being Reagan).
And he was reviled on the left, perhaps never more so then during his 1990 reelection campaign when he faced a spirited challenge from an African-American, Harvey Gantt.
That race overshadowed all others in the nation that year, and it lives on due to the controversial -- many say race-baiting ads -- that Helms employed.
The best-known ad sought to tap into resentment against "quota" hiring practice by showing white hands crumpling a job rejection notice while a narrator intoned that the better qualified applicant had been bypassed for a minority hire.
Less well-known is a spot that berated Gantt for waging a "secret" campaign because he was advertising on black-owned radio stations.
Helms won the election, 53% to 47%, and then defeated Gantt by virtually the same margin in a rematch six years later.
As our friend Frank James notes in his posting on The Swamp, Helms "was more complicated on racial issues than the caricature he had with much of the public."
Still, some will see irony in the timing of Helms' passing -- just a few weeks before Barack Obama makes racial history when he becomes the Democratic presidential nominee.
-- Don Frederick
Photo credit: Newsmakers
Might David Vitter belong to that rare breed of politicians who survive the type of scandal that sink most others (see Spitzer, Eliot, and Fossella, Vito)?
Chances are we won't know for sure until 2010, when the Republican senator from Louisiana is up for re-election. But based on a new poll by the Baton Rouge-based Southern Media & Opinion Research firm, Vitter has reason for optimism that he will keep his job.
When we last left Vitter -- almost exactly a year ago -- he was confessing, vaguely, to a "very serious sin" that involved his association with a D.C.-based prostitution ring. Then a New Orleans-based prostitute alleged that she and the senator had once been especially good friends (a connection Vitter denied).
Perhaps the best-remembered moment stemming from the scandal occurred when Vitter held a news conference in Metairie, La., to try to put it behind him (fat chance) and was joined at the podium by his wife, Wendy -- whose pained expression said it all (he didn't look especially happy, either).
In Washington, Vitter has kept a mostly low profile since then. But he's kept going about his senatorial business and, in Louisiana, his standing appears about the same as it was before the commotion erupted.
The new survey of the state's voters found that 55% view him favorably, 38% unfavorably. In April of 2007, a poll by Southern Media put his numbers at 52% favorable, 32% unfavorable.
One of the firm's pollsters, Bernie Pinsonat, told us Vitter has benefited from a reservoir of goodwill he could draw upon. For instance, many voters well remember that as a state legislator several years ago, he led the charge for highly popular term limits.
Nor has he lost that sense of what the public wants.
Louisianans became incensed recently ...
Read more David Vitter seems to have rolled with the punch of last year's sex scandal »
Joe Biden, the senator from Delaware and one of those vanquished by Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential race, remains a hot prospect in the vice presidential sweepstakes (something retired Gen. Wesley Clark probably can't claim).
The 65-year-old Biden, as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, would bring the deep-seated experience in international matters that Obama lacks. Although Delaware and its 3 electoral voters almost assuredly are in the Democratic column, Biden could help his party's ticket in two nearby and crucial states. He's well-known in some parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, by virtue of having been in the public eye for so long.
But perhaps his biggest asset is his Roman Catholic faith; in the view of many political handicappers, an Obama/Biden ticket could make inroads with a bloc of voters that has been resistant so far to the presumptive presidential nominee.
There is one slight complication. Biden is up for reelection this November -- he's heavily favored to snare a seventh six-year term -- and in some states it is illegal to be on the ballot for two offices at once.
In Delaware, the issue is simply not addressed, state Commissioner of Elections Elaine Manlove recently told an NBC affiliate in New Jersey. "It's not that our law says he can't (run for Senate and vice president at the same time). It's that it doesn't say it at all. There's nothing in Delaware law that says he can't."
The National Journal's Hotline noted earlier today that if state officials were asked to weigh in on the issue, Biden might have a built-in advantage. Delaware's attorney general happens to be Beau Biden, one of the senator's sons.
Within the last 50 years, three vice presidential nominees -- all Democrats -- have simultaneously sought reelection to Senate seats: Lyndon Johnson of Texas in 1960, fellow Texan Lloyd Bentsen in 1988 and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut in 2000.
Each won their Senate races, but only Johnson also was part of a winning national ticket (meaning he gave up his seat on Capitol Hill).
