Clinton camp predicts it will be second to Obama

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) presidential campaign told supporters yesterday it is expecting, in the second quarter, to raise the same or “slightly more” than its first-quarter fundraising total.

{mosads}Howard Wolfson, a senior adviser to Clinton, said in an e-mail to supporters that the campaign’s second quarter total “should put us in the range of $27 million.”

And though he seems pleased, Wolfson did engage in the expectations game.

“While that figure is record-setting, we do expect Sen. Obama to significantly out raise us this quarter,” Wolfson wrote.

— Sam Yyoungman

Immigration post-mortem

The good news for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.): Yesterday’s immigration collapse is likely to be the last vote he will have to take on the bitterly divisive issue until the 2008 election.

The bad news: As the presidential candidate most closely associated with the Senate’s star-crossed border reform bill, McCain can expect to face unwelcome questions about the measure long after its obituaries are written this week.

Indeed, McCain was present and voting with immigration bill supporters yesterday, with backers including Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) offering a modicum of political cover. But McCain missed all seven of Wednesday’s decisive “clay pigeon” amendment votes while attending fundraisers in New York and New Jersey.

Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), another White House aspirant, missed all but one of the make-or-break amendment votes yet ultimately showed up to support moving forward with the bill. The last of those amendments, which effectively stranded the Senate on a path to failure, could prove an incendiary campaign issue for Biden’s two chief rivals, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

The amendment would have stricken from the bill all uses of “Real ID,” a nationwide identification card planned as a means to verify citizenship but already shot down by 17 states. Clinton, who has criticized Real ID in the past, voted with Real ID supporters to kill the amendment, but Obama voted with Real ID critics who are cheered on by civil-liberties groups.

One of McCain’s GOP primary foes, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, used the immigration vote to depict himself as an outsider and Washington politicians as “out of touch with the American people.”

During a speech Wednesday during a visit to South Carolina, former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) railed against the immigration bill and the flow of illegal immigrants from Cuba.

“I don’t imagine they’re coming here to bring greetings from [Cuban President Fidel] Castro. We’re living in the era of the suitcase bomb,” Thompson said.

— Elana Schor and Aaron Blake

This time, first out of the gate

Throughout the Supreme Court’s recent run of controversial rulings, former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) has bested his 2008 rivals in sounding the alarm about negative consequences — and in using the court’s rightward drift to tout the need for a Democratic president.

But when the high court struck again yesterday, in a 5-4 decision nixing school desegregation plans that gave some Democrats bad memories of the pre-civil rights era, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) was first out of the box.

“Once again the Roberts Court has shown its willingness to erode core constitutional guarantees,” Clinton said in a statement. “It is a setback for all of us who are on the long march toward racial equality and the building of a stronger, more unified America.”

Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) weighed in soon afterward with an Edwards-like warning that “the personal liberties of every American would be threatened even more if another conservative is allowed to serve on the Roberts Court.”

Sen. Chris Dodd (Conn.) is the only Democratic hopeful in the upper chamber who voted for Roberts in 2005.

— Elana Schor

Traveling Thompson tussles with Dems

Former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) is daring Democrats to continue attacking him, noting they tried before and it didn’t work.

Thompson, who is widely expected to enter the presidential race in coming weeks, traveled from Nashville to South Carolina to New Hampshire this week. And in between, the former senator-cum-actor posted an audio clip on his blog responding to Democratic attacks.

“While I’ve been on the trail, I’ve learned some interesting things about myself,” Thompson says in the one-minute spot.
“Apparently, I brought down the savings and loan industry single-handedly and supported Caribbean dictatorships.

“The Democrats … have chosen a fella who’s not even in the race yet to launch their attacks against,” he added. “I don’t know when I’ve ever been so complimented.

“I just say keep it up, guys. These are the things that you talked about in the 1994 campaign when I first ran, and it got you within 20 points of me.”

The Democratic National Committee has been sending out releases questioning Thompson’s lobbying work.

Thompson spokesman Mark Corallo said: “[Thompson] knows how to send a message, make a point and have a little fun doing it. Stay tuned. There will certainly be more to come.”

— Sam Youngman