The Note

W A S H I N G T O N September 3—
, 2003 -- Today's Schedule (all times Eastern):

—7:10 am: President Bush meets with the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, White House—9:30 am: Senate convenes for legislative business—9:45 am: Off-camera White House press gaggle with Scott McClellan—10:00 am: House Energy and Commerce Committee holds hearing on the recent blackout, Capitol Hill—10:30 am: Senate Budget Committee hears testimony from Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Capitol Hill—11:00 am: Reverend Al Sharpton attends the South Carolina AFL-CIO meeting, Myrtle Beach—12:15 pm: On-camera White House press briefing with Scott McClellan—12:15 pm: Senate party policy luncheons, Capitol Hill—2:00 pm: House convenes for legislative business—2:25 pm: President Bush takes part in a signing ceremony for trade agreements with Chile and Singapore, White House—2:30 pm: Congressman Dick Gephardt addresses the Alliance for Retired Americans, D.C.—2:30 pm: Senator John Kerry officially announces his presidential candidacy, Manchester, N.H.—3:00 pm: Senator Bob Graham walks down Main Street, Purcell, Okla.—4:00 pm: Arnold Schwarzenegger delivers a speech at California State University at Long Beach.—5:00 pm: Senator Kerry officially announces his presidential candidacy in a rally at Faneuil Hall, Boston—6:00 pm: Reverend Sharpton attends a private fundraiser, Baltimore—7:00 pm: Contra Costa Times/KTVU-2/KQED-FM Debate Forum in Walnut Creek, CA.—7:05 pm: Senator Graham attends a private fundraiser reception, Norman, Okla.—9:00 pm: Governor Howard Dean attends MeetUp, Santa Fe, NM

NEWS SUMMARY

Stop us before we become obsessed with process again.

The two main goals of political journalism should be to hold powerful interests accountable to the public interest and to explain to voters how to connect how they vote with what their government should do.

But send a pack of political reporters to cover a debate, a campaign kick-off, or, well, pretty much anything else, and the goals of political journalism would SEEM to be more like the obligation to illuminate how John Sasso and Bob Shrum are getting along, or whether Arnold Schwarzenegger's debate strategy will cost him in the polls.

Too often, sending a political reporter to do Robert Pear's job (and cover a story) yields nothing that will clothe a single child, provide health care to one pregnant woman, create one job, or even speak indirectly to those aspirations.

Take the two dominant political stories out there today: the next-day coverage of John Kerry's announcement tour and the pieces about Arnold's decision to not appear in tonight's debate (and limit his forensic aspirations to one debate at the end of the month in which, courtesy of the California Broadcasters Association, he will know the questions in advance of the event).

Leading up to tonight's debate at 7 pm ET (including Governor Davis in his own section, followed by Bustamante, McClintock, Ueberroth, Huffington, and Camejo), there is no major candidate activity in either the gubernatorial or presidential race, beyond Arnold's speech at 4 pm ET, and Kerry's continuing on his tour.

Yesterday, from the minute the Kerry traveling press corps got onto the story (swirling, per several Googling monkeys, for several weeks) that there was maybe, possibly, perhaps, talk of changes at the top of the campaign structure, reporters were giddy with excitement, with rapture rising on both the tarmac (the para-memory of the Reagan and Dole allusions dancing like sugar plums in media heads) and at a Des Moines metroplex custard stop, at which Senator Kerry made two separate tries to convince process mavens Glen Johnson and Mike Glover (in their best "Lord of the Flies" mode) that he didn't plan to shake up his staff.

Even a statement issued later which seems to have locked the Senator in to making no staff changes EVER failed to puncture the media's psychic obsession with trying to peel back more layers of the oniony iceberg hiding all the normal intra-campaign backbiting found in every well-staffed campaign (but even more so when you add in a Boston element; talented consultants who want to simultaneously keep working their corporate clients but have lots of say in the campaign; siblings; spouses; reporter-friendly staffers; a candidate who seems to have graduated from the Al Gore School of Campaign Management by Candidates; and the Gang of 500's old stand-by of "if he can't run a campaign, how can we trust him to run the country?").

