Photograph by David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Travelers wait in line to go through security in the departure hall at San Francisco International Airport.

President Barack Obama will keep up the drumbeat of blaming Republicans for not acting to avert the sequestration cuts during an appearance before the National Governors Association today.

The delays budget cuts will cause in air travel will be highlighted at a press conference held by Democrats including Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar also will also discuss the impact of sequestration on the national parks during a conference call.

Republicans will make their case on the Senate floor as the chamber considers a Democratic proposal to avoid the cuts, which are to begin March 1.

The Bipartisan Policy Center releases proposals for scaling back the federal government’s role in mortgage finance. The Center for American Progress hosts a discussion on the need for a financial transactions tax, with European Commission for Taxation and Customs Union Algirdas Semeta.

John Kerry arrived in London this morning, kicking off his first trip abroad as Secretary of State. He’ll meet with U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron before flying to Germany. A levy imposed by EU on U.S. bioethanol to curb competition for German, French, U.K. producers, which threatens to raise trans-Atlantic tensions over renewable energy for cars, takes effect today.

And ITC Judge Charles Bullock scheduled to release findings in patent-infringement case Cypress Semiconductor Corp. filed against GSI Technology Inc. over memory chips that store data

 Cary O’Reilly, Chelsea Mes and Laura Curtis contributed to this report.

Original post is Washington Daybook: March 1 by Political Capital.

Photograph by Charles Pertwee/Bloomberg

Sheldon Adelson, chairman and chief executive officer of Las Vegas Sands Corp., is projected during a news conference at the opening of Las Vegas Sands Corp.'s Marina Bay Sands Resort & Casino in Singapore.

Federal Election Commission reports due last night show a blitz of last-minute super-political action committee action in key Senate and House races. The late investments yielded mixed results.

Less than three weeks before Election Day, a super-PAC backing Virginia Senate candidate George Allen was down to its last couple hundred thousand dollars.

Then, a windfall. Las Vegas casino billionaire — and 2012′s most generous political giver – Sheldon Adelson wired Independence Virginia PAC $1.5 million on Oct. 22. Another Adelson million arrived Nov. 1.

In Massachusetts, the America 360 Committee super-PAC was under similar cash pressure. Again, Adelson came to the rescue, this time with $500,000 to support Sen. Scott Brown’s reelection bid.

Last-minute donors like Adelson show the power of super-PACs, untethered from campaign-finance limits, to harvest and spend big in a race. Those two super-PACs raised about half of all their money just in the two weeks before Election Day.

Both Allen and Brown lost, but probably not for lack of money. Allen’s challenger, Tim Kaine, was a prodigious fundraiser, and Brown’s opponent, Elizabeth Warren, got an assist from a super-PAC called Rethink PAC.

Nearly 90 percent of the $1.4 million that Rethink raised last year came in the door just since Oct. 1, FEC reports show.

Six-figure cash donations and in-kind staff time came from the Massachusetts Teachers Union and Service Employees International Union. Paul Egerman, who founded eScription Inc., and Joseph Alsop, co-founder of Progress Software Corp., each contributed $56,000.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg also played late and played big. He formed Independence USA three weeks before Election Day, funding it with $10 million. He is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.

The super-PAC spent more than $3.3 million in the California congressional race that pitted Democrat Gloria Negrete McCleod against incumbent Democrat Joe Baca. McLeod won. Bloomberg’s super-PAC didn’t see the same success in Florida, where it spent more than $2.3 million in a failed effort to elect Democrat Val Demings.

Another fall pop-up super-PAC, the Hardworking Americans Committee, focused on trying to unseat Democratic Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow. A rush of $1.2 million in donation in the final two weeks before the election paid for attack ads and phone calls, FEC reports show. Stabenow still won.

Who underwrote the Hardworking Americans’ spending spree with a $1 million?

Adelson again.

Original post is Super-PACs’ Last Gasp: Mixed by Political Capital.

Photograph by Harry Hamburg/AP Photo

Sen.-elect Tim Kaine, center, arrives at a freshman Senators luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington on Nov. 13, 2012.

Senator-elect Tim Kaine  of Virginia is sponsoring a political action committee he’s calling ‘“Common Ground PAC.”

As in the common ground that the former Democratic governor said he would seek in a Congress divided over issues including the so-called fiscal cliff and reducing federal budget deficits.

