Democratic National Committee

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes, a Maryland Democrat who earned national attention for his role in forcing President Richard M. Nixon from office, doesn't think much of the way his successors on the House Judiciary Committee are handling the impeachment drive against President Clinton."

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton plans to visit Baltimore on Thursday to promote his proposal for increased spending to clean up the nation's water supply.Clinton's remarks, at an as-yet undetermined site, will be followed by a luncheon at the Harbor Court Hotel with donors who have given at least $10,000 to the Democratic National Committee Business Council, according to Maryland congressional sources.In his latest budget proposal, Clinton calls for spending $568 million -- a 35 percent increase -- on a joint initiative of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Agriculture department to prevent pollutants from draining into waterways.

WASHINGTON -- Riding a strong minority vote and wave of Democratic disgust with attacks on the president, Democrats defied all odds to hold their ground in the Senate -- and may have actually gained ground on the Republican majority.The early upsets were stunning -- in particular the defeat of Republican Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato in New York -- as one close race after another broke Democratic. Republican dreams of a filibuster-proof, 60-vote majority seemed to lie in tatters, although they seemed realistic just weeks ago."

An excerpt from a recent Providence Journal-Bulletin editorial: ATTORNEY General Janet Reno was correct to authorize the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. Mr. Babbitt is accused of lying to Congress about whether he based a policy decision on financial contributions to the Democratic Party. These serious charges deserve to be thoroughly probed.Mr. Babbitt said the pending appointment of an independent counsel means that "the list of hidden costs one has to pay for public service has just grown a little longer."

WASHINGTON -- Two hundred New York Democrats sat down to a three-course dinner at the posh Waldorf-Astoria Hotel last night. At $5,000 a person, the tab was steep even by Manhattan standards. No cash was accepted, just checks, payable to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.President Clinton himself arrived there directly from a Democratic dinner (also $5,000 a plate) at the Rainbow Room, where House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt introduced him and guests enjoyed the singing of James Taylor.

WASHINGTON -- Four years ago, there was a single $100,000 political donor in the entire state of Maryland. But in the 1996 campaign, at least 14 heavy hitters cracked that barrier, according to a Sun analysis of federal campaign records.The explosion of big-money giving from Maryland was a reflection of a broader trend. Nationally, the total contributed by wealthy individuals, corporations and labor unions tripled between 1992 and 1996, the same as it did statewide.Around the country, Republicans raised the most money.

WASHINGTON -- It's been a year since the campaign-finance scandal broke. Since then, everything's changed.There has been a cascade of news disclosures, each more damaging than the last, showing fund-raising excesses within the Democratic National Committee and a river of money flowing through congressional politics. There have been ominous reports of Asian money. There has been the bald statement, made by the chairman of the Senate committee examining campaign finance, that the Chinese government had a plan to affect the outcome of the American elections.

WASHINGTON -- The Democratic National Committee quietly transferred at least $32 million to state Democratic parties in the last election as part of an elaborate plan to spend more money than federal election law appeared to allow on a massive advertising campaign that indirectly helped re-elect President Clinton.The plan was conceived and coordinated by the Clinton-Gore campaign staff and Democratic Party officials as an end run around legal spending limits, according to documents and interviews with Democratic officials.

WASHINGTON -- An FBI agent investigating campaign finance abuses testified yesterday that Yah Lin "Charlie" Trie, a former Arkansas restaurateur turned Democratic fund-raiser, engaged in a money laundering scheme and tried to enrich himself by capitalizing on his friendship with President Clinton.Aided by charts with arrows pointing in all directions, the agent, Jerry Campane, told the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee that he believed that Trie, his wife and his secretary contributed $220,000 to the Democratic Party between 1994 and 1996 by using "a steady stream of funds from foreign sources," mostly from a business partner in Asia.

NEW YORK -- Traffic came to a big-shot-on-board standstill in midtown Manhattan last Wednesday night.Abandoning our taxi, my wife and I joined the march up Madison Avenue, until walking slowed at 63rd Street, where there were enough policemen, police cars and ambulances around to invade Canada."

