Thompson Loses Fundraiser, and Plane

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

HAUNTED BY HISTORY

Thompson Loses Fundraiser, and Plane

The chairman of Fred Thompson's First Day Founders fundraising group has resigned after reports surfaced that he had been arrested on charges of cocaine trafficking and bookmaking in the 1980s.

Philip J. Martin, a longtime Thompson friend and owner of the private jet that the Republican presidential candidate has been using to crisscross the country to campaign events, issued a short statement yesterday that was released by the Thompson campaign.

"I have decided to resign my position as Chair of 'First Day Founders' of 'The Friends of Fred Thompson,' " Martin's statement said. "The focus of this campaign should be on Fred Thompson's positions on the issues and his outstanding leadership ability, not on mistakes I made some 24 years ago. I deeply regret any embarrassment this has caused."

In addition to the arrests, Martin also has faced a mountain of unpaid tax bills from businesses he previously owned or helped run, public records show.

Companies connected to Martin have owed more than $500,000 in taxes to various states and to the Internal Revenue Service, according to records of debts and tax liens posted online. Most of those debts were owed by Four Seasons Technologies, a company that Martin and a friend helped run during the 1990s. Martin left the firm in 2002. The tax troubles, first reported yesterday by ABC News, were the latest revelation about Thompson's longtime friend.

Martin's resignation means the former senator from Tennessee will find a new way to get to campaign events. "We will not use the plane," Todd Harris, Thompson's communication director, said when asked.

-- Matthew Mosk

WEB DONATIONS STREAM IN

Paul's One-Day Haul: More Than $4.2 Million

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), who's nowhere near the top of national polls but whose loyal, Web-savvy supporters have fueled his White House run, raised more than $4.2 million online yesterday, his campaign reported last night.

That's the most money raised via the Internet in one day by any candidate, online political observers say.

"Damn. Wow. Um, that's pretty awesome," said Jerome Armstrong, a strategist for Howard Dean's cometlike campaign four years ago. Dean embraced the Web to mobilize his supporters, Armstrong added, but never raised more than $700,000 in a single day.

For months the noted libertarian -- Paul supports dismantling the Department of Education and thinks the USA Patriot Act, which allows the government to search personal data, including Internet use, is unconstitutional -- has dominated the Republican field on the social-networking sites, and that online enthusiasm translated to dollars. Last quarter, Paul surprised everyone by raising $5.1 million, which was close to McCain's haul and five times as much as former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.

Energized by the grass-roots online support, Paul set an ambitious goal: to raise $12 million for the fourth quarter. And in an innovative move, his official site streams, in real time, the names and home towns of online donors. His aides said last night that more people donated yesterday, more than 37,000, than had contributed to his campaign all of last quarter.

"We think this is just another demonstration of the tremendous support that Ron Paul has across the country," said campaign spokesman Jesse Benton.

The record online money haul is the work of supporters such as Lyman Trevor, who founded ThisNovember5th.com, the hub of activity yesterday. Paul started the day with $2.7 million. By late last night, he had nearly $7 million. Nov. 5 was selected because of Guy Fawkes Day, the day in 1605 when British Catholic conspirators, including Guy Fawkes, tried to blow up the Palace of Westminster to start a revolution.

"Now, we're not condoning blowing anything up," said Benton. "This is about blowing up conventional wisdom in Washington."

-- Jose Antonio Vargas

POSITIVELY NEGATIVE

Edwards Says He Hasn't Changed

IOWA CITY -- Four years ago, John Edwards was running as Mr. Positive, barely attacking John Kerry even when it was clear they were the only two candidates who had a chance of winning the Democratic nomination after the Iowa caucuses.

Not this time for Edwards. Stumping through Iowa on Sunday and Monday, he couldn't stop talking about Hillary Clinton. He says she takes millions from the defense and health-care industries and won't be candid about her positions on various issues, such as how she will remove troops from Iraq and how she cast a vote that could lead to a war with Iran.

"I don't think anything has changed about me," Edwards said in an interview with The Washington Post. "I find this whole discussion interesting because it ignores the 20 years of my life before presidential politics where I fought powerful corporations. Those were tough, hard-nosed battles. I had to be honest and I couldn't make the jury mad, but I had to very tough with the people I was opposed to because they were tough."

With the campaign now beyond what he dubbed the "celebrity stage," Edwards said, it is critical to explain to voters his precise disagreements with Clinton.

While he used a policy speech in Iowa City to question sharply why Clinton had not put out a specific plan for getting troops out of Iraq, he seems to go out of the way to criticize her politely, always noting that she has "the right to her opinion," but noting his disagreement with her. On Monday in Iowa City, Edwards spent much of a foreign policy speech slamming Clinton for a lack of candor on Iraq.

"With less than 60 days to the caucus, Senator Clinton still has not given a specific answers to specific questions," Edwards said. "How many troops will she withdraw, and when will she withdraw them? All she's said is that she will meet with her generals within two months of taking office. That's not a plan. That's not even a real promise. It's the promise of a planning meeting," he said to laughter from a crowd of more than 100 on the campus of University of Iowa.

But just to make sure voters know it's the same John Edwards on the stump, the candidate ends each speech by noting he is optimistic and hopeful about America, saying, "This is not just politics -- this is the great moral challenge of our generation."

-- Perry Bacon Jr.