-- Don Frederick
Photo credit: Associated Press
Talk about being ahead of the curve...
Photographer Pete Souza began making Barack Obama the focus of his work back in early January 2005 -- on the day Obama was sworn in as a U.S. senator from Illinois, in fact.
Obama already was identified as a comer in Democratic politics but at that point, few anticipated how far and how quickly he would ascend. So Souza -- who takes a bipartisan approach to his craft; he served as the official White House photographer for Ronald Reagan-- was able to document much of Obama's path to the precipice of the Democratic presidential nomination without the impediments that now surround the candidate.
The result is a just-published photo-book, "The Rise of Barack Obama." More can be read about it and Souza in this post on The Swamp.
-- Don Frederick
As long as the folks at the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute were in the field gauging voter opinion on the presidential race in four key swing states, they also conducted surveys on closely watched Senate contests in two of those locales.
The results in the White House battle, released late last week, were pretty positive for presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama and attracted wide attention. The less-noticed findings for the Senate matchups in Minnesota and Colorado painted a mixed picture for Obama's party.
In Minnesota, one-term Republican incumbent Norm Coleman led onetime "Saturday Night Live" cast member and writer Al Franken by 10 percentage points, 51% to 41%.
Franken ended up winning the state's Democratic Senate nomination more easily than expected, but during the spring he took flak over back corporate taxes he owed in 17 states and a raunchy article he wrote for Playboy magazine several years ago (when comedy still was his prime occupation).
The new poll found that Franken has not consolidated the Democratic vote in Minnesota as well as Coleman has his GOP base. But the former funnyman's big problem is with independents -- he trailed Coleman among this bloc by 20 percentage points.
Democratic hopes of adding to their slender Senate majority look better in Colorado, according to the Quinnipiac survey.
There, in a fight for an open seat currently held by a Republican who did not seek reelection, Democratic Rep. Mark Udall led his Republican foe, Bob Schaffer, by 10 points, 48% to 38%.
Schaffer famously stumbled out of the gate when, in his first television ad, an image he referred to as Pike's Peak in Colorado actually was Mt. McKinley in Alaska.
-- Don Frederick
We are often otherwise occupied when the late-night comedy shows air, so we appreciate the diligence with which the hard-working folks at the National Journal's "Hotline" political report monitor the parade of yuks. And we especially appreciate it when, as was the case Tuesday, we've missed a politically inspired Top Ten list on "The Late Show with David Letterman."
So here, with all due thanks to the "Hotline," are the "Top Ten Things Overheard on Hillary Clinton's First Day Back at Work" in the Senate: 10. Nice of you to show up.
9. Did you win?
8. We chipped in for a welcome back pantsuit.
7. Should I take the Madame President nameplate off your door?
6. Hillary's choking another superdelegate.
5. On the bright side, you can once again partake in endless debates about agricultural subsidies.
4. Senator Clinton, please stop throwing wads of paper at Senator Obama's head.
3. I can't believe your shrill message of fear didn't resonate.
2. Please stop taunting her, Senator Kerry.
1. We'll begin as soon as Senator Craig returns from the restroom.
Our favorite was a close call between No. 8 and No. 2. But we give the nod to the latter, perhaps because we previously noted that when it comes to being able to share the experience of dashed White House hopes, the Senate is the perfect club in which to belong.
The Times' Richard Simon has a more serious take on Clinton's return to the Senate, and the expectation that she will wield increased clout.
-- Don Frederick
Hillary Clinton refocused on her day job today, after lying low for more than two weeks since her widely acclaimed speech ceding the Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama and, more to the point, after almost 18 months of being preoccupied with her White House quest.
 The senator from New York arrived at the Capitol via an SUV shortly after 1 p.m. EDT and, perhaps to help her adjust to the culture shock on having left the campaign trail, a crowd was on hand for the occasion. See video below.
It wasn't a large one -- perhaps 100 or so, according to The Times' Noam Levey, who was on the scene. And although some were supporters, a few were interns who had been told by supervisors to line the Capitol's steps to greet her. And others were simply a clutch of Washington's ubiquitous tourists.
They combined to give the defeated candidate a warm welcome, cheering and waving as she made her way into her workplace. "We missed you," shouted one woman.
