Watergate figure, Christian leader Charles Colson dies

WASHINGTON (AP) – He was described as the "evil genius" of the Nixon administration, and spent the better part of a year in prison for a Watergate-related conviction. His proclamations following his release that he was a new man, redeemed by his religious faith, were met with more than skepticism by those angered at the abuses he had perpetrated as one of Nixon's hatchet men.

By Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY

Chuck Colson at Richard Nixon's funeral in 1994.

By Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY

Chuck Colson at Richard Nixon's funeral in 1994.

But Charles "Chuck" Colson spent the next 35 years steadfast in his efforts to evangelize to a part of society scorned just as he was. And he became known perhaps just as much for his efforts to minister to prison inmates as for his infamy with Watergate.

Colson died Saturday at age 80. His death was confirmed by Jim Liske, chief executive of the Lansdowne, Va.-based Prison Fellowship Ministries that Colson founded. Liske said the preliminary cause of death was complications from brain surgery Colson had at the end of March. He underwent the surgery to remove a clot after becoming ill March 30 while speaking at a conference.

Colson once famously said he'd walk over his grandmother to get the president elected to a second term. In 1972 The Washington Post called him "one of the most powerful presidential aides, variously described as a troubleshooter and as a 'master of dirty tricks.'"

"I shudder to think of what I'd been if I had not gone to prison," Colson said in 1993. "Lying on the rotten floor of a cell, you know it's not prosperity or pleasure that's important, but the maturing of the soul."

He helped run the Committee to Re-elect the President when it set up an effort to gather intelligence on the Democratic Party. The arrest of CREEP's security director, James W. McCord, and four other men burglarizing the Democratic National Committee offices in 1972 set off the scandal that led to Nixon's resignation in August 1974.

But it was actions that preceded the actual Watergate break-in that resulted in Colson's criminal conviction. Colson pleaded guilty to efforts to discredit Pentagon analyst Daniel Ellsberg. It was Ellsberg who had leaked the secret Defense Department study of Vietnam that became known as the Pentagon Papers.

The efforts to discredit Ellsberg included use of Nixon's plumbers — a covert group established to investigate White House leaks — in 1971 to break into the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist to look for information that could discredit Ellsberg's anti-war efforts.

The Ellsberg burglary was revealed during the course of the Watergate investigation and became an element in the ongoing scandal. Colson pleaded guilty in 1974 to obstruction of justice in connection with attempts to discredit Ellsberg, though charges were dropped that Colson actually played a role in the burglary of Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. Charges related to the actual Watergate burglary and cover-up were also dropped. He served seven months in prison.

Before Colson went to prison he became a born-again Christian, but critics said his post-scandal redemption was a ploy to get his sentence reduced. The Boston Globe wrote in 1973, "If Mr. Colson can repent of his sins, there just has to be hope for everyone."

Ellsberg, for his part, said in an interview that Colson never apologized to him and did not respond to several efforts Ellsberg made over the years to get in touch with him. Ellsberg said he still believes that Colson's guilty plea was not a matter of contrition so much as an effort to head off even more serious allegations that Colson had sought to hire thugs to administer a beating against Ellsberg — an allegation that Colson states in his book was believed by prosecutors despite his denial.

"I have no reason to doubt his evangelism," Ellsberg said of Colson. "But I don't think he felt any kind of regret" for what he had done, except remorse that he had been ineffective and got caught.

Colson stayed with his faith after Watergate and went on to win praise — including the prestigious Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion — for his efforts to use it to help others. Colson later called going to prison a "great blessing."

He created the Prison Fellowship Ministries in 1976 to minister to prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families. It runs work-release programs, marriage seminars and classes to help prisoners after they get out. An international offshoot established chapters around the world.

"You can't leave a person in a steel cage and expect something good to come out of him when he is released," Colson said in 2001.

Michael Cromartie, director of the Evangelical Studies Project at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, worked with Colson at Prison Fellowship Ministries. He said he's certain Colson's faith was genuine.

"Before he went off to prison he had a born again evangelical experience, a conversion experience," he said. It produced guffaws in official Washington, Cromartie said, but Colson demonstrated he was serious.

When Colson emerged from prison, "he had a lot of offers to do other things that would have made him a lot of money", but he wanted to serve people who had been "forgotten" in society, Cromartie said.

"I think if he's going to be remembered for anything, he's going to be remembered as a person who had a complete turnaround in his life," he said.

While faith was a large part of Colson's message, he also tackled such topics as prison overpopulation and criticized the death penalty, though he thought it could be justified in rare cases. He said those convicted of nonviolent crimes should be put on community-service projects instead of being locked up.

He wrote more than 20 books, including Born Again: What Really Happened to the White House Hatchet Man, which was turned into a movie.

"(W)ho was I to moralize, to preach to others?" Colson wrote. "I'd botched it, was one of those who helped bring on Watergate and was in prison to prove it. Yet maybe that very fact … could give me some insights that would help others."

Royalties from all his books have gone to his ministry program, as did the $1 million Templeton prize, which he won in 1993.

Colson also wrote a syndicated column, and started his daily radio feature, BreakPoint, which airs on more than 1,000 radio networks, according to the PFM Web site.

While he admitted he'd been wrong to do so much of Nixon's dirty work, he remained embittered at one of the sources who'd exposed the wrongdoing. In 2005, when it was revealed that Mark Felt was the infamous "Deep Throat" responsible for the fall of the Nixon administration, Colson was disgusted, having worked so closely with Felt. "He goes out of his life on a very sour note, not as a hero," Colson said.

Colson, a Boston native earned his bachelor's degree from Brown University in 1953 and served as a captain in the Marine Corps from 1953 to 1955. In 1959, he received his doctorate with honors from George Washington University.

He spent several years as an administrative assistant to Massachusetts Sen. Leverett Saltonstall. Nixon made him special counsel in November 1969.

In the mid-1990s Colson teamed up with the Rev. Richard Neuhaus to write Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium, calling for Catholics and evangelicals to unite and accept each other as Christians.

In February 2005, Colson was named one of Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America."

Time commended Colson for helping to define compassionate conservatism through his campaign for humane prison conditions and called him one of "evangelicalism's more thoughtful public voices."

"After decades of relative abstention, Colson is back in power politics," Time wrote.

Mark Earley, a former Virginia attorney general who became president and chief executive officer of Prison Fellowship Ministries after his failed gubernatorial run in 2001, said the influence of Colson's work in his ministry is a different kind of power from what he had as Nixon's special counsel.

"Yet, it wasn't until he lost that power, what most people would call real 'power,' that Chuck began to make a real difference and exercise the only kind of influence that really matters," Earley said on BreakPoint.

"Prison Fellowship is possible only because its founder, Chuck Colson, was forced to personally identify with those people who hold a special place in God's heart: prisoners and their families."

In October 2000, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush restored Colson's civil rights, allowing him to vote, sit on a jury, run for office and practice law. Colson had a home in Naples, Fla., and Bush called him "a great guy … a great Floridian."

Ultimately, Colson credited the Watergate scandal with enriching his life.

God "used that experience — Watergate — to raise up a ministry that is reaching hundreds of thousands of people," Colson said in the late 1990s. "So I'm probably one of the few guys around that's saying, 'I'm glad for Watergate.'"

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Obama, DNC raised $53M in March for campaign

WASHINGTON – President Obama's fundraising gained strength in March, as he raised a combined $53 million for his campaign and the Democratic National Committee in preparation for the next phase of the campaign: the general election battle with Republican Mitt Romney.

By Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP

President Obama greets supporters after speaking at a fundraiser in Burlington, Vt., on March 30.

By Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP

President Obama greets supporters after speaking at a fundraiser in Burlington, Vt., on March 30.

Obama's March haul is nearly twice the $29.1 million he collected for himself and the party in January. In all, he has raised more than $350 million in this election cycle for his campaign and various party accounts.

Obama's camp outlined the fundraising in an Internet video Monday that featured donors who had given as little as $5. More than 567,000 people contributed to the campaign last month. Obama's campaign, however, has urged supporters to do more, noting that Republican super PACs and other GOP-affiliated outside groups are prepared to spend heavily to oust him.

"We're all going to have to dig even deeper," campaign manager Jim Messina said in the video. "It's going to take all of us working together."

The campaign did not disclose the size of Obama's cash reserves at month's end. Those totals and other details of Obama fundraising will become public later this week when presidential candidates file reports with the Federal Election Commission.

Romney has not yet released March fundraising totals, but he had collected a little more than $75 million through the end of February. This month, he began raising funds jointly with the Republican National Committee, which will run ads and conduct voter-outreach efforts in the months ahead.

The Republican National Committee (RNC), which started the election cycle mired in debt, is showing renewed strength. It raised $13.7 million in March, its best fundraising month of the election and ended the month with nearly $33 million in available cash.

Kirsten Kukowski, the RNC's spokeswoman, noted that Obama still lags behind his fundraising pace in March 2008, when he raised $42.8 million in his primary fight with Hillary Rodham Clinton without the benefit of the Democratic Party.

Obama's team counters they are using their cash stockpile to build a national campaign infrastructure.

