Don't want to miss out on the latest in politics? Start each day with 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.

Ben Pershing, washingtonpost.com congressional blogger, was online Friday, Feb. 22 at 11 a.m. ET to discuss the latest news in politics.

The transcript follows.

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Archive: Post Politics Hour discussion transcripts

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Ben Pershing: Hello everyone. I'm Ben Pershing, and I write the Capitol Briefing blog for washingtonpost.com. Lots of news on the presidential campaign trail today, and also some news from Capitol Hill -- Arizona GOP Rep. Rick Renzi has been indicted on federal charges. There's plenty to discuss, so let's get started.

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Chevy Chase, Md.: Mr. Pershing, has anyone asked the McCain campaign whether they will abide by the FEC letter regarding whether he can opt out of public financing (especially after The Post story on the loan he took out with public financing as collateral)? Does he lose some of his "above politics"/Mr. Clean aura by skirting the edges of campaign finance?

washingtonpost.com: McCain's Ties To Lobbyist Worried Aides (Post, Feb. 22)

Ben Pershing: Yes, the McCain campaign has been asked whether it would abide by the FEC's guidance on opting out of the public financing system, and Trevor Potter, a former FEC chairman who now works as a lawyer for McCain, essentially said that the campaign disagrees with the FEC and is going to ignore the guidance.

There's some irony here, in that McCain is the Hill's number one champion of campaign finance reform and an aggressive FEC, and now he's basically saying he's going to ignore the agency. This should be an interesting fight.

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FISA Follies?: If the Democrats have any self-respect, they'd let the FISA bill just die in conference. The Republicans aren't interested in a good-faith effort, obviously; they want either massive executive power or a political issue. This isn't leading news programs and there isn't a grassroots community dying for the telecoms to get off the hook. If the Democrats can resist the will of "Jell-O Jay" Rockefeller begging them to save his telecom buddies, won't it be really easy to just drop this and let it blow away? Heck, then the lawsuits will go forward, and maybe someday we'll actually get to the bottom of one aspect of what the Bush administration has been doing for the last seven-plus years. Or am I naive?

Ben Pershing: There are definitely some Democrats who would be willing to let this fight drag on and want the party to stand its ground rather than compromise on this issue of immunity for telecom companies. But the GOP and President Bush have been attacking Democrats just about every day on this issue, so if those attacks start to gain traction there will be increasing pressure on Democratic leaders to either cave in or at least be more willing to compromise.

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washingtonpost.com: FEC Warns McCain on Campaign Spending (Post, Feb. 22)

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The Anti-Lobbyist, Advised By Lobbyists: Hi, Ben. Thanks for the chat. Saw the piece today in The Post about "anti-lobbyist" maverick McCain actually being top-heavy with lobbyists in his campaign. Now, I know it's important to ferret out hypocrisy, but is this something that's only found with McCain? Do Obama and Clinton also have lobbyists front-and-center in their campaigns, just like McCain?

Ben Pershing: Yes, both Obama and Clinton have lobbyists either working for, raising money for, or at least advising their campaigns. Obama actually has gotten some flak on this issue because he has made curbing the influence of lobbyists a big selling point for his campaign. I don't think Clinton has been criticized as much because she doesn't spend as much time talking about the issue as McCain and Obama do.

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Raleigh, N.C.: Good morning! What is the current state of the relationship between Reid and his caucus, and Pelosi and her caucus? Which is more vulnerable to a coup next January?

Ben Pershing: Good morning to you! The short answer to your question is that, as things stand now, neither Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid nor Speaker Nancy Pelosi is particularly vulnerable to a coup. Of course, things could change if the rest of this year turns out badly for Hill Democrats, or if they lose a lot of seats in November, but both Reid and Pelosi generally have widespread support in their respective caucuses.

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Southwest Ohio: Is "pay-as-you-go" dead?

Ben Pershing: Ah, nothing warms my heart on a rainy Friday like a good discussion about budget rules. This question is about Democrats' vow at the start of this Congress to abide by "pay-as-you-go" budget rules, meaning that any new spending increase or tax cut must be offset by a corresponding spending cut or tax increase. It has been hard for Democrats to abide by these rules -- they didn't do it when they temporarily patched the Alternative Minimum Tax last year, and they didn't do it with the recent economic stimulus package. As the year goes on it will be even harder to abide by the rule. So to answer your question, pay-go isn't dead, but it does appear to be sleeping.

