Post Politics Hour

Don't want to miss out on the latest buzz in politics? Start each day at wonk central: The Post Politics Hour. Join in each weekday morning at 11 a.m. as a member of The Washington Post's team of White House and Congressional reporters answers questions about the latest in buzz in Washington and The Post's coverage of political news.

Washington Post chief political reporter Dan Balz was online Monday, April 24, at 11 a.m. ET .

The transcript follows.

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Dan Balz: Good morning and apologies for the late start here today. One of our meetings ran longer than normal, but we've got a number of good questions lined up so we'll get started.

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Washington, D.C.: What's your prediction? Will we see an immigration bill this year?

Dan Balz: Congress returns this week after its two-week recess and immigration is at the top of the list of priorities for the Senate. We'll know in a few weeks whether there is any chance of getting a bill by the end of the year. The gap between the House bill and what the Senate is looking at remains pretty sizeable, and the prospects for agreement in the Senate remain dubious. All that says it will take a lot of bargaining and probably some presidential leadership to get a bill.

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Tampa, Fla.: I read recently the Senate Democrats have surpassed the Senate Republicans in fundraising. Is this correct? If so, does it mean the contributing class thinks the Dems have a real chance of taking control of the Senate in November?

Dan Balz: You are correct. My colleague Tom Edsall wrote about this in Friday's Post and we'll try to get link to the story. The gist of it is that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has raised $56 million this cycle, compared with $50 million for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. In the old days, the Senate Republican committee always raised more than the Democratic committee. That began to change in the 2004 cycle and continues today.

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washingtonpost.com: Senate Democrats Ahead in Cash Race , ( Post, April 21, 2006 )

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Columbia, Md.: What are the chances that Congress allows television cameras in the Supreme Court?

Dan Balz: It's not up to Congress, it's up to the Supreme Court and so far they say no.

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Silver Spring, Md.: McCain recently has been backpedaling from stances he took during the 2000 election. Most notable has been the rekindling of his relationship with the religious right (i.e. Jerry Falwell). To what extent is this just a pose? Is he prepared to actually start championing causes dear to the religious groups just for the Republican nomination?

Dan Balz: Senator McCain is working to improve relations with conservative Republicans, with Bush loyalists and others who may be helpful if he decides to run for president in 2008. His rapprochement with the Rev. Jerry Falwell is the most notable of those efforts but not the only one. Whether this will result in him becoming a champion of their causes is questionable. For example, he plans to vote against the constitutional amendment to bar same-sex marriages (as he did when it came to the Senate floor the first time). On the other hand, he is a co-sponsor of an initiative in Arizona that does the same thing. He explains it by saying it is an issue for the states, not the federal government.

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Detroit, Mich.: Is Condi Rice a serious Republican candidate? What are her electoral weaknesses?

Dan Balz: Secretary Rice has been pretty consistent is saying she is not interested in running for president in 2008, but first lady Laura Bush has been similarly consistent in saying she believes Rice would be a great candidate. Her electoral weaknesses include the fact that she's never run before and the facts that this country has never elected either a woman or an African American as president. another potential weakness, were she to be a candidate in 2008, is her role as one of the architects of the Iraq war. Still, she is enormously popular among Republicans and some Bush political advisers believe she would be a very strong candidate if she ever decides to enter politics.

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Chicago, Ill.: Hi Dan, how has Bush been able to cower the press into prefacing every time they ask him about polls in saying "we know you don't read the polls"? How is this possible that they would grant a politician such purity of purpose (I am above mere politics) and latitude on something so patently absurd?

Dan Balz: I think that preface to such questions is an effort to short-circuit an expected answer from the president that he doesn't pay attention to polls. Part of the art of presidential press conferences is to find a way to compose questions that don't produce stock answers. The president is a politician and he reads polls; when he doesn't, he has plenty of advisers around him who devour them. I don't think any reporter believes the president pays no attention to polls. The changes underway at the White House demonstrate that he's aware of his standing.

