Their friendship deepened during a battle for the Democratic presidential nomination that sometimes had them both feeling under attack.

And now, several days after the unexpected death of U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, who was her campaign's national co-chairwoman, Sen. Hillary Clinton said she's still having a hard time coping with the loss of a political ally who became like a girlfriend-in-chief during the contentious primary season.

In a telephone interview with The Plain Dealer on Friday, Clinton reflected on the woman she called her sister and talked about the lessons in loyalty and toughness that she, and the rest of the nation, learned from Tubbs Jones' steadfast support of her candidacy.

"We traveled together. She traveled on her own for me. She did interviews. She bucked up the staff and volunteers. She danced on the stage when we won. She was . . . a real force of nature in our campaign," Clinton said.

As the race tightened with Sen. Barack Obama, Tubbs Jones faced mounting criticism from blacks who felt that she, as a black woman, ought to support his historic bid. Clinton said she offered Tubbs Jones a chance to back out. "I knew there were people who were threatening her and refusing to talk to her," Clinton said. "I would say to her, 'You know, you don't have to be out there for me.' "

But Tubbs Jones wasn't going anywhere. Clinton recalled Tubbs Jones' resolute response: "When I'm in, I'm in."

"She was so motivated to do what she believed," Clinton added. "I saw that up close and personal during my campaign."

Clinton laughed often while reminiscing about the gregarious woman from Cleveland whom she had met in the early 1990s during Bill Clinton's first presidential run.

"She was a real girlfriend," the former first lady said. Tubbs Jones could be counted on "to ask where you got your shoes or if you were on a diet and if it was working" in case she wanted to try it out.

But Tubbs Jones was feisty, too. "She wasn't afraid to criticize me. When she thought I deserved it, she got that kind of prosecutor look and she just said, 'I don't think that was the right thing to do,' " Clinton said, cracking up at the memory of being rebuked by her friend.

The two buddies were both former lawyers. They were also close in age: Clinton is 60 and Tubbs Jones was 58.

Everyone in the campaign loved Tubbs Jones and her outgoing, ebullient style, Clinton said. As proof, the senator noted the more than 8,000 e-mails that poured in to her Web site within the first 24 hours after she invited supporters to leave a comment about Tubbs Jones.

"It is so extraordinary," Clinton said. "People who knew her all their lives or people who just met her in a brief encounter all came away with memorable experiences. She was funny, she was self-deprecating, she was sassy, she was so smart."

In memory of the congresswoman, the Clinton campaign will supply buttons with Tubbs Jones' photo on them to supporters at next week's Democratic National Convention.

Clinton said that she and Tubbs Jones used to see each other on occasion in the late 1990s when Tubbs Jones arrived in Congress and Clinton was the first lady. But it wasn't until voters elected Clinton to the Senate in 2000 that the two women learned they shared similar opinions and passions. That's when their friendship blossomed.

In 2004, they found they were equally outraged over perceived voting irregularities and agreed to co-sponsor the Count Every Vote Act. Although the bill was unsuccessful, Clinton enjoyed another laugh while remembering how the two lawmakers loaded it up with reforms.

"We had everything in there we thought needed to be fixed," she said. "We gave felons back their rights, we made Election Day a holiday, we required a paper trail - it was the way we thought elections should be run in our country."

Their friendship grew closer through that experience and through other hard times. Clinton remembered a conversation after Tubbs Jones' husband, Mervyn Sr., had died, and Clinton recalled admiringly Tubbs Jones' efforts to maintain a close relationship with her son. "She leaves so much for us to try to live up to," Clinton said.

She said she has spoken to Tubbs Jones' sister, Barbara Walker, to offer condolences. She "absolutely" plans to be at the funeral.

Saying it was the "greatest gift" to have had Tubbs Jones in her life, Clinton admitted she is still having a hard time believing that her friend is gone.

"I'm just so sorry that she's not going to be around with me as we grow old," she said.

Susan Castner, a Clinton delegate from Portland, Ore., said she sees some of Clinton's qualities in Biden. She likes his experience, especially on foreign policy.

"It really kind of humanizes Barack Obama," Castner said. "He has this air of perfection, and Joe Biden is more down to earth."

"I love his passion," Castner said of Biden. "I like him a lot."

Obama announced Saturday that Biden, a senator from Delaware for the past 36 years, would be his running mate, passing over Clinton, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh.

Clinton issued a statement Saturday praising Obama's decision and calling Biden "an exceptionally strong, experienced leader and devoted public servant."

Some of her supporters were less charitable.

"It's a total diss to Sen. Clinton, in my opinion," said Diane Mantouvalos, co-founder of the Just Say No Deal Coalition. "It just speaks volumes about how Barack Obama doesn't stand for anything."

Mantouvalos, of Miami, is part of an Internet movement of Clinton supporters who refuse to back Obama, regardless of pleas from Clinton herself. Mantouvalos is in Denver, where the Democratic National Convention is scheduled to start Monday, stoking anti-Obama sentiment.

She said the selection of a Washington insider undermines Obama's call for change.

"It was a desperate move," Mantouvalos said.

John West, a Clinton volunteer during the primaries, said he's not excited about Biden, but he had little hope that Clinton would get the nod.

"Most people feel that if she wanted to press to be vice president, she would have made a bigger push for it," said West, of Chicago.

West has been working with Clinton delegates to have her name placed in nomination at the convention, with a roll call vote - a vote that was agreed to by both Obama and Clinton.

Barack Obama has come a long way since his first Democratic convention in Los Angeles eight years ago when, by his own account, he was "more or less broke" and still coming to terms with the resounding defeat of his attempt to win a seat in Congress.

At the airport his American Express card was rejected twice and it was only after half an hour of telephone negotiations that he was allowed to hire a car. Later, denied credentials to the convention floor, he spent a desultory few days watching speeches on TV screens and trying to follow friends into "skyboxes where it was clear I didn't belong" before going home early.

Four years later he had a happier experience. Still unknown and not yet elected to the Senate, he burst on to the national stage with a speech in Boston, sending an electric current surging through a party preparing to anoint John Kerry as another wooden, unsuccessful presidential nominee.

If some of those watching him back then thought that maybe - one day - he might run for president, few would have dared to predict that he would be arriving in Denver this week having seen off the meat-grinding Clinton election machine to become the Democrats' choice for president or, as Republicans like to say, "the biggest celebrity in the world".

The inevitable tumult and triumphalism greeting him when he walks out in front of 75,000 people at the mile-high Invesco stadium on Thursday will, however, serve to obscure the great glaring gap in this rags-to-riches story: Mr Obama may not win.

Never mind that this should be a Democratic year with fully four fifths of the voters saying that America is "on the wrong track". Mr Obama is running a long way behind his party. Although polls show that a "generic Democrat" would have double-digit margin over a "generic Republican", Mr Obama's summer lead has evaporated into statistical insignificance.

For all the babble about his "making history" as America's first black president, many voters are more concerned about saving their jobs or paying their mortgages. They cannot afford to make history, nor do they want it thrust upon them by the wealthy coastal elites who idolise Mr Obama.

He won the Democratic nomination with a message of change carried by his own compelling oratory, symbolised by an inter-racial - international - background, propelled by the enthusiasm of young white liberal and African-American voters. But it is easy to forget that he lost the final third of the primary to Hillary Clinton, who succeeded in positioning Mr Obama as an out-of-touch elitist.

Only in the past week have the Democrats recognised that they have a real scrap on their hands. Mr Obama has returned from his holiday in a much sharper, more populist mood, focusing on his promise to turn around the failing economy. It is too late to stop Thursday's event, but Mr Obama insists that he will not be seeking to "dazzle". He wants to dispel the notion that his campaign is "somehow a rock concert", saying that he will be more intent on laying out fundamental choices about economic policy than "a bunch of a high-flying rhetoric".

The strategy will be to reintroduce the Harvard-educated Mr Obama to voters as the product of a "very American story", with family members and ordinary voters paying testimony to his middle-class origins or describing his down-to-earth qualities.

Little is being left to chance in Denver. In an exercise of control freakery more reminiscent of the Beijing Olympics than the language of grassroots empowerment, protesters have been told exactly where and when they can demonstrate. Dozens of metal cages in a warehouse on the outskirts of the city have been set aside for those who misbehave, although police have assured civil rights groups that they have come up "with a way to put a lid on the cells instead of the razor wire" they once planned to use. Homeless people are being offered haircut vouchers and given free cinema tickets.

Mr Obama's gym-honed skinny frame still marks him out from the obesity that ripples across the waistband of America and his convention's host committee has distributed "lean 'n' green" catering guidelines to Denver caterers. These implore them to strike fried food from the menus.

Perhaps Mr Obama should remember that the last time the Democrats held a convention in Denver was 100 years ago when Williams Jennings Bryan, known for his oratory, was chosen to run against the unpopular incumbent Republicans. He lost.

A memorial service for Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio), who died yesterday after suffering a brain hemorrhage, is expected to be held in Cleveland the weekend after the Democratic National Convention, according to a report in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

"Plans are still being made, but the Aug. 30 date is most likely, says Joe Hewitt, a family friend and spokesman," the Plain Dealer reports. No plans have been made yet for a separate service in Washington.

The timing of the Tubbs Jones memorial is important, as many Democratic lawmakers will likely want to attend but are committed to being in Denver next week. The same is true for many Democratic politicians in Ohio. Some Republican House members will also want to be present, so holding the service on Aug. 30 would allow members of both parties to attend their respective conventions and still head to Cleveland next weekend to pay their respects to their deceased colleague.

The Hill reports that Democratic officials are planning a tribute to Tubbs Jones during their convention next week, one that may include the involvement of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), a friend and political ally of the Ohio lawmaker.

Yet just as his candidacy was ending, Mr. Biden, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was leading the Democrats in a successful battle against Robert H. Bork, President Reagan's nominee to the Supreme Court. And soon after, Mr. Biden underwent surgery on two brain aneurysms. Had he continued running for president, friends say, the rigors might have exacerbated his health problems and even killed him.

The tumult of that period transformed Mr. Biden: He settled down into a role as a statesman of the Senate, becoming a serious student of policy and government. As the Democrats' point man on crime and as a champion of the Violence Against Women Act, among other bills, Mr. Biden became a close ally of labor unions, civil rights leaders and women's groups. While he drew ire from some feminists over the treatment of Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings, in 1991, he was also the only member of the Judiciary Committee to emerge with favorable marks from a majority of Americans, according to a Gallup poll.

He has become widely recognized as a respected voice on foreign policy, the two Iraq wars (against the first, for the second), the Balkans conflict, global AIDS prevention and a wealth of national security issues. From his perch as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, he has aggressively criticized President Bush for his unilateralist approach to the world.

It was this expertise in foreign policy that raised Mr. Biden's standing with Mr. Obama and led him to announce in text- and e-mail messages early Saturday that Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., 65, was his choice to be the next vice president of the United States. An Irish Catholic son of Scranton, Pa., the sort of white, working-class city that Mr. Obama is fighting to win this November, Mr. Biden is in some ways a political elder brother to the 47-year-old Mr. Obama: competitive and protective, far more experienced in government and politics, and already a veteran orator when Mr. Obama was still finding his voice.

The two became colleagues upon Mr. Obama's entry to the Senate in 2005 and his appointment to the Foreign Relations Committee. Mr. Obama was perhaps best known at the time for opposing military action in Iraq. Mr. Biden, who had opposed the first Gulf War, worked in 2002 with the committee's ranking Republican member, Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, on a resolution that would authorize action to remove weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - but not to remove President Saddam Hussein. The White House opposed the idea, which floundered; Mr. Biden ultimately voted for the war resolution that Mr. Obama opposed.

Since then, Mr. Biden has been a critic of the Bush administration's strategy in Iraq and a leading advocate of partitioning that nation into three semiautonomous regions, for Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, - modeled somewhat on the division of Bosnia in the 1990s, an effort he was involved in. This so-called "Biden Plan" - often referred to that way by Mr. Biden himself - has been somewhat praised by Mr. Obama and other leading Democrats.

Mr. Biden achieved a major legislative victory last month when President Bush signed a measure co-authored by Mr. Biden to significantly increase spending over the next five years to treat and prevent AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis overseas.

A Provocateur

If Al Gore was a generational peer to Bill Clinton, and Dick Cheney was a guiding force to George W. Bush, Mr. Biden has at times acted as blunt-speaking provocateur to Mr. Obama, challenging the younger politician's ideas and assumptions in ways that Mr. Obama said he wants from his running mate.

A man of strong and many opinions, with a puckish humor and an inability to say no to Sunday news programs, Mr. Biden also has been satirized as the personification of senatorial windiness, though in the presidential debates of this past year he showed new discipline for keeping his comments succinct.

Still, he has sometimes lapsed into gaffes. In announcing his second bid for the presidency, in January 2007, Mr. Biden referred to his fellow candidate and his junior colleague on the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Barack Obama, as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."

In a debate in December 2007, Mr. Biden had to defend himself upon being asked if he was "uncomfortable talking about race," and won a vote of confidence afterward from Mr. Obama himself.

"I've worked with Joe Biden, I've seen his leadership," Mr. Obama said. "I have absolutely no doubt about what is in his heart and the commitment that he has made with respect to racial equality in this country. Joe is on the right side of the issues and is fighting every day for a better America."

Mr. Biden also said at another point in 2007 that Mr. Obama was "not yet ready" for the presidency, a point that Mr. Biden was questioned about in an August 2007 debate of the Democratic candidates.

"Look, I think he's a wonderful guy, to start off with, number one," Mr. Biden replied, before explaining his concern that Mr. Obama and other candidates were wrong (and he was right) on steps to recast American policy toward Pakistan. (Mr. Obama said he did not see much difference in their approaches to Pakistan.)

Compared with other relationships he has built in Washington, where he is serving his sixth term in the Senate, Mr. Biden has very little history with Mr. Obama. In Mr. Biden's 2007 autobiography he mentions Mr. Obama only once, and in the prologue section. "I served with the last of the southern segregationists," Mr. Biden writes of his long Senate career, "but I was there to see Carol Moseley Braun and Barack Obama sworn in."

In 1988, Mr. Biden underwent surgery to repair two so-called berry aneurysms in arteries in opposite sides of his brain. The first of the aneurysms - a ballooning of an artery - tore without warning, leaking blood to cause neck pain and nausea. Mr. Biden wore a brace until the correct diagnosis was made. He escaped without suffering a paralyzing stroke. The second aneurysm apparently caused no symptoms and was repaired a few weeks after the first. Mr. Biden returned to the Senate after a seven-month absence.

A Family Man

As he grew in prominence, Mr. Biden has commuted for years between Washington and Wilmington, Del., so he is home every night. He is famously close to his family. His sister, Valerie Biden Owens, has played an important role in all of his campaigns and managed his presidential bid last year. And he is known as a doting grandfather, often sitting on the floor to play with his grandchildren. Mr. Biden has long been ranked as one of the least wealthy members of the Senate.

He largely built his power base and expertise as the chairman or ranking Democrat of two powerful Senate committees: Judiciary, which he led from 1987 to 1995, and Foreign Relations, from 2001 to 2003 and since 2007. On Judiciary he became a leading advocate for the Violence Against Women Act, tougher drug sentencing laws and money for local law enforcement programs.

Leading the hearings on Clarence Thomas's nomination in 1991, Mr. Biden came under fire from women's groups and female members of Congress who said that he initially gave short shrift to allegations of sexual harassment against the nominee by Anita Hill.

But he noted that Ms. Hill had at first not wanted her identity disclosed even to Mr. Thomas, making an investigation difficult. Polls after the nomination fight showed that Mr. Biden, who ultimately voted against Mr. Thomas, was credited by the public with presiding fairly over the contentious hearings and he appeared to suffer little lasting political damage.

More recently, Mr. Biden voted against President Bush's nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

During and since his time leading Judiciary, Mr. Biden has been derided by some critics as the "Senator from MBNA," or "(D-MBNA)," because of his close ties to the credit card behemoth that was based in Wilmington, Del., until it was bought three years ago by Bank of America.

Employees of MBNA Corporation had heavily contributed to Mr. Biden over the years, pouring more than $214,000 into his campaign coffers going back to 1989, making the company his single biggest supporter, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Moreover, in 2003, after Mr. Biden's son Hunter had graduated from law school, MBNA hired him as a management trainee and quickly promoted him to executive vice president. After Hunter Biden left the firm to become a partner at a Washington lobbying firm, the company paid him a $100,000 annual retainer to advise it on the Internet and privacy issues. Mr. Biden also paid his son Hunter's law firm $143,000 for "legal services," including nearly $60,000 in outstanding bills just last month.

In another MBNA connection that has raised questions, Mr. Biden sold his Delaware house for $1.2 million in the mid-1990s to John Cochran, a senior executive of the company who would become its chairman and chief executive.

Mr. Biden became an early supporter of a controversial bankruptcy law that was championed by the company and other credit card issuers and finally passed in 2005, making it more difficult for consumers to erase their debts. Mr. Obama, who voted against the measure, recently skewered the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, for backing the bill, saying it allowed "banks and credit card companies to tilt the playing field in their favor, at the expense of hardworking Americans."

A report last year by Credit Suisse, the investment bank, concluded the law had a "profound impact" on the country's subprime mortgage crisis, leading directly to a rise in foreclosures.

Mr. Obama has made the bankruptcy bill an issue on the campaign trail, announcing a plan in July to revise the law and give more protection to debtors. He has argued that his opposition to the legislation demonstrated his support for working families, while casting Mr. McCain, who voted for the measure, as being in the pocket of credit card and banking industry lobbyists.

Accompanying Mr. Biden's respected legislative record is a personal touch that is renowned for verbal gaffes, usually a product of impolitic directness. None was more devastating than the plagiarism incident that eventually forced him to exit the presidential race in 1988.

During a speech at the Iowa State Fair, Mr. Biden delivered a moving closing monologue about his family's humble roots. It turned out that he had borrowed the passage from a British politician, Neil Kinnock, who had been describing his own personal history. Mr. Biden previously attributed the words to him on the stump but for some reason did not this time.

Other revelations quickly emerged: Mr. Biden had plagiarized parts of a paper he wrote in law school, using word for word five pages from a law review article without attribution; in a breezy moment with a voter in New Hampshire he had dramatically embellished his law school accomplishments; he had adopted parts of speeches by Robert F. Kennedy without citation.

By 2007, when he decided to try for the White House again, the political agonies of the '80s had been forgotten by many Americans. And Mr. Biden himself pledged to be more careful if he won in 2008.

Memorably, at one of the Democratic candidate debates, he was asked whether he could reassure voters that he would have the discipline to watch his words and language if elected. "Yes," Mr. Biden said, and nothing more, smiling as the audience laughed with approval.

Slowly but surely the identity of Barack Obama's vice presidential nominee is coming into focus. That is, we may not know who the pick is but we know who it isn't.

Neither Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh nor Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine will be the number two man for Obama, according to the Associated Press. Both men were considered finalists for the job -- numbers two and three on The Fix's latest Veepstakes Line.

Earlier in the night, CNN's Jessica Yellin reported that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) was officially out of the running to be Obama's vice president. That report came after Politico's Mike Allen noted in a piece earlier in the day that Clinton had never been vetted by Obama.

With Bayh, Kaine and Clinton seemingly out of the picture, talk over the next few hours (if there is talk that late!) will center on Sens. Joe Biden (#1 on the Fix's Line) and Jack Reed (#5).

The chatter is now that Obama's much-vaunted text message announcing the pick won't come until tomorrow morning -- a likely scenario given that it is approaching midnight on the east coast.

Biden must now be considered the strong favorite for the job given the seeming eliminations of his top two competitors for the job. Of course, the veepstakes is entirely unpredictable so until we get that text message, nothing is certain.

AUSTIN - Some of Hillary Rodham Clinton's Texas supporters to the Democratic National Convention aren't ready to concede the presidential nomination to Barack Obama.

And if the roll call goes against Clinton, they plan to try to force a convention vote on her for the vice-presidential nomination.

"We haven't had our convention yet. I don't appreciate everyone telling us the outcome," said Linda Rangel Moore, 57, a retired Air Force supply chief from San Antonio who is a Clinton delegate.

"I'm going into debt to go to Denver. If they're telling us that we have a nominee, I feel insulted."

Her sentiments were echoed by Turner Wright, a Houston Clinton delegate and member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

"I'm having to hope that she gets the most votes," Wright said. "That's why we're not giving up."

Clinton has conceded to Obama and even campaigned for him Thursday in Florida. But Moore, Wright and several others have agreed to put her name into nomination for president so her supporters could cast a symbolic vote for her.

Division among Democrats

Aaron Paz of El Paso, a high school history teacher, is circulating a petition to force a convention vote on Clinton for vice president. He said the petition needs a minimum of 300 signatures, but he already has 20 delegates from other states who are willing to help him circulate it.

"We're still convinced that Hillary Clinton is the one who would make the ticket the strongest," Paz said. "We have to be realistic, but we can't give up."

Paz noted that the 1944 Democratic convention rejected President Franklin D. Roosevelt's vice president for another term and nominated Harry Truman on the second ballot.

But Paz is concerned that his petition may not see the light of day at the convention.

"Our fear," he said, "is they (party leaders) are not going to let the democratic process work."

Clinton delegate Lawrence Romo, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel from San Antonio, said he already is working to help Obama win the presidency. But he likes the idea of having a vote on Clinton for vice president.

"Maybe we have a shotgun marriage where Obama and Clinton still get together," Romo said.

Houston Obama delegate Raphus Foley, a constable, said the campaign is over and he could not accept a vote on Clinton as Obama's running mate.

"Then we're going to have a fight," Foley said. "We're not going to let them (Clinton delegates) push him into taking who they say it is."

Seeking unity

"I'll be glad when the convention is over because then well have one nominee," Castro said.

But Houston Obama delegate Latifa Ring said some Clinton backers have started a movement that opposes party unity if Clinton is not on the ticket.

"They're very strong about not wanting to budge," Ring said. "We're going to have to work on that."

From the moment that Barack Obama secured his party's presidential nomination, we have been very skeptical about the prospect of the Illinois senator choosing Hillary Rodham Clinton as his vice presidential ticket mate.

And, we remain nearly certain that when Obama sees fit to let the world know who he has picked -- please make it soon Senator! -- it won't be Clinton standing by his side.

But, should it be?

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll provides startling evidence of a continued reluctance of a significant chunk of Clinton backers to line up behind their party's soon-to-be-formal nominee.

Just 52 percent of self-identifying Clinton supporters say they are backing Obama while 21 percent are siding with John McCain and 27 percent are undecided or are looking for some other candidate to support.

That tepid support from a significant chunk of the Democratic base is as responsible as any other factor for the fact that Obama and McCain are essentially deadlocked -- 45 percent for Obama, 42 percent for McCain -- in the general election head-to-head matchup.

For today's Wag the Blog question, we want to know whether you think those poll numbers are overwhelming evidence that Obama needs to pick Clinton as his vice president in order to win the White House in the fall. Why or why not? (Don't forget to revisit our "Case For" and "Case Against" Clinton as veep pieces from earlier this summer.)

The most thoughtful/insightful comments will be featured in their own post later this week.

By CRAIG GORDON, Newsday, August 22, 2008

He picked a 35-year veteran of the Senate - the ultimate insider - rather than a candidate from outside Washington, such as Govs. Tim Kaine of Virginia or Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas; or from outside his party, such as Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska; or from outside the mostly white male club of vice presidential candidates. Hillary Rodham Clinton didn't even make his short list.