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Southwest Nebraska: Will anyone get appointed to the vacant FEC positions any time soon? Who's at fault for the current lack of members?

Ben Pershing: There is a very difficult standoff in the Senate right now about FEC nominations, and that's why the agency doesn't have enough members for a "quorum" to vote on allowing McCain to stay out of the public financing system.

The problem is that Democrats strongly object to a GOP nominee to the FEC, Hans von Spakovsky, for his past work on voting rights issues, so Democrats want to vote him down -- but Republicans are insisting that, as has been past practice, all the current nominees for the FEC should be voted on as a package. Democrats want to vote on Spakovsky separately from the Democratic nominees. So that's the dispute, and neither side appears to be budging, which means the FEC essentially is crippled in the middle of a heated election season.

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Urbana, Ill.: So, McCain evidently did quite a bit of campaigning and fundraising for the scandal-tarnished Renzi in 2006. Any idea what he said? Don't McCain's close ties with an indicted congressman kind of belie his image as an uncorrupted Washington outsider?

Ben Pershing: I bet you'll see a story or two in the next few days about Renzi's relationship with McCain. Renzi has been indicted on extortion, money laundering and other charges related to a controversial land deal. Now, it's true that Renzi endorsed McCain (obviously they're both from Arizona) and McCain has campaigned for Renzi before. But I never have heard anyone say that they had a particularly close relationship beyond both being Arizona Republican members of Congress and having worked/campaigned together on that basis. If there's more to their relationship, we'll hear about it soon.

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Arlington, Va.: From Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Michael D Shear's front-page Washington Post article yesterday about the McCain lobbyist connection "Iseman, 40, who joined the Arlington-based firm of Alcalde & Fay as a secretary and rose to partner within a few years..." Isn't that statement somewhat incredible? In my firm it easily would take more than a decade to go from secretary to partner. Did she really do it in a few years? How many is a few?

washingtonpost.com: McCain's Ties To Lobbyist Worried Aides (Post, Feb. 21)

Ben Pershing: That's a good question, and I will admit to not knowing too much about the internal office politics at Alcalde & Fay. It's true that it usually takes a while to rise to partner at a lobbying firm, but I don't think it's unheard of to rise quickly. On Capitol Hill, some aides can rise to chief of staff of a member's office before they're 30, so I think it's at least possible to move up quickly at a lobbying firm too.

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Chantilly, Va.: Will the story by Ben Smith (Politico) about Obama meeting with former leaders of the Weather Underground have any traction?

washingtonpost.com: Obama once visited '60s radicals (Politico, Feb. 22)

Ben Pershing: I read that story this morning, and it was pretty interesting. It seems like the kind of story that only can gain real traction if reporters can present it as part of a long pattern on Obama's part of meeting with controversial folks.

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San Francisco: The news on Politico.com that Sen. Joe Lieberman hadn't told his staff that he was endorsing John McCain made me wonder whether staffers automatically support the candidate their boss does on Capitol Hill. Do you know if it's a job requirement for Hill staffers to support the same candidate their boss does? Of course, Lieberman's staff is a special case, given that he's across the party divide and not even attending the Democratic convention.

washingtonpost.com: Did Lieberman staffers approve of McCain nod? (Politico, Feb. 18)

Ben Pershing: Ah, another good question about a Politico story. No, staffers do not automatically support the presidential candidate their bosses support, nor could they be required to do so (I suspect that would be illegal). Aides might naturally gravitate to the same candidates as their bosses do -- especially because their bosses might have connections and relationships with that candidate -- but this year in particular I would think that, for example, there are plenty of Democratic offices where some staffers support Obama and others back Clinton. Same on the GOP side (especially back when there were more candidates in the field).

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Washington: I'm an Obama supporter who actually thought Clinton won last night's debate. I find The Post's analysis a bit lacking and confusing in light of what I saw last night, but perhaps you can help me understand something about the form of last night's debate. Why did Sen. Clinton get to answer so many questions first? Shouldn't they have alternated the questions? Each time they did this Clinton got the chance to state her policies and Obama was left trying to differentiate himself. No fair.

washingtonpost.com: Obama-Clinton Debate Starts Warm, Heats Up (Post, Feb. 22)

Ben Pershing: My colleague Chris Cillizza, author of the much-celebrated blog "The Fix," is sitting next to me here. He watched every minute of the debate and wrote approximately 37 posts about it, and he says he did not notice any particular pattern where Clinton got to answer more questions first. It seemed fairly even.

