People who live in white houses... John Kerry
Dear Friends,

People who live in white houses shouldn't throw stones. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove should know better, but it's no surprise they don't. For almost five years now, every time they've got their backs to the wall politically, they play "the fear card." The latest example: Dick Cheney claiming that Democratic candidates who dare to challenge the Bush White House on Iraq are "emboldening terrorists." What's worse, and startling, is that in Connecticut Joe Lieberman is now echoing their intolerable rhetoric attacking the Democratic Senate nominee. It won't work. We won't let it work.

HELP WIN THREE CRUCIAL SENATE RACES.
In Connecticut, New Jersey and Hawaii, this cynical Bush-Cheney strategy is running aground because our stand-up candidates are exposing the failed policies, botched strategies, and mind-boggling incompetence of the Bush White House that have squandered America's treasure, kept Osama Bin Laden on the loose, and cost the lives and limbs of our brave young people. If the Bush administration could plan and execute the war on terror as well as it executes its shameless pre-election fear-mongering, we'd all be a lot safer. That's what strong, principled Senate candidates like Ned Lamont, Bob Menendez, and Dan Akaka are making clear to voters in three of America's closest, high-stakes Senate contests.

HELP WIN THREE CRUCIAL SENATE RACES.
Our candidates are refusing to buckle or bend in the face of withering attacks by shameless politicians. I urge you to stand with these candidates now. Because when we help them win, the cynical tactics of the Bush-Cheney-Rove political machine will lose their power. There's only one way we can win. We've got to help our candidates give back as good as they get. We'll meet every shameless attack with more energy, every distorting ad with more passion, and every ugly appeal to fear with more determination. And 82 days from now, we'll celebrate the election of standup Democrats all across America. We'll teach them, once and for all, that people who live in white houses shouldn't throw stones.
Let's get it done.
Sincerely,

John Kerry

You're Only Half Right John Kerry
Dear Friends,
The topic of this email -- and the subject of a major speech I will deliver in Boston's Faneuil Hall tomorrow -- is national security.
If you think I'm planning to alert people to Republican pre-election fear-mongering on this vitally important issue, you're only half right.
Of course, we need to reject the Republicans' idea that a "debate" on national security involves them demanding another book of blank checks for policies that don't work. And, needless to say, we can't tolerate them smearing any Democrat who stands up to their miserable record of failure.
I will be campaigning for Democrats all across the country this fall. And, everywhere I go, I will talk about the Bush national security disaster and the need to change course in Iraq. They don't want Americans to remember that Osama bin Laden is still on the loose, the Taliban is gaining strength in Afghanistan, Iran is closer to nuclear weapons, and the mess in Iraq has become a recruitment poster for terror. There is no way to overstate how Iraq has damaged our efforts to actually fight global terror. It has overstretched our military, divided and pushed away our allies, and diminished our moral authority in the world.
But, here's the other half of the story. As Democrats, we have to do more than oppose what has failed. We have to actively propose a new course that can clean up the disaster in Iraq, and defeat jihadist terrorism once and for all.
We must offer the American people the kind of real national security debate they deserve -- and that the Republican Party, top to bottom, would deny them.
Tomorrow I will share my ideas on how we can do just that, achieving a more secure future for America. If you'd like to receive an emailed copy of this important address after it's delivered, please sign up here.

SEND ME A COPY OF THE KERRY PLAN ON NATIONAL SECURITY
I look forward to working side-by-side with you on this critical issue in the weeks ahead.

Sincerely,

John Kerry

P.S. Remember, we'd be glad to email you the speech after it's delivered. And we'll also be posting it on our website at www.johnkerry.com. I hope you'll read it yourself and share it as widely as possible.

Four Vets, Four Victories John Kerry
Dear Friends,
On Tuesday, in a powerful demonstration, thousands of people threw their support behind our "Four Vets, Four Victories" campaign. We're committed to doing everything we can to see these candidates and those supported by VoteVets.org through to victory on November 7.7.You can count on this: The Republican Party will come after these veterans with a ferocious fervor. The "swiftboating" is inevitable, but it doesn't have to be successful.

SUPPORT OUR "FOUR VETS, FOUR VICTORIES" CAMPAIGN
Let's draw a line in the sand. Let's tell these veterans that we've got their backs and that they can count on us to stand with them through every twist and turn that lies ahead.
Now is the time for you to add your support to this vitally important cause. We can win each and every one of these races if we pull together.

SUPPORT OUR "FOUR VETS, FOUR VICTORIES" CAMPAIGN
We're entering the critical make-or-break stage of these races. Let's pull out all the stops. Let's will our way to victory.

Sincerely,

John Kerry

Congress underscores Bush's weakness BBC News
In my neighbourhood in Washington, George W Bush's presidency is already over. You can see it on the T-shirts, such as the one that simply says: "20 January 2009", the day Mr Bush will step down and hand power to whoever wins the 2008 election.And you can see it on the bumper stickers. I have already seen a car with "Clinton/Obama 2008" plastered on its rear, articulating the hope of many liberals that Hillary Clinton will run for president, with the mixed-race first-term Senator Barack Obama as her vice-presidential choice. Mr Obama, one of the few true media stars of the Senate, set journalists' pulses racing this week with a trip to Iowa. Because Iowa's political parties are among the first in the nation to choose their preferred presidential candidates, any politician who steps into the cornfields is widely assumed to be considering a run for the White House, and Mr Obama kept the rumour mill churning by refusing to say flatly that he was not doing so.

Lame duck?
But amidst the hype about the future, what about the man who is president of the United States now, and will be for the next two-and-a-half years? Well, while his foes dream of the day Mr Bush's term actually ends, it may already be essentially finished for all practical purposes. Mid-term elections - which will determine control of both houses of Congress for the last two years of his presidency - are now less than 50 days away. That means every member of the House of Representatives, and one-third of the Senate, is far more focused on his or her own career than anything the president wants to do.

Double trouble
So two of Mr Bush's signature proposals of this political season are in trouble. One dates back to the very early days of his presidency, if not before - a complete overhaul of America's failing immigration system. As a Texan who has seen at first hand what Latin American immigrants have contributed to the country - and as an ally of business, which likes cheap immigrant labour - Mr Bush wanted a new system that would allow at least some of the illegal immigrants already here to become citizens. The Senate backed him, but the House of Representatives disagreed strongly, passing a bill that would increase the penalties on illegal immigrants and those who help them.The two chambers seemed unable to compromise, and by the beginning of September, immigration reform seemed dead, at least for this Congressional term. More pressing matters had arisen, anyway. The Supreme Court had struck down Mr Bush's plan to try suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay by military tribunals, and the president spent the final weeks of the summer pressing Congress to pass a law reinstating the commissions and allowing harsh interrogations. This time, the House supported him, but the Senate rebelled - led by three senior members of the president's own Republican party. With that issue deadlocked, what should crop up again but immigration? And when that battle was rejoined, all talk was of border controls, not of paths to citizenship: a setback for the president. Then suddenly a "compromise" on interrogations was in the works - one that looks much more like the rebel Republicans' plan than the president's.

Time running out
The clock is running down on this Congress. It will sit for only one more week before a month-long break for campaigning. The president's approval ratings are low in the polls, suggesting he is no help to Congressional Republicans. Congress is even less popular than the president, and pundits are talking ominously of 1994, the year the Democrats were swept out of power after decades of running the legislature. This past week's agenda shows clearly what is on the candidates' minds. It is not the president's agenda. It is saving their skins.
Will you be voting? Send us your comments and predictions
The BBC's Richard Allen Greene in Washington writes his weekly diary highlighting key issues in the US mid-term elections.