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Friday, November 21, 2008

ANOTHER VOICE OF SUPPORT

Leahy Backs Holder

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) declared his support Thursday for Eric H. Holder Jr., the leading candidate for attorney general.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Leahy said that Holder "would bring the kind of leadership, temperament, experience and judgment we need to restore the rule of law and rebuild the reputation of the Department of Justice so that it is worthy of its name."

Holder, 57, has yet to be formally announced by the Obama-Biden transition team as its nominee at Justice. But sources close to the selection process say he is a near-certainty to be named if the vetting proceeds as expected.

Leahy publicly broadcast his support as conservatives raised issues about Holder's activities in President Bill Clinton's Justice Department, including his lack of an objection as acting attorney general to Clinton's pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich.

Over the past two days, Republican senators including Orrin Hatch, Jeff Sessions and Tom Coburn have offered at least some support for Holder's bid to become the nation's first black attorney general.

-- Carrie Johnson

NOT BOUND FOR WEST WING

Dunn to Return to Firm

Anita Dunn, one of Barack Obama's closest political advisers, is returning to her media consulting practice -- bypassing the chance to serve in the White House.

"After the privilege of participating in this historic campaign, I look forward to returning to my firm and bringing the fresh approach to strategic communications developed on the Obama campaign to new projects," she said.

Dunn's decision comes on the heels of the announcement by the Obama transition team that David Axelrod, a longtime campaign operative, would be leaving his Chicago media firm to serve as a senior adviser in the White House.

Dunn's connection to Obama goes back to the president-elect's race for U.S. Senate in 2004, when she was the lead consultant for one of his Democratic primary opponents, Blair Hull.

In the spring of 2006, Dunn was hired to run Obama's Hopefund PAC, the result of her long ties to members of former South Dakota senator Thomas A. Daschle's staff, who had begun to gravitate toward the senator from Illinois. Dunn was added to Obama's presidential campaign in April.

She will return to her firm, Squier Knapp Dunn. Her biggest client heading into the 2010 election is Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), who some Republicans think can be beaten.

-- Chris Cillizza

OBAMA'S INTERNET HAUL

Half a Billion Online

Barack Obama raised half a billion dollars online in his 21-month campaign for the White House, dramatically marking a new digital era in presidential fundraising.

Obama aides broke down more numbers: Three million donors gave a total of 6.5 million donations online, adding up to more than $500 million. Of those 6.5 million donations, 6 million were $100 or less. The average online donation was $80.

"You looked at the money being raised online in the same way that you looked at the crowds who came to the rallies," said Joe Rospars, the 27-year-old director of Obama's new-media department. "You were constantly surprised at the number of people who were coming out to see him," Rospars said, and when it came to online donations, "people exceeded our expectations as to what they were willing to do."

Obama also raised millions from traditional campaign bundlers -- rich, well-connected fundraisers -- but the bulk of the more than $600 million that Obama raised throughout his campaign was through the Internet, aides said.

In September, his single biggest month of record-setting fundraising, Obama amassed more than 65 percent of the funds -- $100 million of $150 million -- online, aides said.

-- Jose Antonio Vargas