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La Vale, Md.: I thought Hillary was refusing to debate on MSNBC because they refused to fire Shuster for making the "pimping out" Chelsea remark. MSNBC has been advertising Tuesday's debate. I haven't heard that Shuster was fired. Did Hillary just give in on this?

washingtonpost.com: Clinton MSNBC Debate Back On (washingtonpost.com, Feb. 13)

Ben Pershing: I don't think the Clinton campaign ever said definitively that they never would do an MSNBC debate, only that they might not do one because of the Shuster issue. At this point, I don't think Clinton can afford to skip or back out of a debate. She needs these debates to help her campaign as much as possible.

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Northeast New York: I am surprised to hear you say that Senate Democrats are as supportive of Reid as House Democrats are of Pelosi. I think a poll of congressional staffers and members would show widespread Democratic frustration with Reid, and a strong likelihood that he would be replaced in a more strongly Democratic Senate next year. Have you not heard those voices?

Ben Pershing: Generally, no, I have not. There always will be some Democrats who question the leadership's tactics on this or that issue, but I never have heard any sustained, overarching criticism of Reid from within his own caucus. If there is criticism, it might have to do more with his PR style -- he is very soft-spoken and generally not as smooth with the press as some would like -- rather than his strategic or tactical acumen in running the Senate.

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College Station, Texas: What are the Beltway insiders saying about presidential running mates, with regard to the role each candidate envisions for his vice president? (I'm using the male pronoun because I assume Obama will win.) Will McCain and Obama choose a running mate primarily for political purposes during the election, and then dispatch the vice president to funerals and other ceremonial functions, or will the vice president continue to be an active player in the presidential administration, as were Al Gore and Dick Cheney?

Ben Pershing: I think speculation about who McCain, Obama or Clinton would pick as running mate is still all over the map. Because all three are senators, it seems likely that they all would lean toward picking a governor to balance the ticket, but even that isn't definite. As for the role a vice president would play, Cheney has gotten so much criticism for his enormous influence in the Bush administration that it's hard to imagine any president (even if it's McCain) giving the vice president as much power as Cheney has. Gore might be a better role model -- he had some real influence, but no one ever questioned who was in charge at that White House.

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Minneapolis: Was the House Democrats' defiance of Bush on the FISA legislation a sign of a new willingness to be confrontational, or just a one-time occurrence? And do you have any idea where things stand with Henry Waxman's efforts to get the Attorney General to release White House documents generated during the Valerie Plame investigation to the oversight committee? Waxman wrote to complain to Mukasey two months ago, and I've seen nothing since.

Ben Pershing: I think House Democrats are likely to be confrontational on a lot of issues this election year, even on national security matters -- where the party often has been hesitant to challenge Bush and the GOP. I have not heard an update in a while on Waxman's probe of the Valerie Plame issue; now that his big steroid hearing has passed, maybe Waxman will shift his focus back to that investigation.

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Farmers Branch, Texas: Is there any way of knowing if the Obama speech at the 2004 Democratic convention was planted as a first step for his run in 2008? If so, who was responsible for getting him on the agenda? Am I right that these types of things don't just happen? Thanks.

Ben Pershing: I don't know how seriously Obama was planning/considering running for president back in 2004, but I'm sure it crossed his mind. Remember, at that point Obama was a Senate candidate from Illinois, and word already had started to get around within the party that he was an electrifying speaker. That DNC speech was the first time most of the national audience got to see it themselves.

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Arlington, Va.: What's wrong with meeting with "controversial folks"?

Ben Pershing: Nothing, unless Republicans are able to take Obama's meetings with former radicals to paint a picture of him as too liberal for the mainstream, or to suggest that his judgment is poor. It's all about how these meetings are spun by both sides.

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Mt. Lebanon, Pa.: How about John McCain and Sarah Palin? Barack Obama and Janet Napolitano? I like it, don't know about you. Thanks much.

Ben Pershing: Palin, the GOP governor of Alaska, and Napolitano, the Democratic governor of Arizona, both have been mentioned as possible vice presidential candidates. Palin definitely would be a surprise choice, if only because she's from Alaska, a state that the GOP will win anyway and which has a tiny population, and because her name identification is so low outside her state. Napolitano would not be a surprising choice. If Obama beats Clinton, it might be smart for him to pick a woman for the ticket, and Napolitano also would have some appeal to Latino voters, who have not flocked to Obama so far.