And Clinton -- dressed in a bright turquoise suit much like the one she wore on the last day of the primary season on June 3 -- looked upbeat as she paused to shake hands. She made a point of asking some of the younger onlookers where they were from and thanking them for coming out to see her. She then disappeared inside the edifice, where she joined her Democratic colleagues for their weekly policy lunch in the Lyndon Baines Johnson room outside the Senate chamber.
Standing at the edge of the crowd before Clinton arrived, Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana --an early and staunch backer of Clinton's presidential bid -- said he expected she now would move toward a leadership role in the Senate.
"I don't think she'll enter the witness protection program. ... She's not going to be an anonymous figure," Bayh said. "She has so much to contribute. ... I hope she'll embrace this opportunity, and I think she will. ... You can make a heck of a difference in the United States Senate."
Clinton probably can count on an extra dose of empathy from Bayh -- he briefly stuck his toe in the 2008 presidential waters before quickly withdrawing and casting his lot with her.
Indeed, the chamber is full of lawmakers with whom she can commiserate. Among the 99 other senators, 15 have run for president, to greater or lesser extents. **
That includes the two who are still at it, Obama and John McCain (one of whom, barring an unforeseen circumstance, will become the first sitting senator since John Kennedy in 1960 to win the office).
-- Don Frederick
Photo: Associated Press
** For true political junkies, the current senators -- aside from Clinton, Obama, McCain and Bayh -- who have sought the presidency are Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Joe Biden of Delaware, Sam Brownback of Kansas, Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Orrin Hatch of Utah, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, both of Massachusetts, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Richard Lugar of Indiana and Arlen Spector of Pennsylvania.
Our co-blogger over on the Technology blog, Jim Puzzanghera, has dug up an interesting new device in Washington -- yes, there are some. Or can be.
It seems the Sunlight Foundation, which seeks to explain the workings of Congress -- good luck with that one, too -- has come up with some way to pore through all of the blather uttered on the floors of the Senate and House every day.
And then their magic program distills it all down into one word each day.
We'd have some nominees here on The Ticket, but we're not allowed to publish those. Tuesday's Sunlight Foundation distilled word was, for instance, "health."
Jim explains how this works and provides links over here.
--Andrew Malcolm
Father's Day may have come early for John McCain, but in the Boren family of Oklahoma, they may just want to let it pass without notice.
Rep. Dan Boren, a two-term Democrat, made a splash earlier this week with his announcement that although he would be voting for his party's presumptive presidential nominee, he was not endorsing Barack Obama.
The Boren formulation struck many as odd ... including, it turns out, his father, a legendary political figure in the Sooner State who is president of the University of Oklahoma.
David Boren, a former governor and U.S. senator who chatted Friday with Chicago-based talk radio host Roland Martin, had this to say about his 34-year-old son: "I have to say I’m puzzled about how much thinking he put into that before he said it. I think he’ll probably be saying some other things."
The elder Boren, 67, continued: “He did say he was going to vote for Barack Obama. He just made the puzzling statement he wasn’t gong to endorse him. Well, when you say publicly you’re voting for somebody I think that means you’re supporting them."
A classic case of father knowing best.
The full interview can be heard here.
The younger Boren is not alone on Capitol Hill feeling a bit betwixt and between about the general election presidential matchup. Following the burst of attention David Boren got for his pronouncement, The Hill reported that at least 14 Republican members of Congress "have refused to endorse or publicly support" McCain.
That includes at least one whom the presumptive GOP nominee would want to steer clear of anyway -- Rep. John Doolittle, the House member from Northern California who is giving up his seat under an ethical cloud.
Then there's Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, McCain's erstwhile presidential rival, who's adopted Boren's stance -- he's disinclined ...
Read more David Boren on his son: a 'puzzling' Barack Obama stance* »
On this, the first anniversary of our Top of the Ticket blog, we are reminded of the mercurial, unpredictable nature of U.S. politics -- part of what makes what we do so fascinating.
Our goal -- one of us on the East Coast and the other on the far more important or at least less humid West Coast -- was to write about Campaign '08 virtually around the clock.
Our second-ever posting, 12 months ago today, previewed an upcoming L.A. Times/Bloomberg Poll; later in the day, we detailed the results of the nationwide survey. The findings were in line with other polls of the time.