Republican donors are more energized than they have been in a while, said Fred Malek, a top fundraiser in Arizona Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential bid who now is raising money for Romney. "It's going to be a record amount of fundraising on our side this year," he said.

In Romney, "we finally have a proven and experienced private-sector executive who knows how to create jobs," Malek said. "That's combined with an abject fear of four more years of President Obama and his policies."

Republican outside groups, including super PACs that can raise unlimited corporate money, have consistently outraised their Democratic counterparts.

For instance, the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC supported by House Republican leaders, raised nearly $5.1 million during the first three months of the year, boosted by $5 million from casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam. Adelson and his family have donated $16.5 million to help Republican Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign, and the donation demonstrates he also is willing to finance the party's establishment.

By contrast, the House Majority PAC, working to elect Democrats to the House, raised $1.5 million during the first three months of the year, new filings show.

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Horne defends delay in ceding 1 Fiesta case

Attorney General Tom Horne did not recuse his office from handling a Fiesta Bowl investigation involving powerful political allies until after one of his deputies recommended misdemeanor charges against them, documents obtained by The Arizona Republic show.

Horne said Wednesday he had no knowledge that charges had been drafted in the cases and transferred the cases immediately last fall after learning they involved lobbyist Kevin DeMenna and a political-consulting and lobbying firm, HighGround. No HighGround employees were specifically identified in a draft indictment drawn up by Horne's office.

"I don't have any motives here other than to avoid being involved with people whom I knew," Horne said.

HighGround's founder and president is noted GOP strategist Chuck Coughlin, a close adviser to Gov. Jan Brewer whose firm assisted with the attorney general's 2010 campaign. DeMenna has had a professional relationship with Horne since the attorney general served in the Arizona Legislature from 1997 to 2001. DeMenna also is a key fundraiser for the Republican Party.

Though Horne said he handed over the investigation of HighGround and DeMenna to Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery as soon as he became aware they were involved, documents show Horne was informed months earlier the case involved several lobbyists.

A Maricopa County Attorney's Office memo obtained by The Republic shows Horne was present at a late April 2011 meeting where the investigation of the Fiesta Bowl lobbyists was discussed. Earlier that month, he was questioned by The Arizona Republic about his relationship with lobbyists and whether that could influence his investigation. Those events occurred roughly six months before he turned the lobbyist investigation over in October to Montgomery's office.

During that same April 2011 meeting, Horne withdrew from another Fiesta Bowl-related investigation involving state legislators who took tickets and accepted free trips to out-of-state college football games, citing a conflict of interest. But he wanted his office to investigate Fiesta Bowl lobbyists, according to a Maricopa County Attorney's Office memo.

Horne's position regarding the lobbyists changed last fall, when he declared a conflict of interest. On Oct.24, his office sent an assistant attorney general's research documents and charging recommendations regarding the lobbyist cases to Montgomery. By then, Montgomery was well into his investigation of the referred case regarding lawmakers who had received Fiesta Bowl gifts.

In December, Montgomery announced he would not prosecute legislators or lobbyists, citing vagueness in state laws and the lack of "evidence leading to criminal liability." When asked recently about his decision not to prosecute the lobbyists, Montgomery said there was no reasonable likelihood of convicting DeMenna or HighGround.

The lobbyists said Montgomery's decision was correct because they and their firms did nothing illegal. DeMenna said he was unaware until he was recently contacted by The Republic that he had been identified for charging by a prosecutor in the Attorney General's Office.

"The (state) prosecutor in this case was wrong," Coughlin said. "We complied with the law. There is confusion about this law in some circles. Not here. Not here at HighGround."

According to Coughlin, it was the duty of the Fiesta Bowl's primary lobbyist to report the expenditures for which HighGround was later questioned. Coughlin said he reported those expenditures to the person he considered the bowl's primary lobbyist, Gary Husk.

Portions of the state's draft indictments, obtained by The Republic through a formal request to Montgomery's office, alleged HighGround and DeMenna, as lobbyists, knowingly failed to report expenditures benefiting lawmakers during out-of-state trips paid for by the bowl from 2002 to 2004 and 2007. The penalty for such misdemeanor violations is a fine of up to $20,000 for a business, and up to six months in jail or a $2,500 fine for an individual.

The records indicate Horne took a much different approach in waiting so long to declare a conflict of interest in the lobbyist cases, as opposed to the early declaration of conflict in the elected officials' cases.

"Attorney General Horne has been inconsistent on when he does and when he doesn't have a conflict of interest," said former U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton, who has tangled with Horne's office over legal matters involving the state Independent Redistricting Commission. "A more careful attorney general would have decided that (conflict-of-interest) fact far earlier."

Horne spokeswoman Amy Rezzonico said the office conflicted itself out of the investigation involving Fiesta Bowl lobbyists as soon as Horne became aware of involvement of HighGround and DeMenna, and the charging decision ultimately was up to Montgomery.

"The timing is not suspect," Rezzonico said. "At the time it became personal knowledge for Tom Horne is when we conflicted off. ? It was nothing more than when the information was delivered to him."

But records and news reports indicate Horne knew his office was investigating HighGround and other lobbyists about six months before he declared the conflict of interest.

An April7, 2011, Arizona Republic story said HighGround employees were contributors to Horne's 2010 campaign. That story also said HighGround principals hosted a fundraiser Horne held at Rezzonico's home on March28, 2011, the same day the Fiesta Bowl turned over to the Attorney General's Office details of an internal investigation of wrongdoing at the bowl. That Fiesta Bowl report mentions HighGround or Coughlin 39 times.

Horne was asked about a potential conflict of interest with lobbyists, according to the April7, 2011, story. He responded then that campaign contributions do not "have anything to do with investigating criminal activity."

Records obtained from Montgomery's office also indicate that on April27, 2011, Horne attended a meeting with prosecutors in his office and Montgomery regarding the Fiesta Bowl investigation.

Horne said Wednesday he had "no memory" of that April meeting. When a Maricopa County Attorney's Office memo was read to him over the phone noting his attendance, Horne then said he may have attended. However, he added, his focus at the time was not on HighGround or DeMenna. Instead, it was on Husk, who remains under investigation by Horne's office but has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged.

The memo, written by County Attorney's Office detective Mark Stribling, makes clear Horne made reference to a group of lobbyists.

"AG Tom Horne again stated that he intends to retain jurisdiction of all matters including those involving lobbyists," the memo says.

An April 28, 2011, Arizona Republic story also raised questions about Horne's relationship with Fiesta Bowl lobbyists, including HighGround. At that time, Horne dismissed insinuations from the Democratic Party chairman that his office could not be impartial in its investigation of the lobbyists, saying it was his job to be nonpartisan.

Attorney General's Office investigation

The Attorney General's Office, under a previous administration, had been investigating the Fiesta Bowl since summer 2010 to determine whether bowl employees had illegally been reimbursed for making campaign contributions to politicians.

The state investigation ramped up after the bowl in March 2011 -- a few months after Horne took office -- released its own investigative report. That report alleged widespread financial mismanagement, disclosed that gifts had been given to elected officials and concluded employees had been reimbursed for making campaign contributions.

In early April 2011, the chairman of the Arizona Democratic Party publicly questioned Horne's integrity in investigating the Fiesta Bowl, accusing the Republican attorney general of being too cozy with lobbyists at the center of the probe. One of the lobbying firms identified at that time was HighGround.

Horne brushed aside the criticism and allowed his office to continue the investigation of Fiesta Bowl lobbyists. That same month, however, he asked Montgomery to investigate the elected officials who had received gifts or traveled at the bowl's expense, citing a conflict of interest because some of the politicians could be his clients as attorney general.

For roughly the next seven months, from April to October 2011, Assistant Attorney General Todd Lawson and special investigators worked on the Fiesta Bowl case. During that time, indictments were drafted against HighGround and DeMenna, and cases also were built against current and former Fiesta Bowl employees who were subsequently charged with crimes.

The Attorney General's Office declined to allow Lawson to comment for this story.

A state prosecutor since May 2000 who specializes in white-collar fraud cases, Lawson recommended one misdemeanor charge against HighGround and three misdemeanor charges against DeMenna. To support his recommendations, Lawson wrote lengthy memos and provided dozens of pages of documentation.

Rezzonico said the assistant attorney general's recommendations regarding HighGround and DeMenna never were vetted by supervisors, and she said it is common for prosecutors to draft indictments that are never taken to a grand jury.

Recommendations for the Legislature

Montgomery, also a Republican, concluded last December that he could not prove criminal intent because of inconsistent state laws, vague reporting requirements for elected officials and lobbyists, and insufficient Fiesta Bowl records to support a prosecution.

However, Montgomery did compile a set of recommendations for the Arizona Legislature to consider to clear up what he called confusion in the law, and he suggested a ban or strict limits on the value of gifts lawmakers could receive.

The GOP-controlled Legislature has not adopted any of Montgomery's suggestions. Additional reform proposals from the Arizona Secretary of State's Office, which governs lobbyist and candidate disclosures, also have not been passed.

The governor supports changes that provide for greater clarity and transparency regarding gifts and interactions with lobbyists, according to a written statement provided to The Republic.