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Alexandria, Va.: Is there a debate transcript or video somewhere?

washingtonpost.com: Transcript. (CNN, Feb. 21)

Ben Pershing: Here you go. Enjoy.

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New York: Wednesday morning, various news organizations referred to Sen. Obama's 10 straight primary victories. Now today, several of those organizations have referred to his 11 straight victories. I've been following the campaign with great interest, but I'm not obsessed. Did I miss something?

washingtonpost.com: Obama Fans Abroad (washingtonpost.com, Feb. 21)

Ben Pershing: I believe that "11th victory" is a reference to Obama's winning the "Democrats Abroad Global Primary," where American expatriate voters had a chance to register their primary choices. The results of that voting only were tabulated in the past couple of days.

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Troy, N.Y.: We've been talking a bit about lobbyists. I think voters don't mind lobbyists unconnected to earmarks or the evil businesses of providing gasoline, protecting against health risks, and offering medicines that are safe and effective. As Sen. Clinton said, lobbyists represent real people.

Ben Pershing: That is probably a point worth remembering in all this negative coverage about lobbyists. There are lobbyists on both sides of nearly every issue in Washington, so no matter what your views are, there is likely a lobbyist or lobbying group that represents your interests. Of course, some are more powerful than others.

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Hillary answer questions first: My husband and I noticed the same pattern that Hillary answered the majority of questions first. We had the same questions as the previous poster. Why? But we had a different spin on it -- we thought it was unfair in the Obama was able to piggy back off her answers.

Ben Pershing: Interesting. I guess it depends on whether you think it is more advantageous to get the first crack at a question or to get the chance to respond to your opponent's answer. To make a (somewhat lame) sports comparison, when an NFL game goes to overtime, both teams want the ball first because it's sudden death and the first score wins. But in college football overtimes, both teams want the ball second so they can wait and respond to their opponents' moves.

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Pittsburgh: Since Chris Cillizza is sitting right there, can you ask him if he's seen all the responses to "The Fix" re: vice presidential picks? Practically half the U.S. citizens in politics over age 35 already have been mentioned (not to mention a few suggestions for Cabinet appointments)! Seriously, do you think it might be good for presidential candidates to campaign in part on whom they'd nominate for cabinet positions?

washingtonpost.com: The Fix: Let's Get Serious About VeepStakes! (washingtonpost.com, Feb. 22)

Ben Pershing: Sadly, Chris has walked away from his desk (he just hasn't been the same since he shaved that beard). But as to your question, I don't think candidates would want to really base their campaigns on specific people they might nominate for the cabinet. It would be like saying "don't vote for me because of who I am, vote for me because of this other person." But presidential candidates can say what kind of nominees they'd pick (i.e. "I would name a Secretary of State like Condoleezza Rice" or "I would pick a Treasury Secretary in the mold of Robert Rubin")

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San Jose, Calif.: If Hillary loses the nomination, what are her chances of being named Senate majority leader?

Ben Pershing: Interesting thought. I've never heard anyone suggest that Clinton would have designs on that job if she lost the White House race. I think Reid is safe for now, and if he decided to retire in 2010 or lost his re-election race, the contest to replace him would probably be between Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer and possibly Chris Dodd.

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San Jose, Calif.: Hillary clearly is better in thinking on her feet and has better command of the issues. Why does that matter so little to people?

Ben Pershing: Obviously that's part of the case that Hillary supporters make for why they back her. Obama supporters would counter that their candidate also knows the issues and is more inspiring. It all depends on what you're looking for in a presidential candidate.

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Falls Church, Va.: David Brooks wrote this week about the press starting to recover from their infatuation with Obama. Chris Matthews and guests remarked how they were impressed last night by his remarkable learning curve as events unfold. Which side of this do you all lean on? Thanks.

Ben Pershing: I do think that Obama will be challenged more and more by the press as the race goes on, particularly if he's the nominee. What would be interesting about an Obama-McCain race is that both men generally have received favorable press coverage throughout their careers (with the obvious exception of the current McCain/lobbyist controversy).

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Ben Pershing: Thanks for all the great questions, everyone -- enjoy the rest of your Friday.

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