Democratic National Committee

WASHINGTON - In the jostling among Democratic presidential contenders for endorsements from elected officials, Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri laid claim yesterday to being king of the hill - Capitol Hill, that is. Gephardt, a 14-term congressman, scooped up the formal backing of his successor as House minority leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, and her chief deputy, House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland. Gephardt also named 28 other House Democrats who back his candidacy.

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 -- Remember the sleaze factor? That was what we called the way of doing business that so many of the Reagan and Bush people seemed to think was proper, back in Decade of Greed I.High Reaganites and Bushies who had not yet gone into government service, or had just left it, peddled access to their friends who were on the inside, and who would, in their own sweet turn, leave the White House grounds to set up their own peddling shops. The Republicans were so blatant at this delicate practice we thought we'd never see their like again.

NEW ORLEANS -- It is, by many accounts, a springtime for Democrats. President Bush's approval rating has gone down. Gas prices have gone up. And the burning desire for change in Washington, according to recent polls, remains one of the biggest worries for Republicans who control the government. Yet for all the positive political signs for Democrats and for all the opportunities that could propel an out-of-power party back into the majority, Democratic leaders from across the country say it is premature to begin imagining a sweeping victory in the fall elections.

Joe Lieberman is not a friend of the Bush administration. He may, however, remain the Democratic Party's last hope of recapturing the White House. The senator from Connecticut is one of the last hawkish Democrats in a political party that has fallen under the spell of anti-war "cut-and-run" liberals who want America to withdraw from Iraq. As a result, he is falsely accused of being a blind supporter of the administration. But that shouldn't surprise many Democrats who support the war. Ever since the liberation of Iraq, the party's leadership has taken a virulent anti-war position and isolated its members who support the war, even when they remain loyal to core Democratic values.

WASHINGTON -- Hillary Rodham Clinton's chief of staff accepted a $50,000 donation to the Democratic Party from a Chinese-American businessman on White House property in 1995, administration officials said last night.Within days, the money was passed on to the Democratic National Committee. It is now being returned because of questions about its source.The admission could call into question months of public assurances from President Clinton and his top aides that no campaign money had been solicited or raised by White House officials, or by anyone else, on White House grounds.

A FEW WEEKS ago, Forbes magazine reported that the Democratic National Committee was using overnight stays at the White House as a perk to entice wealthy donors to make six-figure contributions. David Brinkley of ABC News, picking up on the item for his Sunday morning television show, joked that even though a contribution of $130,000 would get you a night in the Lincoln Bedroom, "Be warned. I am told Lincoln's bed is hard and lumpy."The White House wasn't amused. Ann F. Lewis, the deputy manager of President Clinton's re-election campaign, fired off an indignant letter to Brinkley in which she pointed out that many others have slept in the Lincoln Bedroom, including "the cook from Clinton's old governor's mansion in Little Rock, a theology student with his wife and two children, and an old friend who is not well, and the president's pastor and his wife, and none of them paid as much as a dime," Brinkley said on the following week's program.

WASHINGTON -- It is hard to be a Democrat these days. It is especially hard if you want to be paid for being one. After a bruising election cycle in which their candidates lost most of the major races from president on down, throngs of ex-campaigners and soon-to-be out-of-work congressional staffers were more than happy to stand in the rain yesterday waiting to get into a job fair held by a Democratic organization. There were people who worked for Sen. Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader toppled from his post last month.

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department rejected yesterday, for a third time, a request to turn over to a special prosecutor the investigation into Democratic fund-raising from wealthy foreign donors.In a decision reviewed by Attorney General Janet Reno, the department said it was capable of carrying out its own investigation of possible wrongdoing without the "conflict of interest" concerns raised by five Republican members of Congress who filed the latest complaint.In a letter to Sen. John McCain and four Republican House members, Mark Richard, an assistant attorney general, argued that the only people named in the complaint whose actions are automatically covered by the independent counsel law are President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton maintained yesterday that there was nothing improper about the hefty political contributions his party has raised from foreign sources and that the money had never influenced his administration's foreign policy."