We LOVE/HATE this classic Boston Herald sentence: "Kerry's clumsy handling of the shakeup rumors reflected his slow campaign start" --which is just what the kids on the corner in Roxy are thinking, dontcha know.

Given how much mania the political press was feeling yesterday over this Fournier-fueled story, Kerry actually ended up with pretty good coverage of his announcement itself, although, even there, process was the guiding construct, with CBS's Jim Axelrod, representatively, giving short shrift to what Kerry might actually DO as president, with a tight focus on Kerry's image "as the kind of starched shirt who orders his Philadelphia cheese steak with Swiss — a Philly no-no."

A classic manifestation (and Note favorite) of the press' process primacy used to come each day on CNN in 1992, when beat correspondent Gene Randall would close every spot with a stand up along these lines: "Tomorrow, Governor Clinton is off to the battleground state of Michigan; Thursday, it's Tennessee, all in his effort to court swing voters and fire up his base. Gene Randall, CNN, Chicago."

Great information for viewers, that.

Don't get us wrong — The Note is, of course, all about process — but for the love of the Founders, democracy, and President Bush's admirable distaste for all this stuff, let's all try to calm down just a bit and develop some sense of balance and perspective.

At least until tomorrow, when the DNC presidential candidate debate in New Mexico gives us all a chance to rev up the process machine again.

Oh, why wait until then?

President Bush is in D.C. today.

Senator Kerry heads from Des Moines to Manchester, New Hampshire, and then to Boston today to wrap up his announcement tour.

Governor Dean campaigns in Santa Fe, New Mexico, today. Today is national Howard Dean MeetUp day.

Senator Lieberman attends a luncheon fundraiser in Denver.

Reverend Sharpton campaigns in South Carolina and Baltimore.

Senator Graham campaigns in Oklahoma today.

Congressman Gephardt addresses the Alliance for Retired Americans today in D.C.

Ambassador Braun, Senator Edwards, and Congressman Kucinich have no public events.

John Kerry announces:Ron Brownstein's coverage was respectful and straightforward and generally spot on: "Overall, Kerry's speech did more to recapitulate than redefine the case he has made over the past year. But by drawing a succession of contrasts with Dean on taxes, gun control and foreign policy, the address outlined the arguments Kerry is hoping will allow him to recapture the initiative from the former Vermont governor." LINK

"Beyond the policy differences, the speech dramatized the military service Kerry believes will be one of his central advantages in the race."

"Mr. Kerry," says the Times ' Adam Nagourney,"[ … .]had promised to use this speech to lay out a central argument for a campaign that many Democrats had said lacked focus [and] used the word "courage" 10 times in offering what his aides said would be an overarching theme for his candidacy." LINK

USA Today 's Jill Lawrence's description of the "steamy morning, with the majestic USS Yorktown as a backdrop" is sure to make some campaign staffers smile this morning as they head back east. LINK

Nice page one pic, too. The Michael Deaver rule of campaign/presidential pictures lives on.

The Washington Post 's Diamond Jimmy VH assesses John Kerry's kickoff and his chances of becoming the nominee, coming up with paragraphs unlikely to hearten his headquarters: LINK

"Though Kerry has the résumé to battle Bush on this front — he was awarded a Bronze Star, a Silver Star and three Purple Hearts in Vietnam — it is far from clear if he has the message to win the battle for supremacy inside his own warring party, according to other Democrats."

David Guarino has Michael Dukakis handicapping Kerry v. Dean in the Boston Herald. LINK

Knight Ridder's Steven Thomma reports, "Rival campaigns suggested that Kerry's appearance in South Carolina showed he was preparing a Plan B in case he loses in New Hampshire. South Carolina is home to many military veterans." LINK

The Chicago Tribune's Jeff Zeleny looks at Kerry's decision to stage his announcement south of the Mason-Dixon Line. LINK

"Lagging" makes its way into the New York Post 's headline about Kerry's announcement. LINK

"Sputtering" is the way the New York Daily News describes the Kerry campaign. LINK

Lee Bandy has some kids at the announcement hot in the sun … "Because of a late start, much of the preliminaries was scrapped, leaving a lot of disappointed school kids who had rehearsed their patriotic musical numbers for weeks."LINK

And the Post Courier has Representative Clyburn not that hot on the carrier. "Some Democrats said Kerry has not shown that he's the candidate who can defeat Bush, and that Democrats have to play up their issues. 'Backdrops don't win it for you,' said U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., referring to the heavily decorated carrier Yorktown at Patriot's Point. 'You have to connect with a majority of voters,' he said. LINK

The Wall Street Journal 's Harwood went all the way to Charleston and got an elegant column about Kerry v. Dean out of it.

