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WASHINGTON – It’s rare in the dog-eat-dog world of political fundraising to find a politician who’s willing to hit up his or her own donor base to give money to another candidate. But about a dozen senators e-mailed their personal donors in recent days asking them to give money to Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., who returned to the Senate this month for the first time since his brain hemorrhage late last year.
Johnson hasn’t said definitively whether he’ll run for re-election in 2008, but he’s certainly giving that vibe.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and other Democratic senators who went the extra mile to help raise money for Johnson this month were Richard Durbin of Illinois; Barbara Boxer of California; Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts; Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota; Patrick Leahy of Vermont; Carl Levin of Michigan; Bill Nelson of Florida; Jon Tester of Montana; and James Webb of Virginia.
Senators trying to race home this week for the extended weekend caused by the Jewish holiday had to fight for airline seats just like the average tourist, thanks to a new ruling from the airline industry.
Because of new ethics rules forbidding gifts to senators, the Air Transport Association ruled it would be a violation of the Senate’s gift ban to allow senators to continue their usual practice of double- and, sometimes, triple-booking flights.
At least three airlines – Continental, Delta and Northwest – have gone along with the industry ruling, wreaking havoc on senatorial schedulers.
Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson said Thursday that President Bush’s signature education program isn’t working and that he would provide federal education money with fewer strings attached.
“We’ve been spending increasing amounts of federal money for decades, with increasing rules, increasing mandates, increasing regulations,” Thompson said. “It’s not working.”
Thompson added that there are problems with Bush’s No Child Left Behind program, which requires annual testing and punishes schools that don’t make progress.
“No Child Left Behind – good concept, I’m all for testing – but it seems like now some of these states are teaching to the test and kind of making it so that everybody does well on the test; you can’t really tell that everybody’s doing that well. And it’s not objective,” Thompson said.
Instead, he said the federal government should be providing block grants as long as states set up objective testing programs.
Former Democratic Virginia Gov. Mark Warner announced Thursday that he will run next year for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Sen. John Warner, who is retiring after 30 years in office.
The men are not related.
Mark Warner, 52, ended speculation about his political future in a video e-mailed to supporters and media.
Warner ended his four-year term as governor with high approval ratings in January 2006. Unable to seek re-election because of Virginia’s unique ban on consecutive terms for governors, he turned his attention to a possible presidential bid but decided not to run.
Gen. David Petraeus’ high-profile report on Iraq is pumping new life into Sen. John McCain’s presidential bid, his backers say, making the Arizona Republican appear prescient and courageous on the campaign’s most vital issue.
Whether the new dynamic in Iraq can salvage McCain’s troubled campaign is far from certain. But he is wooing voters with a sense of momentum not seen since he drastically cut his staff and spending two months ago.
Senators say that McCain, more than any other presidential hopeful, benefited from Petraeus’ claim that the seven-month-old troop escalation in Iraq was mostly a success and has helped stabilize key parts of the country.
From the war’s start, McCain argued for more troops and was Congress’ most prominent defender of the increase that President Bush announced in January.