The picks say something profound about Obama: For all his self-confidence, the 47-year-old Illinois senator worried that he couldn't beat Republican John McCain without help from a seasoned politician willing to attack. The Biden selection is the next logistical step in an Obama campaign that has become more negative - a strategic decision that may be necessary but threatens to run counter to his image.

Democratic strategists, fretting over polls that showed McCain erasing Obama's lead this summer, welcomed the move. They, too, worried that Obama needed a more conventional - read: tougher - approach to McCain.

"You've got to hand it to the candidate and the campaign. They have a great sense of timing and tone and appropriateness. Six months ago, people said he wasn't tough enough on Hillary Clinton - he was being too passive - but he got it right at the right time," said Democratic strategist Jim Jordan. "He'll get it right again."

Indeed, Obama has begun to aggressively counter McCain's criticism with negative television ads and sharp retorts from the campaign trail.

A senior Obama adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity, said his boss has expressed impatience with what he calls a "reverence" inside his campaign for his message of change and new politics. In other words, Obama is willing - even eager - to risk what got him this far if it gets him to the White House.

Biden brings a lot to the table. An expert on national security, the Delaware senator voted in 2002 to authorize military intervention in Iraq but has since become a vocal critic of the conflict. He won praise for a plan for peace in Iraq that would divide the country along ethnic lines.

Chief sponsor of a sweeping anti-crime bill that passed in 1994, Biden could help inoculate Obama from GOP criticism that he's soft on crime - a charge his campaign fears will drive a wedge between white voters and the first black candidate with a serious shot at the White House.

So the question is whether Biden's depth counters Obama's inexperience - or highlights it?

After all, Biden is anything but a change agent, having been in office longer than half of all Americans have been alive. Longer than McCain.

And he talks too much.

On the same day he announced his second bid for the presidency, Biden found himself explaining why he had described Obama as "clean."

And there's the 2007 ABC interview in which Biden said he would stand by an earlier statement that Obama was not ready to serve as president.

It seems Obama is worried that some voters are starting to agree.

Abortion is back with, dare we say it, biblical vengeance.

Republicans recently have focused on Barack Obama's opposition years ago to "born alive" legislation in Illinois that mirrored federal legislation aimed at granting personhood to a fetus or baby that was alive after removal from its mother's body, either by abortion or premature birth.

In the past few weeks, Obama has been accused of everything from favoring infanticide to lying about his vote, to inventing a cover-up, to being a baby-killing extremist.

Politics is no place for the squeamish.

What is more likely to be true is that Obama is studiously cautious, too smart by half and ambivalent to a fault. Suddenly, the man whose campaign seemed helium-propelled is being pulled back down to Earth by the force of his own vagueness. Abortion, of all things, has become his kryptonite.

The long history of the Illinois born-alive bill is, well, long. Sixteen versions of the legislation came and went during the period under scrutiny; it finally passed after Obama left for Washington. That history is also complicated and not as straightforward as is being advanced by Obama's and abortion's common foes.

He can't seem to give a straight answer.

To briefly recap: Obama's initial opposition to the born-alive legislation was a concern that such a law would undermine Roe v. Wade. His comments at the time indicate that he apparently reasoned that granting personhood to an aborted fetus, albeit one with a heartbeat, was a subterfuge aimed at granting personhood to a fetus.

Not without cause did he reach that conclusion. Most observers of the abortion debate understand that the legislation was fueled in part by hopes that personhood eventually might find its way back inside the birth canal.

It has always seemed to me perfectly appropriate that we find terminating human life troublesome. Although settled as the law of the land, abortion at any point should be an unsettling proposition. The fact that abortion refuses to recuse itself from present politics merely confirms that many Americans are not ready to be gods.

Obama, perhaps, excluded. When asked to explain his position as a state legislator, Obama said he would have voted for the law had it included a neutrality clause -- similar to one added to the federal law -- affirming that the bill would not affect Roe.

But the Illinois legislation in final form did include such a neutrality clause, which has prompted charges that Obama lied. Or did he merely misremember, as often happens in politics?

What did Obama mean and when did he mean it?

Alas, the more he tries to explain his position, the more muddled the picture becomes. The most revealing answer may have come last weekend, when pastor Rick Warren asked him when a baby gets human rights.

"Well, uh, you know, I think that whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or, uh, a scientific perspective, uh, answering that question with specificity, uh, you know, is, is, uh, above my pay grade."

Well, uh, not really.

Yes, Warren's question was complicated. But the answer is really pretty simple. It's whatever one thinks. It is not above anyone's pay grade to be honest.

Instead, Obama punted.

Americans are accustomed to differing views on abortion and will tolerate a flip-flop now and then. But a politician who finesses or fudges out of an instinct to please will be viewed as spineless or insecure or both -- none of which inspires confidence.

The result of such exquisite ambivalence isn't a higher level of discourse but a lower level of trust, as recent surveys reflect. A new Reuters-Zogby poll shows McCain running five points ahead of Obama nationwide. Other polls show McCain pulling even.

Obama's born-alive problem ultimately could prove fatal to the man who thought too hard and lost his sense.

Biden, 65, has twice sought the White House, and is a Catholic with blue-collar roots, a generally liberal voting record and a reputation as a long-winded orator.

Across more than 30 years in the Senate, he has served at various times not only as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee but also as head of the Judiciary Committee, with its jurisdiction over anti-crime legislation, Supreme Court nominees and Constitutional issues.

In selecting Biden, Obama passed over several other potential running mates, none more prominent than former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, his tenacious rival in dozens of primaries and caucuses.

Obama's campaign arranged a debut for the newly minted ticket on Saturday outside the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill.

Obama's decision leaked to the media several hours before his aides planned to send a text message announcing the running mate, negating a promise that people who turned over their phone numbers would be the first to know who Obama had chosen. The campaign scrambled to send the text message after the leak, sending phones buzzing at the inconvenient time of just after 3 a.m. on the East coast.

Hundreds of miles to the west, carpenters, electricians, sound stage gurus and others transformed the Pepsi Center in Denver into a made-for-television convention venue.

Tucked away in one corner were thousands of lightweight rolled cardboard tubes, ready-made handles for signs bearing the names of the Democratic ticket - once the identity of Obama's running mate was known.

While Obama decided against adding Clinton to his ticket, he has gone to great lengths to gain the confidence of her primary voters, agreeing to allow her name to be placed in nomination at the convention and permitting a roll call vote that threatens to expose lingering divisions within the party.

Biden slowly emerged as Obama's choice across a long day and night of political suspense as other contenders gradually fell away.

First Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine let it be known that he had been ruled out. Then came word that Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana had also been passed over.

Several aides to Clinton said the Obama campaign had never requested financial or other records from her.

Other finalists in the veep sweepstakes were Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Texas Rep. Chet Edwards.

Among those on the short list, Biden brought the most experience in defense or foreign policy - areas in which Obama fares relatively poorly in the polls compared with Republican Sen. John McCain.

While the war in Iraq has been supplanted as the campaign's top issues by the economy in recent months, the recent Russian invasion of Georgia has returned foreign policy to the forefront.

In addition to foreign policy experience, Biden, a native of Scranton, Pa., has working-class roots that could benefit Obama, who lost the blue-collar vote to Clinton during their competition for the presidential nomination.

Biden was elected to the Senate at the age of 29 in 1972, but personal tragedy struck before he could take office. His wife and their 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, were killed when a tractor-trailer broad-sided her station wagon.

Biden took his oath of office for his first term at the hospital bedside of one of his sons.

On Friday, he spent the day at his home in Delaware with friends and family. The normally loquacious lawmaker maintained a low profile as associates said they believed - but did not know - he would be tapped. They added they had been asked to stand by in case their help was needed.

No sooner had word spread of his selection than McCain's campaign unleashed its first attack. Spokesman Ben Porritt said in a statement that Biden had "denounced Barack Obama's poor foreign policy judgment and has strongly argued in his own words what Americans are quickly realizing - that Barack Obama is not ready to be president."

As evidence, Republicans cited an ABC interview from August 2007, in which Biden said he would stand by an earlier statement that Obama was not ready to serve as president.

Biden is seeking a new Senate term in the fall. there was no immediate word whether he intended to change plans as he reaches for national office.

Michael Silberman, a partner at online communications firm EchoDitto, said the campaign gambled when they made such a high-stakes promise and find themselves in a precarious situation where they could risk a great deal of trust with supporters.

"For Obama supporters, this is like finding out from your neighbor instead of your sister that she's engaged - not how you want or expect the news to be delivered," Silberman said.

Biden dropped out of the 2008 race for the Democratic presidential nomination after a poor finish in the Iowa caucuses, but not before he talked dismissively of joining someone else's ticket.

"I am not running for vice president," he said in a Fox interview. "I would not accept it if anyone offered it to me. The fact of the matter is I'd rather stay as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee than be vice president."

He had stumbled on his first day in the race, apologizing for having described Obama as "clean." Months later, Obama spoke up on Biden's defense, praising him during a campaign debate for having worked for racial equality.

It was Biden's second try for the White House. The first ended badly in 1988 when he was caught lifting lines from a speech by British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock.

In the decades since, he become a power in the Senate, presiding over confirmation proceedings for Supreme Court nominees as well as convening hearings to criticize President Bush's handling of the Iraq War.

Biden voted to authorize the war, but long ago became one of the Senate's surest critics of the conflict. Ironically, perhaps, his son, Beau, attorney general of Delaware, is due to spend a tour of duty in Iraq beginning this fall with his National Guard unit.

Obama worked to keep his choice secret, although he addressed the issue broadly during the day in an interview.

"Obviously, the most important question is: Is this person ready to be president?" Obama told "The Early Show" on CBS. Second, he said, was: "Can this person help me govern? Are they going to be an effective partner in creating the kind of economic opportunity here at home and guiding us through some dangerous waters internationally?"

And, he added: "I want somebody who is going to be able to challenge my thinking and not simply be a yes person when it comes to policymaking.

In Washington, Biden, 65, is known as a collegial figure even when he's competitive - one who can spin flowery praise one moment and biting fulmination the next.

His second presidential campaign faltered early on, just one of the Democrats shunted to the sidelines as the bracing contest between Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton sucked the air out of the rest of the field.

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden is one of the most influential foreign policy voices in Congress. An internationalist and strong supporter of the United Nations, he is a leading critic of what he sees as the vague, unilateralist approach of President Bush.

Biden voted in 2002 to authorize the Iraq invasion, which Obama opposed from the start. Since then, he's become a firm critic of the conflict and pushed through a resolution last year declaring that Bush's troop increase - now considered a military success - was "not in the national interest."

One of the youngest politicians ever elected to the Senate - he was 29 - Biden entered the 1988 Democratic presidential primary promising to "rekindle the fire of idealism in our society." He reluctantly quit the race three months later after he was caught lifting lines from a speech by a British Labour Party leader.

In his latest effort, Biden proved to be a cheerful campaigner who mixed easily with voters, got along with rivals and displayed a self-deprecating sense of humor that leavened debates and speeches. When he was asked in one debate whether he's much too wordy, he drew laughs with a one-word answer, "No."

Obama jumped in to defend him on another occasion when he was asked if he had a problem with minorities.

The question was rooted in Biden's occasional gaffes. He had apologized earlier for describing Obama as "articulate" and "clean" in one unguarded episode that was taken by some to have a racial overtone. And he'd had to defend his remark that "you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent."

Biden confronted tragedy five weeks after his first election. In 1972, his first wife, Neilia, and 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, were killed when a tractor-trailer broad-sided her station wagon as she drove home with a family Christmas tree. His sons Beau and Hunt were badly hurt.

He was sworn in from the hospital bedside of one his sons and still won't work on Dec. 18, the date of the accident.

In 1977, Biden married Jill Tracy Jacobs. They have a daughter, Ashley. Both of his sons are lawyers, and the elder son, Beau, was elected state attorney general of Delaware in November.

Biden himself had a close brush with death in February 1988, when he was hospitalized for two brain aneurysms. It was seven months before he could return to the Senate.

Mr. Biden is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and is familiar with foreign leaders and diplomats around the world. Although he initially voted to authorize the war in Iraq - Mr. Obama opposed it from the start - Mr. Biden became a persistent critic of President George W. Bush's policies in Iraq.

The brief text message from the Obama campaign came at 3:00 a.m., less than three hours after word of the decision began leaking out. "Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee. Watch the first Obama-Biden rally live at 3pm ET on www.BarackObama.com. Spread the word!"

His e-mail annoucement began: "Friend -- I have some important news that I want to make official. I've chosen Joe Biden to be my running mate."

The selection was disclosed as Mr. Obama moves into a critical part of his campaign, preparing for the party's four-day convention in Denver starting on Monday. Mr. Obama's aides viewed the introduction of his vice presidential choice - including an afternoon rally Saturday at the old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., the same place where Mr. Obama announced his candidacy on a freezing winter morning almost two years ago - and a tour of swing states as the beginning of a week-long stretch in which Mr. Obama hopes to dominate the stage and position himself for the fall campaign.

Word of Mr. Obama's decision leaked out hours before his campaign was scheduled to inform supporters via text and e-mail messages, and hours after informing two other top contenders for the vice presidential nomination - Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana and Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia - that they had not been chosen.

As the selection process moved to an end, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who Mr. Obama had defeated in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, had slipped out of contention - to the degree that Mr. Obama had never seriously considered her.

Mr. Biden is known for being both talkative and prone to making the kind of statements that get him in trouble. In 2007, when he was competing for Mr. Obama for the presidential nomination, he declared that Mr. Obama was "not yet ready" for the presidency.

The McCain campaign jumped on that early Saturday, as it responded to the selection, offering a glimpse into the line of criticism that awaits the Democratic ticket.

"There has been no harsher critic of Barack Obama's lack of experience than Joe Biden. Biden has denounced Barack Obama's poor foreign policy judgment and has strongly argued in his own words what Americans are quickly realizing - that Barack Obama is not ready to be President," said Ben Porritt, a spokesman for Mr. McCain.

Although Mr. Biden is not exactly a household name, he is probably the best known of all the Democrats who were in contention for the spot, given his political and personal history (not to mention his regular appearances on the Sunday morning television news shows.) He first ran for the Senate from Delaware when he was just 29.

Mr. Biden has run twice for the presidency himself, once in 1988 and again in 2008, dropping out early in both cases. He was also the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during two of the most contentious Supreme Couty nomination battles of the past 50 years: the confirmation proceedings for Robert H. Bork, who was defeated, and Clarence Thomas, who was confirmed after an explosive hearing in which Anita Hill accused Mr. Thomas of sexual harassment. Mr. Biden led the opposition to both nominations, though he came under criticism from some feminists for not immediately disclosing what were at first Ms. Hill's closed-door accusations against Mr. Thomas.

Mr. Obama's choice of Mr. Biden suggested some of the weaknesses the Obama campaign is trying to address at a time when national polls suggest that his race with Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, is tightening.

Chief among Mr. Biden's strengths is his familiarity with foreign policy and national security issues, highlighted just this past weekend with the invitation he received from the embattled president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, to visit Georgia in the midst of its tense faceoff with Russia. From the moment he dropped out of the presidential race, he had been mentioned as a potential Secretary of State should either Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton win the election.

He is also something of a fixture in Washington, and would bring to the campaign - and the White House - a familiarity with the way the city and Congress works that Mr. Obama cannot match after his relatively short stint in Washington.

At 65, Mr. Biden adds a few years and gray hair to a ticket that otherwise might seem a bit young (Mr. Obama is 47). He is, as Mr. Obama's advisers were quick to argue, someone who appears by every measure prepared to take over as president, setting a standard that appears intended to at least somewhat hamstring Mr. McCain should he be tempted to go for a more adventurous choice for No. 2.

He has a long history of making statements that get him in trouble. He was forced to apologize to Mr. Obama almost the moment he entered the race for president after he was quoted as describing Mr. Obama as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," a remark that drew criticism for being racially insensitive. While campaigning in New Hampshire, Mr. Biden said that "you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent."

Mr. Biden quit the presidential race this year after barely making a mark; he came in fifth in Iowa. He was forced to quit the 1988 presidential race in the face of accusations that he had plagiarized part of a speech from Neil Kinnock, the British Labor Party leader. Shortly afterward, he was found to have suffered two aneurysms.

He is also, at least arguably, a Washington insider, having worked there for so long, though he still commutes home to Wilmington every night by train.

The choice by Mr. Obama in some ways mirrors the choice by Mr. Bush of Dick Cheney as his running mate in 2000; at his age, it appears unlikely that Mr. Biden would be in a position to run for president should Mr. Obama win and serve two terms. Shorn of any remaining ambition to run for president on his own, he could find himself in a less complex political relationship with Mr. Obama than most vice presidents have with their presidents.

Mr. Biden was born in Scranton, grew up in the suburbs of Wilmington, Del., and went to Syracuse Law School. As a young man, he was in the center of a gripping family drama: barely a month after he was elected to the Senate, his wife and their three children were in a car accident with a drunken driver resulted in the death of his wife and daughter. His two sons survived and Mr. Biden remarried five years later.

That's a lot to ask for someone who just a few years ago was an obscure member of the Illinois Legislature.

"For many people, Obama's a wild card," said his former colleague, Democratic state Sen. Susan Garrett. "They like him. They want to give him a chance, but it's a big, big job. They need some reassurances that he's up to it."

Obama can remind voters of some concrete achievements, in Illinois and Washington. And running a marathon primary campaign that bested favored rival Hillary Rodham Clinton was no minor feat.

But the heart of Obama's sales pitch isn't what he's done. It's who he is.

He wants to be seen as someone who can empathize with people's problems, use his obvious brainpower to come up with solutions and then motivate everyone to work together. Any lack of experience he makes up for with sound judgment, according to this argument.

Exhibit A is Obama's early opposition to invading Iraq. He warned in 2002 that it would be a long, costly diversion from the war against al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

Exhibit B is his personal story. Black father and white mother, raised in Indonesia and Hawaii, a scholar who also spent years helping the poor in Chicago neighborhoods - Obama is a walking billboard for bridging divides.

Those who know Obama best express confidence he can handle the Oval Office. They describe him as calm under pressure, someone who studies all angles, gathers advice from the best people, then makes a decision.

"He's not one who's going to shoot from the hip," said Democratic state Sen. Terry Link, a longtime Obama friend. "He's not one who's going to take gambles unnecessarily."

Presidential scholar Erwin Hargrove of Vanderbilt University concludes that character is the biggest part of a president's success or failure.

"I think the personal character is more important than the experience," he said.

Not so, says Samuel Skinner, White House chief of staff for the first President Bush. Temperament is important, but experience matters tremendously, too.

"It's a very complicated job with a lot of pieces that are constantly moving on you," Skinner said. "With experience comes confidence, and with confidence comes decisiveness."

Emergencies aren't the only challenges for a new president. Obama would also face the unfamiliar task of overseeing a massive bureaucracy.

Obama plans to address that by filling his Cabinet with Washington experts - perhaps including Republicans. On Saturday he named Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware as his vice presidential running mate, balancing his ticket with a seasoned Washington veteran well-versed in foreign policy and defense issues.

Republican John McCain has been in Washington far longer than Obama, developing a reputation for expertise on the military and foreign affairs. But his executive experience is limited to 13 months as head of a Navy squadron of about 1,000 people and 75 planes.

Obama's opponents see voter doubts to be exploited.

Clinton ran the "3 a.m. phone call" ad that asked who voters wanted in the White House during an emergency. McCain compares Obama to fluffy celebrities Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

When it comes to experience, Obama's supporters point out that he helped build consensus on difficult issues in Illinois such as death penalty reforms and stronger ethics laws. He worked with Republicans in the U.S. Senate to fight nuclear proliferation and government waste.

And he has run a groundbreaking presidential campaign. Obama energized new voters and turned the Internet into a fundraising tool in ways no one else has ever done. Even when his campaign struggled, Obama kept a lid on the leaks and finger-pointing that weaken many campaigns.

Skinner, now a Chicago lawyer, said voters can learn something from that.

"If the campaign is disorganized and the candidate is disorganized, that might be an indication they can't put a White House together," he said.

Obama reached the national stage thanks to his speaking abilities. Soaring and emotional to cool and analytical, they have been a big part of his success.

As president, that skill could help him rally people behind his policies. But critics still question his seasoning.

Republican state Sen. David Luechtefeld, a former Obama poker buddy who has been in public office 13 years compared with Obama's 11, said, "His experience is certainly not something you would look at and say 'This is who I want to be leader of the free world.'"

At 12:42 Eastern time, CNN won the hyper-competitive quadrennial derby to be first with news that others always have within minutes afterward. Veteran political reporter John King went on air saying he had two sources confirming Biden's selection.

The Obama campaign is planning a dramatic mid-day event at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., where the man who just four years ago was a state legislator there announced his presidential bid 20 months ago.

With Biden, Obama combines his mantra of change with one of Washington's most seasoned hands. Now in his sixth term, Biden is the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and the fourth-longest serving Democratic senator. He ran for president for the second time this year, but dropped out after finishing sixth in the Iowa primary.

Biden's selection nicely fills some of the gaps in Obama's background. But while Biden, 65, made strides during the primary season on curbing his legendary penchant for leaving no thought unspoken, those who have watched him (and listened to him) over the years know the Obama team will spend some sleepless nights wondering what he might say at any given moment.

On foreign policy and national security, an area where John McCain regularly assails Obama's lack of experience, Democrats offer few more seasoned practitioners than Biden. He's distinguished himself in every important foreign policy debate in recent years, from Kosovo to Iraq, where he voted to authorize the 2003 invasion, but was careful to limit his support to an effort to remove Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (since proved non-existent). And he's been a relentless critic of the Bush administration's handling of the conflict ever since.

"I regret my vote," he told Politico last year. "The president did not level with us." In 2007 Biden opposed the troop surge that McCain has credited for bringing down levels of violence in Iraq, and co-sponsored a non-binding resolution stating that it is "not in the national interest of the United States to deepen its military involvement in Iraq."

Biden also brings with him solid law-and-order credentials from his time on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he was the ranking Democrat for eight years.

And if Obama's multi-national formative years seem unusual to many voters, Biden is almost a caricature of the American story. Now a white-haired, full-throated senator from Washington central casting, he was born "Joey" Biden to a blue-collar family in Scranton, Pa., and has never seemed to lose touch with his Irish Catholic roots.

Biden admirers - and even many who aren't particular fans - were deeply moved by how he weathered a devastating family tragedy in 1972, shortly after he was first elected to the Senate at the remarkable age of 29.

Biden's wife of six years, Neilia Hunter, was killed along with their infant daughter in an automobile accident in which the couple's two sons were seriously injured. Biden was sworn into office at his sons' bedside and commuted by train daily between Wilmington and Washington to take care of them - a commute he's continued ever since.

Garrulous, bigger-than-life and at times wonderfully honest and profane, Biden is one of Washington's most likable pols and an ever-quotable source for several generations of political journalists.

"The press wants me in this thing," he told donors in Washington last June.

But his long history of verbal gaffes has made him a perplexing figure to a generation of Capitol Hill insiders, as well as to three-decades-worth of staffers who have tried, without success, to get him to talk less and worry more about what comes out of his mouth.

