DISSATISFIED WITH DEAN

Lifetime Democratic contributors have made good on their threat to stop giving money to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) so long as Howard Dean is its chairman.

Some of the party's longtime money men warned that would happen when Dean took over the DNC following the 2004 elections. Lower contributions, combined with Dean's heavy spending, have resulted in the most recent cash-on-hand report by the DNC of $11.3 million, compared with $43.6 million at the Republican National Committee.

Disaffected Democrats keep giving to congressional committees. Current cash figures are $33 million at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and $35.1 million at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

HARD TO WRITE-IN

Selection of a consensus candidate with a long, complicated name menaces Republican efforts to hold former Rep. Tom DeLay's Houston-area congressional seat. A write-in was forced by a federal court ruling that the GOP was too late after DeLay's resignation in putting a new name on the ballot to face the Democratic candidate, former Rep. Nick Lampson.

The vast majority of voters in the district for the first time will use eSlate voting machines that will require voters, for a write-in, to dial up one letter at a time and press "enter" after each letter. It will take around two minutes for a voter to dial in the name of the Republican candidate, Houston City Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs (with no option for a hyphen).

Sekula-Gibbs's name will be on the same ballot for a separate election to replace DeLay for the last two months of his term. Republicans pressed for this special election in hopes it would help voters to write in her name for the full term.