It occurred to me recently after deals to hold new primaries in Florida and Michigan fell through that there is a really easy, extremely simple solution to the problem.

Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama could simply write $5 million checks to both the Michigan and Florida Democratic State Committees to pay for the new elections.
And Former Federal Elections Commission Chairman Michael E. Toner confirmed it for me yesterday.

"Federal campaigns can give unlimited amounts of campaign cash to state parties and to the national committees, the Democratic National Committee, and to the congressional and senatorial committees. It's called an unlimited transfer," Mr. Toner said.

But then he hit me with a real zinger.

"It would be an easy solution for the Florida and Michigan primary issue if the candidates were willing to part with their campaign dollars, and quite frankly so would any other federal candidate in the Democratic Party who had extra campaign cash lying around; say someone who knew they weren't going to have an opponent in the race coming up and had $5 million, they could donate the money to the Florida and Michigan parties to hold the elections."

Could that be someone like Sen. BIll Nelson, Florida Democrat, who has been howling that the taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for another election, and who hasn't had a serious primary or general election contender in a decade. That also sounds like, say, Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, who hasn't had any serious election battles in at least a decade if not more.

If the Democrats are truly serious about having those votes counted, then I am sure they can find $20 million, particularly considering their huge fundraising advantage across the board.

And certainly Mr. Obama, who is approaching 2 million donors, and Mrs. Clinton who boasted about raising $1 million in one day can find the money.

That is if they really want those votes counted.

— Brian DeBose, national political reporter, The Washington Times

When I wrote a story in The Washington Times that appeared in last Friday's edition, about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, I expected a response by the media to follow and analyze it. But what I didn't expect was to have politicians and pundits attempt to dissect the body of free and religious speech, cut and tie off a vein, and try to connect it to Sen. Barack Obama.

There have actually been people out there calling for Mr. Obama to leave his church if he doesn't agree with his preacher. A man's church is like his home, his spiritual home, and no one has the right to tell him to leave it.

I can't editorialize and write a column here, but I can point out there are others who have talked about this in a responsible way.

One of those people is Frank Schaeffer, son of Francis Schaeffer, the Presbyterian minister who sparked the Religious Right movement in America.

The younger Schaeffer has written about his own perspective on Mr. Obama's preacher.

Take it from him.

— Brian DeBose, national and political reporter, The Washington Times

I am not a lawyer and I don't play one on TV, but I have covered enough federal and local court cases to know that the mere hint of impropriety by a federal prosecutor is extremely problematic.

A good example is the Barry Bonds perjury case. The federal prosecutor in that case broke the law and leaked secret grand jury testimony to the members of the press, who wrote about Mr. Bonds' answers at length and even wrote a book about it. The person who leaked the information was prosecuted and convicted. This is what makes it so difficult for the federal government to make its case against Mr. Bonds, even if he did lie.

What isn't being talked about in the fall of the now-resigned governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, is that he was the former attorney general of the state of New York and a former Manhattan district attorney.

Now, the cases he worked as a district attorney are probably safe. But his most recent cases when he was attorney general may not be, depending on how far back his alleged money-laundering scheme to pay for his encounters with prostitutes goes. The federal indictment says that the investigation started a year ago based on IRS inquiries into irregularities.

It may be a long shot, but anyone prosecuted by Eliot Spitzer has to be thinking that they have a good chance at an appeal, because criminals cannot prosecute criminals, and the first in line would be any of those Wall Street millionaires whom he took down in the last three or four years.

New York could soon be drowning in appeals and court expenses. Mr. Spitzer's resignation could be only the beginning of the state's troubles.

— Brian DeBose, national political reporter, The Washington Times

Sen. Barack Obama's denials and his campaigns denials that there was any contact between themselves and the Canadian government were clearly in error.

Today it was discovered that there was contact between the Canadian consulate in Chicago and the Obama campaign's senior economic advisor Austan Goolsbee. But Goolsbee now claims that he didn't say that Mr. Obama's NAFTA comments were "political posturing."

But as much as the Clinton campaign is hyped up about "Goolsbeegate" — Mark Ambinder's preferred term — or "NAFTA-gate" — Clinton's title — they are a little more interested in the trial of Tony Rezko, based on the conference call today.

Howard Wolfson says Mr. Obama needs to answer the following questions:

"We have urged the Obama campaign to come clean and reveal everything they can about the long detailed relationship between Tony Rezko and Sen. Obama. How many fund-raisers did Tony Rezko hold for Mr. Obama? How much money was raised? How much was bundled by Mr. Rezko? What due diligence has been done to see if there were any straw donors to Mr. Obama that came from the Tony Rezko? How many meetings were there between Sen. Obama and Tony Rezko and what was the substance of those meetings?

Those questions should be answered and Mark Penn was right to say, "Howard Kurtz alluded to the idea that if someone with a 17-year relationship with Sen. Clinton, who had business dealings with her and had raised money for her and given to her campaigns, was going on trial there would be an enormous number of questions with answers demanded immediately."

But Wolfson tipped his hand later, saying, "You know I just got some information that just came across my desk, that there is some speculation in the Rezko trial that [Sen. Obama] he might be called as a defense witness."

A betting man would say Mr. Wolfson is holding a pair of threes but representing a straight flush.

— Brian DeBose, national political reporter, The Washington Times