President Clinton has begun opening a $5 million fundraising tour for the Democratic Party. Last night, he was in Denver. Denver was the first stop in his three-day swing, followed by visits to Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Francisco, in Clinton’s 25th journey to California as president. A series of private and public fundraisers await him along the way.

Dan Rostenkowski begins his 17-month prison term for mail fraud today. The former congressmember is to report to a federal prison hospital in Minnesota for a physical. Rostenkowski had prostate cancer surgery in May. The once-powerful Chicago Democrat was brought down by a scandal in which he was accused of hiring ghost employees and misusing his office for personal gain.

Appearing together for the first time in their thus far polite battle for the Reform Party presidential nomination, Ross Perot and Richard Lamm derided the major political parties to the delight of audiences in Virginia and Maine. Lamm flew with Perot from one event to the other on Saturday. Lamm lamented that the Democratic and Republican parties are incapable of reforming themselves.

The GOP should allow Patrick Buchanan to take the podium at the Republican National Convention, this according to Ralph Reed, executive director of the of the Christian Coalition. He was upset that Buchanan, whose militant opposition of abortion is unpopular with some party leaders, has so far been shut out of the August meetings program.

And this news came out after our show on Friday. For abortion rights proponents, it was a long time in coming. The Food and Drug Administration’s eight-member advisory panel has recommended that the abortion pill known as RU-486 in France be approved in the United States for sale. The FDA usually abides by its advisory committee’s recommendations.

And from The Washington Post, a couple of interesting stories. Republican National Convention planners have come up with a catchy slogan for their San Diego meeting next month, “Restoring the American dream.” Apt it may be, but original it ain’t. A Nexis search shows that this one has been tried by Republicans, Democrats and independents in the past, with decidedly mixed results. The most troubling precedent comes from 1984, when Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic ticket, made their first joint campaign appearance. They pledged to “restore the American dream,” and they carried one state.

The latest twist in the political advertising wars is televised voter guides. The Sierra Club has asked the Federal Election Commission to approve a plan for a television advertising campaign in which it will contrast the voting records and positions of candidates in key congressional districts, a video version of the printed voter guides it also plans to distribute. A sample ad script says, “Jones supports increased funding for EPA’s water pollution programs. Rogers favors opening it up to oil exploration.”

And another piece from The Washington Post: On the Christian Coalition guides, on the subject of voter guides, the Interfaith Alliance, which calls itself a grassroots coalition of mainstream people of faith, is taking on the Christian Coalition. The alliance announced last week that it plans to distribute millions of voter guides to counter what it says are biased voter guides by the Christian Coalition. Reverend Albert Pennybacker, who is the group’s president, said, “We’ll not remain silent while religious political extremists attempt to hijack one of our nation’s great political parties.”