Two of his slips have become part of political lore. His 1988 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination was destroyed by a plagiarism scandal (and made former British Labor leader Neil Kinnock a trivia question answer forever more).

Last January, he described Obama - on the very day that the Illinois senator launched his candidacy - as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."

Biden's embarassing remark about Obama may actually make him a more appealing running mate, however. Obama pubilcly absolved Biden of any taint of racism at a debate in Iowa last year, and that narrative of racial reconciliation is central to his appeal.

Still, such inexplicable lapses in judgment caused many leading Democrats to question Biden's presence on Obama's vice-presidential short list, and will keep GOP operatives, journalists and Biden's new squadron of staffers on eggshells day and night in anticipation of a new verbal grenade.

But Biden watchers also know that there is much to like and admire about the man. Biden is a fighter who is joining a campaign some Democrats believe should scrap a little more. He is a serious adult on the serious, adult issues of the day.

And no one will liken Joey Biden of Scranton, Pa., to Paris Hilton or Britney Spears.

"He knows McCain better than anyone else. He intimidates McCain more than anyone else. He can call McCain out better than anyone else on some of his positions," said Biden’s pollster, Celinda Lake, in a recent interview.

Richard Ben Cramer, in his masterful look at the 1988 race, "What It Takes," wrote that even from boyhood, Biden was not to be underestimated.

"He was little too, but you didn't want to fight him - or dare him," he wrote of Biden. "There was nothing he wouldn't do. Joe moved away from Scranton, Pennsylvania in '53, when he was ten years old. But there were still a lot of guys in Scranton today who talk about the feats of Joey Biden . . . Joey would never back down."

The Democrats are having their flop-sweat moment. Barack Obama should be way out in front. The Republicans are in terrible shape. There hasn't been a more battered brand name since Bart Simpson swallowed a jagged metal "O" from his box of Krusty-O's cereal. The GOP has nominated an old white-haired dude, in Paris Hilton's words, who makes Dick Cheney look like a lambada champion. He'll be the kind of president who will yell from the Oval Office window, "You kids get off my lawn!" The economy isn't roadkill quite yet; it's sort of like wounded roadkill, flopping around, unable to get going but unwilling to lay down and die.

And yet, John McCain is pulling ahead of Obama. The latest Reuters poll has Grandpa Munster up five percentage points over our secular messiah. The Real Clear Politics average of polls has Obama and McCain in a virtual tie. And, according to RCP, if the race were held today and McCain took the toss-up states where he's currently ahead, he'd be the next president. Yes, it's early. McCain has had a good couple weeks. But these were McCain's first good couple weeks since he secured the nomination. Meanwhile, with the exception of the Jeremiah Wright unpleasantness, Obama has had a good couple years.

Ask the typical Obama supporter why this should be so and you'll get a range of answers. Some just stare at the poll numbers the way my late basset hound would look at me when I tried to feed him a grape: with pure unblinking incomprehension. Others act like the guy who sits alone with his shopping bags at the public library, muttering about Fox News conspiracies and how Karl Rove-like aliens are doing terrible things with probes of proctological exactitude. Still others just shake their heads at the racism of anyone who could possibly have a problem with a very left-wing politician with almost no experience, who often sounds like his campaign slogan is: "People of Earth! Stop Your Bickering. I Am From Harvard, And I'm Here To Help."

Perhaps therein lies the answer to this supposed mystery. Indeed, perhaps there's no mystery at all, and Obama's problems are the same problems Democrats always have at the presidential level: He's an elitist.

Oh, I know. Upon reading that, some liberal spluttered herbal chai tea from her nose at the injustice of this whole elitist canard, and the earnest Ivy League interns at some liberal magazine have burst into laughter, offering the appropriate bons mots from Balzac at the preposterousness of such a suggestion, saying: "Don't you conservatives understand? Democrats care about the little guy. They're on the side of the proletariat -- I mean workers -- and as Obama has so eloquently put it, if the workers would only stop clinging to their silly sky god and guns, they'd understand that."

Liberalism is often a problem at the presidential level. Cultural liberalism is a burden. Haughty cultural liberalism is a disaster in the making. For good or ill, the presidency is a cultural institution as much as it is a political institution. And it's fundamentally a culturally conservative one. Fair or not, many perceive Obama as a cultural outsider. This week, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley said of Obama's friendship with former left-wing domestic terrorist Bill Ayers: "They're friends. So what?"

Psephologist and columnist Michael Barone noticed during the primaries that, with the exception of the black vote, Obama's support within the Democratic party is comprised almost entirely of cultural liberals. He dubbed this intra-Democratic split a divide between "academics and Jacksonians." The Jacksonians are working-class, culturally conservative whites. The academics are the same people who formed the base for Howard Dean, Bill Bradley, Michael Dukakis, Gary Hart, George McGovern, and other successful presidents in the anti-matter universe where Spock has a goatee.

In this universe, however, you need Jacksonians more than you need academics to win a general election, which is one reason why no non-southern Democrat has won the presidency in nearly a half-century. It's not that voters love southerners, either. Rather, southern Democrats simply seem more Jacksonian (even so, only Jimmy Carter won with a majority of the popular vote).

Obama may still win, of course, proving that America is not only ready for a black president, but a cultural liberal as well. If he loses, though, you can be sure Democrats will claim he lost not because he is a black and more charming Michael Dukakis, but simply because he is black. Because liberals are never wrong.

There's trouble in paradise. Cancel the coronation. Send back the commemorative medals. Put those "Yes We Can" T-shirts up on eBay. Keep the Change.

Barack Obama's historic procession to the American presidency has been rudely interrupted. The global healing he promised is in jeopardy. If you're prone to emotional breakdown, you might want to take a seat before I say this. He might not win.

How can it be, you ask? Didn't we see him just last month speaking to 200,000 adoring Germans in Berlin? Didn't he get the red carpet treatment in France - France of all places? Doesn't every British politician want to be seen clutching the hem of his garment?

All true. But as cruel geography and the selfish designs of the American Founding Fathers would have it, Europeans don't get to choose the US president. Somewhere along the way to the Obama presidency, somebody forgot to ask the American people.

So we arrive this weekend at the true starting line of the US presidential race and the rituals that begin the real election campaign: the selection of the vice-presidential running-mates, and the back-to-back party nominating conventions. A year and a half after the warm-ups began, the two remaining candidates are more or less tied. Senator Obama's summer lead in the opinion polls has evaporated. John McCain, that grumpy, grisly, gnarled old Republican, that Gollum to Senator Obama's Bilbo Baggins, might, just might, actually win this thing.

What happened?

Of course, the conventional view is that it's all the work of that most terrifyingly effective piece of artillery since the invention of the howitzer, the Republican Attack Machine.

The credulous American voter, we're told, has been subjected in the last month to a televised blitzkrieg of right-wing lies about the hapless Democrat. He's not patriotic. He might be a Muslim. He might not even be American. He probably is a Muslim. There's no evidence he's ever said anything nice about Michael Phelps. He goes to the mosque on Fridays. If Obama's the leader of the free world, it won't be the Caucasian Georgia the Russians invade but the one sandwiched between Florida and South Carolina. Gullible Americans are going to fall for it, just as they fell for Stupid George W over Brilliant Al Gore and Brave John Kerry.

Forgive me for interrupting this reverie but in the real world something else is going on.

In the reality-based community the rest of us inhabit, the first thing to be said about the current state of the race is that the actual shift in the campaign's dynamics is not quite as dramatic as the pundit class would have you believe. A month ago, according to an average of polls for Real ClearPolitics.com, Senator Obama had about a four-point lead over Senator McCain. This week the tally suggests the lead is about one percentage point.

The bigger change has occurred in perceptions about the race. A month ago the prevailing view among the wise was that Senator Obama would steadily increase his lead and by the time his convention concluded next week, it would be insurmountable.

But instead, it looks as though, even if he has a really good convention in Denver next week, and Hillary and Bill Clinton play the unlikely role of loyal followers, the race will still be close when the Republicans start their gathering in a week's time. Whatever happens, in other words. it looks like yet another close election.

Why is this? Why has the Democrat failed to capitalise on the mood of deep discontent within the country?

First, it's true that the negative campaigning by John McCain has hurt him somewhat. But there's nothing wrong with that. The 2008 presidential election has so far been a referendum on Senator Obama. It's perfectly reasonable for the Republicans to make the case against him, and the attacks have been fair. My account of the McCain campaign above was a caricature, of course. There's been no mention of Senator Obama's race or the silly fiction that he might be a Muslim.

The fact is that the 47-year-old Democrat, less than four years in the Senate, is still largely a blank page for American voters: a great orator and an attractive figure, but unknown and untested. The Republicans have been filling in some of the gaps and pointing out how thin his real biography is.

The second problem is that Senator Obama is having difficulty - curiously enough - with Democratic voters. Polls indicate that while Senator McCain has just about locked up the votes of those who supported other Republicans in the primary election, Senator Obama is still regarded with mistrust and dislike by large numbers of Hillary Clinton's former supporters.

For many of these working-class types, he's just a bit too cerebral, a little vague. His campaign lacks both substance and passion. While unemployment is rising, incomes are slipping fqarther behind rising inflation and house prices are falling, Senator Obama keeps talking about hope and change, keeps promising a new type of politics. These benighted Democratic voters don't really want a new type of politics. They want to know what exactly he's going to do to raise their living standards.

The irony for Senator Obama is that he has built a campaign on a pledge to put an end to cynicism in the political system, but the more he offers only vague promises of hope, the greater the danger that he increases voter cynicism about politicians in general and him in particular.

The third problem is that events have not helped the Democrats. The war in Georgia has emphasised that the world is a dangerous place, and that simply being willing to talk to your enemies, as Senator Obama sometimes seems to suggest, isn't going to keep your people safe.

The key to understanding the presidential campaign as it enters its phase of maximum intensity is this. The more the campaign is about the concerns of the American voter, especially the state of the economy but also the general anxiety about the direction of the country, the more likely they are to throw the Republicans out.

But the uncomfortable truth for the many devoted fans of Senator Obama is that the more the race is about him, the less likely he is to win it.

Many who had supported Mrs. Clinton's run for president shared Ms. Shaffer's opinion. Democrats who said they had recently accepted that Mr. Obama, of Illinois, would be the Democratic presidential nominee greeted Mrs. Clinton's 30-minute speech - her first rally in Florida on his behalf - with warmth but also demands for more.

Democrats here have been especially divided since Mrs. Clinton battled to have the state's delegates awarded to her after Florida held its primary early, in violation of Democratic Party rules, and after the party said it would not seat its delegation at the convention.

The delegates' voting rights, with half a vote each, were eventually restored, leaving Mrs. Clinton's victory here intact. And while national polls show that her supporters have been moving toward Mr. Obama, many Clinton voters are still demanding a strong signal from her on whether to shift their allegiance.

In her speech, Mrs. Clinton, of New York, offered an unequivocal endorsement. She repeatedly linked her signature issues of health care, the economy and abortion to Mr. Obama. Emphasizing how a President Obama could further her agenda in the Senate, she said, "I need a president who will work with me, who will be there for the people I care about, that I get up and fight for every single day."

In all, Mrs. Clinton mentioned Mr. Obama's name about 10 times. But at some points she sounded wistful. She pointed out, for example, that it was her third time at Florida Atlantic University as a proxy for a presidential candidate. "I've been here three times," she said. "In 1992, for my husband. In 1996, for my husband" - the audience laughed - "and in 2008, for Barack Obama, the next president of the United States."

Guy Montes, 63, a retired shift manager for United Airlines and a Clinton supporter in the primary, said later that Mrs. Clinton's heart did not seem to be in it.

"It was a platonic type of endorsement," Mr. Montes said. "It wasn't real love. She's just doing what she's supposed to be doing."

Even Cecilia Payne, 52, an insurance agent in West Palm Beach originally from Barbados, who declared that "the Clintons are the best thing that ever happened to politics," said Mrs. Clinton must work harder.

"She should have been a little more forceful and more convincing," Ms. Payne said.

Many here said they feared that Mrs. Clinton did not fully appreciate the divide that remained among Democratic voters. Ms. Shaffer, a part-time medical technician, said many older voters she knew were still struggling with racial prejudice, an issue Mrs. Clinton did not substantially address.

Ileen J. Cantor, 46, a Democratic precinct coordinator in Boca Raton, said that among many lifelong Jewish Democrats, "it's still iffy, which is freaking me out."

Jennifer Boxen, 35, a librarian at Florida Atlantic, applauded vigorously when Mrs. Clinton said she and Mr. Obama had been "on two paths" but were now on "one journey." But she said she was still not sure whom she would vote for.

"Ask me again next Tuesday," Ms. Boxen said, "after I know who the vice-presidential pick is."

In a new television advertisement and at an event in Virginia on Thursday, Mr. Obama seized on new comments by Mr. McCain, made a day earlier, expressing uncertainty about the number of homes he owned. (Eight, with his wife, Obama aides said; four, McCain aides said.) Obama advisers cast the McCain remark as politically explosive, contrasting it with the mortgage foreclosure crisis that has upended the American dream of owning even one home.

The McCain camp swiftly countered with its own advertisement and condemnations, noting that Mr. Obama owns a "mansion" - a disputable characterization - with four fireplaces in Chicago, and reviving questions about his land deal with Antoin Rezko, a businessman who was convicted in June on fraud and corruption charges.

The exchange highlighted how, as economic issues increasingly dominate the campaign, the two presumptive presidential nominees are still searching for ways to connect with voters on the economy. Mr. Obama sometimes seems professorial in response to personal problems, while Mr. McCain seemed more than half-serious on Saturday when he defined "rich" as having $5 million or more.

"It's now clear that the economy will be the tipping point in this election," said Jack F. Kemp, the Republican vice-presidential nominee in 1996 and a former housing secretary, "and the candidate who has the best answer to getting America growing again without inflation is going to tap the winning segment of this electorate.

"I like John's ideas, but he has more to do in terms of making his case and connecting with voters on the economy."

For all the candidates' detailed position papers, many undecided taxpayers and homeowners appear to be looking at the candidates themselves, as well as their speeches, body language and stagecraft, in hopes of making a visceral identification.

Part of the challenge for both men is that they have campaigned largely on character traits: Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, as a war hero who stuck with the troop surge in Iraq in spite of criticism, and Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, as a change agent who would unite voters with a hopeful message.

"Obama has the better set of policies," said Robert E. Rubin, a former secretary of the Treasury under President Bill Clinton. "But has he effectively conveyed those policies in a way that votes will understand? That's the challenge for his campaign."

And one way for each to connect with voters is to suggest his opponent's own lack of understanding of the economic struggles facing Americans, which was underscored by the exchanges on Thursday.

Mr. Obama became a millionaire by writing books, and he lost primaries this spring in Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania to a rival who appealed to voters with a can-do political platform on pocketbook issues, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. Mr. McCain, meanwhile, overcame a primary challenge from former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, a wealthy executive who also focused on the economy.

"Neither Obama nor McCain owns the economy as an issue because they've never focused on it, really, in ways that working-class families would identify with," said Jimmy Siegel, who helped create political advertisements for Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign. "Obama has always been about hope and change, in a broad sense, while McCain has always been about foreign policy and experience."

Perhaps taking his cue from the Clinton campaign's successes, Mr. Obama is encouraging voters to start to share with him their stories of personal hardship. And he is taking more opportunities to emphasize his own understanding of hardship with them, although it does not always come easy.

At a town-hall-style meeting on Thursday in Chester, Va., Mr. Obama was asked what he would do for poor people. He began with a lengthy explication about how poor people do not hate the rich, they simply want to join the middle class. He described parts of his economic plan, which he said would put more money in their pockets. He described the life of Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts, who grew up poor on the South Side of Chicago. It was only then, several minutes into his answer, that Mr. Obama might have connected more by referring to his own life.

"My mother was on food stamps for a while," he said. "It wasn't because she was lazy. It's because she was a single mom who was working and going to school at the same time, trying to raise two kids, trying to make a better life for herself and her family."

The point, he told his listeners, was this: "Don't be fooled by all this talk about class warfare. We just want to make the economy fair so that everybody's got a chance, not just some people."

Mr. McCain has focused on offshore oil drilling and broad tax relief as steps to directly assist the greatest number of working Americans, by lowering taxes and, his campaign hopes, both gas prices and home foreclosures. McCain aides say the candidate will strongly push his economic program in the weeks to come, including during the Democratic National Convention next week.

The exact number of McCain family homes was difficult to pin down on Thursday, as the issue would not go away after it was raised in an interview with Politico the day before.

McCain aides said the family had four residences: a ranch in Sedona, Ariz.; a condo in Phoenix; a condo in Northern Virginia; and a condo in San Diego that is made up of two adjoining properties. The family trust of Mr. McCain's wife, Cindy, controls other properties that relatives use as homes. The Obama campaign said that it based its figure of eight on the number of properties it says Mrs. McCain, and in some cases Mr. McCain, appear to own.

The Obama home in the Hyde Park section of Chicago, meanwhile, does have four fireplaces and a wine cellar.

As for Senator McCain? He shook his head. "He keeps talking about being a prisoner of war back in Vietnam. Great. The economy stinks; tell me his plan."

To roam the rural reaches of western Pennsylvania, through largely white working-class counties, is to understand the breadth of the challenge facing the two presidential candidates. But this economically ravaged region, once so solidly Democratic, poses a particular hurdle for Senator Obama.

From the desolation of Aliquippa - where the Jones & Laughlin steel mill loomed at the foot of the main boulevard - to the fading beauty of Beaver Falls to the neatly tended homes of retired steel workers in Hopewell, one hears much hesitating talk about Mr. Obama, some simply quizzical or skeptically political, and some not-so-subtly racial.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York ran 40 percentage points ahead of Mr. Obama here during the Democratic primary. With its neighborhoods of white working-class laborers and retirees and fraying party loyalties, it has become a most uncertain political terrain and an inviting target for Mr. McCain - and one that could tip the electoral balance in Pennsylvania, a place packed with electoral votes.

Labor operatives line up behind Mr. Obama, and about a third of the 35 white voters who were interviewed leaned toward him. But no one feels confident predicting how many white Clinton voters will transfer their affections to Mr. Obama.

Raccoon Township, with a population just over 3,000, sprawls atop a hill in Beaver County, a 92 percent white and deeply blue-collar province. For a century it formed a stud in the Steel Necklace, a stretch of Pennsylvania and Ohio defined by belching steel mills and robust union wages. But as the mills shuttered, voters tipped Democratic by ever-narrower margins: Al Gore bested George W. Bush by eight percentage points in 2000; John Kerry took Mr. Bush by fewer than three in 2004.

Political scientists tend to paint Pennsylvania in broad swaths: There is Philadelphia and its liberal-to-centrist suburbs; the middle of the state, which is rural, gun-loving and rightward-leaning; and the western third, which, except for Pittsburgh, tends to hold ever-so-tenuously to Democratic loyalties.

The Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., in a poll conducted last week, found Mr. Obama piling up big margins in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but lagging in these western, working-class counties.

"This is not an easy land for any candidate, and you might say a black one has more trouble than most," said G. Terry Madonna, the center's director.

To what extent white voter concern has become a surrogate for racial anxiety is unclear.

Many voters talk of reading a stream of false and shadowy rumors purveyed by e-mail: Mr. Obama does not put his hand on his heart during the national anthem, he is a Muslim, he did not say hello to enlisted men in Afghanistan. Some disregard these rumors; some do not.

Mr. Obama is an Ivy League-educated lawyer campaigning in towns where an eighth-grade education and a sturdy back once purchased a good life. And he talks of soaring hope to people mistrustful of the same.

"People around here want pragmatic, practical language," said Tina Shannon, the 49-year-old daughter of a steel-mill worker and a liberal activist. "They don't want high-flown talk."

This said, Mr. McCain quickens few pulses. Vietnam, where he served in the military and was held captive for more than five years, seems distant. And not all laugh at his commercials poking fun at Mr. Obama's "celebrity" status.

Fifty yards down the gravel road from Mr. Timko's home, Brenda Goff, 55, a pharmacy worker who describes herself as a "Hillary girl" but is fine with Mr. Obama. As for Mr. McCain?

"I don't like his commercials - it's like he thinks we're stupid," Ms. Goff said.

Issues might seem to break toward Mr. Obama. Only 2 of 38 people interviewed - most in random door-knocking - favored remaining in Iraq. (Mr. Obama advocates a 16-month withdrawal timetable; Mr. McCain vows to stay until the war is won but suggests that he would have troops out by 2013.)

Few want a handout, but fewer want government to abandon them. A simmering hurt suffuses their words, a sense that neither hard work nor their unions could save them.

Mr. Sylvester labored in a steel mill for 42 years. Then the mill owner declared bankruptcy. Now he was bent over a chipped fire hydrant, putting down a coat of yellow paint for $7 an hour.

His blue eyes were piercing beneath a white sun visor. "I got a little money in the end but nothing to speak of," he said.

Decades of job losses have created a youthful diaspora - you can knock on many doors without finding anyone under age 45. Declining enrollments forced Raccoon Township to close its elementary and middle schools. Political wisdom holds that such fractures favor the Democrats.

But Mr. Obama does not sound like a sure bet.

"Obama's very charismatic but if you listen closely, he hasn't said a whole lot," Mr. Sylvester said.

In Raccoon, Kelly Dobbins, a middle-aged factory worker, offered the same. "I'm like a duck in the water - I float there but underneath I'm paddling hard as I can go," Mr. Dobbins said. "What's pushing me toward McCain is Obama. Who is he? Where does he stand?"

Such questions hint at a cultural disconnect. Mr. Obama would invest tens of billions of dollars in retooling mills and factories to fashion windmills and solar panels. He notes that Denmark and the Netherlands have grown fat off the new energy economy.

But environmentalism holds little attraction in a county where soot-covered stoops and dirty rivers were accepted as an unfortunate trade-off of a prosperous industrial age.

"Until people see a factory transformed, they really don't put much store by this talk," said the Rev. Henry Knapp of First Presbyterian Church in Beaver.

Still, two-thirds of Pennsylvanians surveyed in the Franklin & Marshall poll ranked the economy as their No. 1 concern.

Hookstown is surrounded by emerald fields near the West Virginia border. White-haired Art Seckman stepped gingerly off his porch.

Mr. Seckman puts no faith in Mr. McCain. "He looks tired, and he's gung-ho about war," Mr. Seckman said. "I was a Hillary guy, but Obama sounds honest and he's young and he understands the modern economy."

He paused, and laughed, "Maybe, funny as it sounds, it's time for a black man to fix this mess."

For a century, Aliquippa formed the primal heart of Beaver County. There was the mill, the company store and the Italian Renaissance library built by the daughter of the mill founder.

Ethnic communities occupied each hill. Croats, Italians, Irish and blacks worked, fought, and drank together. Now the downtown offers swaybacked homes and boarded storefronts, and rubble. Aliquippa is 35 percent black, the highest percentage in the county. Glenn Kimbrough, 65, with a silver-tipped goatee and a neat Afro, came out of the mills after 37 years.

Mr. Kimbrough is an Obama supporter but he would not hazard a guess as to how his white buddies will vote. He said economic disaster had exacerbated racial tensions. With the mills closed, the work force is resegregating.

Carl Davidson, a white friend and an Obama supporter, sat in Mr. Kimbrough's living room. "My father voted for Edwards in the primary and now he wants McCain," said Mr. Davidson, whose father and grandfather labored in the mills. "Without realizing it, he's wrapped up in white-identity politics."