The Manchester Union Leader's ed board doesn't think Kerry is being particularly courageous. LINK

Will Saletan doesn't think Kerry sounds courageous. LINK

The Washington Times hits Kerry below the seat belt:LINK

"Senator John Kerry struggled to pull his presidential candidacy out of a free fall yesterday with a sharpened denunciation of President Bush's handling of the economy and the war against terrorism in Iraq."

" … Republican officials responded with disdain yesterday to Mr. Kerry's announcement. 'Maybe the candidacy he's announced today will be better than the one he's had for the past eight months, which finds him tied [in a CBS News poll] with Al Sharpton at 5 percent nationwide,'said Jim Dyke, chief spokesman for the Republican National Committee."

John Kerry announces, the staff:The Boston Globe 's Glen Johnson says the problem is this: "Political circles have crackled recently with stories that the media consultant Kerry brought into his campaign, veteran wordsmith Robert Shrum, was angering the staff, headed by campaign manager Jim Jordan and advised by John Sasso, who helped former Massachusetts governor Michael S. Dukakis win the Democratic nomination in 1988. In particular, Shrum was described as limiting access to Kerry amid a debate about how strongly to respond to Dean's momentum, including whether to criticize the former Vermont governor in the South Carolina speech." LINK

Johnson got Shrum to say on-the-record: "In the process of this speech being written, which John Kerry was very deeply and personally involved in, a lot of people offered suggestions about a lot of ideas … .One debate we did not have — at all — was whether this speech should slam Dean. That's just utterly and completely false."

And he denied a rift with Sasso.

The Herald says that "[t]he roles of Kerry's brother Cam and veteran consultant Bob Shrum, who authored Kerry's announcement speech, have grown in recent weeks, a source said."

Glover/Fournier have Shrum allegedly keeping the speech all to himself, although that mysteriously disappeared from later versions.

"Kerry's speech was written by the senator and Democratic consultant Bob Shrum with little input from the rest of his staff. Shrum, who recently joined the campaign, has been at odds with other senior aides who put the early pieces of Kerry's campaign together." LINK

The hullaballoo made the second paragraph of Tom Beaumont's story. LINK

The Politics of national security:The New York Times warns all the presidential candidates not to slide into easy blameism--not to use China a scapegoat for what ails this country. LINK

"China's trading partners do have legitimate grievances, but it would be irresponsible and inaccurate for American politicians to pin our economic sluggishness on scheming culprits in Beijing."

Dana Milbank, along with the world, on the politics of the president's policy in Iraq as it takes a turn toward UN Plaza: LINK

The Washington Post 's Broder and Allen look at GOP Hill concerns about the White House and Iraq. LINK

ABC 2004: Bush-Cheney re-elect:The Wall Street Journal 's Jeanne Cummings' "Bush Watchword" of the day is: "tolerance."

Cummings writes that "the White House is targeting suburban white voters in swing states and the fast-growing Hispanic population. Gains in those constituencies are critical to the president. Mr. Bush's advisers have concluded he likely will be out of a job if he receives support from the same percentage of white, black and Hispanic voters in 2004 as he did in 2000."

What say you Matthew Dowd?: "White House strategists say they consider the vast majority of black voters, who opposed Mr. Bush 9 to 1 four years ago, out of their reach. But 'tolerance issues send signals to a lot of folks, many of whom aren't just minorities,' says Matthew Dowd, White House polling expert."