In discussing questions raised in the records received by the newspaper, Montgomery said there may have been a "technical violation of the law." But he reiterated that there was not a reasonable likelihood of conviction.

In Montgomery's analysis, state law is not clear enough in delineating when lobbyists must report their spending on public officials. That leads to questions about whether a conviction is possible.

"One prosecutor's approach to a statute may not be consistent with how another prosecuting agency would approach the issue or agree with the interpretation of a statute," Montgomery said. He declined to disclose what his office's own prosecutors and investigators recommended in regards to charging the lobbyists.

"It doesn't matter. It was my decision," Montgomery said. "I am the only one to be held accountable for that."

Charlton, a former U.S. attorney, agreed that a supervisor may override a line prosecutor's recommendation if there is disagreement over the likelihood of success.

Laws on lobbyists disclosing expenditures

Coughlin and DeMenna said in interviews that neither they nor their firms acted illegally, and that they were not required to make disclosures because they were contractors or consultants, not primary lobbyists for the Fiesta Bowl.

"I can't imagine the basis for a (charging) recommendation," DeMenna said. "I'm a big fan of disclosure and overfiling. But I'm not sure what we would have had to appropriately file."

Coughlin said his firm was not required to report because it was not the "designated lobbyist" for the Fiesta Bowl. As a hired lobbyist, he said, HighGround was only required to report its expenditures on lawmakers to the Fiesta Bowl's primary lobbyist. Had he also reported it, he said, the spending would have been doubly reported.

Coughlin said that Lawson was mistaken in his interpretation alleging violations of lobbyist-disclosure laws, and he suggested that partisan considerations were to blame: Lawson, the assistant attorney general who recommended charges, has been active in the Democratic Party.

Lawson was directed by Rezzonico not to discuss the matter with The Republic.

Amy Chan, the state elections director, said anyone registered as a lobbyist with the Secretary of State's Office has an obligation to report expenditures or anything of value provided to public officials. Both HighGround and DeMenna were registered lobbyists for the bowl when they made the expenditures, according to records from the Secretary of State's Office.

Chan told Coughlin as much in an e-mail exchange Wednesday. In that e-mail, which Coughlin copied to The Republic, Chan also told Coughlin, "I would not expend resources chasing this type of reporting down and asking lobbyists to amend prior reports."

A campaign-finance expert who represented the state said that Arizona laws are clear on what lobbyists must disclose.

"When a lobbyist makes an expenditure for a legislator or a state employee, the lobbyist has to disclose that expenditure," said Jim Barton, who formerly represented the Citizens Clean Elections Commission, the Secretary of State's Office and the Independent Redistricting Commission.

Though Montgomery chose not to prosecute lawmakers or lobbyists citing statutory vagueness, Lawson's investigative analysis concluded that the state campaign-finance laws would permit successful prosecution of bowl employees who made campaign contributions that were reimbursed. The Attorney General's Office pursued those charges.

This year, it obtained guilty pleas from five current or former Fiesta Bowl employees who engaged in a campaign-finance conspiracy. The U.S. Attorney's Office, meanwhile, obtained a guilty plea to a federal conspiracy charge from another former employee.

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Column: Palin attacks on Obama lack a grasp of facts

In a not-so-swift swift-boat attack on Barack Obama, Sarah Palin tried to link the Secret Service sex scandal to the president's ability to manage this nation's affairs. But she succeeds only in demonstrating how fuzzy her knowledge is of the government she came close to being a heartbeat away from running.

By Mark Wilson, Getty Images

Palin: Cites Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7.

By Mark Wilson, Getty Images

Palin: Cites Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7.

DeWayne Wickham USATODAY columnist

Palin told Fox News' Greta Van Susteren that the Secret Service agents' inappropriate contact with Colombian prostitutes was "a symptom of a government run amok" and Obama's "poor management skills." Then Palin offered up this bit of nonsense as proof of her contention: "The No. 1 thing that he is responsible for is … violating Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution in not having a budget."

What she's talking about is the section of the Constitution that spells out the responsibility of Congress, not the president, to appropriate money spent by all branches of the federal government. That clause of the Constitution does not mandate creation of a federal budget. It doesn't even use the word "budget."

Failure of Congress

The president is required by the 1921 Budget and Accounting Act to submit a budget to Congress — and that's exactly what Obama has done every year since taking office. That Congress hasn't passed any of his budgets is a failing of both Republican and Democratic legislators on Capitol Hill, not the man who occupies the Oval Office.

Blaming Obama for Congress' failure to pass a budget might be good politics for the former Alaska governor, but it's bad civics.

It has been "over 1,000 days with no budget, no blueprint to run our federal government," Palin told Van Susteren. Under Article 2 of the Constitution, which deals with the president's responsibilities, Obama has a duty to ensure that laws are "faithfully executed." But to meet that test, he only needs to make sure the money his administration spends is authorized by Congress. And though this may be news to Palin, Congress has spent merrily during Obama's presidency through the use of appropriations, continuing resolutions and the budget reconciliation process.

Palin choice for veep

To say that Palin ought to know better is to expect too much enlightenment from someone who says Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., tops her list of candidates to be the GOP's vice presidential candidate. West recently pandered to the fears of some of his right-wing backers when he irrationally proclaimed that 78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party are members of the Communist Party.

Palin is a captain in the swift-boat fleet — the same type of smear tactic used against John Kerry in 2004 — that Republicans have launched against Obama. Her mission is to inflict as much damage on him as possible — and to do it in any way she can. Back in December, she got off an early salvo when she criticized the president for sending out a Christmas card that showed his dog in front of a fireplace decorated with a holiday wreath, bulbs and ribbons. It was "odd," she said, that the card had no overt religious symbols or emphasis on "family, faith and freedom."

Of course Palin saw nothing wrong with the religious symbols-free holiday card Republican President George W. Bush sent out shortly after she and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., were defeated in the 2008 presidential election by Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del. That's because neither logic nor good sense has anything to do with her swift-boating attacks on Obama.

DeWayne Wickham writes on Tuesdays for USA TODAY.

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Watergate figure Charles Colson dies at 80

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON He was described as the "evil genius" of the Nixon administration, and he spent the better part of a year in prison for a Watergate-related conviction. His proclamations following his release that he was a new man, redeemed by his religious faith, were met with more than skepticism by those angered at the abuses he had perpetrated as one of Nixon's hatchet men.

But Charles "Chuck" Colson spent the next 35 years steadfast in his efforts to evangelize to a part of society scorned just as he was. And he became known perhaps just as much for his efforts to minister to prison inmates as for his infamy with Watergate.

Colson died Saturday at age 80. His death was confirmed by Jim Liske, chief executive of the Lansdowne, Va.-based Prison Fellowship Ministries that Colson founded. Liske said the preliminary cause of death was complications from brain surgery Colson had at the end of March. He underwent the surgery to remove a clot after becoming ill March 30 while speaking at a conference.

Colson once famously said he'd walk over his grandmother to get the president elected to a second term. In 1972, the Washington Post called him "one of the most powerful presidential aides, variously described as a troubleshooter and as a 'master of dirty tricks."

"I shudder to think of what I'd been if I had not gone to prison," Colson said in 1993. "Lying on the rotten floor of a cell, you know it's not prosperity or pleasure that's important, but the maturing of the soul."

He helped run the Committee to Re-elect the President when it set up an effort to gather intelligence on the Democratic Party. The arrest of the committee's security director, James W. McCord, and four other men burglarizing the Democratic National Committee offices in 1972 set off the scandal that led to Nixon's resignation in August 1974.

But it was actions that preceded the actual Watergate break-in that resulted in Colson's criminal conviction. Colson pleaded guilty to efforts to discredit Pentagon analyst Daniel Ellsberg. It was Ellsberg who had leaked the secret Defense Department study of Vietnam that became known as the Pentagon Papers.

The efforts to discredit Ellsberg included use of Nixon's plumbers -- a covert group established to investigate White House leaks -- in 1971 to break into the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist to look for information that could discredit Ellsberg's anti-war efforts.

The Ellsberg burglary was revealed during the course of the Watergate investigation and became an element in the ongoing scandal. Colson pleaded guilty in 1974 to obstruction of justice in connection with attempts to discredit Ellsberg, though charges were dropped that Colson actually played a role in the burglary of Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. Charges related to the actual Watergate burglary and cover-up were also dropped. Colson served seven months in prison.

Before Colson went to prison, he became a born-again Christian, but critics said his post-scandal redemption was a ploy to get his sentence reduced. The Boston Globe wrote in 1973, "If Mr. Colson can repent of his sins, there just has to be hope for everyone."

Ellsberg, for his part, said in an interview that Colson never apologized to him and did not respond to several efforts Ellsberg made over the years to get in touch with him. Ellsberg said he still believes that Colson's guilty plea was not a matter of contrition so much as an effort to head off even more serious allegations that Colson had sought to hire thugs to administer a beating against Ellsberg -- an allegation that Colson states in his book was believed by prosecutors despite his denial.

"I have no reason to doubt his evangelism," Ellsberg said of Colson. "But I don't think he felt any kind of regret" for what he had done, except remorse that he had been ineffective and got caught.

