Between Polar Opposites Is This Equator: Text Me

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) has raised and donated millions of dollars. (By Julia Malakie -- Associated Press)

Kerry insiders said reports for the quarter that ended Friday show he has given or raised nearly $10 million for Democratic candidates and committees since November 2004. That's $1.5 million in the past three months. Kerry has raised a total of $13.5 million this cycle.

Just last week, Kerry sent out an e-mail to raise money for the Senate candidacies of incumbent Maria Cantwell (Wash.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Rep. Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and incumbent Bob Menendez (N.J.). Kerry has given or raised $2.3 million for 18 Senate candidates and $6 million for 36 committees.

Other potential 2008 presidential candidates have also been active in giving and raising money.

Kerry's 2004 running mate, former senator John Edwards, has raised $6.5 million this cycle for fellow Democrats. He does not give funds to other committees.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) has raised and given $8 million to Democratic candidates and committees this cycle.

Former Virginia governor Mark R. Warner's Forward Together has raised $8.2 million and donated $810,000 to candidates and party committees since the political action committee was formed last year. Warner aides could not specify how much he has raised for other candidates, but he has done more than 25 events for candidates since last November.

Bush, Yea or Nay?

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President Bush isn't running for office this year, but candidates are doing their best to make 2006 a referendum on him.

Two new television ads have popped up in the Senate contests in Connecticut and Nebraska that feature the chief executive.

In Connecticut, businessman Ned Lamont, who is challenging Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman in an Aug. 8 Democratic primary, has launched an ad that morphs the incumbent into the president. The commercial features images of Bush paired with audio from Lieberman, creating the effect that Bush is speaking with the Connecticut Democrat's voice.

"Joe Lieberman may say he represents us, but if it talks like George Bush and acts like George Bush, it's certainly not a Connecticut Democrat," the narrator says. Lamont is hoping to capitalize on anti-Bush sentiments in the state to defeat Lieberman, one of the Democrats most closely aligned with the president.

In Nebraska, Sen. Ben Nelson (D), who is seeking reelection in Nebraska, is playing the opposite game.

In an ad that slams his GOP challenger, former Ameritrade Holding Corp. executive Pete Ricketts, the narrator says: "We know no one's more independent than Ben." Bush appears in a clip from his visit to the state in February 2005 in which he praises Nelson as "a man with whom I can work, a person who's willing to put partisanship aside to focus on what's right for America."

Since Bush uttered those words, Nelson's political team has viewed them as political gold -- essentially an endorsement of the senator's centrist politics by a president who carried the Cornhusker State with 66 percent in 2004.

Chris Cillizza, a staff writer for washingtonpost.com, contributed to this report.