The AP reports that the RNC is encouraging Republicans to get together Thursday night during the Albuquerque Democratic debate

"where a short volunteer 'recruitment' video will be shown." LINK

Jonathan Weisman has some spare news for the Bush economic team, including some insightful comments from one R. Glenn Hubbard and a Hubbard/Grant Aldonas print ping-pong match. LINK

"A day after President Bush promised concrete steps to arrest the loss of manufacturing jobs, concerned people inside and outside the administration said that previous White House policy decisions have had only marginal impact, and that some may have done more harm than good."

Dear Paul Gigot: see what they say about those steel tariffs!!

First Lady Laura Bush said yesterday that teachers were underpaid … "From her lips to God's ears," responded Randi Weingarten. LINK

Maureen Dowd says the Bush foreign policy team is "making it up as [they] go along" --- just like they say Clinton did. LINK

The New York Times editorial page doesn't buy the job czar concept. LINK

And the Manchester Union Leader's editorial page doesn't buy Ed Gillespie's definition of fiscal conservatism. LINK

ABC 2004: The Invisible Primary:

Administration rule changes about emergency rooms? If only there were a doctor in the race … LINK

Administration rule changes on an environmental issue? If only the Democrats were trying to woo environmentalists … LINK

Fourth correction down … LINK

Edwards:The AP's on the missed vote bandwagon: LINK

Dean:Read it here first: the text of the new Dean ad (replacing an old one) in South Carolina, Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Washington: "I'm Howard Dean and I approve this message because its time to stand up to George Bush. I opposed the war with Iraq when too many Democrats supported it, because I want a foreign policy consistent with American values. I opposed the Bush tax cuts because they are bad for the economy and they are costing us jobs. As Governor, I created jobs, balanced budgets, and made sure nearly every child in my state had health insurance. As President, I will make sure every American does too. Join the campaign; together we can take our country back. "

ABC News Dean campaign reporter Marc Ambinder says that on September 23, one of the most powerful local labor leaders in the country will host a fundraiser for Gov. Dean in New York City. A rep for SEIU 1199's Dennis Rivera says it's not a personal endorsement — and certainly not an indication of an impending SEIU endorsement. But to our knowledge, Rivera hasn't hosted a fundraiser for a presidential candidate this cycle. And a number of Dean campaign events in New York City have been held at 1199's headquarters. So you make the call.

As the bigger national labor unions begin their season of political conferences, look for the Dean campaign to ratchet up their efforts to prevent Congressman Gephardt from getting an AFL-CIO supermajority and to prevent Senator Kerry from getting a major public employee/service union endorsement. The campaign figures that if a few big unions decide not to endorse — or if they decide to endorse later in the year, rather than now — the better the chance that their candidate will cement his status as an acceptable alternative to a labor candidate like Gephardt.

Campaign aides tout recent polling in Iowa (reflecting their own internal polls) that show Dean leading among labor households — even among the relatively more conservative working class labor households. Their hope is to build enough grassroots support among labor voters in early states as to send a signal to the more pragmatically inclined national union leaders that they endorse an unelectable or relatively unpopular Democrat (even one with 100 percent fidelity to labor issues) at their peril.

A few weeks ago, Dean met privately with key decision-makers at the United Auto Workers headquarters in Michigan, a direct consequence, according to labor and campaign sources, of the candidate's growing support among UAW rank and file. That's not to say that the UAW is thinking about choosing Dean, or that they won't endorse Gephardt — only that something interesting and important could be happening.

Last week, Dean won the endorsement of two top Iowa activists — Tom Gillespie, the president of the Iowa State Building and Construction Trades council based in Des Moines, Iowa (which presidential candidate with a "K" in his name called Gillespie on the Dean plane?), and Sandy Opstvedt, President of the IBEW Iowa State Conference. Look for more of these single-person labor endorsements, especially in Iowa. It's a top priority of the staff there, along with tripling their volunteer base.

We don't have to tell you how Dean For America much energy and time is being spent courting some of the nation's undecided union leaders … Late last week, Dean interrupted his days off for two labor solidarity events; he met with Verizon workers in Burlington and joined striking Yale workers in New Haven. Those Yale workers, by the way, are members of a very important SEIU local.