Sorting out white-voter discomfort with Mr. Obama is tricky business. Most speak of unease with his newness. But one in five primary voters surveyed in the Edison/Mitofsky exit poll in Pennsylvania said race was a factor.

Ivan Stickles, a carpenter, worked on his motorcycle in his driveway in Hopewell. Mr. Stickles, 57, is not taking what he sees as a gamble on Obama.

"There's this e-mail that he didn't shake hands with the troops," Mr. Stickles said of a rumor that is false. "I don't have the time to check out if it's true, but if it is, it's very offensive."

In Hookstown, Kristine Lakovich, 48, works the counter at Kiner's Superette. She likes Mr. Obama, a preference she keeps to herself. "If you ask people around here, he's not exactly the right answer," Ms. Lakovich said. "People are split between their politics and their prejudice."

Nationally, the Obama campaign shies from talk of race, preferring to argue that the poor economy will dominate this election. Such delicacy holds no purchase here. An organizer with the United Steelworkers met with 30 workers in Beaver. He could not have been blunter. Mr. Obama, he told them, stands for national health care, strong unions and preserving Social Security.

"Some of you won't vote for him because he's black," the organizer concluded. "Well, he's a Democrat. Get over it."

By Michael Powell, The New York Times, August 20, 2008

(CNN) -- With all of the vice presidential buzz in the air and the Democratic convention just days away, what's most important is what Sen. Barack Obama's campaign does following his speech to the masses at Invesco Field next Thursday.

Quite simply, he needs to create a more compelling narrative on change, use history as a context for the economy, and get mad about something.

First and foremost, Obama must bring a narrative to his position as a change agent. You can't simply seek change for change's sake.

The argument must be made that this is an election with two choices: the change-seeking good guys or the status quo-clinging bad guys. The campaign needs to brand every negative attack by the Republicans as just another desperate attempt of the status quo clinging to power.

Obama's campaign should argue that all of our political friends have the courage to break from the same old game in Washington in order to provide the change we need, while all of Sen. McCain's friends in Washington refuse a new direction for America.

McCain keeps trying to claim he's a "change Republican." I don't really know what that means, but Obama and his team must continue to highlight the "McSame" that he offers: more of the same failed Iraq policy, more of the same tax breaks for oil and drug companies, more of the same Swift-boat-style tactics, more of the same on education and healthcare.

And he certainly offers more of the same failed Bush economic policy, which leads me to my next point.

Obama can connect with voters on the economy by using history as a guideline. He should start by reading "Unequal Democracy," by Princeton academic Larry Bartels. The non-partisan and non-political Bartels points out devastatingly after an exhaustive study of Democratic and Republican presidents that the Democrats built a better economy and a more just society.

The campaign needs to say that, since 1900, Democratic presidents have not only "won" but dominated on every economic front: GDP growth, employment, deficit and income equality. Need more? How about a better performing stock market and a more fiscally-responsible spending.

There's no need to listen to McCain's marginal rates, death tax, deregulation, trickle-down, supply-side shenanigans because historically Democratic presidencies have produced better economies. And with the economy still in the forefront, it seems like a no-brainer for Obama to talk about the historical supremacy of economies under Democratic presidents.

And my last piece of advice to Obama and his team is to just get mad about something. Obama's campaign seems so intent on branding him as a "cool and calm" leader.

Well, voters want to see a sense of urgency and outrage in their president: Outrage over our dependence on foreign oil; outrage over our increased cost of living, health care and education; outrage over declining incomes; outrage over an endless war and an idiotic foreign policy; and outrage over our country's loss of prestige over the last 7½ years.

To put it bluntly, Obama needs to get outraged over something other than "attacks on his patriotism."

When all the dust settles after Denver, if Obama can do these things between now and November 4, he just may become President Barack Obama. No convention or vice-presidential pick will matter as much as connecting with voters on these key issues.

Why is it a real race now, with John McCain rising in the polls and Barack Obama falling? There are many answers, but here I think is an essential one: The American people have begun paying attention.

It's hard for our political class to remember that Mr. Obama has been famous in America only since the winter of '08. America met him barely six months ago! The political class first interviewed him, or read the interview, in 2003 or '04, when he was a rising star. They know him. Everyone else is still absorbing.

This is what they see:

An attractive, intelligent man, interesting, but - he's hard to categorize. Is he Gen. Obama? No, no military background. Brilliant Businessman Obama? No, he never worked in business. Famous Name Obama? No, it's a new name, an unusual one. Longtime Southern Governor Obama? No. He's a community organizer (what's that?), then a lawyer (boo), then a state legislator (so what, so's my cousin), then U.S. senator (less than four years!).

There is no pre-existing category for him.

Add to that the wear and tear of Jeremiah Wright, secret Muslim rumors, media darling and, this week, abortion.

It took a toll, which led to a readjustment. His uniqueness, once his great power, is now his great problem.

And over there is Mr. McCain, and - well, we know him. He's POW/senator/prickly, irritating John McCain.

* * *

The Rick Warren debate mattered. Why? It took place at exactly the moment America was starting to pay attention. This is what it looked like by the end of the night: Mr. McCain, normal. Mr. Obama, not normal. You've seen this discussed elsewhere. Mr. McCain was direct and clear, Mr. Obama both more careful and more scattered. But on abortion in particular, Mr. McCain seemed old-time conservative, which is something we all understand, whether we like such a stance or not, and Mr. Obama seemed either radical or dodgy. He is "in ... favor of limits" on late-term abortions, though some would consider those limits "inadequate." (In the past week much legal parsing on emanations of penumbras as to the viability of Roe v. Wade followed.)

As I watched I thought: How about "Let the baby live"? Don't parse it. Just "Let the baby live."

As to the question when human life begins, the answer to which is above Mr. Obama's pay grade, oh, let's go on a little tear. You know why they call it birth control? Because it's meant to stop a birth from happening nine months later. We know when life begins. Everyone who ever bought a pack of condoms knows when life begins.

To put it another way, with conception something begins. What do you think it is? A car? A 1948 Buick?

If you want to argue whether legal abortion is morally defensible, have at it and go to it, but Mr. Obama's answers here seemed to me strange and disturbing.

Mr. Obama's upcoming convention speech will be good. All Obama speeches are good. Not as interesting as he is - he is more compelling as a person than his words tend to be in text. But the speech will be good, and just in case it isn't good, people will still come away with an impression that it must have been, because the media is going to say it was, because they expect it to be, and what they expect is what they will see.

Will Mr. Obama dig deep as to meaning? As to political predicates? During the primary campaigns Republicans were always saying, "This is what I'll do." Mr. Obama has a greater tendency to say, "This is how we'll feel." Republicans talk to their base with, "If we pass this bill, which the Democrats irresponsibly oppose, we'll solve this problem." Democrats are more inclined toward, "If we bring a new attitude of hopefulness and respect for the world, we'll make the seas higher and the fish more numerous." Will Mr. Obama be, in terms of programs and plans, specific? And will his specifics be grounded in something that appears to amount to a political philosophy?

I suspect everyone has the convention speeches wrong. Everyone expects Mr. Obama to rouse, but the speech I'd watch is Mr. McCain's.

He's the one with the real opportunity, because no one expects anything. He's never been especially good at making speeches. (The number of men who've made it to the top of the GOP who don't particularly like making speeches, both Bushes and Mr. McCain, is astonishing, and at odds with the presumed requirements of the media age. The first Bush saw speeches as show biz, part of the weary requirement of leadership, and the second's approach reflects a sense that words, though interesting, were not his friend.)

But Mr. McCain provided, in 2004, one of the most exciting and certainly the most charged moment of the Republican Convention, when he looked up at Michael Moore in the press stands and said, "Our choice wasn't between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war, it was between war and a greater threat. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. . . . And certainly not a disingenuous filmmaker who would have us believe that Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace." It blew the roof off. And the smile he gave Mr. Moore was one of pure, delighted malice. When Mr. McCain comes to play, he comes to play.

Look for a certain populist stance. He signaled it this week in Politico. He called lobbyists "birds of prey" in pursuit of "their share of the spoils." Great stuff. (Boy, will he have trouble staffing his White House.)

* * *

I still think a one-term pledge could win it for him, because it would allow America to punt. It would make the 2008 choice seem less fateful. People don't mind the chance to defer a choice when they're not at all sure about the product. It would give bitter Democrats a chance to regroup, and it would give those who like Obama but consider him a little half-baked to vote against him guiltlessly while he becomes fully baked. (Imagine the Q&A when Sen. Obama announces his second presidential run in 2011: "Well, Brian, I think, looking back, there is something to be said for the idea that I will be a better president now than frankly I would have been four years ago. Experience, if you allow it, is still the best of all teachers.") More, it would allow Mr. McCain to say he means to face the tough problems ahead with a uniquely bipartisan attitude and without having to care a fig for re-election. That itself would give him a new power, one that would make up for the lost juice of lame duckdom. It would also serve to separate him from the hyperpolitical operating styles of the Clinton-Bush years, from the constant campaign.

And Mr. McCain would still have what he always wanted, the presidency, perhaps a serious and respectable one that accrued special respect because it involved some sacrifice on his part.

A move that would help him win doubtful voters, win disaffected Democrats, allow some Republicans to not have to get drunk to vote for him, and that could possibly yield real results for his country. This seems to me such a potentially electrifying idea that he'd likely walk out of his convention as the future president.

Mr. McCain told Politico on Wednesday that he's not considering a one-term pledge.

Why would he not? Such modesty of intent is at odds with the political personality. The thing that makes them want to rule America is the thing that stops them from thinking of prudent limits. This mindset crosses all political categories.

The real problem, however, was with the question itself.

When we think about the middle class, we tend to think of Americans whose lives are decent but not luxurious: they have houses, cars and health insurance, but they still worry about making ends meet, especially when the time comes to send the kids to college.

Meanwhile, when we think about the rich, we tend to think about the handful of people who are really, really rich - people with servants, people with so much money that, like Mr. McCain, they don't know how many houses they own. (Remember how Republicans jeered at John Kerry for being too rich?)

The trouble with Mr. Warren's question was that it seemed to imply that everyone except the poor belongs to one of these two categories: either you're clearly rich, or you're an ordinary member of the middle class. And that's just wrong.

In his entertaining book "Richistan," Robert Frank of The Wall Street Journal declares that the rich aren't just different from you and me, they live in a different, parallel country. But that country is divided into levels, and only the inhabitants of upper Richistan live like aristocrats; the inhabitants of middle Richistan lead ample but not gilded lives; and lower Richistanis live in McMansions, drive around in S.U.V.'s, and are likely to think of themselves as "affluent" rather than rich.

Even these arguably not-rich, however, live in a different financial universe from that inhabited by ordinary members of the middle class: they have lots of disposable income after paying for the essentials, and they don't lose sleep over expenses, like insurance co-pays and tuition bills, that can seem daunting to many working American families.

Which brings us to the dispute about tax policy.

Mr. McCain wants to preserve almost all the Bush tax cuts, and add to them by cutting taxes on corporations. Mr. Obama wants to roll back the high-end Bush tax cuts - the cuts in tax rates on the top two income brackets and the cuts in tax rates on income from dividends and capital gains - and use some of that money to reduce taxes lower down the scale.

According to estimates prepared by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, those Obama tax increases would fall overwhelmingly on people with incomes of more than $200,000 a year. Are such people rich? Well, maybe not: some of those Mr. Obama proposes taxing are only denizens of lower Richistan, although the really big tax increases would fall on upper Richistan. But one thing's for sure: Mr. Obama isn't planning to raise taxes on the middle class, by any reasonable definition - even that of the Bush administration.

O.K., the Bush administration hasn't actually offered a definition of "middle class." But in May, the Treasury Department - which used to do serious tax studies, but these days just churns out Bush administration propaganda - released a report purporting to show, by looking at the tax bills of four hypothetical families, how the middle and working class would be hurt if the Bush tax cuts aren't made permanent.

And when the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities looked at the report, it made an interesting catch. It turns out that Treasury's hypothetical families got all their gains from the so-called middle-class provisions of the Bush tax cuts: the Child Tax Credit, the reduced tax bracket for lower incomes and marriage penalty relief.

These all happen to be provisions that Mr. Obama proposes leaving in place. In other words, the Bush administration itself implicitly defines the middle class as consisting of people making too little to end up paying additional taxes under the Obama plan.

Of course, all the evidence in the world won't stop Republicans from claiming, as they always do, that Democrats are going to impose a crippling tax burden on ordinary hard-working Americans. But it just ain't so.

Anyone who has watched rivals needle each other in a pickup basketball game will recognize what is happening right now between Barack Obama and John McCain. It starts with bumps, shoves, maybe a few elbows - and then suddenly it's a windmill of fists, torn shirts, and a lot of bad words about mothers. On Thursday, the presidential race reached a whole new level of nasty.

Like many such fights, it all started with a principled debate over competing formulas for calculating tax revenue. Excuse me, I'm sorry: That's in an alternate universe. Like all such fights, this one was about symbolism and positioning. The subject of this spat - stay with me here - is how many houses McCain owns. In an interview with Politico, McCain could not remember how many houses he has. (In fairness, it does seem complicated! He owns none. They're in his wife's name, and he only shares four with her; she has at least three other properties.)

The Obama campaign recognized this gaffe for what it was: The number of Americans who do not know how many houses they own is so small they could probably fit in a golf cart. It is not a problem that afflicts the average American family. The campaign rushed to make an ad showing McCain as out of touch, but it strays into even more radioactive territory by making a subtle dig at McCain's age. (Listen to the narrator's tone when he says of McCain: "He lost track, he couldn't remember.") Obama brought the house business up on the stump. His surrogates romped around on cable TV declaiming against McCain.

The McCain team wasted no time in its response, saying it was now free to talk about Obama's various questionable associations: Tony Rezko, William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright. Why were they now fair game? Because Obama had attacked McCain's wife.

You may find that hard to follow. Here's how it goes: Every marriage has its power-sharing aspects. My wife remembers the names of our friends' kids, and I fix the sink when it leaks. In the McCain household, Cindy McCain, an heiress to a beer-distributing fortune, owns the houses, and McCain does the running for president. Ergo, an attack on McCain's houses is an attack on Cindy. In a campaign that has turned umbrage-taking into a high art, this would get at least a 16 from the judges (or, if you prefer the old system, a 9.8).

A McCain spokesman fired back, calling Obama "pointy-headed" and reminding people that he had once said poor folk in Pennsylvania clung to their guns and religion out of bitterness. He also pointed out that Obama lived in "a frickin' mansion" that cost $4 million, which he "bought in a shady deal with a convicted felon."

The campaign then issued an ad linking Obama's home purchase to Tony Rezko, the aforementioned convicted felon (on fraud and bribery charges, for those of you scoring at home) whose wife purchased land next to Obama's when the senator bought his current house. Letting the influence-peddler help him, says Obama, was one of his greatest lapses in judgment.

McCain responded so violently because the attack is potentially devastating in an election that is likely to be all about economic issues. But merely engaging in such a fight is also a threat to Obama's brand. He's the candidate of change, and this is politics as usual. Ayers, Rezko, and Wright were going to come out sooner or later, but now they've been fully unleashed. One thing is for sure: The game has gotten uglier, and it will likely stay that way.

On the other hand, if Americans believe the war is winding down in an acceptable way, it could significantly reduce the importance of an issue central to Obama's rise to political prominence.

Iraq and the Bush administration have reached a preliminary agreement to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraqi cities, where most of the fighting has taken place, by next June. It would link troop reductions to achievement of certain undisclosed security milestones. The deal also would require the endorsement of top Iraqi leaders and the Iraqi parliament, which is far from certain.

McCain repeatedly has said that events on the ground in Iraq should dictate any pullout schedule. He once suggested, however, that troops would come home, victorious, by the end of his first term, in early 2013.

Obama has set a goal of removing most U.S. combat troops within 16 months of taking office, or by the spring of 2010. He says he would listen to advice from military leaders before deciding.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zabari told reporters Thursday of the draft proposal, but they offered few specifics. It envisions the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq's cities by June 30, 2009, according to Iraqi and American officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the proposed deal's details have not been made public.

Zebari hinted at the proposal's possible complexity. "This agreement determines the principle provisions, requirements, to regulate the temporary presence and the time horizon, the mission of the U.S. forces," he said.

Campaigning Thursday in Virginia, Obama said, "They are working on a plan that looks, lo and behold, like the plan that I've been advocating. I will encourage the administration to move forward with it."

McCain campaign spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said, "We're monitoring closely and will have something to say when an agreement is finalized."

U.S. political activists seem uncertain how the proposal might affect the Obama-McCain race.

"At this point, Obama looks a little less reckless than he might have a few months ago," said Michael O'Hanlon, a military expert at the Brookings Institution. O'Hanlon, who once backed Obama, has often criticized him for refusing to acknowledge the achievements of the U.S. "surge" in troop numbers and for sticking to his 16-month withdrawal goal even as events in Iraq have changed.

O'Hanlon said the proposed agreement faces substantial political and military hurdles.

Polls suggest most U.S. voters are much more concerned about the economy than the war. The proposed agreement could make Iraq even less of an issue this fall.

Steve Elmendorf, a Washington lobbyist and former Democratic leadership aide in Congress, thinks that is unlikely, however.

"I don't think this gets the issue off the table," he said. "Between now and Election Day, not a lot of troops are going to come home" even if the proposal is enacted.

"Most Americans want this thing to end," Elmendorf said, and McCain "still talks of continued engagement." Many Americans, he said, "will vote for who will get us out."

McCain repeatedly has rebuked Obama on Iraq. Campaigning Wednesday in New Mexico, he said Obama "has made it clear he values withdrawal from Iraq above victory in Iraq."

Two days earlier in Florida, McCain said, "the hard-won gains of our troops hang in the balance. The lasting advantage of a peaceful and democratic ally in the heart of the Middle East could still be squandered by hasty withdrawal and arbitrary timelines."

Obama returned to his home in Chicago after a week-long tour of southern states, and was to stay huddled with top aides to roll out the closely guarded secret of who his vice presidential pick is.

The Illinois senator told reporters traveling with him in Virginia Thursday: "I've made the selection and that's all you're going to get."

His shortlist reportedly includes Delaware Senator Joseph Biden, Indiana Senator Evan Bayh and Virginia Governor Tim Kaine. Supporters of Obama's former party rival Hillary Clinton are still pushing for her to be on the ticket.

The Democrat's choice of VP nominee will be unveiled at the latest at a campaign event Saturday in the town where Obama first launched his White House bid in February 2007 -- Springfield, Illinois.

Republican McCain also off the campaign trail Friday, finalizing his own VP pick days before next week's Democratic National Convention in Denver marks the formal start of hostilities for November's presidential election.

While both the candidates will be officially anointed by their parties over the next fortnight, they are already locked in a fierce political battle and Thursday saw some of the fiercest clashes yet.

Obama ridiculed McCain as being out of touch with everyday Americans in a tempestuous economic period after the Arizona senator, in an interview with Politico.com, could not say how many homes he owns.

"I think -- I'll have my staff get to you," McCain said. "It's condominiums where -- I'll have them get to you."

Aides said he had four houses, but PolitiFact.com said it totaled seven -- the family ranch in Sedona, Arizona and condominiums mostly owned in the name of McCain's wealthy wife Cindy. Politico itself said the number was eight.

"I suppose if you've got seven, maybe eight houses, the economy looks fundamentally sound to you," a fired-up Obama told a crowd of 2,600 at a rally in Chesapeake, Virginia.

"But if you're having trouble making the mortgage payment... then the economy looks awful different," he said to roars of approval.

"I make this point not to simply give John McCain a hard time. It's indicative of a different world view about what's happening in America."

The Obama camp put out a television ad called "Seven" mocking McCain's comments to Politico. Ending with a shot of the White House, the narrator said: "Here's one house America can't afford to let John McCain move into."

McCain's campaign battled to limit the damage by pointing to Obama's ties to convicted fraudster Tony Rezko, a Chicago businessman and fundraiser who helped the Democrat with the purchase of his family home.

"One of his 'biggest fundraisers' helped him buy his million-dollar mansion. Purchasing part of the property he couldn't afford," the Republican's team said in its own ad, entitled "Housing Problem."

"Now, he's a convicted felon, facing jail," the announcer intoned. "That's a housing problem."

The row raged as news outlets scrambled for crumbs out of the leak-averse Obama team on his VP pick. The campaign has promised to release the news first to signed-up supporters via cellphone text messages and email.

Obama told USA Today that he had sought out an independent thinker who was ready to be president.

"I won't comment on anything else until I introduce our running mate to the world," he said in an interview posted on the paper's website.

For McCain, leading contenders are said to include former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.

The New York Time said General David Petraeus, the commander of US forces in Iraq, had been floated as a "wild-card choice" to join the ticket of Vietnam War veteran McCain.

WASHINGTON -- There's a candidate in this presidential race who remains a mystery -- hazy, undefined, so full of contradictions that voters may see electing him as an enormous risk. I'm referring to the cipher known as John McCain.

In fact, there are some basic things about McCain that apparently even McCain doesn't know. Asked Wednesday by reporters from Politico how many houses he and his wealthy wife Cindy own, McCain responded, "I think -- I'll have my staff get to you." The correct answer seems to be somewhere between four and seven, but who's counting?

It's understandable that McCain would want to fuzz this aspect of his biography; at a moment of great economic dislocation and anxiety, people might question one's ability to feel their pain if they know that one's net worth may be somewhere north of $100 million. Much less comprehensible, and much more troubling, is McCain's habit of "Straight Talking" himself into the wilderness.

When it was pointed out that McCain's pronouncements on the economy often do not conform with his official positions, the candidate's chief economic adviser indicated that we should pay attention to the authorized version -- despite the fact that McCain "has certainly I'm sure said things in town halls" that might deviate.

In other words, don't pay such strict attention to what McCain says because he doesn't speak officially for his own campaign. No wonder he was so insistent in trying to lure Obama into a series of town hall encounters, where Obama might feel constrained by such irrelevancies as consistency and arithmetic.

I guess McCain's unreliability as a spokesman for himself on the issue that voters tell pollsters they care most about should come as no surprise, given his earlier confession -- since retracted, sort of -- that he doesn't really understand economics that well. He is supposed to be an expert on foreign affairs and national security, however -- and here, too, the cannon has come unbelayed and is rolling perilously around the deck.

"We are all Georgians," McCain said in response to the Russian invasion. It was an attempt to define the moment with a memorable line, reminiscent of JFK's famous declaration in Berlin. If McCain was just trying to burnish his commander-in-chief credentials while Obama vacationed in Hawaii, OK, fine, that's politics. If he was serious, though, he needs to clarify the unsettling implications of what he intended to be a stirring phrase. Precisely what was being stirred?

Not the hopes and ambitions of the people of Georgia; by then, they had already realized that despite all the Bush administration's freedom rhetoric, nobody was going to come save them. Certainly not war-weary American voters.

What McCain successfully roiled was the nationalism and bitter nostalgia for great-power status that simmer below the surface of Russian public opinion. Strongman Vladimir Putin plays these sentiments like a violin. A candidate for president of the United States should not further strengthen Putin's hand -- and thus make the next president's job that much harder.

