Political junkies have a new place to get their fix

Perhaps you are curious about the millions that the Republicans are spending on Norm Coleman, or the sums that the Democrats are spending on Al Franken?

Or maybe you need to know how much Democrats are throwing at Carol Porter Shea up in New Hampshire.

Well, here’s the link for you.

The Campaign Finance Institute, which does some of the most thoughtful work on campaign money, is boiling down on a daily basis the amounts that the Democratic and Republican parties are spending on independent expenditures in congressional, senatorial and presidential races.

-- Dan Morain

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Ted Stevens' conviction the crowning blow in bad year for GOP senators

More than a year ago, The Ticket noted how everything seemed to be coming up roses for the Democrats as the landscape took shape for 2008 Senate races.

Now, with the election a week away, the party caught still another break with the conviction this afternoon of the longest-serving Republican in the Senate -- Ted Stevens of Alaska -- on all seven counts of failing to report an array of gifts.

Most obviously, the jury's verdict is a huge blow to Stevens' bid for a seventh full Senate term.

Is it a fatal one?

We'd pause before writing off Stevens -- even with a felony conviction weighing him down -- because of the  status he long enjoyed among his constituents. And in a statement he issued, Stevens, right, made clear he'll depict himself as the target of unscrupulous and unethical federal prosecutors. "This verdict is the result of the unconscionable manner in which the Justice Department lawyers conducted this trial."

But Anne Hays of the Anchorage-based Hays Research Group showed no hesitation to make a political prediction as word spread in her state of Stevens' conviction.

"I think it sinks him," she told us as word spread of Stevens' conviction. His race against Democrat Mark Begich "had tightened up," she noted. "But I think this will break it out again" in Begich's favor.

More broadly, the verdict is yet another stain on a GOP brand ...

Barack Obama's upcoming TV "special" provides fodder for John McCain

A week from tonight, Barack Obama tries to seal the deal with voters who still may be up for grabs by appealing to them through a nationally televised, prime-time, 30-minute infomercial.

It will be the latest manifestation of how his campaign's phenomenal fundraising has meant that money is no object for it as election day nears. But it also has presented John McCain with something new to taunt.

Speaking in New Hampshire this morning, McCain told his audience that Obama was "looking pretty confident these days." He added: "He'll be addressing the nation soon. He's got another of those big stadium spectacles in the works."

Then came his payoff line: "But acting like the election is over won't let him take away your chance to have the final say in this election."

Expect to hear variations of this theme over the next few days, as McCain increasingly depicts himself as the feisty underdog taking on a cocky frontrunner.

Also expect that as the Obama campaign grapples with how to program and produce its half-hour extravaganza, a setting with Greek columns won't figure in their plans.

-- Don Frederick

Humongous crowd greets Barack Obama in St. Louis; that might worry his campaign

The advance crew for a Barack Obama rally in St. Louis on Saturday certainly performed above and beyond -- a throng estimated at 100,000, a figure a police official signed off on, jammed into the area around the city's Gateway Arch to hear the candidate hold forth. (See the video by clicking on the Read more line below.)  

A large gathering also was massing in the evening for an Obama appearance across the state in Kansas City.

But rather than get a raise, might those hard-working Obama staffers in Missouri need to fear for their jobs?

We ask, mainly in jest, to offer a reminder that big crowds have not necessarily been a boon for the Democratic presidential candidate. Consider:

** The weekend before the New Hampshire primary in early January, much of the buzz concerned the packed houses awaiting Obama as he traversed the state. On primary day, he suffered a stunning upset loss to Hillary Clinton.

** A few days before Pennsylvania's April primary, Obama attracted an overflow crowd -- widely estimated at 35,000 -- to downtown Philadelphia. On primary day, Clinton easily bested him.

** His largest audience to date -- roughly 200,000 -- was recorded overseas, for his much-touted speech in Berlin in late July. John McCain's brain trust effectively used that against Obama as part of its late-summer ad campaign.

** That Obama attracted 80,000 people to Invesco Field in Denver for his speech wrapping up the Democratic National Convention was quickly forgotten when, the next morning, McCain unveiled Sarah Palin as his running mate.

More to the point -- and as Obama's top operatives well know -- large, raucous....

To warn backers against overconfidence, Barack Obama spotlights two words

Like most politicians, Barack Obama is not often the soul of brevity (he might have been better served, for instance, by ending his chat with the now-famous Joe the Plumber before uttering that "spread the wealth" line).

Today, though, Obama had a snappy reminder for supporters with short memories.

Appearing before more than 100 major contributors at a fundraising breakfast in Manhattan, the front-runner in the presidential race said: “For those of you who are feeling giddy or cocky or think this is all set, I just have two words for you: New Hampshire.”

