UPI Political Roundup

Republicans bankrolling Traficant rival

National Republicans are pumping nearly $170,000 into the congressional campaign of Ohio state Rep. Ann Womer Benjamin.

Benjamin is running for the same U.S. House seat in Youngstown as former Rep. James Traffiant, who is serving eight years in a Pennsylvania federal prison for bribery and corruption. The conviction hasn't stopped Traficant from making an independent run from his cell.

The GOP thinks Traficant's candidacy might draw some votes from Democratic state Sen. Tim Ryan and seems willing to spend some cash to finance television ads for Benjamin.

Benjamin had $36,000 in the bank, compared to $48,000 for Traficant, according to campaign finance reports obtained by the Cleveland Plain Dealer Tuesday.

Traficant has received $3,110 in donations since he went to prison in July.

Ark. first lady trailing in commissioner's race

Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is favored to win re-election over Democratic candidate Jimmie Lou Fisher but his wife is not doing as well in the race for state land commissioner.

The latest Arkansas-Gazette poll had Janet Huckabee 23 points behind incumbent State Land Commissioner Charlie Daniels, 56.6 percent to 31.1 percent.

The National Governors' Association says the Huckabees are the first couple to simultaneously run for two of Arkansas' constitutional offices.

Republican Governor Huckabee had a comfortable 10-point lead over state Treasurer Fisher, 50 percent to 40 percent, in a Zogby poll.

Mink files to fill late wife's House term

The husband of the late Rep. Patsy Mink, D-Hawaii, has filed to run in a special election to complete his wife's term in Congress.

Patsy Mink died Sept. 28 of pneumonia, just one week after she won the Democratic primary in Hawaii's 2nd District from her hospital bed. Her name remains on the Nov. 5 ballot and a special election will be held in January should she be re-elected.

John Mink, his wife's campaign manager, said in a release he just wants to complete his wife's term and would not seek a full two-year term after that.

Shaheen leads Sununu in money race

Rep. John E. Sununu, the Republican Senate candidate in New Hampshire, apparently is not too concerned that his Democratic rival has four times as much money as he does in the bank.

According to the latest campaign finance reports, as of Sept. 30, Gov. Jeanne Shaheen had about $1.33 million in cash on hand, compared with $297,622 for Sununu, the Nashua Telegraph reported.

With three weeks to go before the election, both camps played down Shaheen's war chest advantage.

"We have the resources we need to get our message to the voters," said Shaheen spokesman Colin Van Ostern. However, he said he still expected to be outspent. "I have no doubt in my mind the money flowing out of Washington will far exceed anything we've done in this race," he said.

Sununu spokesman Julie Teer said the congressman has won three straight elections despite being outspent by his Democratic opponent.

"We don't expect this race to be any different," she said.

Since the campaign began, Shaheen has raised more than $4 million, while Sununu has collected slightly more than $2 million.

Three major special interest groups unveiled television advertisements portraying Sununu as anti-worker, anti-elderly, anti-woman and anti-environment, the Union Leader of Manchester reported.

"I now count six liberal interest groups from Washington that have no ideas and don't represent the people of New Hampshire" advertising on Shaheen's behalf against him, Sununu said.

Minn. senate race spending near record

With the cost of the Minnesota senate race approaching a record $20 million, incumbent Paul Wellstone and Republican challenger Norm Coleman are saturating radio and television with campaign advertising.

The Federal Election Commission said Wellstone had raised nearly $10 million since January 2001, compared to just under $8 million for Coleman. The combined figure nearly matches the $18 million spent in the 2000 election by Democratic Sen. Mark Dayton and former Republican Sen. Rod Grams.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune said the outspoken Wellstone had spent $3.6 million fundraising, mostly for direct mail and telemarketing appeals. The average donation to Wellstone's campaign was $51.

Coleman, the former Republican St. Paul mayor who lost to Jesse Ventura in the 1998 governor's race, had spent $1.5 million on fundraising but attracted larger donations.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani and President Bush are scheduled to campaign with Coleman in Minneapolis and Rochester next week. Bush personally asked Coleman to run.

Gore mending fences

Former Vice President Al Gore wrapped up two days of campaigning for Democratic candidates in Iowa Tuesday without talking about the 2004 election.

Gore posed for photographs, had breakfast with labor leaders in Des Moines and stumped for U.S. House candidates in Ames and Mason City, criticizing President Bush's performance on the economy all the while.

Gore's 2000 running mate, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, has said he will not run for president if Gore seeks the nomination again.

Lieberman gets heat for war vote

Former vice presidential candidate Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., faced some tough comments during a visit to New Hampshire for voting in favor of President Bush's war resolution.

Opponents said the president's plan to use military force to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was the wrong direction for the government to go, according to Wednesday's Nashua Telegraph.

One opponent was Morton Goulder, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations.

Goulder told Lieberman that Bush is a "terrorist in the White House" and "pre-emptive strikes against people you don't like is crazy."

Saying "dissent is healthy," Lieberman said he hoped the resolution "will lead the U.N." to action. "Nobody wants to go to war."

Cook County fights ballot nicknames

For years, Chicagoans could count on seeing the name of political gadfly Lar "America First" Daly on mayoral ballots.

He never won but he added color to elections by campaigning in his Uncle Sam suit and stovepipe hat.

Times have changed.

Cook County Clerk David Orr went to court to keep similar nicknames off the Nov. 5 ballot. He asked the state's attorney to keep the nicknames of Republican Les "Cut the Taxes" Golden and Libertarian Stephanie "Vs. the Machine" Sailor off the ballot.

Golden is running for the state Legislature and Sailor for the U.S. House.

The suit argues only nicknames by which a candidate is commonly known should be on the ballot, like Bill or Dick. Orr said the suit has nothing to do with free speech and that a ballot is no place for electioneering by publicity-seeking candidates.

"TaftQuack"

A Cleveland federal judge will decide if Democratic gubernatorial governor Tim Hagan has to dump the "TaftQuack" duck from an Internet site of the same name, TaftQuack.com.

Lawyers for Aflac, the supplemental health insurance organization, say "TaftQuack" looks and speaks like their "Aflac duck" and that Hagan's campaign is guilty of trademark infringement.

"TaftQuack" has Gov. Bob Taft's head on a cartoon duck's body. The "Aflac" duck is a real live fowl.

The beaked cartoon duck says "TaftQuack" as Hagan refutes a Taft campaign ad point by point.

Hagan attorney Richard Knoth tells WTAM-AM, Cleveland, the duck is a form of political speech and is not damaging Aflac. He said losing "TaftQuack" would hurt Hagen's campaign.

(Dave Haskell in Boston and Hil Anderson in California contributed to this report)