Some of the Democratic Party’s biggest contributors - most of them supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton - sent a forceful letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week, urging her to reconsider her stance on the August convention.

Two California groups, Vote Hope and PowerPac.org, are drawing national attention, and boisterous complaints from opponents, for their support of Barack Obama’s run for the presidency.

Both are operating outside the Obama campaign as 527 organizations, taking advantage of tax-code provisions that exempt them from federal spending limits. And both were founded by Steve Phillips, former president of the San Francisco School Board and son-in-law of billionaire banker Herb Sandler.

The New York Times is backing down - somewhat - on a controversial ad placed by the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org that infuriated conservatives.

Under the headline “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?” the full-page ad contended that the American commander in Iraq was “constantly at war with the facts” in giving upbeat assessments of progress and refusing to acknowledge that Iraq is “mired in an unwinnable religious civil war … Today, before Congress and before the American people, General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray Us.”