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Austin, Tex.: Good morning; I was able to hear much of Sen. Kerry's speech on C-Span yesterday, and was very impressed (he more regularly takes me nearly to full rigor mortis from boredom.)Will this speech get much exposure, do you think? Could it perhaps resonate with some of his former detractors, now that the war is going so badly? Can he be successfully swift-boated again with the President's approval ratings in the can?

Dan Balz: My colleague Chris Cillizza wrote about the Kerry speech in Sunday's Post, but I can't tell you how much attention it received elsewhere. It's more difficult for Senator Kerry to command attention now that he is no longer the Democratic Party's presidential nominee, but he still has a huge email list and you can be sure his followers will hear about it directly.

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Atlanta, Ga.: How dedicated to Democrats seem to trying to reform the party's ways, both substance (policy) and delivery (communications, GOTV, infrastructure)? I mean in some ways the party seems very determined, as Governor Dean is taking seriously his promise to staff state parties. On the other hand, last year when forming recommendations for building a better mousetrap, the members were so concerned about Iowa and New Hampshire's wrath. The truth is making more ambitious recommendations could at least been discussed with more seriousness.

Dan Balz: The debate about which states should start the nominating process is less significant in terms of reforming the Democratic Party than are the discussions about what the party stands for. Governor Dean has won widespread praise among Democrat state chairs for his so-called "50-state project." That's in part because they benefit from the DNC's generosity, but also they say the organizers he has helped to fund are making a difference in local and special elections. That program has detractors elsewhere in the party, however. Beyond that, Democrats have bigger problems in terms of leadership and message and those ultimately are the keys to winning back power.

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Farmington Hills, Mich.: In regards to anonymous sources, what kind of formula does a reporter use for granting anonymity? If a source really wants to get their story out does a reporter insist on their name? Or does a reporter always grant anonymity if a source asks for it? I wish reporters would challenge sources more to go on the record.

Dan Balz: This is an issue that is very current in newsrooms across the country. Anonymous sources are crucial to reporting, particularly to accountability reporting. We do grant sources anonymity, particularly in those circumstances where identifying them could put them in some kind of jeopardy. On the other hand, we are rightly criticized for allowing unnamed sources to sound off about this or that subject, particularly when they are simply furthering a political agenda. That's where we are constantly trying to get people to go on the record. We have tried to institute tougher standards on this, but the reality is it is difficult to get people to speak candidly about the inner workings of any institution, party or government entity, particularly at times like these, if they know they will be identified. But feel free to keep the heat on the press to do a better job of being as transparent as possible.

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Edison, N.J.: Hi Dan -

I keep hearing a faint buzz out there that says that Hillary Clinton's candidacy is not the foregone conclusion everyone thinks it is, and that the polls that consistently show her as losing badly to various Republican standard-bearers might keep her from throwing her hat in the ring in 2008...what say you?

Dan Balz: Most political people assume she will be a candidate in 2008 and everything she is doing now suggests she is moving in that direction. But like all prospective presidential candidates, she will have to take a look at this after the November elections. One question she will have to address at that point is whether she can win a general election.

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Binghamton, N.Y.: Dan: I couldn't make sense of your Friday's article coverage of national politics on the difficulties for Democrats winning without a national program. Though it seems to have become the media's oft repeated conventional wisdom, anyone who's taken courses on American politics knows that a congressional party, out of power, doesn't develop a meaningful platform.

Our political parties are too fragmented. Its executive, i.e.. presidential, candidates that do this. I know that you will point to the 1994 Contract with America but it was almost all platitudes & process, ex. term limits, proposals rather than meaningful policy proposals. You may want to talk to political scientists to get a fuller understanding of how American politics really works.

