Who's who.

• Author: Threadgill, Susan
• Position: Politics

To divine whether Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) is running for president, look no further than his garage. Kerry recently swapped his Italian-made Ducati racing motorcycle for an all-American Harley-Davidson. While it might help his populist appeal, motorcycling pols rarely find hog heaven: According to the company, no U.S. president has ever ridden a Harley-Davidson. Two weeks before the 2000 election, Al Gore appeared on the "Queen Latifah Show," to announce that as a youngster, he and Tipper were leather-clad motorcycle fanatics. His running mate, Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), visited the Kansas City, Mo, Harley factory during the campaign, where staffers tried unsuccessfully to prevent a Michael Dukakis-riding-in-a-tank-style photo-op with the diminutive Democrat astride a chopper. (Lieberman not only posed, he let a factory worker take him for a spin.) Even Jimmy Carter, a onetime motorcycle buff, didn't last long in the White House. Republican bikers are few. In fact, the lone rider we know of was once a Dem: Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.), Capitol Hill's best-known biker. Campbell favors a Harley decked out in stars and stripes, and was inducted into the National Motorcycle Museum and Hall of Fame last year. But the road hasn't been kind to him either: He fractured his right arm in a 1996 spill.

Even Republicans are tiring of Republican attack ads. In the hard-fought battle for the Senate, Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD.) is understandably miffed at ads attacking him which are funded by Stephen Moore, president of the arch-conservative Club for Growth. But so is Johnson's opponent, Rep. John Thune (R-S.D.). Thune issued a "personal plea" for Moore to "stay out of their race for the Senate." Perhaps that's because the ads are really intended to smear Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), an association with whom Republicans believe will hurt Johnson. An exasperated Thune spokesperson, Christine Iverson, recently reiterated that the campaign "isn't interested in Moore's help."

Army Secretary Thomas E. White has had more comebacks than the '69 Mets. The latest involves the Crusader mobile artillery system, which Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld targeted for elimination, only to have anonymous Army officials--many suspect White--launch a stealth lobbying campaign through congressional supporters like Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.) to save it...