Speaking of the SEIU, watch very carefully to see what the Service Employees International Union president Andrew Stern says in his Friday press conference previewing the SEIU's political conference. Stern's rank and file really seems to like Dean; Stern himself openly praises the guy, and top SEIU political staffers appeared to "get" Dean well before the rest of the world caught on.

Next Monday, Dean and other presidential hopefuls will hop from the SEIU gathering to private meetings with AFSCME leaders in Washington.

A Wall Street Journal editorial thinly praises Dean for "buck[ing] his party's orthodoxy" on public financing.

The AP in Vermont says doctors in the state are debating an assisted suicide bill … . and there's a certain doctor whose opinion on the matter we'd like to know … LINK

Delay vs Dean in the Washington Times :LINK

Gephardt:Of the campaign's new ads, the Associated Press says: "Trailing in New Hampshire polls and bunched at the top in Iowa surveys, Gephardt chose to go on the air with ads that tout his experience while sounding campaign themes of economic revival and health care for all Americans." LINK

The Nashua Telegraph followed Mr. Gephardt across their fair state yesterday. LINK

Lieberman:ABC News Lieberman campaign reporter Talesha Reynolds has more detail about Lieberman's health care plan: the idea behind the candidate's MediKids and MediChoice — new national purchasing pools — is based on the federal employee health benefits program, wherein government workers enjoy quality care at affordable prices, she reports.

Lieberman's program is incremental, beginning with the childrens' programs and then moving to include adults "as our economy improves and the deficit comes down under the new economic leadership I intend to provide." The Lieberman team hopes to reach more than 31 million uninsured in 10 years.

Reynolds says that Lieberman received enthusiastic praise from his friend/Yale associate professor Dr. K.J. Lee, who said, "He's fixing the system rather than throwing dumb money at it and making a worse problem 8 years from now."

USA Today 's Susan Page delivers a brief write-up of the plan, which she describes as "less far-reaching and less expensive than competing proposals by rivals including [ … ] Gephardt."LINK

USA Today also has a handy cheat sheet for the presidential health care pitches. LINK

The Wall Street Journal 's Jacob Schlesinger Notes, "Mr. Lieberman's [health care] proposal is more extensive than the one put forth by Al Gore, his former running mate, in the 2000 presidential election, and it carries a price about sixfold higher than President Bush has proposed to spend on the issue."

"But Mr. Lieberman's proposal is right in line with three of the four other plans Democrats have floated so far in this campaign, and illustrates that even party centrists see health insurance as a main line of attack against the White House, just as Bill Clinton did against Mr. Bush's father in 1992."

The AP's Ron Fournier also writes up the fine points of the plan. LINK

The Boston Globe 's Raja Mishra writes that "the plan mirrors Lieberman's generally moderate political approach." LINK

The plan received respectful coverage from the New York Times . LINK

and from the Des Moines Register . LINK and from the Washington Post . LINK

Clark:Terry Neal looks at the civilians pulling the Wesley Clark bandwagon, finding they are committed … and decidedly short on funds:LINK

The Clintons of Chappaqua:"During a luncheon for the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, [Senator Hillary] Clinton hammered Bush's 'arrogant' administration over its foreign policy while still insisting she doesn't want his job," reports Stephanie Gaskell in the New York Post .LINK

"'They're obsessed about maintaining control and not internationalizing it because they don't want to share any kind of command,' she said."

"Clinton warned to 'watch out' for leaders who want total control because it clouds their judgment.".

"'They're losing control trying to hang on to total control,' she said."

The New York Daily News has HRC "standing firm" on "no '04 prez run." LINK

Legislative agenda:"With the 2004 presidential campaign getting into full swing, Democrats and Republicans alike say they are running out of time for major legislative accomplishments that require bipartisan compromise. The partisanship in the Capitol was palpable today, within hours after the lawmakers' return," says the Times ' Sheryl Gay Stolberg. LINK

The Washington Times says GOP senators plan to force their Democratic counterparts to take a stand on gay marriage and on the idea of making the Defense of Marriage Act the 28th Amendment to the Constitution. Notes the paper, "Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts was one of only 14 senators and the only major contender for the Democratic ticket to vote against DOMA in 1996. Sens. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bob Graham of Florida voted for the measure. Senator John Edwards of North Carolina and Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio weren't elected to Congress at the time."LINK