Colson stayed with his faith after Watergate and went on to win praise -- including the prestigious Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion -- for his efforts to use it to help others. Colson later called going to prison a "great blessing."

He created the Prison Fellowship Ministries in 1976 to minister to prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families. It runs work-release programs, marriage seminars and classes to help prisoners after they get out. An offshoot established chapters around the world.

"You can't leave a person in a steel cage and expect something good to come out of him when he is released," Colson said in 2001.

Michael Cromartie, director of the Evangelical Studies Project at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, worked with Colson at Prison Fellowship Ministries. He said he's certain Colson's faith was genuine.

"Before he went off to prison, he had a born-again evangelical experience, a conversion experience," Cromartie said. It produced guffaws in official Washington, Cromartie said, but Colson demonstrated he was serious.

"I think if he's going to be remembered for anything, he's going to be remembered as a person who had a complete turnaround in his life," Cromartie said.

While faith was a large part of Colson's message, he tackled such topics as prison overpopulation and criticized the death penalty, though he thought it could be justified in rare cases. He said those convicted of nonviolent crimes should be put on community-service projects instead of being locked up.

He wrote more than 20 books, including "Born Again: What Really Happened to the White House Hatchet Man," which was turned into a movie.

Royalties from all his books have gone to his ministry program, as did the $1 million Templeton prize, which he won in 1993.

Colson also wrote a syndicated column and started his daily radio feature, BreakPoint, which airs on more than 1,000 radio networks, according to the PFM website.

While he admitted he'd been wrong to do so much of Nixon's dirty work, he remained embittered at one of the sources who'd exposed the wrongdoing. In 2005, when it was revealed that Mark Felt was the infamous "Deep Throat" responsible for the fall of the Nixon administration, Colson was disgusted, having worked so closely with Felt.

"He goes out of his life on a very sour note, not as a hero," Colson said.

Colson, a Boston native, earned his bachelor's degree from Brown University in 1953 and served as a captain in the Marine Corps from 1953 to 1955. In 1959, he received his doctorate with honors from George Washington University.

He spent several years as an administrative assistant to Massachusetts Sen. Leverett Saltonstall. Nixon made him special counsel in November 1969.

In February 2005, Colson was named one of Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America."

Mark Earley, a former Virginia attorney general who became president and chief executive officer of Prison Fellowship Ministries after his failed gubernatorial run in 2001, said the influence of Colson's work in his ministry is a different kind of power from what he had as Nixon's special counsel.

"Yet, it wasn't until he lost that power, what most people would call real 'power,' that Chuck began to make a real difference and exercise the only kind of influence that really matters," Earley said on BreakPoint.

"Prison Fellowship is possible only because its founder, Chuck Colson, was forced to personally identify with those people who hold a special place in God's heart: prisoners and their families."

In October 2000, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush restored Colson's civil rights, allowing him to vote, sit on a jury, run for office and practice law. Colson had a home in Naples, Fla., and Bush called him "a great guy ? a great Floridian."

Ultimately, Colson credited the Watergate scandal with enriching his life.

God "used that experience -- Watergate -- to raise up a ministry that is reaching hundreds of thousands of people," Colson said in the late 1990s. "So I'm probably one of the few guys around that's saying, 'I'm glad for Watergate.'"

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Romney hits back at Obama criticisms

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON Mitt Romney took a sharper line of attack against President Barack Obama on Wednesday, accusing the Democratic incumbent of waging a "hide-and-seek campaign" that disguises his intentions and offers no solutions for the country's most intransigent economic problems.

Rising stars shut down

vice-presidential talk

Republicans considered to be up-and-comers are scrambling to declare a lack of interest in becoming Mitt Romney's running mate, taking themselves off the still-forming short list of would-be vice presidents.

"I'm not going to be the vice president," Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said Wednesday.

"If offered any position by Gov. Romney, I would say no," South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said a day earlier.

"I've taken myself off the list," former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said recently.

"It's humbling, but I'm not interested," New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez said.

-- Associated Press

Romney's comments to the American Society of News Editors in Washington were a forceful rebuttal of the criticism that Obama had lodged against him before the same audience a day earlier, when the president described the GOP as a "radical" party that had strayed from American values.

Obama "came here yesterday and railed against arguments no one is making, and criticized policies no one is proposing. It's one of his favorite strategies -- setting up a straw man to distract us from his record," Romney, a former Massachusetts governor told the editors and reporters.

Romney's aggressive tack against Obama reflected his bolstered confidence, after sweeping the presidential primaries in three states on Tuesday, that he is moving beyond the prolonged and bitter struggle for the Republican nomination and can focus fully on his potential November opponent.

Taken together, the speeches by Obama and Romney represented the most direct engagement yet between the two all-but-certain standard-bearers and a signal of the contrast they plan to present to voters this fall.

Obama's message is evolving into a populist appeal that seeks to paint Romney and the Republicans as extreme and out of touch with middle-class concerns. Romney is honing a portrayal of Obama and the Democrats as hapless believers in big government who have neither the expertise nor the vision to get the economy back on its feet.

"We know what Barack Obama's vision of America is," Romney said. "We've all lived it these last three years."

Obama on Tuesday was unstinting in his castigation of the House Republican budget as "a Trojan horse" that would "impose a radical vision on our country" and as "thinly veiled social Darwinism." Romney has endorsed the fiscal blueprint, which was authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and passed by the House last week.

"I looked at what the president said," Romney said Wednesday. "There were just so many things that I found to be distortions and inaccuracies."

Among Obama's untrue assertions, Romney said, was that the $5.3trillion in cuts the budget plan envisions over the next decade would be applied equally to all programs.

"Of course you wouldn't cut programs on a proportional basis. There would be some programs that you would eliminate outright -- 'Obamacare' being first on the list," Romney said.

As he has before, Romney pointed to the president's comments to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev -- caught at a moment last month when Obama was unaware that his microphone was on -- that he would have "more flexibility" after the presidential election, which will be his last.

"President Obama's exchange with the Russian president raises all sorts of serious questions," Romney said. "What exactly does President Obama intend to do differently once he's no longer accountable to the voters? Why does flexibility with foreign leaders require less accountability to the American people? And on what other issues will he state his true position only after the election is over?"

Among the questions Romney got from the audience was one that focused on a USA Today-Gallup poll of a dozen battleground states that shows him trailing Obama by 18percentage points among women -- a deficit that cannot be overcome by his one-point lead among men.

Though Republicans normally lag behind Democrats among female voters, this gap is unusually large, and many in the party believe it has been worsened by the recent controversy over whether contraception should be covered by health insurance.

"I think the Democratic Party has done an effective job in trying to mischaracterize our views," Romney said, indirectly acknowledging the toll that the GOP has suffered among women as the campaign debate has turned to social issues.

As he often does, Romney suggested that his wife, Ann, is acting as his emissary to female voters.

"My wife has the occasion, as you know, to campaign on her own and also with me," he said, "and she reports to me regularly that the issue women care about most is the economy, and getting good jobs for their kids and for themselves."

Romney made no mention of his Republican opponents. And while none of the three remaining in the race has much of a chance of denying him the nomination, they continue to campaign, with the next important contest coming April24 in Pennsylvania.

That is the home state of former Sen. Rick Santorum, who stressed his Keystone State roots as he campaigned there Wednesday.

Though Santorum lost his 2006 Senate re-election bid by 18points, he said the environment in Pennsylvania and the country has become more friendly to conservatives since then. He predicted he will win the state, despite the onslaught of negative advertising that he expects from Romney and his allies.

Copyright 2012 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Montana race could tip balance of power in U.S. Senate

BUTTE, Mont. – Facing a competitive re-election battle for his U.S. Senate seat, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester returned for a recent weekend trip home and did what comes naturally: He rode a tractor.

By Walter Hinick, The Montana Standard

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., rides a John Deere tractor in the annual St. Patrick's Day parade in Butte, Mont., on March 17.

By Walter Hinick, The Montana Standard

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., rides a John Deere tractor in the annual St. Patrick's Day parade in Butte, Mont., on March 17.

The first-term senator and organic farmer spent a rainy Saturday afternoon atop a vintage John Deere tractor adorned with his campaign slogan, "Montana Farmer, Montana Values," in a St. Patrick's Day parade here. Unknown to Tester, the Republican trying to defeat him, Rep. Denny Rehberg, trailed several blocks behind, waving to voters in an appearance that caught some Tester supporters by surprise in this union-friendly, Democratic town.

Over the course of the next seven months, Tester and Rehberg will continue to shadow each other as they travel the same turf in a fight that holds national consequences. Tester, Rehberg and independent analysts agree that Montana might dictate which party controls the Senate next year, and thus has greater leverage in pending battles over sweeping debates ranging from the expiring Bush tax cuts to President Obama's health care law.

Montanans realize the implications.

"The majority is absolutely a factor," said Ted Kronebusch, a 60-year-old electrician from Pondera County and a Rehberg supporter. "This is why it is one of the most critical races in the United States."

Democrats are facing an uphill battle to hold on to their 53-seat majority, which includes two independent senators who caucus with Democrats. Of the 33 Senate races this year, 21 are held by Democrats, two by the independents and 10 are held by Republicans.

