Thompson raises roughly $3m in one month, GOP officials say

WASHINGTON -- Fred Thompson will report today raising roughly $3 million in one month for his all-but-certain White House bid, GOP officials said.

The figure will include money collected in June only, as the Internal Revenue Service requires. Dollars raised in July, during which the former Tennessee senator has held several large fund-raising events, won't be disclosed.

Several Republicans with knowledge of Thompson's fund-raising confirmed the first-month total on the condition of anonymity because he has not yet made the figure public. A Thompson spokeswoman, Linda Rozett, declined to comment.

The amount Thompson raised for his committee to "test the waters" of a presidential bid is less than the original $5 million goal backers set for June, the first month in which he set out to raise money.

Thompson did, however, collect more than several other Republicans did in their initial fund-raising months as prospective candidates. Still, Thompson's take doesn't compare to the stunning $6.5 million haul that Mitt Romney collected on a single day in January as he was exploring a bid.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

DOVER, Del. -- In a new book, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden writes about personal and political challenges, including the deaths of his first wife and infant daughter shortly after his election to the Senate and the implosion of his 1987 presidential campaign.

"Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics" offers glimpses of the Delaware lawmaker's life and thoughts from his childhood growing up in a middle-class Irish Catholic family to his current run for the White House. The book will be released today.

The message, according to Biden, is to get back up after life knocks you down.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

NASHVILLE -- President Clinton yesterday briefly alluded to the weeklong spat between his wife, Hillary, and rival Democrat Barack Obama over meeting with leaders of rogue nations.

Last Monday, Obama said he would hold such sessions with the leaders of Syria, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea without preconditions, a notion Hillary Clinton rejected. She argued that she would not meet with leaders without knowing their intentions.

The feud between the two candidates escalated. Clinton called Obama "naive" while Obama referred to her as "Bush- Cheney lite."

"I don't want to get in the middle of that whole spat Hillary and Senator Obama had, but there's more than one way to practice diplomacy," Bill Clinton said at a gathering of the Democratic Leadership Council.

He said all the major Democratic candidates had "a vigorous agreement on the big question, which is 'Should we have more diplomacy?' The answer is yes. Then you can parse their answers to the specific questions and decide who you think is right."

ASSOCIATED PRESS