Obama was referencing his campaign's jolt-of-reality setback last January in the Granite State. Hot on the heels of his triumph in Iowa, an Obama win in New Hampshire's primary might have effectively ended the Democratic race. Polls showed him solidly ahead. But when the votes were counted, he lost by a couple of percentage points to Hillary Clinton.

“I’ve been in these positions before when we were favored and the press starts getting carried away and we end up getting spanked,” he continued this morning. “That’s another good lesson that Hillary Clinton taught me, so we want to make sure that we are closing strong, running through the tape.”

That said, Obama could not resist looking ahead, beyond the Nov. 4 election.

“One of the things that I think we have to remember is that we are now 19 days, not from the end, but from the beginning," he said. "The amount of work that will be involved for the next president is going to be extraordinary.”

Hard to argue with that.

-- Don Frederick

Photo credit: Associated Press

Barack Obama, other Democrats call for fixes to caucus/primary scheduling

For most folks, the inanity that marked the early part of this campaign's caucus and primary calendar no doubt has been forced from memory -- like a bad dream.

To review:

-- The states that have come to view their sway in the nomination battles as a God-given right played every card at their disposal to hang on to their special places in the process. At one point, the specter loomed of Iowa caucuses that convened before 2008 even arrived! As it was, the caucuses and the New Hampshire primary were crammed into the year's first few days (holiday cheer be damned).

-- Other states, anxious for a greater voice, tried to muscle their way into the action. One result: Rogue primaries in Florida and Michigan that ended being a long-term headache for the Democrats. Another: So many states scheduled their contests for the same day -- the first Tuesday in February -- that several of the candidates simply had to ignore some of them (in the case of Hillary Clinton, a consequence that cost her dearly).

The defects were well-noted by hard-core politicos -- (Democratic activist Elaine Kamarck, for instance, was reflecting on needed fixes back in April, and discussions have been underway within Republican circles on the matter.

Today, Barack Obama's campaign, in conjunction with the Democratic National Committee, announced a step designed to prevent a repeat of what happened this year.

As Democrats start gathering in Denver this weekend for the national convention that starts Monday, the party will be asked to establish a special commission to grapple with the timing of the nomination calendar and other aspects of delegate selection. (Goals will include reducing the number of "superdelegates")

Our colleague Frank James has more on the move at the Swamp.

-- Don Frederick

Battleground bucks favoring Barack Obama over John McCain

With Barack Obama on vacation and John McCain maintaining a schedule light on generating news, we decided to poke around at the Open Secrets site, to see where the money is going from donors in likely battleground states.

Advantage: Obama.

Now we realize where the donations come from does NOT mean that the votes will follow. But it's still interesting to take the measure of it. Below is The Times' interactive map of states, with the battleground states defined as those in which the margin of 2004 victory was less than 8 percentage points.

Now we go over to Open Secrets and look at its tables of states and political contributions. For the purposes of these tables, we're leaving out the withdrawn candidates. And the totals include primaries, which skews the results a bit for Obama since the Democratic fight was more protracted than the Republican fight. But it's still interesting to mull.

                                                                                                                                       

State	McCain raised	Obama raised	advantage
Colorado	$1,791,828	$3,386,366	Obama
Delaware	208,016	230,955	Obama
Florida	9,793,200	8,092,536	McCain
Iowa	254,430	644,961	Obama
Michigan	2,942,741	2,467,003	McCain
Minnesota	1,215,608	1,786,394	Obama
Missouri	1,359,332	1,988,004	Obama
Nevada	1,147,931	751,545	McCain
New Hampshire	538,505	945,474	Obama
New Jersey	2,990,941	4,727,378	Obama
New Mexico	319,863	1,192,070	Obama
Ohio	1,866,001	2,134,689	Obama
Oregon	650,964	1,813,428	Obama
Pennsylvania	2,575,068	4,942,149	Obama
Washington	1,317,906	4,995,383	Obama
Wisconsin	831,661	1,378,850	Obama

-- Scott Martelle

On a day of Clinton-Obama unity in Unity, GOP offers video reminder of disunity

You kind of remember the long Democratic primary campaign as, first of all, long. Even at times bitter.

Hillary Clinton, speaking today with the Democratic winner, Barack Obama, in New Hampshire, said, "It was spirited because we both care so much." Watching this video no one would doubt the caring, but it sure wasn't about each other.

"Spirited" would not quite describe some of the exchanges by Democratic candidates discussing Obama, which in the interests of the opposite of unity, the Republican National Committee has generously assembled and is suppressing widely around the country today as an antidote to the Democrats' "Kumbaya" spirit.

