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statehouses to successes in this November's congressional elections and the 2016 race for the White House, according to a review of their campaign finance reports.
• For Democrats, the next two years are more about protecting political turf and keeping a political machine humming.
• Months before the midterm elections that will decide House and Senate control, with an eye on the 2016 presidential race, the major parties are making spending choices that give clues to their election strategies. An Associated Press analysis of the parties' spending since the 2012 presidential campaign suggests Republicans are trying to copy the Democrats' playbook: Build strong on-the-ground political operations in crucial states and collect as much data as possible.
• "We have to make sure that we put together a process and an operation that gives our (presidential) nominee the best possible platform to be successful," Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Tuesday.
• "The RNC had become basically a U-Haul trailer of cash that gets hooked up to a nominee for a short period of time and then the national party went away for three years," he said, adding that six-month approach has left the GOP out of the White House for two terms.
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• GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) -- Wildlife advocates are preparing to retrace the 1,200-mile path of a wandering wolf whose trek in 2011 across Oregon and California attracted worldwide attention, hoping their upcoming journey will help build greater acceptance of wolves as they reclaim lost territories across the West.
• The wolf, dubbed OR-7 and wearing a GPS-equipped collar, became a celebrity at 2 years old after leaving a pack in northeastern Oregon in September 2011, just days after the state issued a kill order for his father and a sibling for preying on livestock.
• "It is only through walking it that anyone can truly understand that journey," said Jay Simpson, who plans daily blog posts of panoramic photos and interviews with people the Wolf OR-7 Expedition contacts along the way. "It's not a thing you can understand on Google Earth."
• Using traditional storytelling, real-time multimedia blogging, time-lapse photography and a documentary film, they hope to offer new insights into what the spread of wolves across the West means for the people who live here, inspire new attitudes

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