Big Casino budget politics:

The Hill's Bob Cusack writes up the behind-the-scenes role former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is playing on Medicare reform. LINK

USA Today 's William Welch writes about how some observers don't like either the House or the Senate's health care plans, and that "might slow progress toward what looked like a political triumph two months ago." LINK

California recall, Arnold:Mark Z. Barabak of the Los Angeles Times explores Team Schwarzenegger's decision to skip today's debate. LINK

"[It] reflects a course he has pursued throughout his recall run. The actor and first-time candidate has limited his exposure to questions on most substantive issues and has favored controlled settings that allow him to be seen in public while minimizing the opportunities for give-and-take — or potentially embarrassing gaffes."

"The strategy carries it own peril, however, giving opponents the opportunity to raise questions about Schwarzenegger's preparedness for office, his familiarity with state matters and his willingness to go through the rigors that other, less-celebrated candidates are forced to endure."

And as a reminder of the many years of political experience on Mr. Schwarzenegger's staff, Mr. Barabak shares this wonderful detail.

"Organizers of the debate had planned to have an empty chair on the stage this afternoon, underscoring Schwarzenegger's refusal to attend, but changed their minds after his aides strenuously objected."

ABC News' Schifrin reports on Schwarzenegger's hastily scheduled one-on-one interviews with Los Angeles television reporters. Mr. Schwarzenegger argued that his schedule will be so busy in the coming weeks, and that he will be delivering his message so often, that voters "will start to get sick of me by the time of the election."

The San Jose Mercury News' Dion Nissenbaum and Mary Anne Ostrom analyze Mr. Schwarzenegger's debate (or lack thereof) strategy. LINK

"The actor's decision to avoid the nationally televised forum is the latest example of a calculated end run around the political establishment that Schwarzenegger is betting will propel him to the Capitol on Oct. 7."

"Despite pledges from his advisers that the actor wouldn't run his campaign like a staged Hollywood movie premiere, Schwarzenegger is dodging tough questions, delaying interviews with political reporters and diverting criticism of his thin knowledge of state government by staging pep rallies that allow him to grab the spotlight without stumbling."

"It's a risky strategy with potentially big rewards."

Joe Matthews' "Ad Watch" box on the Schwarzenegger campaign's new 15 second spot lambasting the current Sacramento culture as one beholden to special interests. In fact, "special interests" is the name of the spot and is also expected to be a major theme in the candidate's counter-debate speech to be delivered today in Long Beach.LINK

Arnold Schwarzenegger first described his 1977 comments in Oui magazine as outrageous statements from his youth, then he claimed to have no recollection of the interview, and now the Los Angeles Times' Joe Matthews reports that the actor turned gubernatorial candidate says some of those comments were fabricated for publicity purposes. LINK

"'I made statements that were crazy, statements that — a lot of them were not true and just exaggerated situations,' he told NBC's Channel 4. 'I knew they would get headlines. We were promoting bodybuilding, we were promoting [the 1976 documentary] 'Pumping Iron.'"

The crafty Sean Walsh says there is no change in his candidates' response.

"'Arnold has conducted probably thousands of interviews over his bodybuilding, entertainment and now political careers. You don't remember every interview. Just as a reporter who writes thousands of stories over the years doesn't remember every interview and every paragraph he's written.'"

In USA Today , Michael Medved wonders what exactly might draw a big time movie star into the less than glamorous world of politics. LINK

California recall, the governor:DiFi TV. Senator Feinstein says there is no significance to be found in the decision to not refer to Gray Davis by name in the campaign ads set to begin airing today. But that didn't stop many of the press accounts of the ads from highlighting the absence. LINK

"'Don't attach anything to that,' said Feinstein on Tuesday, dismissing the absence of Davis' name from the two 30-second spots that she says she 'pretty much' wrote herself. 'It was just the way it came out. Everybody knows his name.'"