For months, McCain has been arguing for measures that would isolate Russia. He then called the Georgia invasion "the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War." If he doesn't want to help start a new Cold War, you can't tell from his loose rhetoric.

I'm leaving aside his mini-misstatements in which he confused Sunnis with Shiites or otherwise garbled salient facts about Iraq. What alarms me is the pattern of inconsistency. One day he's soothing, the next he's abrasive. One day he makes a flat-out pledge not to raise taxes, the next he says that everything is on the table as far as Social Security is concerned. One day the buck stops here, the next he's not authorized to speak for, ahem, himself.

It's true that John McCain has been around a long time. But do we really know what he'd do as president? Do we really know who he is?

"Obviously, the most important question is: Is this person ready to be president?" Obama said in an interview aired Friday on "The Early Show" on CBS. Second, he said, was: "Can this person help me govern? Are they going to be an effective partner in creating the kind of economic opportunity here at home and guiding us through some dangerous waters internationally?"

And, he added: "I want somebody who is going to be able to challenge my thinking and not simply be a 'yes person' when it comes to policymaking.

The Illinois senator was widely thought to be seriously considering Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and Sens. Joe Biden of Delaware and Evan Bayh of Indiana. Although it appeared unlikely, Obama's vanquished rival Hillary Rodham Clinton still could emerge as his No. 2., and there were dark horse candidates who could emerge.

Among them: Texas Rep. Chet Edwards, a favorite of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, who traveled with Obama to Iraq and Afghanistan, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, or Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut.

One person who had been vetted for the position told The Associated Press there had been no contact from Obama or his campaign about the decision.

Republican and Democratic officials said both Obama and GOP rival John McCain were capable of making wild card picks that would surprise their backers.

Several GOP officials said Friday that McCain had not settled on a running mate - nor offered the job to anyone - although former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty were under serious consideration. It's likely McCain will wait to see who Obama selects before picking his running mate.

Officials said the campaign also was preparing for an "unconventional" nominee, an indication that oft-mentioned former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, an abortion-rights supporter, or Connecticut Democrat-turned-independent Joe Lieberman still could be in the running. That category also could include non-politicians who McCain deeply admires, such as Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

Two officials close to Romney said he had not been offered the job. Pawlenty batted away questions Friday in a CNN interview, saying, "I'm sure he'll make a wonderful choice for our party and for our country and we'll just have to wait until next Friday to find out the answer to those questions."

The Arizona Republican is expected to announce his choice between the Democratic National Convention that begins Monday and the GOP convention beginning Sept. 1 in St. Paul, Minn. He might do it on Friday, Aug. 29, the day he turns 72 and a day after Obama accepts his own nomination, but no plans are set.

Speculation about McCain's choice has been fueled by plans for pre-convention rallies planned in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Romney is a Michigan native; Ridge is from Pennsylvania. A dark horse, Rob Portman, is a former Ohio congressmen. But all three states could have been chosen simply because they are key, electoral-rich battlegrounds.

On Thursday, Obama spent part of the day campaigning with Kaine. West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin said Kaine told him although he hadn't heard anything from the Obama campaign on where he stands at the time, "he really thinks he has a chance at the short straw."

"I've made the selection, that's all you're gonna get," Obama told The Associated Press.

Kaine and Obama met privately with the governor's staff for 15 minutes at a Richmond hotel. Afterward, Kaine said he would let the Obama campaign speak about whether the candidate asked him to be his No. 2. But two people close to Kaine said the governor was still in the dark.

Kaine plans to fly Friday night directly from Virginia to Denver, site of next week's convention, three people with knowledge of the governor's travel plans said. The plans could be changed if Kaine is told he needs to fly to Springfield, Ill., for the Saturday rally instead.

Biden had a family gathering at his home Thursday afternoon, with his wife Jill, niece Missy Owens and son Beau, Delaware's attorney general, coming and going past reporters staked outside.

Sebelius, campaigning for Obama in Iowa, said she would leave the announcement to the campaign.

Bayh worked in his Capitol Hill office and later spent time at his home in Washington. He left wearing shorts and a baseball cap but told reporters outside he had no news to share. "Not tonight, sorry," he said.

Two long-shots appeared out of the running: Former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn's spokesman said he would be traveling internationally until Monday and Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a national security expert, told an AP reporter that he was not Obama's choice.

A look at what the possible candidates did Thursday:

___

DEMOCRATS

- Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine and his staff had a 15-minute meeting with Obama at a hotel in Richmond, Va. The governor later joined Obama at a campaign event in Chester, Va., and said he would let the campaign speak about whether he's been asked to be the No. 2. Kaine planned to fly late Friday night directly from Virginia to Denver, where the Democratic National Convention begins Monday, according to three people with knowledge of his travel plans.

- Sen. Joe Biden had no public events Thursday, his staff said. He spent most of the day at his home in northern Delaware with his wife, Jill; son, Beau, who is Delaware's attorney general; and his niece, Missy Owens, who has worked in his campaigns.

- Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius participated Thursday morning in a U.S. Energy Department contest for students at a Topeka-area high school. She later flew to Iowa to campaign for Obama in the afternoon.

- Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh was working and spending time with his family at his home in Washington, said his spokesman, Eric Kleiman.

- Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed was working and spending time with his family at his home in Jamestown, R.I., Reed spokesman Chip Unruh said. Reed told an Associated Press reporter late Thursday that he was not Obama's choice and had not been asked for any background information.

- New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton spent Thursday in Florida. She addressed sheet metal workers in Lake Buena Vista and campaigned for Obama in Boca Raton and Taramac.

___

REPUBLICANS

- Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty met Thursday with young supporters for McCain in a bar across the street from the GOP convention site in St. Paul. Otherwise, he stayed away from his Capitol office; aides said he was in Minnesota, but wouldn't provide details.

- Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney spent Thursday in the state. He was scheduled to make calls to several radio stations for McCain.

- Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, was wrapping up a three-day trip to Georgia, Ukraine and Poland. He was expected back in Washington on Thursday night.

- Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge was spending private time with his family Thursday, said Michele Nix, spokeswoman for Ridge's Washington, D.C., consulting firm.

WASHINGTON -- Don't worry, Democrats, the worst of August is over.

Like baseball players, political people are superstitious. In the Democratic imagination, August is the month when Republican presidential candidates destroy their opponents with clever, underhanded attacks that meet with ineffectual responses. Democrats are now petrified that if John Kerry was Swift-boated in August 2004, Barack Obama was Paris-Hiltoned this summer, and there will be no coming back.

Never mind that this analysis is based on the experience of exactly one election. Superstitions are not necessarily rational. This time, Democrats decided that as a political matter, they would end August early by holding their convention and unveiling a running mate during the month of the jinx.

The next week will test whether an Obama campaign that has earned respect for its discipline and steadiness is also capable of adjusting quickly, responding and listening to advice. The Obama folks will hate hearing this, but in planning for the next 10 weeks, their campaign would do well to learn from what Bill Clinton achieved in 1992.

During a trip last week though Pennsylvania -- a state Obama must carry -- I spoke by phone with two Democratic congressmen who offered flip sides of the same advice.

Rep. Mike Doyle, who represents Pittsburgh and some of its suburbs, argued that many of his constituents, particularly working-class voters and union loyalists, want to vote for Obama, but don't feel they know him yet. Their discomfort, he insists, is not about Obama's race -- "These are good people," Doyle said of voters who keep sending him to Congress -- but a more general sense that Obama represents something very new.

Obama's task, says Doyle, is to raise his constituents' comfort level. He won't do this, he adds, with big rallies (yes, McCain's ads have had some success in discrediting the rally as a political art form) but with relentless smaller-scale campaigning in the neighborhoods and the union halls.

Over in the Philadelphia suburbs, Rep. Joe Sestak agrees that Obama needs to engage in more down-to-earth campaigning -- "a diner in the morning, a hoagie in the afternoon, a bar at night." But Sestak's advice is directed toward a slightly different end. "It's not so much about whether they know him," he says of his constituents and Obama. "They want to know that he knows them."

In other words, empathy, the gift that Bill Clinton kept on giving, is now an Obama imperative. And some of the Democrats' policy mavens see a link between empathy as a personal attribute and the way a candidate discusses policy -- again, something Clinton understood.

What Obama still lacks, they say, is a compelling narrative about how Americans who now feel economically insecure will be find their way toward greater confidence. And he needs a few signature policies to drive home so voters can remember them, as Clinton did with health care and job training. McCain not knowing how many houses he owns should help Obama in the empathy battle.

McCain has enjoyed one other success in recent months, seizing control of the Iraq debate. Voter frustration with a war that most Americans believe should not have been waged helped Obama in his early primary victories. McCain has moved the discussion away from the war itself toward a narrow focus on the troop surge and whether it has been successful.

Thus another Obama priority is to move the Iraq debate back to whether he or McCain was right about the war in the first place. And given the priority of the economy to voter choices, it's surprising that Obama has not done more to link the hundreds of billions spent in Iraq to the nation's current economic difficulties.

Around this time last summer, the Obama campaign was being written off as a desultory failure and the candidate was forced to reassure his donors that he knew what he was doing. There are signs -- notably during his trip through rural Virginia this week -- that Obama has been listening to his critics on the centrality of economics and the empathy imperative. At next week's convention, understanding both will be essential if Obama is to consign the August jinx to the dustbin of Democratic fears.

By Mike Allen & Alexander Burns, The Politico, August 21, 2008

McCain did, though, sketch out in a half-hour conversation in this college town not far from the Mexican border what his presidency would look like, drawing implicit contrasts with President Bush in the process. Speaking to Politico just after finishing a town hall meeting, the Arizona senator vowed closer relations with Congress, a more open dialogue with the American people and a commitment to address some of the thorniest issues facing the country.

But he declined to outwardly criticize Bush and flatly stated that he wouldn't do anything as president to underscore his difference with the unpopular incumbent.

"I don't have any need to show that I'm different than President Bush," McCain said when asked if he'd take any steps after being elected to demonstrate where he'd diverge from his predecessor.

McCain made plain, however, that he would aim to take a far more transparent and consensus-oriented approach than Bush, whose promise to be a uniter, not a divider, was unfulfilled.

"First thing I'd do [as president] is to go to see the speaker of the House and the majority leader of the Senate - I assume that that would be Sen. Reid, I hope not, but I think that-s probably the reality of this election - and I would say, 'Let's have an agenda, let's work together. We know what the solutions are, and we know what the options are - Social Security, on restraining spending, on Medicare, on all of these, energy independence, on all of these issues," McCain said when asked how his approach to governance and politics would differ from Bush.

Obama, however, has been spending heavily on ground operations in a range of states his campaign directors feel could be close calls.

The Illinois senator reported raising $51.4 million in July, nearly $6 million less than he spent. Still, he closed out the month with $65.8 million on hand, while McCain reported $21.4 million still in the bank.

McCain, however, will have to spend down his account by Sept. 4 because he has chosen to accept more than $84 million in public financing for his general election campaign, a move that requires him to end his own personal fundraising operations after the Republican Convention.

Obama, on the other hand, will be continuing his personal fundraising efforts because he chose to forgo federal funding.

Neither candidate, however, should have to worry much about having enough money to carry their fight all the way through the November election. The two national parties are expected to provide plenty of financial support, although the Republicans have decided advantage over the Democrats at the moment.

The Republican National Committee, which raised $25.8 million in July and closed the month with $75.1 million cash on hand, will be supplementing McCain's efforts by funding get-out-the vote drives and other support activities. The Democratic Party does not have nearly the resources of the Republicans, but it did boast its most successful fundraising month so far this cycle. The Democratic National Committee raised $19.9 million in July, but ended the month with only $7.7 million in the bank.

1. Continue to watch the Veepstakes mania craze, particularly on the Democratic side. Watch today as news organizations pull out all the stops looking for little signs of which direction Obama is headed. Check out Obama's comments on the veepstakes from the new issue of TIME magazine, right here on The Page, where he tells TIME's Karen Tumulty and David von Drehle he wants a veep who is "not about ego, self-aggrandizement, getting their name in the press." Keep an eye on that story and the latest veep tea leaves throughout the day.

2. Keep an eye on Obama today. The Senator is in Virginia with one of the leading veep prospects - Governor Tim Kaine. The Land of Lincolner will hold a morning town hall meeting on the economy in Chester, later holding another town hall meeting in Chesapeake. Watch the body language between Obama and Kaine while they're on the stump today as Obama wraps up his two-day tour of the Old Dominion.

3. Watch John McCain, settling down for some work privately over the next few days. The Arizona Senator will be relaxing at his home near Sedona for three days, getting ready for his upcoming acceptance speech at the convention and also meeting with staff. McCain did an interview on Wednesday with Politico with lots that interview that will be picked over today - including that he won't pledge to a one-term presidency and a slip up on remembering how many houses he and Cindy McCain own. Watch to see the fall out there.

By Mark Halperin, Time, August 21, 2008

Kudos to Pastor Rick Warren for pulling off his Saddleback Church forum with Barack Obama and John McCain--and for devoting a quarter of the airtime to the critical but oft-neglected topic of leadership. Even this brief inquiry has given voters important new insight into the two men as people, and some sense of the contrasting styles with which they would lead the nation.

McCain presented himself as a decisive leader with Reaganesque clarity of vision around a few core principles. While he would take advice from other proven leaders--like General David Petraeus--he would lead with a commanding, largely top-down style. He would communicate bluntly with the American people, explaining the dangerous, often chaotic world to them; and exhort them to sacrifice for causes greater than themselves. Seeing evil in the world in the form of radical Islamic terrorism--and elsewhere--he was emotional in committing to its "defeat."

Together with all the other judgments voters will be making this fall, they will need to decide what kind of leader is the right fit to meet the challenges of the times. As president, would McCain's certitude and passion provide precisely the strength and clear direction we need in troubled times--or would he be rigid and incapable of adapting? Would Obama's openness to diverse views and pragmatic approach to problem solving prove just what's needed in a fast-changing, complex global environment--or would he find himself rudderless?

Voters should be able to draw on more than Saturday evening's Saddleback discussions. In covering four broad domains, Pastor Warren had time to pose only four or five questions in the roughly twelve minutes allocated to leadership. This was time enough to demonstrate just how fertile this terrain can be in assessing how the candidates might lead if elected--but it also whets the appetite for more.

Unfortunately, it's unlikely that the three scheduled presidential debates this fall will do the trick, given the range of policy issues they will have to cover in three 90-minute sessions. While the debates' focus on policy is understandable, they run the risk of leaving viewers with the impression that leadership excellence can simply be taken for granted. In any event, the debate format--answers limited to two minutes, little follow-up questioning for deeper probing--constrains what voters can learn about the candidates' capacity to lead the nation effectively.

Few would question that leadership competence is an essential ingredient in a successful presidency. Candidates know this, routinely trumpeting their leadership prowess in commercials and bumper stickers. But campaigns rarely provide voters with the depth and quality of information about the candidates that they need to assess how much "there" there is beneath the self-serving slogans, and to judge--between two capable leaders--which candidate's leadership would better fit the challenges of the day and those still unknown that will emerge.

Voters need a clear sense of the candidates' inner core, and how they have dealt with and learned from their personal and professional challenges. Voters should also better understand the candidates' visions of where they want to lead the nation, and how they will do the actual work of leading--inspiring, communicating, building high-performing teams, forming coalitions, making decisions, getting difficult things done against predictable resistance--if elected.

Yes, many voters will vote more for party than for leader, and others will vote based on candidates' positions on policy issues. For these voters, the candidates' leadership qualities, detached from substantive agenda, is very secondary. And our presidential campaigns as presently conducted do a pretty good job of giving voters clear choice on party and policy agenda.

But it's not too much to ask that voters also be given a clear choice between leaders; and in that respect our presidential campaigns can be much improved. Playing out over more than a year, costing many hundreds of millions, these campaigns have ample time and money to give the public what any responsible board of directors would insist on before hiring a new corporate CEO.

At a minimum, an hour-long, leadership-focused interview should become part of the standard process for vetting each of our final choices for the nation's next leader. The American people deserve this, and candidates aspiring to lead a great nation should be more than happy to oblige.

Too often, the media depict black women like me as gyrating hoochie mamas, someone's baby mama or dirty crack addicts.

Michelle Obama strikes a pose not seen enough: an accomplished, confident, proud black woman. (And get a load of those arms!)

That seems to scare some people.

OK, she slipped by suggesting she'd never really been proud of her country until her husband's candidacy took off. But the reaction went way over the top. Republicans tried to smack her down. Her husband's campaign aides wanted to perform the equivalent of a personality transplant.

It is said that people are most afraid of what they are least familiar with. And most people don't really know Michelle Obama. Like most politicians - and politicians' spouses - we know only what we read about her or see on TV.

But to be frightened by her, by the idea of her as first lady? That's just downright silly.

Seriously.

She was a darling of the media and campaign crowds when her husband, who calls her "my rock," started running for president. Barack Obama's advisers viewed her as his "secret weapon." In Iowa, aides started calling her "The Closer" because of her ability to win people over. After one speech in Muscatine, half of the mostly undecided crowd signed supporter cards on the way out.

But stumbles were inevitable.

In February, critics pounced when she said, "For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country." They suggested she was an angry, unpatriotic woman, ungrateful to the country that helped her out of the poverty of the South Side of Chicago.

She later said she had been trying to say how proud she was that so many people were engaging in the political process as a result of her husband's candidacy, and that she had always been proud of her country.

But what if, deep down inside somewhere, Michelle Obama really is angry.

What's wrong with a little anger?

Black women have a lot of reasons to feel that way, and she, especially, for some of the things that have been said about her and her husband.

Maybe this Princeton and Harvard-educated lawyer is angry about Fox News Channel calling her in an on-screen graphic, "Obama's baby mama."

She could be spitting mad about the rumor that there was a video of her railing against "whitey" from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. No video has surfaced; the campaign says that's because she never spoke there.

At one point, Obama told her critics to "lay off my wife."

But his campaign has hired Michelle Obama a new chief of staff whose responsibilities include helping to reintroduce this wife and mother of two in ways that advisers think will be less threatening to the masses.

Who's to say she isn't rightfully outraged about that, too?

"People aren't used to strong women," Michelle Obama said when her image came up as she played guest co-host on "The View," the ABC daytime talk show. That appearance was part of the image makeover, too.

America likes a certain type of first lady - the adoring, smiling, know-your-place-and-stay-in-it kind who stands beside her man, doesn't upstage him and won't dare show bare arms in public. Career political wives, not career women.

Race aside, what's happening with Michelle Obama may not be all that different from the way Hillary Rodham Clinton was treated when her husband ran for president in 1992. At the time a Yale-educated partner in a top Arkansas law firm, she was not a career political wife and became an instant target.

When one of Bill Clinton's campaign rivals accused the Arkansas governor of funneling money to his wife's firm, she pushed back, saying: "I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas." That crack didn't sit well with millions of mothers and political wives across the country who did just that. Hillary Clinton apologized, then was made to show a softer side.

Is that what Obama's campaign has in store for Michelle, too?

Don't get me wrong; I like soft. Who doesn't? It helps make us women, but it's just one facet of who we are. And Michelle Obama has shown plenty of "soft" already; go watch the family's much-talked about interview with "Access Hollywood," or read her recent interview with Ebony magazine.

But let's cut through the spin and pose this question: In the grand scheme of things, what does Michelle Obama REALLY have to be angry about?

From where I sit, not much.

Which is why attempts to paint her as an angry, fire-breathing sister are so laughable.

By all accounts, she has a great husband - who has made history and could make more if he is elected on Nov. 4 - two charming daughters, a power career as a hospital administrator, a million-dollar home in Chicago's Hyde Park and ... those biceps to die for.

She embodies the hopes and dreams of millions of black women, like me, who quietly have longed for the day when we'd see one of our own where Michelle Obama is now - this close (fingers pinched!) to measuring the White House for draperies and picking out a new china pattern.

She's also a role model for little girls everywhere (and some big ones, too), especially those of color, who have been beaten down by poverty, broken homes, failing schools, low self-esteem and every other obstacle life can put in their way.

"There's not a parent on planet Earth who wouldn't want a daughter like this," said Edythe Friley, 61, a retired teacher from Detroit who participated in a recent Associated Press-Yahoo News survey about attitudes toward the potential first ladies.

Think of those girls and how it could help them to see someone like Michelle Obama - strong, self-assured, devoted to family, triumphant over some of those same issues in her own life and possibly headed to the White House - and think to themselves, "Yes, I can."

By Darlene Superville, The Associated Press, August 21, 2008

American Issues Project, the sponsor of the ad, is a nonprofit 501(c)4 organization. One of its board members, Ed Failor Jr., was a paid consultant for McCain's campaign in Iowa last year. The campaign paid his firm $50,000 until July 2007. American Issues Project spokesman Christian Pinkston said Failor has no connection to the McCain campaign now.

The ad signals the emergence of the type of tough advertising by independent organizations that operate outside the financial limits of campaign finance law. It is reminiscent of the Swift Boat ads aired against John Kerry four years ago questioning his military service and are widely blamed by Democrats for contributing to his defeat.

Organizers sought to air the ad on Fox News Channel, but a Fox spokesman said the network declined to run it. He would not say why.

Ayers is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He and Obama live in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood and served together on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based charity that develops community groups to help the poor. Obama left the board in December 2002.

Obama also was the first chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a school reform group of which Ayers was a founder. Ayers also held a meet-the-candidate event at his home for Obama when Obama first ran for office in the mid-1990s.

"Barack Obama is friends with Ayers, defending him as, quote, 'Respectable' and 'Mainstream,'" the ad states. "Obama's political career was launched in Ayers' home. And the two served together on a left-wing board. Why would Barack Obama be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it? Do you know enough to elect Barack Obama?"

Obama's campaign accused McCain of having a hand in the ad, saying he "dispatched his paid consultant to launch this despicable ad from a so-called 'independent' committee." Federal Election Commission records show the last payment from McCain's campaign to Failor's consulting firm, Targeted Consulting, was July 2, 2007.

"Instead of invoking Paris, Britney and obscure sixties radicals, Sen. McCain should take the day off at one of his seven homes to consider whether his support for outsourcing, tax breaks for companies who ship jobs overseas and continued spending of $10 billion a month in Iraq is really putting 'country first,'" Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said.

Obama has distanced himself from the radical activity of the Weather Underground. In an interview with "Fox News Sunday" in April, Obama said he "deplored" Ayers' actions in the 1960s.

"Mr. Ayers is a 60-plus-year-old individual who lives in my neighborhood, who did something that I deplore 40 years ago when I was 6 or 7 years old," Obama said then. "By the time I met him, he is a professor of education at the University of Illinois. We served on a board together that had Republicans, bankers, lawyers, focused on education."

This week, the University of Illinois refused to release records relating to Obama's service on the Chicago Annenberg Exchange. The university said the donor of the records that document the charity's work has not yet turned over ownership rights to the material.

The university said it is "aggressively pursuing" an agreement with the donor and will open the collection to the public as soon as one is finalized.

Obama's campaign has said the senator does not have control over these records.

The ad is the first for the American Issues Project. As a nonprofit organization, the group can raise unlimited amounts of contributions, unlike political action committees that are governed by campaign finance laws.

Pinkston, the group's spokesman, said it will identify contributions used to pay for the ad.

McCain in the past has criticized independent groups, even those that support him, that air negative campaign ads.