In the Republican presidential race, which then seemed the most likely to last deep into the primary season, Rudy Giuliani was perched in first place. His lead wasn't overwhelming, but it was strong enough that he appeared certain to remain a major contender.
His liberal record on social issues loomed as an obvious liability within his party, but his tough-on-terrorism message was attracting substantial support from moderates and GOP-leaning independents.
His major headache among rivals last June was an as-yet-undeclared candidate who was riding a wave as the great conservative hope -- Fred Thompson. He ran a strong second in the poll.
Lagging far behind were John McCain and Mitt Romney, each barely with double-digit support. In our preview posting, we were especially scornful of McCain, noting sarcastically (and foolishly, as it turned out) that in the poll, he found himself "in heated competition with the 'Don't Know' category."
Meriting no mention from us was Mike Huckabee, one of several back-of-the-pack candidates barely earning any support across the country.
The Democratic race, at that point, seemed so much more cut-and-dried.
Hillary Clinton was the clear front-runner; Barack Obama was just as clearly ...
Read more Top of the Ticket, the start of Year Two »
Rep. Tim Mahoney of Florida knows his election to the House in 2006 was a fluke. He's the Democrat who happened to be on the ballot when a late-breaking sex scandal sunk the career of the seemingly entrenched Republican incumbent, Mark Foley. And even with that, Mahoney barely won his seat.
So as Mahoney seeks reelection in a Palm Beach-area district where Republicans are in the majority, what's his attitude toward his party's presidential race? About as hands off as he can get away with.
Mahoney, a superdelegate to the Democratic convention by virtue of his office, didn't make a pick when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were battling each other. Now that Obama has triumphed, Mahoney still plans to remain uncommitted. And, he told the Palm Beach Post, he may just skip the party confab in Denver this summer.
"I wasn't elected to be a role model as to how people should vote," Mahoney told his hometown newspaper. "People in my district are smart enough to decide."
And probably smart enough to recognize a politician ducking for cover.
-- Don Frederick
For the first time since he was elected to the Senate 24 years ago, John Kerry, who voted for the use of military force in Iraq before he opposed the conflict, will face a primary challenger for his Massachusetts seat.
Attorney and former Gloucester City Councilman Ed O'Reilly, a onetime commercial lobsterman, won 22.5% of the delega tes Saturday at the Democratic state convention in Lowell, Mass., to secure a place on the state primary ballot in September.
O'Reilly has been endorsed by Progressive Democrats of America, the antiwar group that helped activist Donna Edwards unseat eight-term incumbent Democratic Rep. Albert R. Wynn in Maryland earlier this year.
Just four years ago Kerry was the losing Democratic nominee for president. He won the state party's endorsement today by capturing a majority of the convention delegates. He's expected to turn back the challenge.
"I'm here with humility to ask for your support," Kerry said.. "We have literally so much unfinished business ... My friends, I have more energy, I feel more focused, I'm more ready for the fight than ever before."
The last serious challenge Kerry faced for the Senate seat was in 1996, when he beat Republican Massachusetts Gov. William Weld in what was seen as a contest between potential presidential contenders. He's not faced a Democratic challenger since winning a three-way primary in 1984 to succeed Sen. Paul Tsongas.
The winner of the Sept. 16 primary will face Republican candidate Jeff Beatty in the general election. Matthew Hay Brown has the full story here.
--Andrew Malcolm
Photo Credit: AP
Mark Friday on your calendars -- a politician freely acknowledged allowing provincial interests rather than the greater good to guide him.
The admission came from U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), and it occurred as he was trying to carry some water for presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain.
 McCain, campaigning Thursday in the Sunshine State, was asked why -- despite his professed support for using federal money to help restore the Everglades -- he last year voted against a bill that authorized such spending.
The problem, McCain said in Ft. Lauderdale, was that the bill also authorized spending for hundreds of other water-related projects. Thus, by his lights, it was one of those dreaded "pork-barrel" measures.
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama voted for the bill, and, predictably, his campaign got into it with McCain. Aside from disputing the negative characterization of the other projects, Obama aides noted that Florida Republicans were among the lawmakers who backed the legislation.
That latter point brought Diaz-Balart into the back-and-forth. Part of a conference call for reporters set up by the McCain campaign, he was asked to attack Obama for backing a bill that he also voted for.