It’s a phrase Kaine used during his winning campaign against Republican George Allen.

The Virginia Senate election “proved that Virginians are ready to keep moving forward with leaders commit to finding common ground to help strengthen the middle class and the entire nation,” Kaine said in his victory speech Nov. 6.

While Kaine has a partisan political background as President Barack Obama’s first chairman of the Democratic National Committee, he opposed the administration on a few issues and said he wants to work with Republicans in the Senate.

Kaine proposed during the campaign that the George W. Bush-era tax cuts expire for taxpayers with annual income exceeding $500,000, higher than the thresholds of $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for families that Obama is seeking. Republicans don’t want to increase tax rates on any taxpayers and are pushing Obama and Democrats to accept more cuts in spending.

Kaine’s Common Ground PAC is a so-called leadership PAC, which can raise campaign funds to donate to political candidates. Democratic senators and candidates running in 2014 probably will get money from the PAC.

Original post is Kaine Forms ‘Common Ground PAC’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images

U.S. Senator-elect Tim Kaine speaks to his supporters after winning the Virginia U.S. Senate seat, on Nov. 6, 2012 in Richmond, Virginia.

Casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson gave $2.5 million in the waning days of the Nov. 6 election to a Republican super-political action committee that was on the losing side of a key U.S. Senate race in Virginia.

The super-PAC, Independence Virginia, worked to elect Republican George Allen, who lost to Democrat Tim Kaine. The PAC disclosed the donation in a filing today to the Federal Election Commission.

Adelson accounted for more than 98 percent of the $2.55 million that the super-PAC raised between Oct. 18 and Nov. 26, the filing said. Adelson previously donated $1.5 million on Oct. 12 to the super-PAC, which took in $5.17 million for the campaign.

Adelson donated tens of millions of dollars to Republican super-PACs in the past two years. An exact accounting of his political donations is problematic because non-profit groups active in politics don’t have to disclose donors.

Kaine defeated Allen by 53 percent to 47 percent, according to unofficial vote returns. Kaine will succeed Democrat Jim Webb, who didn’t seek re-election.

Original post is Adelson’s Late $2.5 Million Couldn’t Stop Kaine’s Virginia Win by Political Capital.

Photograph by Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney attends a campaign rally at Ida Lee Park on Oct. 16, 2012 in Leesburg, VA.

The Republican National Committee sent more than $14 million this month to its affiliates in 28 states led by Wisconsin and Virginia, both key states in the Nov. 6 presidential and U.S. Senate elections.

The RNC sent more than $3.3 million to Wisconsin, according to a filing to the Federal Election Commission that listed donations and expenditures for the first 17 days of October.

Wisconsin, the home state of Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan, is one of about nine states that will decide the White House race. Republicans are helping former Gov. Tommy Thompson in a Senate race against Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin that polls show is close.

The RNC sent more than $2.8 million to Virginia, another presidential swing state where Republican George Allen, a former governor and senator, is running against Democrat Tim Kaine, a former governor, for the Senate seat of retiring Democrat Jim Webb.

The RNC sent about $2.7 million to North Carolina, where Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has a small lead over President Barack Obama in most surveys. The party also is trying to win up to four Democratic-held House seats following Republican-controlled redistricting.

The RNC transferred funds to 25 other states led by Ohio ($1.54 million), Florida ($850,000), Michigan ($515,000), Pennsylvania ($405,500) and Colorado ($327,000). Ohio, Florida and Colorado are presidential swing states, while Republicans are making the Obama campaign work hard to keep Michigan and Pennsylvania in the Democratic column. Also in Pennsylvania, Democratic Senator Bob Casey is facing an unexpectedly close race against a wealthy Republican challenger.

North Dakota ($214,000), Indiana ($200,000) and Utah ($184,000) are all holding elections for governor and senator. North Dakota and Indiana also have close Senate races. Utah Republicans want to unseat Democratic Representative Jim Matheson.

Original post is Wisconsin, Virginia: Most RNC $ by Political Capital.

Photograph by T.J. Kirkpatrick/Getty Images

George Allan, who is running for one of Virginia's U.S. Senate seats, speaks at a campaign rally with Mitt Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan in Manassas, Virginia.

Sheldon Adelson has cut another seven-figure check, this time to a super-political action committee aiding Republican George Allen in Virginia’s competitive Senate race.

