Presidential Elections 2004

President Bush's reelection campaign raised a record $130 million last year, officials said Wednesday -- more than triple what Howard Dean, the top fundraiser among the nine Democratic presidential hopefuls, amassed in 2003. The figure eclipsed Bush's fundraising total of about $100 million for the 2000 primaries.

In a sign that Wesley K. Clark's presidential campaign may be gaining ground in New Hampshire, Howard Dean's staffers on Wednesday staked out Clark's campaign appearances, handing out fliers that called the retired Army general "pro-war" and questioned whether he was a "real" Democrat. In Peterborough, a man who identified himself as a Dean campaign staffer handed out the leaflets to people attending a Clark speech.

While Howard Dean repeatedly tells voters on the campaign trail that he would repeal all of President Bush's tax cuts to pay for programs such as expanded health insurance, he is now contemplating whether to also devise tax relief for the middle class. The potential shift in Dean's policy comes as he has fielded criticism from some of his rivals for wanting to roll back the entire $1.7-trillion Bush tax cut package, a move opponents say would burden working people.

Seeking to boost his credentials as a defender of the middle class, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts said Wednesday that as president he would establish a special White House watchdog to look after the financial interests of families and investors. The new Director of Family Economic Security would coordinate federal programs aimed at safeguarding pension and retirement funds, reducing identity theft and ensuring fair practices in housing and lending, among other responsibilities, Kerry said.

When Dick Gephardt stopped in South Carolina Wednesday for a short vote-hunting dash along the Atlantic Coast, the first event was a staple of his Democratic presidential campaign: a labor union rally. Standing on a flag-draped stage next to a shuttered steel mill in this small town, Gephardt told a crowd of about 150 that he was the only candidate they could rely on to fight international trade deals that threaten U.S. jobs.

During the contentious Republican primary in New Hampshire four years ago, Sandra Ziehm kept her garage full of "McCain for President" lawn signs that she doled out to anyone interested. But this year, with signs hawking Democrats sprinkled across the state's snowy countryside and no Republican primary to speak of, Ziehm is feeling unarmed, like a supply sergeant with an empty arsenal. "The signs go up next door for the Democrats, and people call up and say, 'Where's my sign?'

Every election year gives birth to some nasty composite of humanity thrown up as a vision of the future should you choose The Other Guy. The most savage one so far hit on Wednesday when a conservative political group began running a TV commercial in Iowa berating Howard Dean's volunteers. It's a husband-and-wife ad, the kind that won notoriety in 1993 when the insurance industry's "Harry and Louise" trashed Hillary Rodham Clinton's national health-care plan.

Showtime has elected to pick up "American Candidate," an unscripted series in which 100 people will be recruited to campaign against one another for viewer votes in a bid to emerge as a rival to the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates in 2004. The series had been planned for FX, but that network pulled out last May because of prohibitive production costs.

The 64-year-old minister walked out of a town meeting held by Democratic presidential hopeful Wesley K. Clark on Thursday and promptly swiped a "Clark for President" sign. "I'm lifting one," said the Rev. Margaret Seymour as she tugged the stakes out of the frozen ground. "He just sold me." Seymour's reaction is an increasingly common one in New Hampshire, as the Clark campaign shows signs of growing support less than three weeks before the state's crucial primary on Jan. 27.

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, one of the top contenders in the Jan. 19 Iowa caucuses, said four years ago that the contest was a flawed process overly influenced by special interests. Dean made those comments, and others that now could stir controversy, during a series of appearances on a Canadian political television program, excerpts of which were broadcast by NBC Thursday night. As governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2003, Dean appeared frequently on the show.