Not an enviable position.
The Times' Terry McDermott listened to the call and relates that Diaz-Balart had this to say: "It’s important to note that out of $23 billion in the water bill -- a bill that I supported, having to hold my nose because of the issues that Sen. McCain correctly points out -- only $2 billion was for Everglades restoration.
"I voted for it because I was being parochial. I represent the entirety of the Everglades. Sen. McCain, thankfully, doesn’t play that game."
We can't help but wonder if Diaz-Balart wanted to so candidly concede that he does.
The water-projects bill, by the way, overwhelmingly cleared Congress last fall, becoming law despite President Bush's veto.
McCain, for his part, visited the Everglades on Friday. (Above is a shot of him and his entourage; he's in the front row, wearing a cap.)
-- Don Frederick
Photo credit: Getty Images
The theatrics of Hillary Clinton's exit from the Democratic presidential race has proved nettlesome, exemplified by the scheduling of her concession speech. On Wednesday evening, her camp announced it would take place Friday in Washington; then, in quick order, it was changed to Saturday.
The reason, according to a statement, was "to accommodate more of Sen. Clinton's supporters who want to attend."
Turns out, though, the shift to Saturday has inconvenienced a group of bedrock Clinton backers -- House members from her homestate of New York.
Newsday's Glenn Thrush reports that "the vast majority" of the lawmakers "will be skipping her Saturday drop-out announcement in Washington –- citing reasons ranging from town halls back in their districts to campaign obligations to the observation of the Jewish sabbath."
To compensate, several of the New Yorkers gathered for a new conference earlier today outside the Capitol to discuss the final act in the Democratic battle; Thrush's posting on it can be read here. Also available is video of the inimitable Charles Rangel, a veteran congressman from Harlem, presiding at the event (and periodically kvetching about the heat).
-- Don Frederick
The breaks keep going the Democrats' way in the developing battle for Capitol Hill.
Already reveling in results of special House races that would seem to portend November gains for them in that chamber, national Democratic leaders quietly cheered Tuesday's outcome in New Mexico's Republican Senate primary.
In the battle to replace venerable GOP incumbent Pete Domenici, who is retiring for health reasons, the more conservative of two contenders triumphed -- which should increase the odds that Democratic Rep. Tom Udall will capture the seat in the general election.
The GOP race was close, as expected. Rep. Steve Pearce, who hails from the state's southeast corner, edged out Albuquerque-area Rep. Heather Wilson, 51% to 49%.
Wilson's more moderate brand of Republicanism had been essential to her political survival in a swing House district in New Mexico's most populated area. But it proved her undoing in the statewide primary. And Democrats were left pleased that Wilson -- with her track record of attracting the votes of suburban independents -- won't be Udall's rival.
-- Don Frederick
Here's an issue -- probably one of the few -- that Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama won't be trading broadsides over as the presidential race enters it next phase: opening government spending to more public scrutiny.
Just today, the two men, along with a pair of other senators, joined as co-sponsors of a bill with that goal in mind -- even as McCain was expected to focus rhetorical fire on Obama in an evening speech in New Orleans and Obama, in remarks later tonight from Minnesota, prepared to do the same to McCain.
Talk about multitasking!
The bill is a follow-up to legislation that Obama, McCain and Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) pushed into law in 2006 (with the latter lawmaker playing an especially key role, given that GOP still controlled Congress at the time).
The original measure, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, created a single website -- USASpending.gov -- where the public, free of charge, can track down details on "all entities and organizations" receiving federal money. The proposal was hailed by an array of government watchdog groups and sailed through Congress.
The new bill aims to make more data more easily accessible to the public.
-- Don Frederick
A few weekends back, John Hager was the proud papa of the groom, no doubt beaming with pride and joy as his son, Henry, married President Bush's daughter Jenna at a relatively low-key wedding near Crawford, Texas.
This last weekend, the elder Hager had little reason to celebrate -- he was ousted as chairman of the Virginia Republican Party at a confab in Richmond.
It is awfully tempting to assume that Hager's fate just goes to show that there's little political percentage in getting too close to Bush these days.
Tempting, but off point.
