We are offering two different designs on t-shirts, posters and mugs to help get the word out about John Kerry.

Clinton aide investigated

President Clinton's national security adviser, Samuel R. Berger, is the focus of a criminal investigation after removing highly classified documents and handwritten notes from a secure reading room while preparing for the September 11 commission hearings.

Berger and his attorney told the Associated Press last night that he knowingly removed handwritten notes that he had taken from classified anti-terror documents he reviewed at the National Archives by sticking them in his jacket and pants.

He inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio and also accidentally threw away some documents, they said.

"I deeply regret the sloppiness involved, but I had no intention of withholding documents from the commission, and to the contrary, to my knowledge, every document requested by the commission from the Clinton administration was produced," Berger said.

Officials said the missing documents were highly classified and included critical assessments about the Clinton administration's handling of the millennium terror threats as well as identification of America's terror vulnerabilities at airports and seaports.

Fair and balanced

Fox News' use of the slogan "Fair and Balanced" constitutes deceptive advertising, two liberal advocacy groups said yesterday in a petition filed with the Federal Trade Commission.

MoveOn.org and Common Cause assert that Fox News' reports are "deliberately and consistently distorted and twisted to promote the Republican Party of the U.S. and an extreme right-wing viewpoint." Charging consumer fraud, the complaint calls for the FTC to order Fox News, consistently the highest-rated cable news network, to cease and desist from using the slogan.

Irena Briganti, a Fox News spokeswoman, told the Associated Press, "While this is clearly a transparent publicity stunt, we recognize all forms of free speech and wish them well."

Two Parties, Two Americas

Adam Nagourney of the NY Times has a story that highlights the two different perspectives of America that exists between Bush and Kerry. Clearly, part of the reason for this is the desire to be elected:

One day Mr. Bush is heralding his tax cuts as the engine that, as he told voters recently in Wisconsin, has lifted the nation into an economic recovery. He describes the economy as "strong and getting stronger." Two days later, Mr. Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is in West Virginia calling those same tax cuts a threat to health care and education, and a burden that has saddled the nation with a debt that is throttling hope for long-term prosperity.

Nagourney suggest this difference offers the voters a clear choice:

The debate so far suggests how Mr. Bush's decision to govern forcefully from the right in the wake of the 2000 election, particularly on the issue of tax cuts, has produced a counterreaction among Democrats, a reaction that is in turn producing an unusually unambiguous choice for voters this fall.

There are style differences as well:

Stylistically, the Republican and the Democrat are different as well. Mr. Bush's rallies are played against a backdrop of country music and stirring patriotic tunes. Mr. Kerry is more likely to turn to Mr. Springsteen.

Manipulating money

The Kerry campaign is planning to skirt the campaign finance laws by diverting money they need to spend prior to the Democrat National Convention to surrogate committees to spend on their behalf after the convention. Democrat National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe set an early schedule to wrap up his party’s nominee. This resulted, because of the Olympics, in the Republicans going much later. Republicans have a later deadline to spend their unlimited funds because both campaigns have foregone public financing of campaigns.

The Boston Globe reports:

Aides expect the Kerry campaign committee to end up with enough money to make sizable transfers to the Democratic National Committee, state Democratic committees, and possibly the committees working to elect a Democratic Congress. The aim would be to have the committees, especially those in battleground states, air television ads on Kerry's behalf this fall, and finance get-out-the-vote operations on Election Day.

Both Presidential campaigns have agreed to take the $75 million public funds following the convention. That also requires them to not raise or spend any other funds.

There is also the question of repaying the more than $6 million that Kerry has loaned the campaign.

Kerry has said he would prefer to repay the loan. Asked whether he would seek repayment of the loan, Kerry said during a July 10 interview with the Globe, "I don't know where we are in our cash flow or anything, but I'd sure like to."

Database politics

Database marketing has become more and more sophisticated. Now that sophistication is becoming part and parcel of American politics. The Washington Post offers this view into database politics:

"This doesn't improve [a candidate's] message one bit," said Malchow, a direct-mail expert who has been a pioneer in such targeting techniques. "It doesn't change the way a candidate looks or his personality or where he started in the polls. . . . But it can be a very, very powerful tool. In the end, it's about having knowledge that allows you to use your resources in the smartest and most efficient way."

Targeting the audience is one of the keys to database marketing:

The DNC's database team has used modeling programs to project the top issues for groups of voters based on common personal characteristics. For example, the DNC estimates that health care is the top priority of 940,000 people in Ohio. It has also projected where these people live among the state's 88 counties, providing a valuable road map for campaign advertising.

There is still the fact that politics is more complicated than marketing a brand name or product that someone must buy. In politics, you do not have to vote:

But predicting which book or brand of breakfast cereal someone might buy is easier than figuring out how millions of people will vote -- or even whether they will vote -- several months before Election Day.

The key to database marketing is targeting. That very targeting of messages is a worry to some who are concerned about its effect on the whole of democratic institutions:

It doesn't bode particularly well for democracy if everyone isn't hearing the same message," said Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in San Diego. For example, she said, it would be deceptive if a candidate sent a highly inflammatory message to people identified as strongly anti-immigrant while appealing to the mainstream with more moderate rhetoric.

Poll watching, 7/20

A new St. Paul Pioneer Press/Minnesota Public Radio poll shows:

The poll shows 45 percent of Minnesota voters would vote for Democrat Sen. John Kerry, while 44 percent favor President Bush, a lead that is less than the poll's 4-percentage-point margin of error. Only 2 percent would vote for independent candidate Ralph Nader.