Enron overtaken as Bush’s top financial supporter by MBNA

with its employees giving more than $603,000 to Mr. Bush.

Executives at Enron continued to give to Mr. Bush in small amounts, despite the company’s bankruptcy filing. The president received $3,000 in 2003 from four people who listed Enron as their employer, according to the center. Enron’s collapse amid an accounting scandal gave rise to corporate accountability measures and helped pass the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation in 2002. The company was a sore spot for Mr. Bush, who was friends with the company’s chief executive, Kenneth L. Lay.

Democrats, including the presidential candidates, have not been shy about trying to connect the company to the president - criticism that is likely to continue. An aide at the Bush campaign declined to comment on the company’s change on Mr. Bush’s rankings.

Edwards repetitive?

Mr. Edwards’s prospects of winning California appear bleak; his campaign clearly recognizes this and scratched a day of campaigning that had been set for Friday in the state. And the speech, for its all striking themes and rhetoric, did not appear to draw an abundant amount of attention, a reflection of the level of interest in this contest and the perception that the better days of Mr. Edwards’s campaign might be behind him.
But no matter. Perhaps some of the 1,000 or so students who heard this Washington politician make a decidedly unusual appeal will remember one day what they heard, and will take the message to heart. And who knows; one day, if not this year, or even this election, they might take the messenger to heart as well.

Kerry and Edwards Duel

In California, Mr. Edwards offered a broad anti-poverty plan that he said could help create five million new jobs, partly by offering access to venture capital and tax incentives to create work in poor communities. “People say that we can never lift Americans out of poverty, and I say we will,” said Mr. Edwards. “We will so long as each one of us tries.”

Mr. Kerry, in Ohio, emphasized a plan introduced in the Senate that would require companies to give workers 90 days notice if they intend to move operations offshore. They would also have to provide the rationale for the shift, the location they are going and the number of workers affected. “Companies will no longer be able to surprise their workers with a pink slip instead of a paycheck,” he said. Mr. Edwards backs that plan as well.

The policy proposals appeared to have a double aim. Not only are they intended to win votes in areas that have experienced job loss, but they allow the candidates to counter President Bush’s criticism earlier this week that his opponents are only carping, not offering alternative plans.

Both men are also taking a page from former President Bill Clinton’s playbook in emphasizing the economic front. It worked for him against a Bush in the White House. Whether it can work for the Democratic nominee this time will depend on the state of the economy and how well this President Bush does at showing how his plans are contributing to economic growth.

NYT Times on the Trail

More Kerry - Edwards

Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) clashed over the death penalty, trade and special interests in a lively debate here Thursday, with Edwards questioning Kerry’s ability to carry crucial swing states against President Bush and Kerry touting his experience as a key ingredient for victory this fall.
The gay-marriage issue arose on a day when celebrity Rosie O’Donnell was married in San Francisco.

“What’s happening here is this president is talking about first amending the United States Constitution for a problem that does not exist,” Edwards said. “The law today does not require one state to recognize the marriage of another state.” ……………

Kerry was asked about his opposition to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, one of 14 senators to do so. He was reminded that he had opposed it in part because he believed it was unconstitutional and was asked whether Bush is correct in saying the only way to ensure that other states do not have to recognize gay marriages approved elsewhere is through a constitutional amendment. Kerry seemed to back away from his previous position.

“I think, under the ‘full faith and credit’ laws, that I was incorrect in that statement,” Kerry said. “I think, in fact, that no state has to recognize something that is against their public policy. And for 200 years, we have left marriage up to the states. There is no showing whatsoever today that any state in the country, including my own — which is now dealing with its own constitutional amendment — is incapable of dealing with what they would like to do.”

WaPo

More on Gay Marriage

From a political standpoint, calling for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage was probably a “win-win” for the White House. Polls show most Americans support banning same-sex marriage, even while many of them support allowing some form of civil unions.
The White House’s calculation is that — given support in the polls for banning same-sex marriage — the president won’t face a backlash from moderate voters. And those who are most likely to be angered aren’t going to vote for him anyway.
On the other hand, the president appeases a base that has grown frustrated with his reluctance to insert himself into the culture wars that dominated the early 1980s

WaPo