Presidential Elections 2004

The battle for Ohio in last year's presidential campaign came with a huge price tag: $100 million for television advertising alone, according to a study released by political science professors from the universities of Cincinnati and Akron. Both sides also spent an estimated $50 million for mailings, door-to-door contacts and phone calls.

Documentary filmmakers James Stern and Adam Del Deo traveled to Ohio last November in search of a specific election story. When the presidential voting was completed, they ended up with a very different movie. Stern and Del Deo, both of whom voted for Sen. John F. Kerry, initially traveled to the battleground state to document how thousands of Republican poll watchers would challenge Ohio voters.

A large voter turnout and poll workers' confusion contributed to the invalidation of many provisional ballots cast in the Nov. 2 election, the president of the League of Women Voters said Tuesday. In Ohio, 21% of provisional ballots were found to be invalid, compared with 13% statewide in the 2000 presidential election. Nationally, 32% of provisional ballots cast in last year's election were thrown out. Most states were using them for the first time. Last year, 5.

Jewish voters remained overwhelmingly Democratic in the 2004 presidential election, but President Bush made inroads with those who attend religious services most often, according to a study to be released today. The study by a think tank associated with the National Jewish Democratic Council mostly confirmed the initial impression from exit polls in November that found little movement toward Bush among American Jews.

Ending one of the last fights from the contentious 2004 presidential campaign, Ohio's top judge declined Thursday to punish four lawyers who had challenged the results in court. Chief Justice Thomas Moyer ruled against Ohio Atty. Gen. Jim Petro's attempt to have the lawyers sanctioned for filing a "meritless claim" against the vote that gave President Bush a win in Ohio and, as a result, enough electoral votes to win a second term in the White House.

A book about CBS' airing of a flawed story last fall about President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard, written by a former CBS producer who was fired in the fallout, will hit stores next month. "Truth and Duty: The Press, the President and the Privilege of Power," written by former producer Mary Mapes and published by St. Martin's Press, is scheduled to be released Nov. 8.

President Bush cited "angry attacks" by Democrats in a fundraising appeal to potential donors on Wednesday, while his aides told hundreds of government workers that he expects them to remain focused on government business this election year. "The pace of the presidential campaign is picking up and we will soon know who the Democrat nominee will be," Bush wrote to supporters, asking them for a "special contribution of $100 or $50."

With more than $40 million now raised in his run for the White House, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean posted a resounding victory Wednesday in the yearlong dash for cash among Democratic presidential candidates, cementing his status as the contender to beat in the race. For all the importance of the Jan. 19 Iowa caucuses and the Jan.

For almost any company, let alone an industrial plant, the "campus" of Husky Injection Moldings Ltd. is implausibly idyllic -- 700 rolling acres sewn with birch and elm trees and fairly shimmering one recent day with two feet of pristine snow. The site near Lake Champlain used to be farmland, something Howard Dean likes to say he went out of his way to protect from development when he was Vermont's governor.

Sen. Joe Lieberman's political new year -- and the first day of his temporary residency in New Hampshire -- began Thursday in an unlikely manner for the self-positioned moderate, moral voice of the Democratic Party. He went barhopping. Holding a pint of Bud Light, Lieberman moved through the smoke and beer fumes of Jillian's Billiard Club to greet about 20 loyal supporters who had come specifically to see him, and a dozen or so midday regulars he caught by surprise.