No doubt it's deeply appreciated.

--Andrew Malcolm

Did Barack Obama re-open 'sweetiegate' in Unity?

Among the concerns some of Hillary Clinton female backers have with Barack Obama is the perception that he can slide into misogynist comments at the blink of an eye. And as we mentioned in an earlier post today, he made an odd, unplanned comment about women and heels during his Unity moment of rapprochement with Clinton. (The Swamp looks at Obama and John McCain on women's rights.)

This is from the transcript of the appearance: "[B]ecause of the campaign that Hillary Clinton waged, my daughters and all of your daughters will forever know that there is no barrier to who they are and what they can be in the United States of America. They can take for granted that women can do anything that the boys can do (cheers begin) -- and do it better, and do it in heels. I still (Obama laughs) --  I still don't know how she does it in heels."

Clinton laughed with him, but for a guy with some pretty good political instincts -- or who has at least hired people with good political instincts -- it was an odd verbal cul de sac to turn into. Remember, Obama caught some serious flak a few weeks back by dismissing a Michigan television reporter with a "sweetie." And he was criticized during a debate performance for another off-the-cuff comment about Clinton being "likable enough." Now he falls into the faux-joke of expressing amazement that a woman can outperform a man despite wearing heels.

That's not likely to go very far in mending fences with women already suspicious of him.

UPDATE: Tommy Vietor, Obama spokesman, says via e-mail that although Obama didn't cite Ann Richards, that was the genesis of his comment: "Sen. Obama was referencing Ann Richards' famous quote: 'Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.' Certainly Gov. Richards didn't mean [to] make that comment, as you described, as a 'faux-joke of expressing amazement that a woman can outperform a man despite wearing heels,' and it's disappointing that you'd draw that cynical conclusion."

Fair enough. But Vietor -- like many posters below -- missed the point of the blog item. For a candidate with past troubles with off-the-cuff comments on gender, it struck us as an odd comment. Some took offense; many did not (read the comments for a rather scathing discussion). Remember, this is a political blog, where we write about the political implications of campaign events and appearances.

-- Scott Martelle

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton tie the political knot in Unity

Well, they did it, though it would have been quite the surprise if they hadn't after all the build up. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton shared the stage in Unity, New Hampshire, a few minutes ago and sought to put their often contentious pasts behind them and focus their supporters on the general election. (See video below.)

Given the goal of the day -- unity -- it wasn't a time to break out new policy, and Obama didn't. They essentially made nice, smiled a lot, sang each other's praises and then tried to rally the troops (The Swamp has a take on this, too).

And the coziness of the day began before they even left Washington, reports our colleague Noam Levey, who traveled with them. Obama and Clinton shared a half-embrace on the tarmac at Washington Reagan National airport then boarded the plane that Clinton used in her campaign. They settled in next to each other in the second row on the left side of the plane, Obama taking the window.

The chumminess continued once they arrived at Unity, with Clinton telling the crowd of more than 4,000 people, "Unity is not only a beautiful place, as we can see it's a wonderful feeling isn't it?" Obama joined the audience in applauding the sentiment, "And I know what we start here in this field in Unity will end in the steps of the Capitol when Barack Obama takes the oath of office as our next president."

Later, Clinton addressed the sometimes edgy tone of the campaign, saying  "It was spirited because we both care so much." But we are one party, we are one America,” she said. We "are not going to rest until we take back out country and put it on the path to peace, prosperity and progress."

Then it was Obama's turn (his prepared comments are after the jump). He sang Clinton's praises as a rival, then made a direct play for unity citing her and Bill Clinton's lengthy presence in national politics. "We need them," Obama said.

"We need them badly... That's how we're going to bring about unity in the Democrat Party and how we're going to bring about unity in America."

After making some odd comments about Clinton campaigning in heels -- that won't do much to dispel anger among some of Clinton's female supporters -- Obama talked about the historic nature of both their campaigns. "Hillary and I may have started with separate goals in this campaign, but we have made history together.

"Together, we inspired tens of millions of Americans to participate, some to cast ballot for the very first time, others who voted for the first time in a very long time. And together, in this campaign, in 2008, we shattered barriers that have stood firm since the founding of this nation."

(UPDATE: Susan Pinkus of the L.A. Times Poll provides the following information:: In our latest Times/Bloomberg national poll, two-thirds of Clinton's supporters said they would vote for Obama, 11% said they would vote for John McCain, the Republican nominee, 12% said they were undecided and the rest went to third party candidates.)

--Scott Martelle and Michael Muskal

Photo credit: Mario Tama / Getty Images