JUDGE TOSSES DEMOCRATS’ SUIT OVER MCCAIN FINANCING

A federal judge in Washington has curtly dismissed a lawsuit the Democratic Party brought to block the presumptive Republican nominee for president, Senator McCain of Arizona, from withdrawing from the system for public financing of presidential elections.

Judge John Bates ruled yesterday that federal law requires a party to file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission and then to wait 120 days before filing a suit. The Democratic National Committee filed such a complaint in February, but jumped the gun by going to court in April, he said.

Democrats said they should be allowed into court because the commission presently lacks a quorum to act, but Judge Bates called that argument “untenable.”

“This court cannot retain a case on its docket on the theory that the Court might obtain jurisdiction over the matter at some point in the future,” he wrote.

Mr. McCain opted into the so-called matching funds system last year when his campaign was on the ropes financially. However, he now believes he can raise more money outside that system. Democrats argue that Mr. McCain should not be permitted to withdraw because he used expected matching funds as collateral for a bank loan that funded his campaign.

The chief counsel for the Republican National Committee, Sean Cairncross, welcomed the ruling and decried the suit as “a frivolous publicity stunt.”

A spokeswoman said the Democratic Party will refile the suit in June if the FEC has not acted.

OBAMA CALLS FEMALE REPORTER ‘SWEETIE,’ APOLOGIZES

Senator Obama of Illinois referred to a female reporter as “sweetie” when she attempted to question him yesterday morning as he toured a Chrysler plant in Sterling Heights, Mich. “Hold on one second, Sweetie. We’re going to do a — we’ll do a press avail,” he told Peggy Agar of WXYZ-TV in Detroit. Ms. Agar’s report suggested she chafed a bit at his choice of language. She also said he never held a news conference as promised.

By afternoon, Mr. Obama apologized on both counts via a voicemail left on Ms. Agar’s phone, WXYZ reported on its Web site. The likely Democratic president nominee said he was scheduled to do interviews with local TV stations and didn’t realize Ms. Agar wasn’t included.

As for the “sweetie” comment, Mr. Obama said, “That’s a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front. Feel free to call me back. I expect that my press team will be happy to try to make it up to you whenever we are in Detroit next.”

GOP LEADERS VOW CHANGES AFTER LOSS OF MISSISSIPPI SEAT

Republican leaders are vowing to regroup and plot new strategy after suffering their third consecutive special election defeat in a district long held by the party. “Clearly, I think we’ve got to do a better job,” the House Republican leader, Rep. John Boehner, said, the Associated Press reported. A Democrat, Travis Childers, won election Tuesday by eight points in a conservative Mississippi district easily carried by President Bush in 2004. The National Republican Congressional Committee had invested heavily in the race, sending Vice President Cheney to campaign for the party’s candidate, Gregory Davis, and running ads that sought to tie Mr. Childers to Senator Obama and the House speaker, Rep. Nancy Pelosi. Mr. Boehner called the result “a wake-up call,” and a former chairman of the NRCC, Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, wrote in a memo to party officials that the political climate for Republicans “is the worst since Watergate.” The Democratic majority in the House is now 236-199, and the party is poised to widen its advantage this fall, as 25 Republican incumbents are retiring.

DEMOCRATS ORGANIZE ‘VICTORY FUND’

The Democratic National Committee and the campaigns of senators Clinton and Obama have agreed to form a “White House Victory Fund” to begin raising money for the fall campaign, Time Magazine’s “The Page” reported yesterday. The donations will be returned if the Democratic nominee decides to accept public financing instead, the report said.