About a dozen races are considered competitive, where both parties are engaged. Democrats are defending nine seats they control while Republicans are defending just three: Sen. Scott Brown in Massachusetts, Sen. Dean Heller in Nevada, and the Maine seat held by retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe.

Republicans will need either a net gain of four seats to win the majority outright, or three seats and control of the White House to tilt a 50-50 Senate to their control. (When the Senate is evenly split, the vice president is the tiebreaker.) If Obama wins re-election, Democrats can lose no more than three seats to hold on to the chamber.

"There is no path to a majority without North Dakota, Nebraska and Montana," Rehberg told USA TODAY in an interview before a speech at a Lincoln Day dinner in Pondera, a conservative county where he enjoys a strong base of support. "I think the Democrats know that. I clearly know it. I feel the pressure," he said.

Montana has been a dead heat from the start and is expected to remain so right up to the Nov. 6 vote. A March 14-16 poll conducted by The Billings Gazette gave Tester a 46%-45% lead, with 9% undecided.

Both Tester and Rehberg have won statewide races and are well-known. That means the contest will turn on which side can best get out its vote and appeal to the small slice of swing voters — a formula that will be replayed in races across the nation, including the presidential contest. When races run so tight, it puts a greater focus on personality and a candidate's ability to relate to people.

"People tend to like both of them, which is why this going to be so personal," said David Parker, a Montana State University professor who is writing a book, Battle for the Big Sky, on the race. "A key to victory is going to be turning out the base by riling them up which means: negative, negative, negative, attack, attack, attack."

The national picture

For Republicans, the Democratic-held seats in Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and North Dakota are widely viewed as must-wins if the party stands a chance at taking control of the chamber. Democrats are confident they will pick up at least one of the GOP-held seats, which leaves Republicans hoping to pick off a seat in New Mexico, Ohio, Virginia or Wisconsin.

Within the 2012 battleground, election experts broadly agree that four contests are expected to be exceptionally close: Montana, Massachusetts, Nevada and Virginia. "Every one of these races will end in the margin of error unless something unexpected happens between now and November," said Jennifer Duffy, a Senate election expert for the non-partisan Cook Political Report.

Based on the state's political climate, Maine is the ripest target for a Democratic pickup. The leading contender there, former governor Angus King, an independent, has not expressly stated which party he would side with, but his record is more in line with the Democratic Party. Democrats are also hotly contesting GOP-held seats in Massachusetts and Nevada.

Though the Senate contests in Democratic-held Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida don't look good for Republicans today, the races are expected to tighten with the influence of the presidential election. Likewise, races in Nebraska and North Dakota would appear to be ripe for the GOP, but Democrats are not conceding them, believing they have candidates who can win despite the strong conservative leanings in both states.

When elections poll as tightly as Montana's Senate race, the campaigns tend to get personal, which is why the Tester campaign is emphasizing that character matters. First elected in a narrow 2006 victory against scandal-tainted incumbent GOP Sen. Conrad Burns, the plain-spoken Democrat promotes himself as a "citizen-legislator" who regularly returns home to maintain the farm that he operates with his wife.

"I think in Montana, your word is your bond. Your handshake means something. I think that is still out there. I think they still respect people who take this citizen-legislator thing for real as our forefathers wanted," Tester told USA TODAY in an interview. "Montanans appreciate hard work. They did in '06, and I think they still do now."

Tester's burly build, trademark military-style buzz cut, and mangled left hand — he lost three fingers in a childhood meat grinder accident — are physical symbols of a tough persona that resonate with many Montanans.

"He's our guy," said Sean Smith, a third-generation member of the Butte-based Plumbers & Pipefitters Local Union 41, which has endorsed Tester. Smith cited Tester's successful effort to pass legislation expanding incentives for hiring veterans, as well as Tester's support of the $800 billion stimulus bill because it helped purchase mobile trailers for the union to train workers. "I'm for Tester. I'm for what he stands for and believes in," Smith said.

The campaign is trying to create a contrast of character with Rehberg, who Tester called "a guy who really hasn't done anything in the last 35 years he's been in office but sit on the sidelines and complain and throw stones."

Tester's campaign has targeted some of Rehberg's personal issues, including a 2008 lawsuit Rehberg filed against the Billings fire department over alleged negligence concerning a wildfire that burned undeveloped land he owns. Rehberg dropped the suit last year. The Tester campaign has also highlighted a 2009 boat crash involving Rehberg and four others. Rehberg had alcohol in his blood, but he was not driving the boat and not accused of wrongdoing.

The incidents were widely reported, and voters have yet to show dissatisfaction. Since his first election to the U.S. House in 2000, Rehberg has not won re-election with less than 59%, although he has never faced opposition as fierce as the Senate race.

In an interview, Rehberg acknowledged the attacks but dismissed their impact. "The only hope they have of defeating me is to make it personal. The people of Montana don't like personal campaigns and I think they're going to react negatively," he said.

At 56, Rehberg has spent most of his life in political office, having served in the state House and as lieutenant governor before winning his current seat in 2000. Caffeinated and mustachioed, Rehberg also has a distinctive flair. He is well-known across the state and visits every county in every election cycle.

"For all of his foibles that may have come out, he spends a lot of time in the state. People see him around, they know him, and they like him," Parker said. "He's shrewder than people give him credit for."

The Obama factor

One vulnerability that Rehberg's campaign has identified is Tester's links to Obama, who is deeply unpopular in the state. According to Gallup, the president had a 34% approval rating in Montana last year; he only fared worse in five other states.

Rehberg's main advantage is facing an opponent who will have to outperform his party's president by a significant margin. Another Democratic incumbent, Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, is facing the same challenge, as are Democratic candidates in Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio and Wisconsin — all states where the president's approval rating was under 50%.

"There's no daylight" between Tester and Obama, Rehberg told USA TODAY. "When the people of Montana see, realize and understand that he votes with Barack Obama 95% of the time … they're not going to vote for him."

At times, Tester has split with Democrats — most recently in his support of construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast — but he has voted with Obama on the most critical issues of his presidency: the stimulus, the health care legislation and the Dodd-Frank financial services overhaul.

Tester said he appeals to a broad swath of voters, even those who oppose the president. "Montanans split tickets. They vote for people, not for parties."

Tester, like many Democrats in 2012, is focusing on his support of Medicare and efforts by the GOP to privatize some or all of the popular entitlement program. But Rehberg voted against the House GOP budget that included plans to privatize Medicare in both 2011 and 2012.

Tester and Rehberg's personal jabs exemplify how the Senate has become polarized in ways that affect the chamber's ability to legislate, but the 2012 elections could remake the Senate in a way that would have an immediate and significant impact.

The House of Representatives is not currently so competitive that the 242-to-190-seat GOP majority is in serious doubt, but the Senate could prove to be the buffer or the blocker to the next president, thus amplifying the importance of contests like the spirited one in Montana.

Duffy, of the Cook Political Report, sees a wide open contest in Big Sky Country and beyond.

"The Senate is a jump ball," she said.

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Democratic Party chair sees chance to make state better

Arizona Democrats selected Bill Roe as party chairman last weekend by acclamation. The Tucson conservationist has long been active in environmental issues as well as party politics, particularly on the fundraising end. He was a regular presence at meetings last year of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, tracking the panel's work as it redrew the state's political boundaries.

Roe succeeds Andrei Cherny, who resigned as chairman in January to pursue a congressional bid. He inherited a party headquarters that is rebuilding after losing key staff positions (mostly to work on congressional campaigns). The staff has been brought back to near full strength because of the efforts of Executive Director Luis Heredia.

Roe said he wants to invest in research on the party's donors, to better understand how to reach out to them; serve as a coordinator for congressional campaigns; and do the requisite hand-holding of candidates.

He sat down with The Republic last week to talk about his plans for the party as it goes into the 2012 election cycle.

Question: Why did you seek the chairmanship? Did you jump? Or were you pushed?

Answer: I had a long discussion two months ago, and the sense was you don't gain anything by seeking it. Wait and see what people really want. Ann Wallack (Maricopa County Democratic chairwoman) and I talked at some length about what was best for the party right now. There really weren't any other serious candidates. ? We decided for now we would work together as a team through the election.

Q: The news release about your appointment mentioned you're talking about building strong county organizations. Is that akin to (former Democratic National Chairman) Howard Dean's 50-state strategy, where you have stronger organizations at the base?

A: Well, yes. I hadn't thought of it that way. We have organizations in 13 of the 15 counties. (La Paz and Apache are the exceptions.) All of the other counties are very vibrant.

And what's interesting right now is everybody's excited. (T)here is a real palpable air of excitement about the future. The same thing at the state committee meeting. We had a remarkably good turnout. We had way, way over quorum.

We have a strong, unified party. And quite unlike the last couple of elections for party chair, where there was a real dogfight, this was a vote by acclamation. ? Everybody is focused on the opportunities we've got coming up for this November.

Q: What is it that's creating this energy?

A: I think people sense the Republicans have really overreached.