The billionaire casino executive gave $1.5 million on Oct. 12 to Independence Virginia PAC, which is helping Allen against Democratic nominee Tim Kaine, according to a filing today with the Federal Election Commission. Adelson has given millions to Republican organizations including super-PACs helping Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

Adelson’s donation accounted for 98 percent of the $1.53 million that Independence Virginia PAC raised in the first 17 days of this month, the FEC filing said. Independence Virginia PAC began airing a television ad last week that attacks Kaine on fiscal policy.

In a separate FEC filing, Independence Virginia PAC said today it was spending $1.5 million on broadcast and cable advertising and $134,322 on direct mail opposing Kaine, bringing the group’s spending in the Virginia Senate race to $3.9 million.

Independence Virginia PAC received $1 million this year from Houston homebuilder Bob Perry, another prominent Republican super-PAC donor.

Allen, a former senator and governor, and Kaine, a former governor and Democratic National Committee chairman, are seeking the seat of retiring Democrat Jim Webb, who unseated Allen in 2006.

Original post is Adelson Donates $1.5 Million to Virginia Super-PAC Helping Allen by Political Capital.

Photograph by Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo

President Barack Obama takes the stage during a campaign event at in Fairfax, Va.

Updated with Romney reaction at 12:15 pm EDT

“This morning we found out that the unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest level since I took office,” President Barack Obama said today at a campaign rally in Virginia. “Today’s news is certainly not an excuse to try to talk down the economy to score a few political points. It’s a reminder that this economy has come too far to turn back now.”

And so, with one turn of a government statistic, the president found new lift following a week in which he widely was viewed as losing the first presidential debate with Republican Mitt Romney.  Obama already has drawn a laugh-line from that debate — with Romney’s threat to cut federal funding for “Big Bird.” But now he has some timely ammunition for the more fundamental question about fixing the economy.

This was the president’s first appearance since the Labor Department this morning announced a decline in the unemployment rate to 7.8 percent in September, the first time in three-and-a-half years that the rate has fallen below 8 percent and the lowest rate since Obama took office in January 2009.

Today, Obama told his audience at George Mason University, 5.2 million jobs have been created on his watch. Romney is campaigning with a claim that he can add 12 million with a combination of tax incentives, energy independence and deficit cutting.

Romney is looking at the newest employment report from the Labor Department from another angle:

“There were fewer new jobs created this month than last month,” Romney said at his own campaign rally in Abingdon, Virginia, today. “The reason it’s come down is that more and more people have just stopped looking for work.”

“It looks like unemployment is looking better,” Romney said, but “the real reality of what’s happening out there” is that people have stopped looking. If all the people who wanted jobs were looking, he maintained, unemployment would exceed 11 percent.

Romney, Obama warned, wants to return to the ways of former President George W. Bush with tax cuts that can only worsen the deficit.

One of the reasons for the current deficit, Obama said, is “because we put two wars and two tax cuts on a credit card.” And now Romney wants to cut taxes again, he said — “We are not going to let this country turn back now.”

Romney has maintained that he will offset his 20 percent tax cuts across the board with the elimination of tax exemptions, particularly for high-earners, yet he hasn’t specified those loophole closings — leaving himself vulnerable to Obama’s claim that Romney will cut taxes by $5 trillion, primarily for the wealthy, and worsen the deficit in the process.

Romney, for his part, has offered few ideas for cutting the deficit, Obama said, with what has become an oft-used allusion to their first debate this week:

“His biggest example was to go after public television,” the president said. “For all you moms and dads out there, don’t worry, somebody is finally getting tough on Big Bird… Governor Romney is going to let Wall Street run wild again, but he’s going to bring down the hammer on Sesame Street.”

Tim Kaine, the former govenor of Virginia and Democratic National Committee chairman running for Senate, introduced Obama at the college campus: “We’re not going to cut the deficit by giving tax breaks to Exxon-Mobil and firing Big Bird, folks.”

Original post is Obama’s Rebound: `Economy Has Come Too Far to Turn Back Now’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images

Former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine during the Democratic National Convention.

In the 2006 and 2008 elections, it wasn’t hard to find Democratic television ads attacking George W. Bush, who had poor approval ratings at the end of his eight-year presidency.