Yup, the New York Times led with the missing Governor Davis too. LINK

Democratic consultant Gale Kaufman talked with Beth Fouhy of the Associated Press and she doesn't seem to think the omission of the governor's name and image was accidental. LINK

"'I think it's a huge concession on the governor's part to allow Dianne Feinstein to go on the air with an ad that doesn't name him,' said Democratic consultant Gale Kaufman. 'When your numbers are where his are, the best commercial you could do would be to talk about the recall itself and the damage that could be caused by it.'"

Writing up Dianne Feinstein's ad on Davis' behalf, Mr Balz of the Washington Post offers some finely-aged color, harkening back to a birthday party for the Senator this summer: LINK

"After birthday toasts, Feinstein stood up to respond and toward the end of her remarks turned to Davis. She bluntly told him, according to several people present, that he had to get off the defensive and start to fight back, recalling her experience in 1983 when there was a recall effort against her as mayor of San Francisco."

"'She said that she had been through this herself and that it is a really tough, humiliating experience and that she had been very depressed about it, and that Willie Brown [current San Francisco mayor] had come to her and said . . . to fight the recall, and she did and she beat it and that's what Davis had to do,' Democratic strategist Bill Carrick said."

And the poetry of Senator Feinstein coming to Gray Davis' defense is of course not lost on Mr. Balz.

Jim Puzzanghera of the San Jose Mercury News was all over Senator Feinstein's unlikely star turn in the Davis ads too. LINK

The San Francisco Chronicle's Mark Simon and Robert Salladay team up to write an absolute must-read about the lower than expected dollar amounts being raised by the primary pro-recall committee with all the media attention focused on question 2. LINK

California recall, the rest of the field:The New York Times gives Tom McClintock a lot of space today, but it is largely dedicated to the candidate's least favorite (and most asked) question. When does he plan to drop out of the race? LINK.

Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante is using big business as a foil in his attempt to rally the Democratic faithful reports Mark Martin of the San Francisco Chronicle.LINK

Dan Morain of the Los Angeles Times also takes a look at the murky rules governing Proposition 34 and explains just how the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians are able to funnel $1.5 million to the lieutenant governor. LINK

A Republican state senator is asking the California Fair Political Practice Commission to investigate. LINK

Sue Fox of the Los Angeles Times explores a possible dimming of Arianna Huffington's media moment. LINK

Politics:Tucked inside Mark Leibovich's profile of Tom Daschle's annual roadtrip around The Mount Rushmore State: More than you ever wanted to know about the Senate Minority Leader's personal habits … and a prediction that fewer than nine Democratic presidential candidates will still be standing come January. LINK

And this is the Daschle Steve Moore might still not knows exists!!

And check out the Leibovich-as-photog fruits!!!

Now it's the Texas 10 … "State Senator John Whitmire came home to Houston late Tuesday, possibly ending the long holdout by Texas Democratic senators who fled the state to prevent a vote on congressional redistricting." LINK

Watch this story: "Gov. Jeb Bush on Tuesday had a message for critics of his ban on racial preferences in university admissions. Told you so. Florida universities this year saw the biggest percentage increase in freshmen minority enrollment since Bush's One Florida plan took effect three years ago, new figures show." LINK

Salon offers a four-count'em-four page look at Tom DeLay's fundraising and finances:LINK

"DeLay is also a master of the sometimes dark art of political fundraising. His skill at raising money has helped the GOP maintain its dominance in Congress and has made him perhaps the most feared Texas politician since Lyndon Johnson. But in the 2002 Texas coup, he left behind a muddy trail: A close scrutiny of the money he funneled into the state suggests DeLay may have violated several state laws along the way."

And Salon takes a look at the politics behind the Axis of Alamo — Texas Democrats, Karl Rove and Tom DeLay — and says race is the reason for the standoff. LINK

The Washington Times covers an Annenberg survey of the Hispanic community, touted by White House favorite and Annenberg Fellow Adam Clymer on NPR this ayem: LINK

Would you like to buy a vowel? Pat Sajak serves as guest at a dinner for _nn C__lt_rLINK

BCRA:The Hill's Alexander Bolton curtain raises Monday's oral argument on McCain-Feingold. LINK

Bush Administration strategy/personality:

Scott McClellan has an opening for a deputy:LINK

And dog lovers please don't fret. Ms Rodriguez says Barney is doing well:LINK