I had an e-mail from somebody I served with on a board. He said, "I'm tempted to admonish that you should be careful what you wish for. But instead congratulations on being chosen to lead the Democratic Party. Although I'm still struggling to be a Republican, I am convinced we must have a more competitive Democratic Party if we're going to overcome our worst political instincts in this state. I hope you can accomplish that."

That is symptomatic of a huge number of phone calls and e-mails that I have gotten, not just from Democrats but from people across the board. They're unhappy.

And I think there's a real sense with redistricting there's an opportunity to make the Legislature better. This huge push by the Republicans, all these bills, whether they be assaults on women and reproductive rights, people, I think they are trying to say it's time to take control back and try and be a normal state again.

Q: What are Arizona's chances of being a battleground state in the presidential election?

A: The president's campaign manager was here a month ago, Jim Messina ? The decision would be made later this spring. It would not be on personalities, it would be entirely data driven.

But he shared with us some polls that are very encouraging. And since then, the polls have gotten better in Arizona. So I am cautiously optimistic the president will play a much larger role than either the president did four years ago or (John) Kerry did eight years ago.

Editor's note: The Republic invited Tom Morrissey to sit down for a similar interview when he was elected GOP chairman in early 2011. The requests went unanswered.

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Column: Obama, Biden duck; Perry steals show

For 127 years, the sitting president or vice president usually has had the last laugh at closing remarks at the annual fancy white-tie Gridiron dinner, where press and politicians spoof each other.

By Ralph Barrera, AP

About 600 of the USA's top journalists, politicians and business leaders attend. But last Saturday night at the downtown Renaissance Hotel, neither President Obama nor Vice President Biden showed up. Why?

Columns

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes a variety of opinions from outside writers. On political and policy matters, we publish opinions from across the political spectrum.

Roughly half of our columns come from our Board of Contributors, a group whose interests range from education to religion to sports to the economy. Their charge is to chronicle American culture by telling the stories, large and small, that collectively make us what we are.

We also publish weekly columns by Al Neuharth, USA TODAY's founder, and DeWayne Wickham, who writes primarily on matters of race but on other subjects as well. That leaves plenty of room for other views from across the nation by well-known and lesser-known names alike.

The president was in South Korea meeting with world leaders. But the vice president was at his home base in nearby Wilmington, Del.

Clearly, the administration didn't want either of its two top guys to take part in the fun and games in an election year.

Ironically, the Gridiron is where then-U.S. Sen. Obama of Illinois really captured the attention of the press when he gave the Democratic Party speech at the 2006 affair.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, the designated closer subbing for President Obama, was pretty gentle on everybody. His closest thing to a jab was when he said: "DoD (Department of Defense) recently completed a 65-year project to develop a cutting-edge robot. Initial testing wasn't good, but Mitt Romney's performance is improving."

With neither of the two top Democrats present this time, Republican presidential also-ran Gov. Rick Perry of Texas stole the show as his party's speaker. He mostly made fun of himself by quoting from some of his campaign goofs.

"My problem was saying stuff that wasn't right. Mitt's problem is saying stuff that is," Perry joked. Examples: "I would say stuff like 'Solyndra is a country' or 'the voting age is 21.' Mitt says things like his wife drives a couple of Cadillacs or his pals own NASCAR teams."

If Perry had learned to loosen up like that while he was a candidate, he might still be in the race.

Feedback: Other views on the Gridiron

"When an organization's been around 127 years, we don't get overly concerned about a scheduling problem one year. We look forward to welcoming President Obama and Vice President Biden — or their successors — back next year."

—George Condon, president, the Gridiron Club

"Obama had a genuine scheduling conflict, but Biden's no-show was a sign of the Gridiron's declining prestige. The club needs to evolve, especially by televising the dinner on C-SPAN."

—Robert McCartney, columnist, The Washington Post

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Letters: Value found in stability and moments of silence

The good Benedictine sisters of Mount St. Scholastica Monastery in Kansas do have a point to make ("Column: Lessons from a Benedictine monastery").

Mount St. Scholastica

Most conversation today is frivolous chatter. The advent of cellphones hasn't helped the situation any. We do need silence in order to get hold of ourselves, and take constructive bearings on our world.

Moreover, the high geographic mobility many experience these days has taken a terrible toll on communities. We need to stay in one place for a while and get to know each other. Without stable values, we have no constructive self-image. What one values is what one believes conscientiously. And what one believes conscientiously is pretty much the composite of who one is.

It seems that the Benedictine sisters know who they are, what they believe and what they are doing. That's more than what we can say for a lot of people these days.

Letters to the editor

USA TODAY receives about 300 letters each day. Most arrive via e-mail, but we also receive submissions by postal mail and fax. We publish about 35 letters each week.

We often select comments that respond directly to USA TODAY articles or opinion pieces. Letters that are concise and make one or two good points have the best chance of being selected, as do letters that reflect the vibrant debate around the nation on a particular subject.

We aim to make the letters platform a place where readers, not just writers representing institutions or interest groups, have their say.

John L. Indo; Houston

Evenly apply disclosure rule

Commentary writer Drew Cohen's piece on the need for the government to implement rules demanding that companies disclose their campaign contributions was conspicuously lacking an equally anguished cry for the government to do the same in regard to unions ("Column: Shareholders should know about political donations").

Cohen is probably too busy pursuing his joint degree in law and business at George Washington University to be aware that many union members pay political contributions out of every paycheck, contributions that go almost exclusively to the Democratic Party to help elect candidates who pledge to advance unions' agendas.

If it is any comfort to Cohen, these union contributions level the playing field against evil corporations, one of which perhaps will hire him one day.

Robert J. Menerey; Horseshoe Bay, Texas

A truly bipartisan deal?

In the recent editorial debate on budget politics, Rep. Paul Ryan in his opposing view states: "Republicans' Path to Prosperity budget that passed the House last week represents the only plan that … advances bipartisan, patient-centered health care solutions" ("Paul Ryan: Compromise budget proposal was flawed").

How does it advance bipartisanship when he calls it a Republican plan? How is it bipartisan when it was passed on a party-line vote? Have I missed something?

Were the views of Democrats in the House taken into consideration? If so, which ones? Only then can Ryan claim that his plan advances a bipartisan solution.

Tony Awad; Alpharetta, Ga.

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Tight Mont. Senate race may ripple nationwide

BUTTE, Mont. — BUTTE, Mont. Facing a competitive re-election battle for his U.S. Senate seat, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester returned for a recent weekend trip home and did what comes naturally: He rode a tractor.

The first-term senator and organic farmer spent a rainy Saturday afternoon atop a vintage John Deere tractor adorned with his campaign slogan, "Montana Farmer, Montana Values," in a St. Patrick's Day parade here. Unknown to Tester, the Republican trying to defeat him, Rep. Dennis Rehberg, trailed several blocks behind, waving to voters in an appearance that caught some Tester supporters by surprise in this union-friendly, Democratic town.

Over the course of the next seven months, Tester and Rehberg will continue to shadow each other as they travel the same turf in a fight that holds national consequences. Tester, Rehberg and independent analysts agree that Montana might dictate which party controls the Senate next year, and thus has greater leverage in pending battles over sweeping debates ranging from the expiring Bush tax cuts to President Barack Obama's health-care law.

Montanans realize the implications.

"The majority is absolutely a factor," said Ted Kronebusch, a 60-year-old electrician from Pondera and a Rehberg supporter. "This is why it is one of the most critical races in the United States."

Democrats are facing an uphill battle to hold on to their 53-seat majority, which includes two independent senators who caucus with Democrats. Of the 33 Senate races this year, 23 are held by Democrats and just 10 are held by Republicans.

About a dozen races are considered competitive, where both parties are engaged. Democrats are defending nine seats they control, while Republicans are defending just three: Sen. Scott Brown in Massachusetts, Sen. Dean Heller in Nevada, and the Maine seat held by retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe.

Republicans will need either a net gain of four seats to win the majority outright, or three seats and control of the White House to tilt a 50-50 Senate to their control. (When the Senate is evenly split, the vice president is the tiebreaker.) If Obama wins re-election, Democrats can lose no more than three seats to hold on to the chamber.

"There is no path to a majority without North Dakota, Nebraska and Montana," Rehberg told USA Today in an interview before a speech at a Lincoln Day dinner in Pondera, a conservative small town where he enjoys a strong base of support. "I think the Democrats know that. I clearly know it. I feel the pressure," he said.

Montana has been close from the start and is expected to remain so right up to the Nov. 6 vote. A March 14-16 poll conducted by the Billings Gazette gave Tester a lead of 46 percent to 45 percent, with 9 percent undecided.

Both Tester and Rehberg have won statewide races and are well-known. That means the contest will turn on which side can best get out its vote and appeal to the small slice of swing voters -- a formula that will be replayed in races across the nation, including the presidential contest. When races run so tight, it puts a greater focus on personality and a candidate's ability to relate to people.

"People tend to like both of them, which is why this going to be so personal," said David Parker, a Montana State University professor who is writing a book, "Battle for the Big Sky," on the race. "A key to victory is going to be turning out the base by riling them up, which means: negative, negative, negative, attack, attack, attack."

