Instead, he planned to unwind over two bags of State House and campaign documents.

"This is a campaign document; it is not necessarily a governing manuscript."

Between 1857 and 1861 nearly 150,000 copies of the book were circulated, and in 1860 the Republican party distributed it as a campaign document.

One provision of their "Contract with America" campaign document called for a balanced-budget amendment.

"A campaign document that was not well written," shrugged a White House spokesman.

A man from Berkeley, Calif., who described himself as a student on campaign documents contributed $35,000.

"There's a difference between a skeletal campaign document and a flesh-and-blood piece of legislation that has to be worked through very carefully."

He is even drafting a campaign document that seeks to unite House Democrats behind a common economic agenda.

That is a slight edge over Mr. James, who, according to campaign documents, has gotten $2.3 million.

Morgenthau called it "more or less a campaign document".