In a statement, Failor, who is executive vice president of Iowans for Tax Relief, said: "When the American public fully understands the close, continuing relationship between their potential president and a remorseless domestic terrorist, we believe it will send a chill down their spines."

Ayers was a fugitive for years with his wife, fellow radical Bernadine Dohrn. But after surrendering in 1980, the charges against Ayers were dropped because of prosecutorial misconduct.

McCain's campaign responded by raising Obama's ties to Tony Rezko, a former Obama fundraiser who was convicted this year on corruption charges unrelated to the senator. Obama and his wife bought their $1.65 million home in 2005 after getting advice from Rezko, and later sold part of the adjacent property to Rezko's wife.

The increasingly negative tone of the campaign came as speculation continued to swirl over Obama's vice-presidential pick. He stretched out the media focus on his imminent pick by confirming to reporters that he had decided on his choice, but wouldn't disclose a name, which is expected at some point over the next 36 hours.

"I've made the selection and that's all you're going to get," Obama said at a peanut and gift shop in Emporia, Va.

Asked if he had formally extended an offer, Obama grinned, put a hand in his pocket and said: "You're not going to get anything out of me."

Despite the hint from Obama, Thursday was the first day in a week that vice-presidential selection was overshadowed on the campaign trail.

The heightened scrutiny on the candidates' personal wealth reflects voter anxiety over the still-struggling economy. The issue has particular resonance as the subprime crisis continues to move through the market, forcing a growing number of homeowners into foreclosure.

The campaigns - aware that some of the highest foreclosure rates are in key swing states like Ohio and Florida - jumped on the issue with a vengeance.

New polling shows concern with the economy is as high as it's been since 1992, when Bill Clinton's campaign coined the iconic election slogan, "It's the economy, stupid." Forty percent of voters surveyed by the New York Times/CBS News poll ranked the economy as their top concern, while just 15 percent cited the Iraq War.

On Wednesday, McCain expressed uncertainty over the exact number of homes he owned.

"I think - I'll have my staff get to you," he said in an interview with Politico. "It's condominiums where - I'll have them get to you."

McCain's staff initially reported that the Arizona senator owned four homes. The Obama campaign did its own analysis and came up with seven properties McCain owned with his wife, Cindy. And a Politico analysis of property and tax records, as well interviews, found that McCain's family owns eight properties worth $11 million.

Obama jumped on McCain's comments at his first stop today.

"Now think about that," Obama said. "I guess if you think that being rich means you've got to make $5 million, and if you don't know how many houses you have, then it's not surprising that you might think the economy was fundamentally strong. But if you're like me, and you got one house, or you were like the millions of people who are struggling right now to keep up with their mortgage so they don't lose their home, you might have a different perspective."

"There's just a fundamental gap of understanding between John McCain's world and what people are going through every single day here in America," he continued.

The McCain campaign quickly fired back, accusing Obama of his own real estate indiscretions.

"Does a guy who made more than $4 million last year, just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii and bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses?" said campaign spokesman Brian Rodgers.

The campaign also released a new television ad and created a Web site http://www.gop.com/ObamaRezkoShadyDeal/ reminding voters of Obama's connections to Rezko, the convicted Chicago real-estate developer and political fundraiser. During the Democratic primary, Obama came under attack for his relationship with Rezko, which opponents say helped him get a special price on his Chicago property.

When Obama purchased his current home in June 2005, he and his wife paid $1.65 million - a hefty sum but $300,000 less than the asking price. In February 2008, his campaign largely defused questions about the sale when the couple from whom the Obamas bought their house said the senator had submitted three bids, starting with an offer of $1.3 million, before his final offer was accepted.

In January 2006, Obama bought one-sixth of an adjoining lot from Rezko's wife, Rita, paying her exactly a sixth of the sum she had paid for the full lot.

Obama later said it was "boneheaded" of him to accept help from the Rezkos in his real-estate dealings.

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh pushed the issue on his Thursday show.

"The question isn't how many [homes] McCain has but how many homes does McCain have where he got a sweetheart deal involving Tony Rezko," said Limbaugh on his Thursday show. "If Obama wants to talk homes, let's talk homes."

As his campaign fired shots, the presumptive Republican nominee hunkered down in his Arizona cabin to work with top aides on campaign strategy and his nomination acceptance speech.

In the morning, McCain, who likes to get his own coffee when he's at the cabin, assembled his nine-car motorcade for the 15-minute drive to the local Starbucks. Aides Charlie Black and Brooke Buchanan joined him for the caffeine fix.

A few hours later the group left to film convention footage and campaign ads.

Obama, meanwhile, toured Virginia from Richmond to the southeast town of Chesapeake, holding two town hall meetings - joined at one stop by a potential vice presidential contender, Gov. Tim Kaine - and talking with voters at stops at a deli and a peanut shop.

Obama told the co-owner of the peanut shop, Dorothy Bass, that he heard he might be able to win over her vote and that he wasn't leaving until he did.

After they talked policy, he asked if he'd succeeded.

"What do you want me to say?" Bass asked, before adding "I feel better about it already" but saying that her vote was private.

With that, he let her off the hook.

Mike Allen contributed to this report.

That significant shift in conservative thought has brought the country to a tipping point on the question: a slim majority of Americans - 52 percent - now think churches should keep out of politics.

That's an eight percentage point increase over 2004 and the first time a majority of Americans has held that opinion since Pew officials started asking the question 12 years ago.

On this question, the gap between conservatives and liberals is narrowing: just four years ago, liberals were twice as likely as conservatives to say churches should stay out of politics. Now, 50 percent of conservatives and 57 percent of liberals think that. Four years ago, 62 percent of liberals opposed church involvement in politics. Democrats and Republicans are about even on the question, as well.

The survey also found largely unchanged attitudes along religious lines on the presidential choices compared with 2004, despite Democrat Barack Obama's strong play for religious voters and Republican John McCain's hesitancy to talk about his own faith and problems connecting with his party's evangelical base.

McCain leads Obama 68 percent to 24 percent among white evangelical Protestants, comparable to what President Bush was polling four years ago. But the support is tepid: just 28 percent of white evangelicals call themselves "strong" supporters of McCain, well short of Bush's 57 percent in 2004.

Changing attitudes about mixing church and politics could emerge as a factor in the fall campaign - particularly for McCain. Both campaigns are plotting get-out-the-vote efforts in faith communities, but past Republican successes came when attitudes were more welcoming.

The attitude shift cut across conservative constituencies: 46 percent of Republican Protestants want churches out of politics, up from 28 percent in 2004. Thirty-six percent of white evangelical Republicans hold that view, up from 20 percent four years ago.

The question asked specifically about places of worship, which by law cannot take stands for or against candidates or political parties but may speak out on issues. So the public might hold different views about political stances taken by religious leaders speaking as individuals or religious advocacy groups.

The findings come after midterm elections in 2006 that saw Democrats seize control of Congress, a landmark court ruling this year legalizing gay marriage in California, and also amid an identity crisis among conservative evangelicals about which issues should take priority and who speaks for the movement.

Among the groups that shifted strongly away from wanting to see churches involved in politics: Americans who are less educated, those who believe gay marriage is a very important issue and those who think the two major parties are unfriendly to religion.

"To my mind, that spells frustration," said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center. "But by the same token, we know these very same people are not interested in less religiosity in the political discourse. They almost universally want a religious person as president.

"It's not that they want to take religion out of politics, it's that their frustrations with the way things seem to be going are leading them to say, 'Well, maybe churches should back off on this.'"

The survey confirmed that white non-Hispanic Catholics, who make up about 18 percent of the electorate, are shaping up to be a big swing vote this fall: 45 percent support McCain, while 44 percent back Obama. Democrat John Kerry, a Catholic, was doing better at this juncture in 2004, winning 50 percent of those Catholics.

Asked which candidate "shares my values," 47 percent of all respondents replied Obama and 39 percent said McCain. White evangelicals favor McCain on that question, the religiously nonaffiliated leaned Obama, while white non-Hispanic Catholics and mainline Protestants were split.

Democrats have made inroads in closing the so-called God gap, at least by one measure: 38 percent of respondents said the party is "friendly toward religion," up from 26 percent two years ago. Even so, considerably more people - 52 percent - viewed the Republican Party as religion-friendly.

It's a cruel twist in a prolonged game of guessing that has put political junkies and Democratic supporters on edge since the campaign announced last week that it would disclose Obama's choice through text messaging, which is expected to happen by Saturday.

In the absence of real information, pranksters have filled the gap with guidance from the website Wonkette - and maybe Howard Stern, too.

"There is incredible enthusiasm for Barack Obama's vice presidential announcement and unfortunately some people have used that enthusiasm and sent out hoaxes," said Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki, who received one herself. "We can assure our supporters these texts did not come from the campaign and their data is secure. Everyone can also rest easy that despite their popularity, Mickey Mouse and Michael Phelps are not on the short list at this time."

A Manhattan woman got excited when she received a message announcing Hillary Rodham Clinton, but soon realized it was a joke she saw nothing more about the choice on the Internet.

There also were reports of John Kerry, Walter Mondale and even Eliot Spitzer.

On Wednesday morning, Richmond lawyer Anne Leigh Kerr passed along bad information to political types after receiving a text message from an unknown number that, in formal language, announced that Obama selected Gov. Tim Kaine.

"Now, even if Tim Kaine himself tells me he's VP, I think I'll keep my mouth shut," Kerr told Politico.

The website Wonkette might have something to do with the proliferation of hoax messages. At 2:07 p.m. Wednesday, managing editor Ken Layne posted a step-by-step manual from a reader under the headline: "Freak Out Your Friends With Fake Obama VP TXT."

"We are proud to help cause confusion and excitement during this terrible boring week of no news at all," Layne wrote in an email to Politico. "But we can't really take too much credit for it - apparently one of our readers listens to Howard Stern (which is still on the radio?) and heard of the veep TXT hoax, and figured out an easy way to do it through Verizon's TXT website."

Layne said he has personally sent about 50 messages announcing Mondale.

"So many of my so-called friends have sent hoax (texts) to me now," he added, "that I'll probably end up ignoring the real one."

"Wouldn't you like to know?" he said with a grin when asked by an Associated Press reporter when the text would be sent.

"I've made the selection, that's all you're gonna get," Obama said as he visited a store selling roasted Virginia peanuts as nonchalantly as any other day campaigning in a battleground state.

Obama planned to appear with his pick Saturday at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., where he launched his presidential campaign in February 2007. Obama then planned to travel to the battlegrounds of Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri and Montana before arriving in Denver to accept his party's nomination Thursday.

One person who had been vetted for the position told The Associated Press there had been no contact from Obama or his campaign about the decision. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the Obama campaign had not authorized public comment.

The Illinois senator was widely thought to be considering Sens. Joe Biden of Delaware and Evan Bayh of Indiana along with Govs. Tim Kaine of Virginia and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas. None of them gave anything away - at least not in words.

Obama spent part of the day with Kaine, who reportedly told a colleague Wednesday that he believed he was on the short list. West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin said Kaine told him although he hadn't heard anything from the Obama campaign on where he stands at the time, "he really thinks he has a chance at the short straw."

But Kaine may have had more information Thursday after he campaigned with Obama, including a private meeting between the two men and Kaine's staff for 15 minutes at a Richmond hotel. Afterward, Kaine said he would let the Obama campaign speak about whether the candidate asked him to be his No. 2.

If Kaine had good news when he appeared with Obama at a discussion of the economy in Chester, Va., he hid it well. The governor hardly spoke as he sat slumped and expressionless, and Obama acknowledged him only in passing.

Asked later at a news conference if he was heading to Springfield, Ill., on Saturday, Kaine said he and his family were flying out Friday night for Denver. When pressed if it was a nonstop, direct flight to Denver, he smiled and would not comment.

Biden had a family gathering at his home Thursday afternoon, with his wife Jill, niece Missy Owens and son Beau, Delaware's attorney general coming and going past reporters staked outside. Biden ran errands, including a visit to the dentist, but didn't speak to the media as he came and went.

Biden is a favorite for the vice presidential nomination among Democrats who think Obama could use his experience and tough campaign style. Biden has served 35 years in Congress, while Obama has served three.

Sebelius, campaigning for Obama in Iowa, said being mentioned as a potential running mate is something of "an out-of-body experience."

"Whoever it is, I am an enthusiastic supporter," she said but added she would leave the announcement to the campaign.

It's possible Obama could make a surprise selection, although at least one of the dark horse candidates appeared out of the running. Former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn's spokesman said he was be traveling out of the country on international business until Monday, which makes a visit to Springfield Saturday seem unlikely.

New polls out this week show Obama is neck-and-neck with GOP rival John McCain and still has yet to win over some supporters of Democratic primary rival Hillary Rodham Clinton. The polls sparked fresh discussion of whether Obama would make a surprise selection of Clinton as his running mate.

Clinton had other plans for the weekend. She was scheduled to visit the New York State Fair Friday and speak in Fresno, Calif., Sunday at the United Farm Workers of America's 18th Constitutional Convention.

Tony Campbell at Examiner.com on July 30 reported that Hillary Clinton supporters are quietly planning a coup to claim the presidential nomination from Barack Obama on the first ballot at the Democratic National Convention.

At that time, Campbell wrote, "The group, P.U.M.A. (Party Unity My A**), claims that 15 delegates have switched from Obama to Clinton in July. There is still the possibility of a floor convention vote to fully seat the delegates of Michigan and Florida, which would benefit Senator Clinton. Finally, the Obama flip-flop on the FISA bill has not been well received by the more liberal segments of the Democratic faithful."

Well, now we know that Florida and Michigan will be seated and Clinton's name will be put in for nomination.

Given that 2025 votes are needed for the nomination, the pro-Hillary website DoneDems.com suggests these hopeful numbers: "Obama has about 2229.5 delegate votes, with 1766.5 pledged delegates and 463 superdelegates. Clinton has 1896.5 delegate votes, with 1639.5 pledged and 257 super delegates. Shift just 175 delegates from Obama to Clinton, and Obama's power grab comes to a halt."

By my own count, Hillary is only 128.5 votes short of 2025, which actually is easier to achieve than 175 votes, but I'm not sure even this number is correct. I'll do some more reporting on this point and report my findings here.

The core question remains: Could a Clinton coup happen? The odds are against success, but Obama is vulnerable.

More...

The pivotal issue is whether Clinton can pick up enough superdelegates who feel Obama's recent actions or McCain's consistent poll numbers cast doubt on Obama's electability.

Obama has alienated many progressive Democrats who believe he's moved too far to the right since becoming the presumptive nominee last June. His about-face from prior positions to support warrantless wiretaps and offshore oil drilling, quite frankly, suggests that Obama values public opinion polls more than moral principles.

Obama's weak response to the Russian invasion of Georgia, staying on vacation in Hawaii while McCain assertively sent representatives to the troubled region, further reinforces doubts about Obama's ability to handle foreign crises.

Obama's ineffective response to McCain's attack ads, meanwhile, begs the question of his ability to take on McCain in the general election.

My experience as a political journalist says the Democratic National Convention has been so carefully stage managed that a surprise upset is improbable, but increasingly I'm wondering if it's totally impossible.

Since the press is obsessing right now over who Barack Obama will pick as his running mate, I decided to chat with some supporters who came out to attend his Raleigh, North Carolina, town hall meeting about the announcement - widely expected to take place at a planned event in Springfield, Illinois.

I spoke with a handful people - young and old, men and women, white and African American - and all Obama supporters. Of the voters, only one preferred today's top contender, Senator Joe Biden. Rosemarie Burke, a white-haired woman with a cane said she likes the Delaware senator because he adds experience.

The others all had other suggestions. Colin Powell, Kathleen Sebelius, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and NC Governor Mike Easley were their top choices.

Mary Ellin Eiselv expressed concern over an Obama-Biden ticket. "The young people Obama seems to be reaching out to are such a visually oriented generation they might say, 'Who?' " Biden, she said, is relatively unknown and might not generate the excitement that has carried Obama to his place as presumptive Democratic nominee.

Demaris Mial, a 20-something Obama fan, admitted not knowing too much about the Delaware senator. "I wouldn't have a reaction," she replied when asked about Biden. She added, "I would just appreciate that's who he chose and I'm still for Obama, so it doesn't really matter."

36-year-old Tony Booe agreed. "It's not going to change anything for me. As long as he wins, I don't care who it is - Hillary, Biden, Bayh," he said.

With all the speculation one wonders if the voting public is sick of press and pundits' musings. One supporter laughed and admitted she hasn't even been paying attention. "I've been watching the Olympics!"

Now, it wants the world to know that Obama is doing just fine with women voters, thank you very much, despite the group's earlier critiques.

The organization today released the results of a survey it did earlier this month showing that Obama holds a solid lead among women voters -- 51 percent backed Obama and 39 percent John McCain. That gives Obama a larger preconvention lead among women than those enjoyed by either John Kerry in 2004 (one percentage point) or Al Gore in 2000 (nine points). Obama's 12 point lead is also larger than the final margin of victory for Kerry (3 points) and Gore (11 points) among women.

"This is a very solid showing for Senator Obama. In historical terms, it's a showing that augurs well for him," said pollster Geoff Garin, who oversaw the survey.

In the poll, Obama commands near universal support among black women, dominates among Hispanics, and runs close to even among white women. He trails among evangelical Christians but leads among other women who say they attend church regularly. He leads among all generations, though his edge is biggest by far among Generation Y -- those under age 28 -- among whom he leads by 30 points. Somewhat surprisingly, given all the talk of a generation gap in the race, his second biggest margin, 11 points, is with women over the age of 65. But Garin, who replaced pollster Mark Penn in the Clinton campaign in its final months, said that older voters remained the area where Obama most clearly needs to make up ground, because it is with seniors that one sees the biggest deficit between voters' overall leaning toward Democrats and their willingness to support Obama.

The clearest gap in the results came in regard to the qualities voters are looking for in a candidate. Asked whether they want a president who provides hope and optimism, or one who provides safety and security, those polled split evenly, 38 percent for each. Those who sought hope and optimism supported Obama by a 60 point margin; those who sought safety and security backed McCain by 35 points. McCain's edge on safety and security is "a place where Obama has work to do," Garin said, adding that McCain's gap on hope and vision was even larger.

Of course, Clinton's critique of Obama for much of the primaries -- buttressed by Emily's List, which spent more than $1.5 million on the campaign and bundled an additional $855,000 in contributions for her -- was that Obama was not prepared to lead the nation in a "3 A.M." moment of crisis. But the organization's leader, Ellen Malcolm, today rejected the suggestion that it was lingering doubts among Clinton's supporters that was contributing to whatever softness there is in support for Obama among women voters.

Malcolm noted that women in the survey who had positive views of Clinton were supporting Obama, 73-18 percent, whereas 19 percent of those who did not like Clinton were backing Obama, which Malcolm suggested showed a lack of antiObama animus among Clinton supporters.

"The more you like Senator Clinton, the more likely you are to be for Senator Obama," Malcolm said. To further the 'no harm, no foul' notion, she noted that she and Clinton and Michelle Obama would be attending a unity event at the convention next week.

"There's been a tremendous amount of healing ... and Senator Clinton deserves a great deal of credit for that," Malcolm said. "She worked hard to bring us together."

By Alec MacGillis, The Washington Post, August 20, 2008

MARTINSVILLE, Va. (AP) - Democrat Barack Obama pledged Wednesday to create millions of union jobs in alternative energy and end tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas, using tough new populist language to convince voters that he, not rival John McCain, is best positioned to lift the limping U.S. economy.

Obama was on a two-day bus tour through Virginia, a likely general election battleground state, amid frenzied speculation about when he would announce his running mate. He brushed off questions about his choice during a morning visit to a farmer's market in Greensboro, N.C., before boarding the bus.

Obama was to spend the night in Richmond and campaign Thursday with Gov. Tim Kaine, widely believed to be on the short list of possible running mates.

Former Gov. Mark Warner, who campaigned with Obama Wednesday and will deliver the keynote speech at next week's Democratic convention in Denver, told reporters Kaine would be a "great choice" but had no clue whether Obama would choose him.

At a community college in Martinsville, Va., Obama told about 350 supporters that McCain had a compelling biography as a former prisoner of war in Vietnam. But, he said, the GOP hopeful would follow the economic policies of the Bush administration if elected.

"I honor his service," Obama said. "I don't honor his policies. I don't honor his politics."

Obama also renewed his warning that Republicans would try to scare voters about his background. "They'll say, 'He's young, he's got a funny name, he's not patriotic,'" Obama said, adding that it was part of a pattern in GOP presidential politics.

"We've seen this movie before," he said.

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds responded, "Barack Obama's own campaign is the only one talking about his patriotism."

Obama stuck mostly to economic themes during his appearance, adopting a pitch that sounded much like Hillary Rodham Clinton in the waning days of her primary campaign. The former first lady defeated Obama in eight of the last 13 primaries using populist language that strongly resonated with rural and working-class voters.

Obama said it was wrong that the Iraqi government has been sitting on billions of dollars in oil revenue while the U.S. spends billions to rebuild the country.

"We should be using some of that money to rebuild Virginia, laying roads, building broadband lines and putting people back to work," Obama said.

As for tax breaks to companies taking jobs overseas, Obama said: "We sure as heck don't have to give them incentives to move. ... We should give companies tax breaks that are right here."

Obama made an appeal for votes that sounded much like the closing pitch Clinton would offer in similar settings.

"If you give me that opportunity, if you give me that chance, I will fight for you every single day," he pledged. "I'll wake up every day in that White House thinking about those people in Martinsville."

This election is about "deciding right here and right now that we are gonna fight to make government accountable to the American people to make sure that the special interests aren't dominating Washington," Obama told the crowd of about 350 here at a community college in the southern part of the state.

"That's why I promise you this: that if you will vote for me, if you give me that opportunity, if you give me that chance, that I will fight for you every single day. I will wake up in that White House thinking about the people of Martinsville and the people of Henry County and how I can make your life better," he said, echoing a line Clinton often used at the end of her speeches.

At several events in recent days in Nevada, New Mexico and North Carolina, Obama has talked about average families incomes that rose $6,000 during the Bill Clinton years and have fallen $1,000 during the Bush years -- statistics that Clinton used near the top of nearly every speech. This is not the first time the Illinois senator has hailed the last two-term Democratic president, but he seems to be using this sort of language more lately.

He has spoken about "the American Dream slipping away," another favorite phrase of Sen. Clinton's, has made allusions to the "invisible Americans" that she often spoke of, though he did not use the word, and has talked about listening to the voices of the American people, another line that has been a favorite of both Democrats.

Democrats have "gotta do a better job of listening to the American people and working on behalf of the American people," he said before repeating the phrase about how he will wake up everyday thinking about how to make Americans' live better.

Last night at a town hall in Raleigh, N.C., Obama said he wanted people to vote for him not just based on party affiliation, but because he had been a fighter for them.

"I want them to take a look at my track record, and I want them to see, you know what, this is a guy who started out as a community organizer working with people who'd been laid off jobs at the steel mills," he said. "This is the guy who fought as a civil rights attorney for women who were being discriminated against on the job and workers who were being discriminated and people who weren't getting the right to vote. This is somebody who has fought for equal pay for equal work in the state legislature and has worked to provide healthcare for kids who didn't have it."

"I want them to say, this is somebody who's gonna fight for me," he continued. "This is somebody who hears my voice. That's-and if I do that, I promise you, I won't just be getting Democrats, I'm gonna be getting a whole bunch of Republicans and independents as well and that's how we're gonna win this election."