For Republicans, the Democratic-held seats in Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and North Dakota are widely viewed as must-wins if the party stands a chance at taking control of the chamber. Democrats are confident they will pick up at least one of the GOP-held seats, which leaves Republicans hoping to pick off a seat in New Mexico, Ohio, Virginia or Wisconsin.

Within the 2012 battleground, election experts broadly agree that four contests are expected to be exceptionally close: Montana, Massachusetts, Nevada and Virginia.

"Every one of these races will end in the margin of error unless something unexpected happens between now and November," said Jennifer Duffy, a Senate election expert for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

Based on the state's political climate, Maine is the ripest target for a Democratic pickup. The leading contender there, former governor Angus King, an independent, has not expressly stated which party he would side with, but his record is more in line with the Democratic Party.

Democrats are also hotly contesting GOP-held seats in Massachusetts and Nevada.

Though the Senate contests in Democratic-held Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida don't look good for Republicans today, the races are expected to tighten with the influence of the presidential election.

Likewise, races in Nebraska and North Dakota would appear to be ripe for the GOP, but Democrats are not conceding them, believing they have candidates who can win despite the strong conservative leanings in both states.

Duffy sees a wide open contest in Big Sky Country and beyond.

"The Senate is a jump ball," she said.

Copyright 2012 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Rival out, path clear for Carmona in Dem race

Former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona is looking at a straight shot at the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate thanks to the withdrawal Wednesday of chief primary opponent Don Bivens.

The development allows Carmona to focus all of his time, money and energy on his general-election campaign and avoid burning his resources in a potentially costly and divisive primary fight.

Carmona, a former registered independent, was encouraged by President Barack Obama to run for the seat of retiring three-term Republican Sen. Jon Kyl.

Although he still could face some intraparty competition if little-known Democrats David Ruben and Sheila Bilyeu make the ballot, Carmona essentially now can look toward squaring off in November against the winner of the Republican Senate primary.

The GOP race, meanwhile, is increasingly looking like it could turn into a nasty fight between U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., the front-runner, and Wil Cardon, an independently wealthy investor who recently launched an expensive advertising push to boost his name ID.

A big-money, negative GOP grudge match would increase the likelihood that the eventual Republican nominee will be damaged before the general election, a scenario that would further boost Carmona's prospects.

Obama's re-election campaign and other national Democrats have expressed confidence that a strong Carmona candidacy could help them carry the traditionally red Arizona in the presidential race -- a possibility that national Republicans are quick to dismiss as ridiculous.

Former Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., a strong Carmona supporter, hailed his friend Bivens for showing what he characterized as true leadership in making the tough decision to bow out for the good of the party.

"The Democrats have a real opportunity to win this seat," DeConcini told The Arizona Republic. "There's just no question that this will help immensely for both fundraising and support."

Bivens, an attorney and a former Arizona Democratic Party chairman, had been under intense pressure from national party leaders to quit. Carmona was surgeon general from 2002 to 2006 under Republican President George W. Bush. He has a law-enforcement background and is a decorated Vietnam War veteran, and is considered by many Democrats to be more electable than Bivens in GOP-leaning Arizona.

Bivens had trailed Carmona in the polls and in fundraising, but not by such a margin that he couldn't have made some trouble in a primary. Bivens even launched a cable television commercial this month that attacked Flake over his positions on women's issues.

But some political experts are skeptical that Bivens could have captured Kyl's seat in the general election.

"I don't think he (Bivens) had much of a chance to win, frankly," said Bruce Merrill, a veteran Arizona political scientist and senior research fellow at Arizona State University's Morrison Institute for Public Policy. "If you go back and look at the history of the Democratic Party in Arizona, one of the reasons they've had a hard time competing over the last several years is that they haven't united in the primary behind one person. If you're going to run against a guy like Flake, you don't want two or three guys dividing the money, the resources, etc."

Bivens acknowledged as much Wednesday in the written statement announcing the end of his candidacy.

"The continuing head-to-head competition of our Democratic primary is draining resources that we will need as a party to win the U.S. Senate race in November," Bivens said in the statement. "While I am confident we would win this primary, the cost and impact on the party I've spent my life fighting for could diminish our chance to achieve the ultimate goal: winning in November."

Carmona in turn issued a written statement praising Bivens as "a cornerstone" of the state Democratic Party.

"An agent of change for our state, Don knew how great of an opportunity we have to win this seat and knew that it would take a strong and united effort to do so," Carmona said. "He and his team ran a strong race that showed a great deal of respect for the nominating process which in turn has improved our party's chance of success in November."

Carmona could not be reached for comment to elaborate on the Senate race post-Bivens.

Bivens' decision to drop out of the race frees his political and financial supporters to migrate to Carmona. Some of Bivens' endorsements already were feeling the pressure to switch. Former Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz., initially had endorsed Bivens but in February changed her status in the race to neutral.

With Obama and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee solidly in Carmona's corner, it was inevitable that Bivens eventually would succumb to the pressure and get out, said Jennifer Duffy, who analyzes U.S. Senate races for the nonpartisan, Washington, D.C.-based Cook Political Report.

"I actually call it strangulation," Duffy said. "They basically cut off the blood supply: endorsements, money. A campaign can't help but wither under that if you don't have the resources to fund it yourself."

Brian Walsh, a National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman, said his party looks forward to Obama and Carmona stumping together in Arizona.

"After President Obama personally recruited Richard Carmona to run for the Senate, it should surprise no one that the liberal Washington establishment would eventually clear the field for their anointed candidate and loyal ally," Walsh said. "Today's news only serves as a reminder to Arizonans that a vote for Carmona this November is a vote for President Obama's liberal, big-government agenda of higher taxes, reckless Washington spending and job-killing health-care takeovers."

National Republicans don't have a similar strategy to clear the GOP primary field for Flake and instead are leaving it to Arizona voters to choose the nominee. In addition to Flake and Cardon, three other Republican candidates are running: former Youngtown Mayor Bryan Hackbarth, conservative radio host Clair "Van" Van Steenwyk, and "tea party" activist John Lyon.

Polls have shown Flake with a towering lead over Cardon, whose support has been in single digits. But those surveys came before Cardon embarked on a major advertising campaign on broadcast television, cable TV and radio that is estimated to cost more than $450,000. Cardon also has been trying to chip away at Flake's lead with online videos that attack Flake, a six-term congressman, on illegal immigration and for his international travel at taxpayer expense. Some Republicans worry that a wounded GOP nominee will emerge to face Carmona in the general election.

"I'm amazed at the amount of money he's spending," Merrill said of Cardon.

"I doubt Wil Cardon is going to get out," Duffy said.

Copyright 2012 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Thomas and Patterson relish roles as victims

Tuesday was quite the day for victims around this place.

RESPONSE: Patterson tells ethics panel he wants to question witnesses and put up a defense. B3

First, there was former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, reprising the role of Delusional Crusader against Corruption, Doomed to be Squashed by the Shadowy Powers That Be.

"The political witch hunt that's just ended ? (sends) a chilling message to prosecutors," Thomas proclaimed, as news of his disbarment exploded. "Those who take on the powerful will lose their livelihood."

Especially, I would add, when those who take on the powerful don't seem to go in search of actual evidence before filing RICO suits and criminal charges and such.

Then there's my favorite victim of the moment, Rep. Daniel "Who me?" Patterson, the perpetually picked-upon Democrat turned independent, who on Tuesday offered an answer for every allegation, every charge, every accusation lobbed at him by his ex-wife, by his ex-girlfriend, by police, by prosecutors, by his colleagues.

Short version: They're all lying and the investigators who are calling for his expulsion are biased.

"The whole process is unfair and has turned into a witch hunt," he wrote in Tuesday's Arizona Republic.

There are, of course, differences between our two victims in the scope, the breadth and the sheer magnitude of their transgressions. But the starkest difference is this: Thomas got his day in court, so to speak, before a disciplinary panel yanked away his profession.

Patterson, it seems, will not, unless the House ethics chairman, Ted Vogt, R-Tucson, has a change of heart.

House Minority Leader Chad Campbell, D-Phoenix, on Tuesday reversed course and said he now believes that Patterson should get a hearing.

"You're right," he told me. "Let's have some very pointed questions from the Ethics Committee and get a response."

Patterson's troubles tumbled into view in late February when he got into a fight with his girlfriend. Unfortunately for him, the fight was witnessed by a city of Tucson parks employee, who told police that Patterson "backhanded" the woman, knocking her to the ground.

House Democrats immediately swung into action, something you get the feeling they'd been itching to do since 2010 when allegations first surfaced that he'd beaten up his then-wife. The resulting ethics complaint was signed by nearly every Democrat in the joint.

Investigators, assigned to check out the complaint, painted a picture of a bully feared by colleagues and ex-wives/girlfriends alike, though his ex-girlfriend has since recanted. They found "substantial and significant evidence of Rep. Patterson's dishonest, inappropriate, unprofessional, indecorous conduct" and recommended that he be bounced, posthaste.

Alas, if you expect Patterson to go gentle into that good night, you're dreaming. In Pattersonland, he is perhaps the only innocent around. And so we have his bizarre 30-page response delivered on Tuesday, along with 600 assorted pages of backup material that appears irrelevant.