Dan Balz: I think you mean my Sunday article. The Friday article was all about the intricacies of which states might have early primaries or caucuses. Be that as it may, midterm elections are more about the performance of the incumbent administration than about the party out of power. At the same time, however, the public needs to have confidence in the alternative. That Sunday story included quotations from Democrats who have been through the wars of past campaigns who still question whether they can achieve victory in November simply by running a no-confidence platform against Bush. You're correct that it takes a presidential nominee to help coalesce a party around a set of ideas, but often those ideas have begun to jell well before the presidential campaign year.

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San Francisco, Calif.: Thanks for taking our questions. Are the Rove "changes in duties" real or mainly packing for political reasons or sandbagging in case of an indictment?

Dan Balz: My sense is that the changes are not simply for political reasons. How much different his duties are remains to be seen, although there seems to be agreement that he will no longer have responsibility for organizing the domestic policy side of the White House. Now, does that simply mean he doesn't have to schedule meetings and such or does that mean he will play a reduced role in shaping domestic policy. That we don't know. He has said the change means he will concentrate more on strategic planning and obviously his role long has been thinking about the intersection of policy and politics.

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Sanford, S.C.: How important do you think it is for people like Mark Warner and Evan Bayh to have a platform beyond "electablity, I've don really well in a red state, moderate/centrist, etc."? The truth is polls might show Clinton ahead of Romney or Allen.

Dan Balz: They will need more than that, although electability will be a strong undercurrent of their appeals. Given doubts among Democrats about whether Senator Clinton can win a general election, potential rivals like Bayh or Warner do not have to be terribly explicit about it (although we all hear that some of her rivals are explicit in private meetings). But all of them will need to show why they can be elected and that will hinge on their ability to frame an appealing message.

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Sewickley, Pa.: It seems to me the key for Democrats to get back on a winning track depends less on Pelosi/Reid type national spokespeople and more on the governors. The Democrats need to win the state races/houses in order to regain control of the redistricting process. Your thoughts?

Dan Balz: I agree that governors will have to play a prominent role in all this, in part because the governor's office has been a more successful launching pad than the Senate for winning the White House. But governors share a perspective with presidents in that they are executives, they have to make decisions, they have to try to get legislation through their state legislatures, they have to respond to natural disasters, they have to look broadly at the problems of their states. At different times, Republican and Democratic governors were instrumental in helping their parties win the White House (Democrats in 1992 and Republicans in 2000), largely because of the work they had done in the years before those elections.

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San Diego, Calif.: Good morning,

The media has reported vigorously that the Democratic party has no unified message or platform. With the 2006 midterms upon us, what is the unified message or platform of the Republicans?

Dan Balz: The media has also reported that the Republicans are struggling for a positive message in this campaign. We certainly have done so. The Republicans have outlined the kind of campaign they want this to be: First, they want these to be individualized races, not a national referendum on the president and the GOP-controlled Congress. Second, to the extent there is a national debate, Republicans want to make it about choices -- on terrorism and national security, on taxes, on judges, etc. -- and in all those cases, their argument will be that Democrats will make things worse. What we're seeing, however, is that on a variety of issues, the Republican coalition has fractured.

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Springfield, Va.: So if Bush does get Cheney's resignation as some Democrats and the LA Times are calling for, then doesn't his replacement become the Republican front runner in 2008?

Dan Balz: Probably, unless he selected someone who declared in advance no interest in running. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. A Cheney departure seems highly unlikely.

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Half Moon Bay, Calif.: What made immigration reform such a prominent issues after years of neglect by the Washington and in particular a totally Republican controlled political process? How do they benefit from bringing this up now?

Dan Balz: Last question for the day. Immigration has boiled up this year because of growing resentment, particularly along the U.S.-Mexican border about how illegal immigrants are straining state and local budgets and because of fears that the culture and identity of the United States are being changed. These concerns have been out there for quite awhile but they reached critical mass more recently and with an election coming, politicians began to respond.

Thanks to everyone for joining in today and keeping checking in every day at 11 a.m. for more. It's good to hear from you. Have a great day.

Dan Balz

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