Hager, 72, was defeated by 32-year-old Jeff Frederick (of no known relation to your dutiful blogger). The winner offered himself as a more conservative, vigorous leader for the Virginia GOP. And if there was a connection that was hurtful to Hager, it was his link to former Democratic Gov. Mark Warner. Hager held a midlevel job in the Warner administration, proof of moderate credentials that the state's Republican hard core didn't much appreciate.
Warner, who after a successful term as governor briefly flirted with launching an '08 presidential run, is back in the political news as his party's candidate for an open Senate seat in Virginia. And at the same convention where the state's Republicans consigned Hager to the sidelines, they picked as their candidate a former governor and a onetime (though very brief) presidential contender, Jim Gilmore.
-- Don Frederick
When President Bush was popular and his remaining time in office was long, congressional Republicans were quick to jump to his defense. Now, they are hugging their seats.
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's book has come out, and the president's putative Republican allies have been mostly silent. OK, so Congress is in recess. But when Bush was high in the polls, GOP lawmakers would rush to TV studios and send out mass e-mails to defend the president.
Democrats in Congress, of course, have been ready to pounce. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he had instructed his staff to begin discussions with McClellan to determine whether the committee should hold a hearing on revelations in the book about alleged attempts to cover-up the Valerie Plame leak.
Finally, a Republican has piped up. Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the panel's top Republican, said: “While I’m sure Mr. McClellan's publishers would want nothing more than some free publicity from Judiciary Committee Democrats, we have more important things to do on this committee than investigate the unfounded allegations of a disgruntled former employee. . . . It should not take a congressional hearing to determine that Mr. McClellan's statements are not credible.”
No mention of what's his name? Bush?
— Richard Simon
Among the 34 Democrats in California's House delegation, the number undeclared in their party's presidential race was reduced to 6 Friday when Rep. Jim Costa announced his support for Barack Obama.
The working number actually should be considered 5 since Nancy Pelosi, as House speaker, can be expected to remain on the sidelines -- publicly, at least -- until an unambiguous choice finally emerges.
Also Friday, the once large margin Hillary Clinton enjoyed over Obama within the delegation narrowed even further when Rep. Dennis Cardoza switched his allegiance from him to her her to him. In a statement, Cardoza said, "While I continue to greatly respect and admire Senator Clinton and feel she has made history with her campaign, I believe that Senator Obama will inevitably be our party's nominee for president."
That's the attitude the Obama campaign has been seeking to exude -- and hoping superdelegates would bow to. While the candidate and his aide no doubt are pleased by Cardoza's decision, what would really thrill them at this moment is if some of the women in the delegation still standing by Clinton would cross over.
Here's the latest breakdown among the Californians:
UNDECLARED (6)
Pelosi (District 8, San Francisco); Jerry McNerney (District 11, Pleasanton); Mike Honda, (District 15, San Jose); Sam Farr (District 17, Carmel); Bob Filner (District 51, Chula Vista); Susan Davis (District 53, San Diego).
CLINTON BACKERS (15)
Mike Thompson (District 1, St. Helena); Doris Matsui (District 5, Sacramento); Lynn Woolsey (District 6, Petaluma); Ellen Tausher (District 10, Alamo); Jackie Speier (District 12, Burlingame); Brad Sherman (District 27, Sherman Oaks); Hilda Solis (District 32, El Monte); Diane Watson (District 33, Los Angeles); Lucille Roybal-Allard (District 34, East Los Angeles); Maxine Waters (District 35, Los Angeles); Jane Harman (District 36, Venice); Laura Richardson (District 37, Long Beach); Grace Napolitano (District 38, Norwalk); Joe Baca (District 43, Rialto); Loretta Sanchez (District 47, Garden Grove).
OBAMA BACKERS (13)
George Miller (District 7, Martinez); Barbara Lee (District 9, Oakland); Stark (District 13, Fremont); Anna Eshoo (District 14, Menlo Park); Zoe Lofgren (District 16, San Jose); Cardoza (District 18, Atwater); Costa (District 20, Fresno); Lois Capps (District 23, Santa Barbara); Howard Berman (District 28, Valley Village); Adam Schiff (District 29, Burbank); Henry Waxman (District 30, Los Angeles); Xavier Becerra (District 31, Los Angeles); Linda Sanchez (District 39, Lakewood).