The ethics complaint, he says, is bogus. If he did scream at his colleagues, as a fair number of them say, he's apologized and so double jeopardy would apply if they now tried to remove him. Besides, he now has a "cordial relationship" with these people.

Even, presumably, with the ones who are carrying guns because they're afraid of him.

Though he did write a letter to his alma mater Michigan State on legislative letterhead, requesting signed basketball memorabilia, he says, "I never intended to use my position to get anything inappropriate."

At one point in his response, he blames his predicament on "racial discrimination" by Democratic Party leaders. At another, he lauds the notion of "Baja Arizona" seceding from state because Republicans are "plundering" the place.

And if people really do feel threatened by him? Well, there's someone to blame for that (and here's a hint, it's not him).

"If people are frightened of Rep. Patterson physically then perhaps we should see what the written policy and procedures are for handling such occasion, the training personnel receive on sexual harassment, discrimination and duty to ensure a safe work place," he wrote. "If the allegations in the investigative report are true, then the state of Arizona has failed miserably in its legal obligations to follow written procedures."

So, to recap. Nothing is Patterson's fault. He is a victim extraordinaire -- of his exes, of his colleagues, of both political parties, the police, prosecutors and -- wait for it -- the state of Arizona, which apparently didn't give him proper training on sexual harassment.

The man sounds desperate and vaguely unhinged. But he's also right, at least on one thing.

Like Thomas, he deserves a fair hearing, even if it's only the chance to stand before theEthics Committee, one eyeball-to-eyeball opportunity to plead his case before his fate is sealed.

Nobody likes a bully, after all. And the worst sort of bully is a mob.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8635.

Copyright 2012 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Obama raises $45 million in February for campaign, DNC

WASHINGTON – President Obama has stepped up his fundraising pace, amassing $45 million for his re-election and the Democratic National Committee in February before a likely spending spree by Republican outside groups in the general election, his campaign announced Monday.

By Saul Loeb, AFP/Getty Images

President Obama appears at a Democratic campaign fundraiser in Bellevue, Wash., on Feb. 17.

By Saul Loeb, AFP/Getty Images

President Obama appears at a Democratic campaign fundraiser in Bellevue, Wash., on Feb. 17.

The haul outpaces the $29.1 million Obama raised for himself and the Democratic Party in January. It still trails what he collected at this point four years ago as he made his first bid for the White House. Republicans called the lag a sign of voter weariness with Obama and the nation's economic struggles.

Obama made the fundraising announcement in an early-morning tweet, thanking the 348,000 people who donated last month. The campaign said nearly 98% of the contributions were $250 or less, and the average donation was about $59.

The fundraising news comes before campaign filings with the Federal Election Commission and another important test for the president's Republican rivals — Tuesday's primary in Obama's home state of Illinois.

"Every dime the Republicans are raising will be spent on the air carpet-bombing each other," Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said. "Our funds are a direct investment in our general election infrastructure on the ground."

Combined with his fundraising for the Democratic Party, Obama has collected about $300 million for the entire election cycle. In February alone, he headlined 15 fundraisers in California, Florida and Washington, according to data compiled by Brendan Doherty, a U.S. Naval Academy political scientist who tracks presidential activity.

The aggressive pace shows no signs of slowing. Last week, Obama attended five fundraisers on a single day - including an event with singer Cee Lo Green in Atlanta and another at the home of movie producer Tyler Perry, where attendees paid $35,800 each. Monday afternoon, he appeared at another $35,800-a-head event at the high-end W Hotel in downtown Washington.

Republicans note that Obama raised less this February than the $56.8 million he raised in February 2008 amid his fight with Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Republican National Committee spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski said Obama "is having a hard time convincing voters he deserves another term."

Obama's campaign did not disclose how much money went into his campaign account directly in February vs. accounts shared with the national party.

He has consistently outraised the Republicans vying to replace him. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who leads the GOP field in fundraising, announced collecting $11.5 million in February. Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum collected $9 million last month. Other GOP candidates have not released full details of their February fundraising; those reports are due to the Federal Election Commission by midnight Tuesday.

Overall, Republican candidates have raised far less than GOP presidential contenders at this stage in the 2008 election. Instead, they have relied heavily on new super PACs that can raise and spend unlimited money.

In Illinois, a pro-Romney super PAC had spent $2.6 million as of midday Monday, more than eight times the spending by a super PAC aligned with Santorum.

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Obama Embraces National Security as Campaign Issue

At the same time, the Obama campaign is seeking to portray Mitt Romney, the likely Republican nominee, as a national security neophyte whose best ideas are simply retreads of what the president is already doing, and whose worst instincts would take the country back to the days of President George W. Bush: cowboy diplomacy, the Iraq war and America’s lowest standing on the international stage.

In the coming weeks, Obama advisers plan to release a list of national security “surrogates” — high-profile Democrats like former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and Wesley K. Clark, a retired general — who will write newspaper op-ed articles, give speeches and take Mr. Romney to task every time he opens his mouth about foreign policy, Obama advisers said.

The plan is to draw a contrast between Mr. Obama — who, his advisers say, kept his word on ending the Iraq war, going aggressively after Al Qaeda and restoring alliances around the world — and Mr. Romney, who will be portrayed as playing both sides of numerous issues.

“He was for and against the removal of Qaddafi, for and against setting a timetable to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan, for and against enforcing trade laws against China, and while he once said he would not move heaven and earth to get Osama bin Laden, he later claimed that any president would have authorized the mission to do so,” said Ben LaBolt, press secretary for the Obama campaign.

The more aggressive posture is a break from the past, when Democrats on the national stage battled against the perception that the party was not as committed as Republicans were to a strong defense and an aggressive response to terrorism. Mr. Obama himself, during the 2008 campaign, drew criticism from both Republicans and his primary opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton, for what they called his naïveté, particularly over his willingness to talk, without preconditions, to American foes like Iran.

But Mr. Obama’s victory that year over Senator John McCain, a Vietnam War hero, was in part a result of an electorate weary from years of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, with a record that includes winding down the Iraq war and killing Bin Laden, coupled with the success of the military strikes in Libya and the removal of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, political and national security experts have embraced the Obama campaign’s belief that this could be the year when national security issues actually help a Democrat.

“Barack Obama’s position in foreign policy is substantively stronger than that of any other Democratic candidate in recent memory,” said David Rothkopf, the chief executive and editor at large of the Foreign Policy Group. “The general Romney refrain of ‘I can do better’ is easily defused with one word: ‘How?’ ” 

Of course, Mr. Obama will have to fend off criticism on Afghanistan, where he has announced a withdrawal date for American troops even as the political situation remains tenuous, with reconciliation talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government in disarray. But even on this issue, Mr. Romney’s criticism — that Mr. Obama should listen more to his generals — has not had much resonance with a public that polls show to be increasingly disillusioned with the American presence there.

Mr. Rothkopf’s description of the Obama counteroffense played out late last month, when Mr. Romney’s national security advisers sent an open letter to Mr. Obama via the conservative magazine National Review. The letter took the president to task over a host of issues, from Israel — which the Romney team said Mr. Obama had not done enough to support — to Iran, Afghanistan and Venezuela, where President Hugo Chávez, Mr. Romney’s advisers said, is growing in influence under Mr. Obama’s lax watch.

Within 24 hours, the Obama campaign struck back, this time choosing Foreign Policy magazine for its counterpunch. Beyond taking on each of the Romney letter’s accusations point by point, the Obama letter, signed by 18 mostly Democratic-leaning national security experts, demanded that Mr. Romney say what he would do instead.

“What specifically would you do to address the Iranian threat that is different from what President Obama is already doing?” the letter said. “Why did you call Russia ‘without question our No. 1 geopolitical foe,’ especially when strategic cooperation with Russia is essential for countering the Iranian nuclear threat?”

And finally: “What did you mean when you said, ‘It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person,’ referring to Osama bin Laden?” the letter said.

“We are so eager for this debate to happen,” said Michèle Flournoy, the former under secretary of defense who is now one of the Obama campaign’s national security surrogates. “If Romney is the Republican challenger, and he is going to make national security an issue, the president’s record is very strong and speaks for itself.”

A host of other Obama national security surrogates went after Mr. Romney last week, after he jumped on Mr. Obama’s open-microphone slip a few days before, during which the president was overheard telling Russia’s president, Dimitri A. Medvedev, that he would have more flexibility to deal with Russian concerns over the American missile defense system after the election in November.  Russia, Mr. Romney told CNN later, is “without question our No. 1 geopolitical foe.”

The Obama campaign released a flurry of statements from pro-Obama foreign policy notables taking Mr. Romney to task. “His national security priorities seem to shift opportunistically each week, from threatening war with Iran to calling Russia our biggest geopolitical foe,” said Richard J. Danzig, the Navy secretary under President Bill Clinton.

Mr. Romney, of course, has his own national security surrogates. Richard S. Williamson, who was Mr. Bush’s special envoy to Sudan, said Mr. Obama’s national security record left plenty of room for Mr. Romney to attack.

“The world is better off because Osama bin Laden is dead. The world is better off because Muammar Qaddafi is dead,” Mr. Williamson said in an interview. “But two deaths do not a foreign policy make.”

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