A surge of Republican campaign cash in August, the month that conservatives stormed Democrats' town hall meetings on health care, is generating upbeat media coverage for the party and its national chairman, Michael S. Steele. The latest fundraising numbers follow recent predictions that Republicans could score significant gains in the 2010 elections. New polling also shows the potential for Republican victories in governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey this fall. When Maryland's former lieutenant governor became RNC chairman, one of the questions was whether his committee would maintain its fundraising edge.

Washington - -A photograph of Maryland Rep. Frank Kratovil Jr. being hanged in effigy is prominently featured in a new national Democratic Party Web video that claims that public outbursts over President Barack Obama's health care overhaul plan are being manufactured by opponents. The anti-Kratovil episode, during a small protest outside his Salisbury district office last week, gained notice at the time on the Internet and in the local news media. But the Democratic Party ad, and related comments by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, figure to generate wider, and unwanted, attention on the freshman lawmaker, already one of the most vulnerable House Democrats in the country.

An admittedly nervous public speaker, Susan Turnbull addressed about 800 Democratic faithful at a swank annual gala last week. The new party chairwoman proceeded to confuse the two Mikes who lead the chambers of the Maryland General Assembly and flub the title of Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, calling him attorney general. "Whoa," Turnbull exclaimed, waving both arms as if she were teetering on an edge. "Doug has probably already gotten a message on his BlackBerry," she said, referring to Douglas F. Gansler, who actually holds the state's top legal post.

Chicago - As he hosted a gala celebration for some of his earliest and most loyal financial supporters last night, President-elect Barack Obama's aides released new information showing the magnitude of their feat: They raised nearly $1 billion for his campaign and other election-related efforts. The stunning total also includes already recorded and estimated fundraising for his campaign, national convention, transition and coming inauguration. That sets a new and dramatically higher bar for future presidential candidates, radically changing the financial definition of a serious bid for the White House.

I hope the Democratic National Committee doesn't blow the election for Sen. Barack Obama. On paper, this seems to be a can't-lose year for the Democrats. If peace and prosperity are election winners, what are war and economic anxiety? Party registration trends favor the Democrats, too. And in Mr. Obama, they have a candidate whose person, biography and rhetoric all point to the possibility of breaking away from the poisonous partisanship of recent decades. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama is backed by a committee that seems to be stuck in the old "wedge issue" politics that elected Republicans in seven of the last 10 presidential contests.

Decision day looms this week for undeclared superdelegates from Maryland and other states, whose fence-straddling could end soon and help close out the protracted Democratic selection process. Final presidential primaries will be held tomorrow in South Dakota and Montana, and pressure is building for remaining superdelegates to announce their choice of a candidate. Many are expected do so within hours or days, effectively delivering the Democratic nomination to Sen. Barack Obama. In Maryland, that means that several high-ranking political officials, including Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, could finally make their intentions known.

The vote was once denied to women. It was denied to blacks. It was denied to those without land. And today, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and Michigan Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm tell us, it is being denied to their people. The Democratic and Republican parties are depriving them of delegates to the nominating conventions because they held their primaries too early, and the governors are horrified at this treatment. "The right to vote is at the very foundation of our democracy," they said in a statement.

It's no picnic being a superdelegate for the Democratic Party in 2008. Just ask Mary Jo Neville. The Dayton resident is a Democratic National Committee member and an at-large superdelegate, one of a group of 796 individuals who will play a key role in picking the party's presidential nominee while trying to avoid an angry party split between the rival camps of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Superdelegates are not pledged to a specific candidate at the national convention this summer.

The 2008 primaries have quickly shaped up as the most interesting in recent memory. Both parties' races are so tight and in flux that there is a chance in each party that no candidate will have captured enough votes to secure the nomination before the convention rolls around. This may be a far greater danger for the Democrats, because of a rule enacted by previous party leaders aimed at maintaining control over their presidential choice. In 2008, the result may be a Democratic convention choosing a nominee who lacks the legitimacy of being the "people's choice."

CHICAGO -- If you listen to the latest soundings on any given day, you might wonder if you had just awakened from a coma that caused you to miss the 2008 presidential election. Plenty of forecasters have been eager to declare a winner before the opening gun. This is particularly true on the Democratic side, where Hillary Rodham Clinton is regularly advised to dispense with campaigning and start looking at fabric swatches for the Oval Office drapes. Said a former aide to Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, "If this were a wedding, we'd be at the `speak now or forever hold your peace' part."