During the roughly 40-minute Q & A, Obama talked about help for small businesses, his support for unions, comprehensive immigration reform, reforming No Child Left Behind and how he'll help veterans and reduce incarceration rates.

Obama was introduced by Mark Warner, the former Virginia governor and current Senate candidate. Warner will be speaking at the Democratic convention next week, where both Clintons will also be speakers.

By Domenico Montanaro, MSNBC, August 20, 2008

The commission also will be urged to redraw the calendar for 2012 to avoid starting the primaries and caucuses so early, and also to look specifically at assuring more uniform rules and standards for those caucuses.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said the campaign will ask the national convention delegates in Denver to approve a resolution approving the establishment of a 35-member Democratic Change Commission. The charter would authorize the Democratic National Committee chairman appoint the commission soon after the election and ask them to report back by January 2010.

The proposed changes grow out of discussions between Obama's campaign team, officials at the Democratic National Committee and representatives of Hillary Clinton's former presidential campaign, Plouffe said.

The most important change involves superdelegates -- the elected officials and party leaders who have automatic seats at national conventions and are free to vote for any candidate of their choice.

Their role became hugely controversial during the long nomination battle between Obama and Clinton. Obama supporters feared that the superdelegates could override the results of the primaries and caucuses and potentially hand the nomination to Clinton.

"The number of super delegates has gotten too large in relation to overall delegates," Plouffe said. "We want to give more control back to the voters.... Everyone thinks there ought to be more weight given to the results of the elections."

The commission will be encouraged to consider either reducing the number of superdelegates eligible to attend the national conventions or increasing the number of so-called pledged delegates elected on the basis of the results of caucuses and primaries.

The other significant change is the call to redraw the primary and caucus calendar. The 2008 calendar drew significant criticism both for the early starting dates for the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries, and also because there were so many states crowded into the first month of what turned out to be a five-month campaign.

As envisioned by the Obama and Clinton campaigns, most contests could not be held before March, except for a handful of states authorized to go earlier -- presumably in February rather than January.

Plouffe also said the commission will be urged to look for ways to avoid the bunching of states on particular days. Almost two dozen states held contests on Super Tuesday last Feb. 5, which party officials hope to avoid in 2012.

The other major area the commission will be asked to examine is the operation of caucuses in states that choose that process rather than a primary. The caucuses drew criticism, particularly from the Clinton campaign, which said they restricted participation and that in some states lacked the necessary infrastructure to insure fairness.

"We agree that we ought to make sure they're funded properly, staffed properly and run smoothly, and even see if people ought to be eligible to vote absentee," Plouffe said.

After a primary fight made even more bitter by the delegate selection process, Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee announced today that they want a commission to recommend changes.

The panel would look at changes to the timing of primaries and caucuses, reducing the number of superdelegates, and tinkering with the caucus system. "The goal of the commission will be to ensure that no primary or caucus is held prior to the first Tuesday in March of 2012, with the exception of the approved pre-window states, whose contests would be held during February 2012," Obama's campaign and the DNC said in a joint statement.

The proposal to establish the commission is to go before the Democratic convention's rules committee on Saturday. If formed, it would make its recommendations by Jan. 1, 2010.

This primary season, Florida and Michigan held their primaries outside the party-approved timing, leading to months of acrimony. Hillary Clinton, who won the primaries, was pushing for them to be counted. But when the DNC rules committed voted in June to give the two states' delegates a half-vote each, that all but sealed Obama's path to the nomination.

"After the 56 contests in this historic primary season, our party is stronger and more energized than ever before -- with millions of new voters participating. As we look to the future, we must continue to strengthen the process and ensure a fair process in which the diverse voices in our party and our nation have a chance to be heard. That is the essential role that the Democratic Change Commission can and will play, and we look forward to their recommendations," said DNC Chairman Howard Dean.

"Senator Obama is committed to working towards growing our party, improving our nominating process and ensuring as many people as possible participate in the process. Obama believes the Democratic Change Commission is an important and necessary step to achieving these goals," Obama campaign chairman David Plouffe said in the statement.

The margin in the poll of polls, which consists of seven surveys, is down from three points a day earlier and and down from an eight-points in mid-July.

Russia's invasion of Georgia gave McCain an anvil to hammer away at Obama's inexperience, CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider said.

"The McCain campaign believes that some of Hillary Clinton's tactics, especially questioning whether Obama is ready to lead, can be a real winner," Schneider said.

Clinton nearly overtook Obama during the primary campaign after she started airing ads asking whom voters would rather have answering a 3 a.m. call to the White House.

"And then she ran that ad, and she really went on the attack on the experience question. And she won the bulk of the primaries thereafter in the closing months of the Democratic primaries and won 500,000 more votes than he did and almost took it away from him."

When Russian troops invaded Georgia two weeks ago, McCain vigorously denounced the action and warned of consequences. Obama's reaction was more measured, and potential voters noticed, Schneider said.

"Which candidate do voters believe is better qualified to deal with Russia? McCain by better than 2-1," Schneider said. "More experience in military matters and foreign affairs."

That argument may be even more effective for McCain than it was for Clinton, said political analyst Marc Halperin, a former Democratic strategist.

McCain is "going after more centrist voters, more swing voters, more conservative voters who will be a much bigger deal in the general election than they were in those primaries and caucuses," Halperin said.

By at least one important measure, McCain has overtaken Obama. The Republican's current lead in key states would give him enough electoral votes to win the election, Gergen said.

McCain has taken other pages from the Clinton playbook, saying that Obama has great style but little substance.

"Not only did the Clinton campaign give McCain and his advisers a road map, but [they] actually started the McCains down that path," said Dan Schnur, who was McCain's communications director in the 2000 campaign.

"That's why you're hearing from Obama very specific policy-oriented proposals here," CNN's Suzanne Malveaux said. "There's not a lot of that kind of flash, if you will, from the earlier days."

But the recent downturn in the polls for Obama may not last. The Democratic White House hopeful is headed for a week of what is likely to be overwhelmingly positive coverage as he names his running mate and officially accepts his party's presidential nomination.

"The big question now is whether Obama can successfully regain control of the campaign agenda as we head into the Democratic convention," said Alan Silverleib, CNN senior political researcher.

To help make the mental leap from international sports back to national politics, let's review how political competitors have fared in the 2008 Campaign Olympics:

WEIGHTLIFTING baggage Bronze: Barack Obama. Carried his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, for weeks, and then dropped the dumbbell.

Silver: John McCain. Held President Bush at arm's length.

Gold: Hillary Clinton. Held Bill Clinton aloft as a symbol of the good ol' days, even after he weighed more than a loose cannon.

DIVING into waterless pool Bronze: Mike Huckabee. "When we were in college we used to . . . fry squirrels in the popcorn popper."

Silver: Joe Biden, who called Obama "the first mainstream African-American (presidential candidate) who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." Al Sharpton protested that he bathed daily.

Gold: John Edwards. Admitted having an affair with a New Age guru who wanted to bring out his inner Gandhi.

CYCLING backward

Bronze: Hillary. "We face a lot of evil men. And what in my background equips me to deal with evil and bad men?"

Silver: Obama. "The point I was making was not that Grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn't. But she is a typical white person. . . "

Gold: McCain. "Make it a hundred . . . that would be fine with me," when asked if he'd support keeping troops in Iraq for 50 years.

GYMNASTICS (verbal) Bronze: Obama. "In case you missed it this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died." He was referring to a tornado that killed 12 people.

Silver: Hillary. She spoke with a weird Southern drawl at a church service: "Ahh don't feel no-ways tired. I've come too faarrrr from where I started frum."

Gold: Bill Richardson. "I'm a Red Sox fan. . . I'm also a Yankees fan."

SYNCHRONIZED squirming Bronze: Joe Biden and an Indian-American supporter. Biden told him, "You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. . . I'm not joking."

Silver: John and Cindy McCain. At a biker rally in South Dakota, McCain volunteered his wife for the "Miss Buffalo Chip" pageant, which often features topless contestants.

Gold: Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump. A video from a 2000 New York City press roast showed Giuliani in drag - kissing, and being groped by, the Donald.

SHOOTING moving targets Bronze: Huckabee. "I'm pretty sure there will be duck-hunting in heaven and I can't wait!"

Silver: Romney. "I've been a hunter pretty much all my life." Later he clarified: "I've always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will. I began when I was 15 or so and I have hunted those kinds of varmints since then. More than two times."

Gold: Dick Cheney. "I am the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend," recounting how he'd accidentally wounded a campaign donor during a quail hunt in Texas.

SHOOTING self in foot Bronze: John Kerry. He told college students: "You know, education - if you make the most of it. . . you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

Silver: Obama. Told San Franciscans that when small-town folks "get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them. . . "

Gold: Hillary. "I remember landing under sniper fire," she said, during a trip to Bosnia. When TV footage showed instead a peaceful welcoming ceremony, she admitted she'd "said some things that I knew not to be the case."

TRAMPOLINE flip-flopping Bronze: McCain. Flipped on taxes, ethanol, religious right, oil drilling. . .

Silver: Obama. Flipped on public financing, NAFTA, Iraq strategy, illegal immigration, Cuba embargo. . .

Gold: Romney. Flipped on abortion, gay rights, gun control, campaign finance, his Guatemalan gardener, and his claim that he and his father marched with Martin Luther King.

WRESTLING with reality Bronze: McCain. "I'm learning to get online myself. . ."

Silver: Obama. "I've now been in 57 states - I think one left to go."

Gold: Dennis Kucinich. Said he had a close encounter with a UFO, "a gigantic triangular craft" that hovered above him for 10 minutes, and he "heard directions" in his mind. He said he would open a campaign office in Roswell, N.M.

It's official: Democrats have dodged the John Edwards bullet at their party's national convention in Denver next week. Edwards, whose infidelity to his cancer-stricken wife has made him a leper among his own people, won't be anywhere on the sidelines.

Edwards, as recently as last week, according to knowledgeable sources, still expressed interest in participating in a One Campaign convention event on Tuesday of next week to assemble supply kits for AIDS caregivers around the world. Which, to put it mildly, would have been awkward.

After the Sleuth sent emails and placed phone calls to the One Campaign press office and separately to Edwards spokesman inquiring about Edwards' involvement, we eventually heard back from both. Their responses came within minutes of each other.

We heard first from Prince, who called to give his unequivocal statement that Edwards will not be attending the convention and, therefore, will not be participating in One Campaign events.

One Campaign spokesman Tom Gavin sent an email a few minutes later telling us, "A while back - May? - Senator Edwards was invited to participate in our service project in Denver...We still haven't heard back from him."

Though we were told by well-placed sources who asked to remain anonymous that Edwards did, indeed, express interest to One Campaign officials just last week in playing a role in Denver, where the former North Carolina senator is most certainly not welcome by party officials. (His wife, Elizabeth Edwards, is no longer scheduled to speak at the convention.)

Edwards, who made ending global poverty a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, appears in several postings on the organization's One Blog, including this must-read posting titled "Edwards Falls for ONE in Iowa Falls."

A source close to Edwards tells the Sleuth that rather than go to Denver to help Bono end poverty, "what [Edwards] really wants to do right now is concentrate on his family."

No scoop in political journalism is more sought after than the identity of the vice presidential nominees.

In a world of 24/7 news coverage, scoops -- and those who score them -- are almost immediately forgotten as events quickly overrun the original news nugget.

Not so with the identity of the vice presidential nominees. Ask any political reporter about who broke the news in each election and you are almost certain to get a laundry list beginning with NBC's Andrea Mitchell in 2004 (and 1988 with Sen. Dan Quayle!) and including the Post's own Dan Balz (Dick Cheney in 2000) and Associated Press' Ron Fournier (Joe Lieberman in 2000).

Given the prestige that comes with breaking the vice presidential nominee's identity, it's not difficult to understand just how hard it has become for the campaigns to keep it a secret.

As the days between now and the start of the two parties' conventions dwindle down, tidbits of information are starting to leak out. Last night came two stories on the timing of the two picks. The first, from the New York Times, suggested that Barack Obama had made up his mind on a veep pick and could announce it as soon as tomorrow; the second, from Mike Allen at Politico, tagged Aug. 29 as the day John McCain would make his choice known to the world.

So, is there any reason to believe that either campaign can hold on to this most coveted piece of information until the moment they want to unleash it on the world?

For Obama, at least, keeping the secret may well serve as the ultimate test of their leak-proof campaign -- a point of pride for those who have been with the Illinois senator since the beginning.

Obama insiders insist that they plan to break the news via email and text message to their supporters -- a sign of the the importance of their grassroots backers to his winning calculus (and of their disdain for running things through the national media lens).

Can they make good on this pledge? And do they want to? A planned leak to the likes of the AP (or, heck, The Fix) moments before the announcement is made to its supporters could be a way to make all sides in this equation happy.

The worst-case scenario for either Obama or McCain is for an unplanned leak to throw them off the tightly scheduled roll out of their pick. No event -- aside, perhaps, from the two party conventions -- is as stage-managed as the vice presidential announcement and subsequent tour of swing states. An early leak could threaten the delicate messaging in the lead up to both conventions.

Keeping the veep secret is a major test of the mettle of both campaigns. Will either one pass the test?

"Wellesley or Wesleyan, I get those two confused," Obama said.

While confusing two elite Northeastern schools might help Obama in certain corners, it may not go over as well in the Clinton universe, where her 1969 Wellesley graduation speech is legendary for having launched her onto the national stage. Obama went on to answer the question by saying that the Democratic Party is not as divided as it might appear, calling it as a notion "hyped by the media."

Obama also gave a broad-stroke description of the vice presidential nominee he intends to pick, saying he wants someone who knows where he or she comes from, and could replace him in a crisis, but who is "mad right now" about the problems the country faces.

In a stirring moment at the end of the rally, a man who identified himself as a military veteran currently living in a homeless shelter in Raleigh with about 100 other former service members borrowed the microphone from Obama to ask a question about his plans for homelessness. The man said taking the microphone directly from the candidate's hand made his night.

No, he said: the campaign is not traveling by bus today and tomorrow so the plane can be secretly re-adorned with the vice presidential nominee's name.

No, nothing should be gleaned from the fact that Obama used the male pronoun to describe his as-yet-undisclosed choice.

And no, there is nothing significant about the fact that Obama is visiting Virginia tomorrow -- home of the short-listed Gov. Tim Kaine.

"I would not read anything into states we're visiting," Gibbs told a pack of breathless reporters.

Like many on the Obama staff, Gibbs reveled in being tight-lipped and watching the press corps writhe in agony trying to read tea leaves.

And he said that, as the VP madness has exploded in recent days, he's gotten "some really ridiculous" queries from reporters. He declined to describe any on the record -- but said he would tell the story on Saturday. (Earlier in the day, the campaign said Obama will go to Springfield, Ill., on Saturday, by which point he is expected to have his running mate in tow.)

"On Saturday? Does that mean we'll know the pick by Saturday?" an overheated reporter asked.

Gibbs paused and smiled, as if he had been caught giving away a clue. "You might," he said.

Obama's hesitant statement at the forum that defining the beginning of life is "above my pay grade" took even some supporters by surprise. Since then, the National Right to Life Committee has challenged him on an obscure law that protects babies born alive after failed abortions, saying that his opposition to the measure in the Illinois state legislature proves he is an extremist.

McCain's performance at the forum seemed to hearten many conservatives, not only because of his firm, uncompromising stand against abortion but his broader appeals on global warming, genocide and the embrace of causes greater than self. But the clarity that McCain exhibited at Saddleback has been somewhat diminished with his suggestion that his running mate might favor abortion rights.

"Since Saturday night, I've seen a lot of confusion in the younger Christian voting bloc because they thought they had figured this thing out," said Cameron Strang, editor of Relevant magazine, which is aimed at a new generation of evangelicals. "There's no absolutely right candidate for an evangelical, and there's no absolutely wrong candidate. They're both right, and they're both wrong."

But McCain has repeatedly been at odds with the National Right to Life Committee and other antiabortion groups over his efforts to limit their ability to run pointed "issue advocacy" advertisements in the closing weeks of campaigns. Although his voting record is strictly antiabortion, he has never made religiosity or social issues centerpieces of his political persona. And his 2000 labeling of evangelists Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell as "agents of intolerance" deepened evangelical suspicions.

"To be perceived as authentic on this issue, you need to have some grounding in it, and usually that grounding is faith," said Douglas W. Kmiec, a Pepperdine University professor of constitutional law who opposes abortion but supports Obama.

As McCain moves toward naming a running mate, he has not backed off a suggestion to the conservative Weekly Standard that his pick could favor abortion rights. Speculation on whom that could be has centered on former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge and independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut.

Similarly, Obama has made a show of reaching out to abortion opponents to find common ground on pregnancy prevention and adoption. He has urged evangelicals and Catholics to expand the definition of "pro-life" to include opposing torture, poverty and unnecessary war. In the Democratic primary, Obama was criticized by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign and others for being insufficiently committed to abortion rights because he did not cast some votes on the issue in the Illinois legislature.

Abortion foes are now accusing Obama of being an abortion-rights extremist. In recent days, the National Right to Life Committee has charged that Obama is misrepresenting his record to broaden his appeal. At issue is a measure in both Illinois and Congress called the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which defines as a protected human any life expelled from a mother. Abortion foes championed the cause when an Illinois nurse and antiabortion activist said some pre-viable fetuses were being aborted by inducing labor and then being allowed to die.

Obama, then a state senator, opposed the measure in 2001, saying it crossed the line of constitutionality and "essentially says that a doctor is required to provide treatment to a pre-viable child, or fetus."

As a committee chairman in the state Senate in 2003, Obama supported GOP efforts to add language to the act, copied from federal legislation, clarifying that it would have no legal impact on the availability of abortions. Obama then opposed the bill's final passage. Since then, he has said he would have backed the bill as it was written and approved almost unanimously the year before.

Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, charged that Obama is trying to have it both ways because the Illinois bill he opposed was virtually identical to the federal law he said he would support.

Obama aides acknowledged yesterday that the wording of the state and federal bills was virtually identical. But, they added, the impact of a state law is different, because detailed abortion procedures and regulations are governed by states. Johnson and others are oversimplifying the situation, aides said.

"They have not been telling the truth," Obama told the Christian Broadcasting Network in response to a question on the matter. "And I hate to say that people are lying, but here's a situation where folks are lying."

At Saddleback, McCain won plaudits from conservatives when he said that life begins "at the moment of conception," especially after Obama deflected the question.

But the inroads McCain made are now threatened by his flirtation with a running mate who supports abortion rights.

"I think that the pro-life position is one of the important aspects or fundamentals of the Republican Party. And I also feel that -- and I'm not trying to equivocate here -- that Americans want us to work together," McCain told the Weekly Standard.

Conservative commentator David Limbaugh slammed the idea yesterday, warning that McCain "would make a fatal mistake to assume that social issues, especially abortion, are ever off an equally blazing front burner for an inestimable number of social conservatives."

Abortion remains an important issue to a large portion of the electorate, but it is not the biggest. An early August poll for Time Magazine found that one in five likely voters would not consider voting for a candidate who did not share their views on abortion. Twenty-six percent of Republicans saw the issue as decisive, compared with 18 percent of Democrats.

His aggressive media strategy - he spent nearly $19 million to produce and place advertising spots - kept him on the air as much as Democratic rival Barack Obama.

The deadline for filing July financial reports is midnight Wednesday. Obama had not yet submitted his, but the campaign announced last weekend that he had raised more than $51 million in July.

McCain has agreed to accept $84 million in a federal campaign grant for September and October. That means he must spend all the money in the campaign's account by the end of the Republican National Convention in early September or donate the balance to the Republican National Committee.

Obama has decided to bypass the public funds in anticipation of raising far more money on his own. As a result, he has been trying to build up his cash reserves. His campaign has said he ended July with nearly $66 million in hand.

McCain's report shows that donors contributed nearly $21 million directly to his campaign. He also received $5.6 million in contributions through a joint victory fund set up with the RNC.

He showed a debt of $2 million.

In a related campaign money matter, the FEC is scheduled to vote Thursday on whether McCain should be allowed to reject federal matching funds he was entitled to receive during the primaries. Candidates can receive taxpayer money in the primaries based on the number of small contributions they have raised. Accepting the money limits a campaign's spending.

McCain had qualified for such funds, but decided not to accept them because he wanted to spend above the limits. Then-FEC Chairman David Mason informed McCain that he needed a vote of the FEC before withdrawing, but at the time the commission lacked a quorum to act. It is now at full strength.

The commission's staff has recommended that it approve McCain's withdrawal from the system.

But the Democratic National Committee sent the FEC a letter this week objecting to the scheduled vote. Instead, the DNC asked the commission to act on a complaint the Democratic Party filed in February accusing McCain of violating public finance laws.

In the letter, DNC general counsel Joseph Sandler said the FEC cannot vote to let McCain withdraw from the primary public funds program because McCain never requested that he be allowed to pull out.

The FEC is made up of three Democrats and three Republicans. It takes four votes to approve commission business.

Obama plans to appear with his newly selected running mate Saturday, with the pick announced via text message to supporters. Obama also is widely thought to be considering Govs. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and Tim Kaine of Virginia, and Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana.

Biden was first elected to represent Delaware in 1972, when Obama was 11 years old and half the people living in the United States today weren't born yet. He is a curious front-runner for running mate for a candidate who won the primary by arguing he would be a fresh outsider who could bring change to Washington.

Biden is a charismatic and hard-charging campaigner with a compelling personal story - his wife and daughter were killed in a car accident a few weeks after he was first elected, but two sons survived serious injuries in the same crash. Biden commuted home to Wilmington from each day in the Senate to care for them, a practice he still continues to this day. The oldest son, Beau, is now Delaware's attorney general and a National Guard member whose unit is being deployed to Iraq in October.

Biden got another scare 10 years ago, when two brain aneurysms kept him out of the Senate for several months.

Biden returned Monday from a trip to Georgia at the invitation of the embattled country's president, a well-timed reminder of the value he could bring to Obama's ticket.

Fighting between Georgia and Russia has only increased the sense that Americans will turn to a leader who will be a strong international leader. McCain brings a military background and leadership on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Obama only has served three years in Washington, but Biden is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he has served on for 33 years.

Also, polls show the race between Obama and GOP rival John McCain tightening, and Obama is responding by stepping up his attacks in speeches and commercials targeted to key states. Obama has never been entirely comfortable going negative, a move that threatens his call for civility in politics, but Biden has never shied from a fight.

"He's passionate, he's articulate and he's persuasive," said Democratic consultant Steve McMahon, among those who consider Biden Obama's smartest pick. "I think he would do for Senator Obama what Lyndon Johnson did for John Kennedy. He's got serious foreign policy experience, a long and distinguished Senate resume and he is one of the most effective surrogates that Senator Obama has right now who can go toe-to-toe with any Republican on any issue at any time."

Obama could have been describing Biden when he said in a speech Tuesday that he wants his running mate to be "somebody who is mad right now" about the state of the economy, an independent who will speak out when he's wrong and help him through major issues.

During the Democratic primary when he also ran for the presidential nomination, Biden often made the most memorable impression in debates even though he was barely registering in the polls. He got big laughs for accusing Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani for mentioning three things in every sentence - "a noun, a verb, and 9/11" - and also leveled barbs at Obama.