-- Don Frederick
As promised, here's The Ticket's Sunday morning TV guest list, posted every Saturday at noon Pacific time (3 p.m. EDT).
ABC's "This Week": Karl Rove and Barack Obama senior advisor David Axelrod; round table with Vanity Fair's Dee Dee Myers, Washington Post's E.J. Dionne, ABC News' Matthew Dowd and George Will.
 Bloomberg's Political Capital with Al Hunt: Mitt Romney and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.).
CBS' "Face the Nation": Hillary Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson, John McCain supporter Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Obama supporter Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
CNN's "Late Edition": Major Gen. Mark Hertling, Commander, Multi-National Division-North; Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice); Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas); Obama supporter Robert Reich; Clinton economic advisor Gene Sperling; McCain economic advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin; Mary Tillman, mother of Pat Tillman and author of a book about her son; CNN's Bill Schneider, Suzanne Malveaux and Gloria Borger.
C-SPAN's "Newsmakers": Major Gen. William Etter, National Guard Bureau, Acting Director of Joint Staff.
"Fox News Sunday": Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe; Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee; Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), chairman of Democratic National Campaign Committee; Col. Michael Colburn, director of the U.S. Marine Band; panel with Fox's Brit Hume, Nina Easton, William Kristol and Juan Williams.
NBC's "Chris Matthews Show": David Brooks of the New York Times, Andrea Mitchell of NBC News, Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post and Katty Kay of the BBC.
NBC's Meet the Press: CBN's David Brody, the New York Times' Maureen Dowd, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, the Washington Post's Ruth Marcus, Newsweek's Jon Meacham and NPR's Michele Norris.
-- Don Frederick
Photo: Sen. Lindsey Graham; Credit: EPA
Election Day is still more than five months away, and Barack Obama has yet to obtain the "presumptive nominee" tag in the Democratic presidential race. But if the verbal brickbats John McCain hurled at him today are any indication, a prospective general election matchup between the two will bear little resemblance to the reasoned, civil campaign both have said they will strive for.
 It's been fairly obvious for some time that McCain not only has less respect for Obama than Hillary Clinton, but that it's easier for the senator from Illinois to get his goat. McCain's reaction today to a barb Obama directed at him removed all doubts on those fronts.
Obama, taking to the Senate floor in the morning before returning to the campaign trail later in the afternoon, personalized an impending vote on a veterans benefits bill by noting McCain was against it. After making a nod -- as he almost always does when mentioning him -- to McCain's military record, Obama said, "I can't understand why he would line up behind" President Bush in opposing the measure.
A release from McCain, who was campaigning in California, followed quickly, notable for the unconcealed contempt expressed toward Obama.
It begins with a bold-faced quote from McCain: "Perhaps, if Senator Obama would take the time and trouble to understand this issue he would learn to debate an honest disagreement respectfully. But, as he always does, he prefers impugning the motives of his opponent, and exploiting a thoughtful difference of opinion to advance his own ambitions. If that is how he would behave as President, the country would regret his election."
So much for the Senate's tradition of collegiality.
Then, in the longer statement that follows, McCain has this to say about his potential White House rival: "And I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did."
In the past...
Read more Barack Obama gets under John McCain's skin »
Sen. Robert Byrd's endorsement today of Barack Obama was both oddly timed and illustrative of the state of the Democratic presidential race. 
Obama picked up the backing six days after he got flattened in the primary in Byrd's home state of West Virginia. Obama can be excused for thinking, "Thanks, but where were you a week ago?"
That said, a nod from Byrd -- who in 2006 passed the late Strom Thurmond of South Carolina as the longest-serving senator in U.S. history -- likely would have made only a negligible difference in the West Virginia vote (perhaps turning Obama's 41-percentage-point loss to Hillary Clinton into a 39-point one).
As venerable as the 90-year-old Byrd may be in the Mountain State, senatorial support generally offers presidential candidates little more than window dressing. These lawmakers rarely command a significant on-the-ground political apparatus, as distinct from some governors (whose endorsements, because of that, can carry clout). Obama, after all, was embraced by West Virginia's other senator, Jay Rockefeller, which obviously cut little ice.
Still, it is telling that Byrd would join the Obama camp after the candidate's West Virginia massacre -- and amid the probability that a presidential ticket ...