Now comes Tim Kaine, the Democratic nominee for a U.S. Senate seat in Virginia, touting his collaboration with Republican Bush in a spot that’s designed to portray Kaine as a bipartisan-minded person willing to seek common ground.

“As governor, I worked with the Bush Administration” on a project to provide transit service to Dulles International Airport, Kaine says in the ad as it displays an image of Bush and Kaine together.

Kaine also cites his efforts with the Obama administration to prevent an aircraft carrier from relocating to Florida from Virginia.

“As your senator, I’ll partner with whoever’s president of the United States to do what’s right for Virginia,” Kaine says to camera.

Kaine’s ad first ran this morning in the Richmond area, according to Kantar Media’s CMAG.

Republicans including Kaine’s Nov. 6 opponent, former Senator George Allen, have said that Kaine held “the most partisan job in America” as Obama’s handpicked chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011. Kaine was an early backer of Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Kaine and Allen participated in a candidate debate yesterday. They’re vying to succeed retiring Democrat Jim Webb in a race that polls show is close, with perhaps a slight edge to Kaine. Virginia also is a swing state in the presidential election.

Original post is Virginia Democrat Kaine Touts Work With Bush in Senate Ad by Political Capital.

In most cases, the candidates are running in Democratic-friendly areas where an association with President Barack Obama or the national party isn’t a political liability.

Tim Kaine is a former Virginia governor who ran the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011 at the request of Obama, who considered Kaine as a vice-presidential running mate in the 2008 election. Kaine is running for a Senate seat against Republican George Allen, a former senator and governor. Polls show a close race in a state that Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney also are challenging.

Tulsi Gabbard, 31, is a former Honolulu city councilwoman who previously served in the Hawaii legislature. She’s favored to win a U.S. House seat in the state where Obama, born in Honolulu, won his highest vote share among the 50 states in the 2008 presidential election.

Joyce Beatty is a former Ohio legislator who’s a shoo-in to win an open House district in and around Columbus that’s strongly Democratic.

Joe Kennedy III is the 31-year-old son of former Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II and a grandson of the late Robert F. Kennedy. He’s favored to win the Massachusetts district of retiring Democratic Rep. Barney Frank.

Tammy Duckworth, an Army veteran, was awarded the Purple Heart for combat injuries she suffered during the Iraq War. She ran for the House in 2006, losing to Republican Peter Roskam, and served in the Obama administration as an assistant secretary of veterans affairs. Political handicappers give Duckworth the edge to defeat incumbent Republican Joe Walsh in a suburban Chicago district that was made more Democratic-leaning after redistricting.

Original post is Democratic Candidates for Congress Speaking at Convention Today by Political Capital.

Photograph by Luke Sharrett/The New York Times via Redux

President Barack Obama speaks to troops at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, on Aug. 31, 2012.

There was no talk of the war in Afghanistan in Republican Mitt Romney’s speech accepting his party’s presidential nomination. There will be plenty of talk about war, and peace, in Charlotte this week.

”You’re going to hear about it from the president,” said Tim Kaine, the former Democratic Party chairman who presided over the choice of Charlotte for the party’s convention, former governor of Virginia and candidate for Senate there. “This is a battle-tested, wartime president.”

Campaigning, Obama has spoken of his promise to end the war in Iraq — and he went to Fort Bliss last week to celebrate the second anniversary of the end of major combat. He has spoken of his pledge to withdraw from Afghanistan, a draw-down underway. And he has spoken of the raid that captured and killed Osama bin Laden. Vice President Joe Biden has put it more simply: “Osama bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive” — a refrain he repeated three times in one campaign speech.’

Kaine, who will address the party’s convention on its opening night tonight, comes from “the most military state” in the nation, he noted in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” this morning, staged at Blackfinn, a bar in the media-occupied complex that has opened this week in the convention city.

One in nine people are either in the military or military retirees in Virginia, Kaine said of one of the two Southern states that Obama won in 2008 and is trying to win again this year. The other, of course, is North Carolina.

The party will be appealing to those voters, he said. And they will pay attention, he suggested, to the appeal of a “strong commander in chief.”

Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state for President Bill Clinton, said on Morning Joe: “It is passing strange to me that (Romney) didn’t even mention Afghanistan” in his speech to his party’s convention in Tampa last week.

Original post is Obama: `Battle-Tested,’ Saying So by Political Capital.