Read more Sen. Robert Byrd, one-time KKK member, backs Barack Obama »
With recent Congressional wins for the Democrats, the number of superdelegates has  changed and it will now take 2,026 instead of 2,025 delegates to win the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August (details will be here eventually; at last check it still had the April numbers)
So reset your calculators. And be ready to reset them again depending on what the DNC rules committee decides in a couple of weeks. And you serious junkies can always spend a little time on the delegate tracker. It's not as cool as that interactive map that John King plays with on CNN, but it will let you play analyst from the comfort of your own home -- or work cubicle. And we have to wonder -- on nights when Barack Obama can't sleep, do you think he dozes off by counting delegates?
-- Scott Martelle
"Colorado is my life," Republican candidate Bob Schaffer assured the state's voters this week in his inaugural television ad in what likely will be one of the nation's key Senate races. Striding toward the camera in the creatively produced spot, he proudly noted that he proposed to his wife "on top of Pike's Peak."
 Just one problem. The landscape looming behind him was Alaska's Mt. McKinley (at left, as photographed by Ansel Adams).
The website ColoradoPols.com (where the ad can be viewed) broke the news of the foulup on Wednesday. And other Colorado media outlets quickly jumped into the fray.
The Denver Post's political blog, in an item headlined "Name that mountain," reported that a "frustrated Dick Wadhams, Schaffer's campaign manager, conceded the mistake and said the ad would be pulled and re-edited with Colorado mountains."
The Rocky Mountain News wrote about it in a story headlined, "Schaffer's ad moved mountains." And the piece in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel was topped: "Schaffer might have an early climb in race after ad goof."
Some folks -- including operatives at the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee in Washington, who get paid to exaggerate -- have called the mishap Schaffer's "Mt. Macaca Moment," a reference to ...
Read more A Colorado Republican mistakenly touts an Alaskan landmark »
For aficionados of California politics, here's the to-the-minute breakdown of the allegiances among the state's 34 House Democrats -- superdelegates all -- in their party's presidential race, now that Reps. Henry Waxman and Howard Berman have announced their endorsements of Barack Obama:
[UPDATE -- On Friday, a day after this originally posted, Rep. Pete Stark, who had been undeclared, also announced for Obama.]
UNDECLARED (7)
Nancy Pelosi (District 8, San Francisco); Jerry McNerney (District 11, Pleasanton); Mike Honda, (District 15, San Jose); Sam Farr (District 17, Carmel); Jim Costa (District 20, Fresno); Bob Filner (District 51, Chula Vista); Susan Davis (District 53, San Diego).
CLINTON BACKERS (16)
Mike Thompson (District 1, St. Helena); Doris Matsui (District 5, Sacramento); Lynn Woolsey (District 6, Petaluma); Ellen Tausher (District 10, Alamo); Tom Lantos* Jackie Speier (District 12, Burlingame); Dennis Cardoza (District 18, Atwater); Brad Sherman (District 27, Sherman Oaks); Hilda Solis (District 32, El Monte); Diane Watson (District 33, Los Angeles); Lucille Roybal-Allard (District 34, East Los Angeles); Maxine Waters (District 35, Los Angeles); Jane Harman (District 36, Venice); Laura Richardson (District 37, Long Beach); Grace Napolitano (District 38, Norwalk); Joe Baca (District 43, Rialto); Loretta Sanchez (District 47, Garden Grove).
* [UPDATE]: Lantos passed away on Feb. 11; Speier won a special election to replace him.
OBAMA BACKERS (11)
George Miller (District 7, Martinez); Barbara Lee (District 9, Oakland); Stark (District 13, Fremont); Anna Eshoo (District 14, Menlo Park); Zoe Lofgren (District 16, San Jose); Lois Capps (District 23, Santa Barbara); Howard Berman (District 28, Valley Village); Adam Schiff (District 29, Burbank); Henry Waxman (District 30, Los Angeles); Xavier Becerra (District 31, Los Angeles); Linda Sanchez (District 39, Lakewood).
Since we first started periodic postings of this list on the eve of California's Feb. 5 primary, the only change in the numbers has resulted from the movement by four lawmakers -- Capps, Berman, Waxman and Stark -- from undeclared into the Obama camp.
-- Don Frederick
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