He said he didn't think Obama was ready to be president yet, saying it's "not something that lends itself to on-the-job training." He offended some blacks when on the first day as an official presidential candidate he tried to compliment Obama as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean." He dropped out of the race after a poor showing in Iowa.

Republicans would be sure to revive Biden's criticisms of Obama and already envision a line of attack that says Obama is so inexperienced he needs a running mate who has been in Washington longer than McCain.

Biden is famous for being able to talk at length - sometimes a mind-numbing length - on any topic, but he has enhanced his standing in the vice presidential race by avoiding discussion of it.

Obama's running mate contenders have been instructed to be mum - a trait that is not considered Biden's strong suit. But he has played by Obama's rules, denying that he was being vetted when he most likely was. He bluntly acknowledged he'd take the job if asked, while jokingly warning Obama might not want him.

"I made it clear to him and everybody else, I never worked for anybody in my life," he told reporters last month. "I got here when I was 29. I never had a boss. I don't know how I'd handle it."

He gave nothing away Wednesday, as reporters staked out his home in anticipation of the pick. The senator took a load of brush in the bed of a white Ford pickup truck to the dump. He returned about 2 1/2 hours later, saying he was going to be working on his property throughout the day and would have no further comment.

The latest national figures came with the US media fixated over the looming vice presidential picks of each candidate and ahead of an intense two-and-a-half month sprint towards polling day in November.

Obama's camp, sensing McCain's momentum, on Wednesday branded the Vietnam war veteran as "trigger-happy" on foreign policy, while McCain suggested his foe was "testy" after a thorough critique of his national security credentials.

In the CBS data, Obama led 45 to 42 percent, within the poll's margin of error. The Democrat had led by six points last month.

NBC also had the Obama up 45 to 42, in the latest sign that McCain has built a head of steam, after several weeks of harsh attacks on Obama, whom his campaign has mocked as "the world's biggest celebrity."

Earlier, a new George Washington University survey found McCain led the accelerating race by a single point, suggesting his new robust strategy was paying off.

McCain appears to have closed the gap partly by stressing energy policy, as 40 percent of those polled by George Washington University said he was the best bet to peg back high gasoline prices compared to 37 percent who liked Obama.

In May, Obama had led on that question by 19 percent, but McCain's demands for an expansion of off-shore oil drilling appeared to be bearing fruit, despite Democratic claims it would do little to cut prices at the pump.

Only a month ago, McCain faced claims he was running a stuttering, off-message campaign, but is in better shape ahead of his own nominating conventions in Minnesota between September 1 and 4.

Both campaigns meanwhile kept a tight clamp on the identity of their vice presidential nominees, with Obama expected to name his number two within days.

"No hints. No new hints," Obama said when asked about the heated vice presidential rumor mill at a farmers' market in Greensboro, North Carolina on Wednesday.

Reports say Obama has narrowed his shortlist of running mates to three -- senators Joseph Biden and Evan Bayh and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine -- although a surprise pick is also a possibility.

The campaign plans to announce the selection to supporters by text message and email, and Obama is likely to campaign with his sidekick Saturday, in Springfield, Illinois, where he launched his White House quest in February 2007.

McCain campaign officials meanwhile were unwilling to comment on the speculation.

But former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, on a conference call commented on reports that McCain could choose a vice presidential nominee who backs abortion rights, which would dismay the conservative wing of the party.

"I know John McCain, I know his ... love of country -- he will choose the best person, and if that person happens to be, among other things, pro-choice, the party will support that."

The Republican Party meanwhile began to detail its plans for its convention between September 1 and 4 in St Paul, Minnesota.

Senator Joseph Lieberman, who was on the Democratic ticket as Al Gore's number two in 2000 and ran for the party's nomination himself in 2004, will attend the Republican convention and back McCain, Republican officials said.

The hawkish Connecticut lawmaker broke with his party over Iraq and sits as an independent in the Senate, and has savaged Obama's credentials as a potential commander in chief.

The George Washington University poll was conducted among 1,003 registered likely voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus three percent.

Obama plans to appear with his newly selected running mate Saturday, with the pick announced via text message to supporters. Obama also is believed to be considering Govs. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and Tim Kaine of Virginia, and Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana.

But Biden is at the center of much speculation now. Biden, 65, first was elected to represent Delaware in 1972. Obama was 11 at the time; half the people living in the U.S. were not born when Biden arrived on Capitol Hill. He is a curious front-runner to join a ticket headed by Obama, who prevailed during the primaries by making the case that he is an outsider who can bring change to Washington.

Biden has a compelling personal story: His wife and daughter were killed in a car accident a few weeks after he was first elected, but two sons survived serious injuries in the crash. Biden commuted home to Wilmington daily to care for them, a practice he continues to this day. The oldest son, Beau, is now Delaware's attorney general and a National Guard member whose unit is being deployed to Iraq in October.

Biden got another scare 10 years ago, when two brain aneurysms kept him out of the Senate for several months.

This week Biden returned from a trip to the former Soviet state of Georgia that he made at the invitation of the embattled country's president, a well-timed reminder of the value he could bring to Obama's ticket.

Fighting between Georgia and Russia has only increased the sense that Americans will turn to the candidate they believe will be a strong international leader.

Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, brings a military background and a leading role on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Obama only has served three years in Washington, but Biden is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Polls suggest the race between Obama and McCain is tightening, and Obama is responding by stepping up his attacks in speeches and commercials targeted to key states. Obama has never been entirely comfortable going negative, but Biden is always ready for a fight.

Obama could have been describing Biden when he said in a speech Tuesday that he wants his running mate to be "somebody who is mad right now" about the state of the economy, an independent spirit who will speak out when Obama's wrong and help him through major issues.

During the Democratic primary, when he also sought the presidential nomination, Biden often made the most memorable impression in debates even though he was barely registering in the polls. He got big laughs for accusing Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani of mentioning three things in every sentence - "a noun, a verb and 9/11" - and also leveled barbs at Obama, questioning his experience.

He said he didn't think Obama was ready to be president yet, saying it's "not something that lends itself to on-the-job training." He offended some blacks when on the first day as an official presidential candidate he tried to compliment Obama as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean."

Biden dropped out of the race after a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses.

The Associated Press, August 21, 2008

The correct answer is at least four, located in Arizona, California and Virginia, according to his staff. Newsweek estimated this summer that the couple owns at least seven properties.

In recent weeks, Democrats have stepped up their effort to caricature McCain as living an outlandishly rich lifestyle - a bit of payback to the GOP for portraying Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as an elitist, and for turning the spotlight in 2004 on the five homes owned by Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry.

Pro-Obama labor groups have sent out mailers highlighting McCain's wealth, and prominent Democrats have included references to it in comments to reporters.

Twice in the past two weeks, those Democrats have focused on McCain's houses.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) told Politico's Ben Smith that it was McCain "who wears $500 shoes, has six houses, and comes from one of the richest families in his state."

And David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, referred in an interview with Adam Nagourney of The New York Times to an imagined meeting of McCain strategists "on the portico of the McCain estate in Sedona - or maybe in one of his six other houses."

McCain's comments came four days after he initially told Pastor Rick Warren during a faith forum on Sunday his threshold for considering someone rich is $5 million - a careless comment he quickly corrected.

In the interview, McCain did not offer an alternative number, but had a new answer ready.

"I define rich in other ways besides income," he said. "Some people are wealthy and rich in their lives and their children and their ability to educate them. Others are poor if they're billionaires."

McCain, by anyone's measure, is well off if you include his wife's fortune. Cindy McCain inherited control of her father's beer distributorship, the largest in Arizona, and has an estimated worth of over $100 million.

By Jonathan Martin, Mike Allen, The Politico, August 21, 2008

The GOP presidential candidate is mounting strong challenges to Democratic rival Barack Obama in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, and eyeing Minnesota - four states that have thwarted Republicans in at least four straight elections. The Arizona senator is also fighting to hang on to Ohio, a bellwether that President Bush won twice.

"For all the talk about changing the electoral map, the core of it is still the same - right here," said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor.

This region has been a central part of every White House race for 30-some years because Democratic presidential candidates have had to win a huge share of its electoral votes to have any hope of assembling the 270 needed to win. Together the five states where McCain sees opportunity have 78 electoral votes; Illinois' 21 votes are considered safe for Obama, its favorite son U.S. senator.

This year McCain views the region as his best, if not his only, chance to keep a Republican in the White House in an election season that strongly favors Democrats after eight years of President Bush. All five states were decided by narrow margins four years ago.

They are home to large numbers of blue-collar whites, whom Obama has struggled to win over; senior citizens, who polls show tilt toward McCain; and Catholics, a swing-voting constituency. These groups comprise the bulk of the right-leaning suburban Democrats who were successfully courted by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and may be attracted to McCain if he can keep his distance from Bush. In addition, each state has rural conservative voters who could reject Obama's liberal voting record and, perhaps, his race.

"McCain is looking at the nature of the electorate and has a reasonable chance to cherry-pick some voters," said G. Terry Madonna, a pollster and professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa. "These are the kinds of voters who were reluctant to vote for Obama in the primary, and the Republicans think they can make inroads with them."

Obama, a 47-year-old first-term senator, is seeking to become the first black U.S. president. Republicans have worked to tag him an inexperienced elitist trading on his celebrity. Race and class are certainly factors in this contest - and definitely in this region - but the impact won't be measurable until after the election.

Obama has characterized McCain, a 71-year-old Arizonan who has supported Bush in Senate votes 90 percent of the time, as offering another term of the unpopular president's economic and free trade policies to a region whose economy has tanked and that has seen staggering job losses.

McCain has acknowledged the economy isn't his strongest suit. Some other factors also may work against him.

Obama calls neighboring Illinois home, and he is strongly defending four of these states while aggressively going after Ohio and looking to pick off a GOP-held target in this region, Indiana. At this point, McCain's campaign isn't active in that state, a sign that Republicans aren't yet worried.

Obama should post big numbers in urban cores like Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh, given his strong support among minorities and younger voters. Obama will probably benefit from union support here. And enthusiasm for his candidacy and a recruitment effort have sharply increased Democratic voter registration.

In Ohio, McCain may find it difficult to repeat Bush's 2004 victory. The state GOP is in shambles after scandals helped Democrats claim the governor's office in 2006.

Michigan, where the auto industry is ailing, is one of McCain's two top targets. Obama didn't compete there during the primary so he needed to build an organization essentially from scratch. Picking Michigan native Mitt Romney as his running mate could help McCain.

Pennsylvania is McCain's other priority. Obama was soundly defeated by Hillary Rodham Clinton in the state's spring primary, though the race boosted Democratic voter registration. McCain could benefit there if he puts former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge on the ticket.

Wisconsin has been closely contested in recent years and gave Democrats narrow victories of only 11,000 votes in 2004 and 5,000 votes in 2000. However, it has been trending more Democratic in the last four years.

Minnesota last voted for a Republican for president in 1972. For now at least, it's the only one of the five states where McCain isn't running TV ads, but that may change if the state is within reach after Labor Day.

McCain will accept the GOP presidential nomination next month at the party's convention in St. Paul, Minn., and his prospects in the state could improve if he picks Gov. Tim Pawlenty as his No. 2.

To win all five states, McCain must offset Obama's strong support in metropolitan centers by running well in perpetual swing-voting areas - places like Minnesota's Anoka County, north of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

The county is home to working-class voters who love to hunt and fish and don't hesitate to back a candidate who feels right to them, regardless of party label. It was the center of wrestler Jesse Ventura's victorious 1998 independent campaign for governor.

Republican Jim Abeler, who has represented the area in the legislature for a decade, says McCain could do well in counties like Anoka by playing up his maverick image.

"The solid Republicans are going to suck it up and vote for McCain. The solid Democrats are going to suck it up and vote for Obama," he said. "But there are a lot of people in the middle. I think there's hay to be made in my county."

Tiffany Ling, 25, is among those who are torn.

"Obama strikes me as a good family man. He seems like he'd be a decent guy. But my values are more along the lines of what John McCain stands for and believes in," Ling said as she sat in a park in Coon Rapids, Minn.

Economic stress weighs on her. Pregnant with her second child, Ling is considering selling her gas-guzzling SUV because high gasoline prices crimp the family's budget as she travels 50 miles roundtrip to the hospital where she is a nurse.

But she doesn't know which candidate has the best plan to revive the economy.

Mirroring the region's troubles, the county's unemployment rate hit its highest mark in four years this summer at 5.3 percent. That trend influences Tod O'Donoghue, 38, who recently lost his job as a floor covering salesman.

Excited about Obama, O'Donoghue describes the Democrat's short Washington record as an asset and praises his emphasis on diplomacy in dealing with global threats.

"There's no way in hell I'm voting for the old establishment," O'Donoghue, said, referring to McCain. "It's just unhealthy for us."

McCain had his best fundraising month yet, collecting more than $26 million. He, too, spent heavily - a total of $32 million, of which two-thirds was on advertising.

The documents illustrate the intensity of the contest, even at the height of summer.

The two candidates spent aggressively on advertising. McCain targeted about 11 traditional battleground states and Obama ran ads in 18 states, expanding his sights to states that have voted Republican in the past. But while Obama outspent McCain, polls show the race neck-and-neck, with McCain even closing the gap nationally and in some states.

When it comes to money, though, Obama and McCain face significantly different tasks.

McCain has agreed to accept $84 million in a federal campaign grant for September and October. That means he must spend all the money in the campaign's account by the end of the Republican National Convention in early September or donate the balance to the Republican National Committee. He ended July with more than $21 million in the bank.

Obama, however, has decided to bypass the public funds in anticipation of raising far more money on his own. As a result, he must build up his cash reserves. He reported $66 million in hand at month's end.

Obama might have fared better financially, but had to curtail his July fundraising to embark on a week of travel through the Middle East and Europe.

He also has been building a formidable ground game against McCain. He has a payroll of $2.2 million a month compared with McCain's $925,000, and has opened scores of field offices, outnumbering McCain's staff presence in key battleground states.

Obama no doubt will see a dramatic surge in contributions this month, centered on the Democratic national convention next week and his acceptance speech spectacle on Thursday at Invesco Field in Denver. But he will probably also have to continue fundraising in September and into October, while McCain is free to campaign with his own federal funds.

Both candidates benefited from new fundraising partnerships with their respective national parties. Of McCain's total amount raised, $5.6 million came from contributions made to a joint victory fund set up with the RNC. Obama reported getting $12.5 million of his total from victory committees connected to the Democratic National Committee.

McCain showed a debt of $2 million; Obama had debts of nearly $1 million.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who suspended her race for the Democratic nomination in June, reported a slight reduction in her massive campaign debt, cutting it from $25.2 million at the end of June to $23.9 million at the end of July. Clinton, who lent her campaign more than $13 million, has been struggling to raise money to pay off her vendors. She reported raising $2.5 million in July.

McCain, meanwhile, is counting on a vote Thursday from the FEC to permit his withdrawal from the public matching fund system for the presidential primaries. Candidates can receive taxpayer money in the primaries based on the number of small contributions they have raised. Accepting the money limits a campaign's spending.

McCain had qualified for such funds, but decided not to accept them because he wanted to spend above the limits. Then-FEC Chairman David Mason informed McCain that he needed a vote of the FEC before withdrawing, but at the time the commission lacked a quorum to act. It is now at full strength.

The commission's staff has recommended that it approve McCain's withdrawal from the system.

The Democratic National Committee has objected. It asked the FEC to postpone the vote until the commission investigates a complaint the Democratic Party filed in February accusing McCain of violating public finance laws in connection with the matching funds.

In the letter, DNC general counsel Joseph Sandler said the FEC cannot vote to let McCain withdraw from the primary public funds program because McCain never requested that he be allowed to pull out.

The FEC is made up of three Democrats and three Republicans. It takes four votes to approve commission business.

When she was running, Hillary Clinton's campaign was largely about white, working-class voters. So why does her postscript cast Clinton as the lodestar for everything female in America? And why does this bother me so much?

Because it's phoney, and it shamelessly employs the mythic American woman (Mom jeans and all - the Clinton archetype is not young and hip) as yet another actor in the Clinton narrative. Now, Clinton is going to have her name "placed in nomination for the roll-call vote at the Democratic convention". NBC News' First Read notes: "It's 'likely' that Clinton will release her delegates to vote for Obama after her name is submitted. Clinton - who is a superdelegate - will cast her delegate vote for Obama."

And I suppose every single one of those delegates will be female. Or at least they will be in the pictures. Because that's what Clinton is about, right, women?

Wrong. Contrary to the post-primary hagiography, Hillary Clinton was not solely about American women. She was a woman running for president who worked very hard to make people forget that fact. She quickly ran away from discussing her female reality after the November 2007 "pilling on" debacle at her alma mater, Wellesley College. Talking about being the female candidate would not work. She used her daughter, Chelsea, and her mother as synecdoches for mom-liness, and instead she partied with the boys when she needed to win a big state like Ohio. From drinking whiskey to talking hawkish on Iran, Clinton worked hard to remove the scent of a woman. Unlike Barack Obama, she never took a day off to be with her family. But now, in retrospect, sexism seems to pay for Clinton.

But she never brought it up on the campaign. I guess she couldn't. It would be like Obama noting racist incidents: a weakening measure that would only provide more fodder for the Republican party press office to exploit. But I have a hard time believing that if Obama were in Clinton's shoes today, he would have re-drafted his campaign as a referendum on race. Clinton gritted her teeth and accepted the sexism on the campaign trail, didn't mention it and went for white, working-class males in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas. Only now, when it's safe, does she bring it up. That's not leadership - that's seizing on an issue for personal gain. Do you honestly think if she hadn't quietly helped campaign-trail gender bias become a valid talking point, if the Pumas hadn't become front page news, she'd be on the roll call at the Democratic convention?

Chris Cilizza at the Washington Post blog The Fix says the convention move is politically smart on Obama's part because it allows him to appear "magnanimous". And while it's a good thing that language about sexism has made it into the Democratic party platform, if Clinton uses her moment in the sun to thank the millions of American women who helped her get here, I'm going to throw something at the TV.

We did help get her there, but I don't think she gave us enough credit. My friend Brian Reich did note that many Clinton voters feel the senator's absence where it matters - in the issues. Clinton, they say, spoke more resonantly about the issues that matter to most to most American women, like the economy and healthcare. Certainly, Clinton's healthcare plan was stronger than Obama's, and he needs to close that loop. Clinton can help this process by truly working to further the Democratic platform, not carving out her own moment in the limelight by pretending her campaign was about something it wasn't, at least not for her.

McCain leads Obama among likely U.S. voters by 46 percent to 41 percent, wiping out Obama's solid 7-point advantage in July and taking his first lead in the monthly Reuters/Zogby poll.

The reversal follows a month of attacks by McCain, who has questioned Obama's experience, criticized his opposition to most new offshore oil drilling and mocked his overseas trip.

"There is no doubt the campaign to discredit Obama is paying off for McCain right now," pollster John Zogby said. "This is a significant ebb for Obama."

McCain now has a 9-point edge, 49 percent to 40 percent, over Obama on the critical question of who would be the best manager of the economy -- an issue nearly half of voters said was their top concern in the November 4 presidential election.

That margin reversed Obama's 4-point edge last month on the economy over McCain, an Arizona senator and former Vietnam prisoner of war who has admitted a lack of economic expertise and shows far greater interest in foreign and military policy.

McCain has been on the offensive against Obama during the last month over energy concerns, with polls showing strong majorities supporting his call for an expansion of offshore oil drilling as gasoline prices hover near $4 a gallon.

Obama had opposed new offshore drilling, but said recently he would support a limited expansion as part of a comprehensive energy program.

That was one of several recent policy shifts for Obama, as he positions himself for the general election battle. But Zogby said the changes could be taking a toll on Obama's support, particularly among Democrats and self-described liberals.

Obama's support among Democrats fell 9 percentage points this month to 74 percent, while McCain has the backing of 81 percent of Republicans. Support for Obama, an Illinois senator, fell 12 percentage points among liberals, with 10 percent of liberals still undecided compared to 9 percent of conservatives.

Obama needs to work on base

"Conservatives were supposed to be the bigger problem for McCain," Zogby said. "Obama still has work to do on his base. At this point McCain seems to be doing a better job with his."

The dip in support for Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, cut across demographic and ideological lines. He slipped among Catholics, born-again Christians, women, independents and younger voters. He retained the support of more than 90 percent of black voters.

Obama's support among voters between the ages of 18 and 29, which had been one of his strengths, slipped 12 percentage points to 52 percent. McCain, who will turn 72 next week, was winning 40 percent of younger voters.

"Those are not the numbers Obama needs to win," Zogby said about Americans under 30. The 47-year-old is counting on a strong turnout among young voters, a key bloc of support during his primary battle with New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

It made little difference when independent candidate Ralph Nader and Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr, who are both trying to add their names to state ballots.

McCain still held a 5-point edge over Obama, 44 percent to 39 percent, when all four names were included. Barr earned 3 percent and Nader 2 percent.

The telephone poll of 1,089 likely voters had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

The poll was taken as both candidates head into their nominating conventions and the announcements of their choices of vice presidential picks. The Democratic convention begins on Monday in Denver, with the Republican convention opening the next Monday, September 1, in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Twenty-eight percent of the 970 pledged delegates and superdelegates surveyed in a CBS News/New York Times poll want to see Clinton as Barack Obama's running mate, with Joe Biden coming in at 6 percent and John Edwards, Bill Richardson, and Evan Bayh at 4 percent. Thirsty-six percent did not have a preference, or would not state their opinion.

But just 61 percent of Clinton's delegates would still like to see her name the Democratic ticket this fall - leaving open the question of just how many will still cast their votes for her when her name is placed into nomination at next week's convention..

Few Obama delegates surveyed - just 3 percent - would like to see him offer Clinton a place on the ticket. But the names currently rumored to be on Obama's shortlist hardly fared better: Richardson garners 8 percent, and Biden draws 7 percent.

Nearly half the superdelegates interviewed didn't offer a pick.

Most delegates heading to Colorado agree that Clinton would help the Democratic ticket win in November: 61 percent believe she would help the party re-capture the White House, while 13 percent believe she would hurt its chances. Yet another divide exists between the Clinton and Obama camps here: almost all of the New York senator's pledged delegates say she would help, while just 35 percent of Obama's say the same.

The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.

By Alexander Marquardt, CNN, August 19, 2008

Nader said his own sources - and, to be blunt, they sound a bit sketchy - lead him to believe that Clinton remains in serious consideration. A friend, he said, recently saw Clinton family intimate Vernon Jordan on Martha's Vineyard and reported the "usually very effusive" Jordan to be suspiciously "tight-lipped."

Nader said he does not see how Biden, Bayh or Kaine would help Obama politically, and believes the speculation about them is a "smokescreen." If it's a traditional white male politician Obama is after, Nader offered, the better pick would be former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn, who brings national security heft and could put his home state in play.

It might be tempting for the Obama partisans to brush off Nader's freelance forecasting, but dismissing him as a crank is a risk. Many Democrats believe he siphoned votes and cost Al Gore the presidency in 2000.

As for his own reading of the vice presidential tarot cards, Nader admitted, "I may have egg on my face in a few days."

By John F. Harris, The Politico, August 19, 2008

RALEIGH, North Carolina (AFP) - The US presidential race gained momentum Wednesday, with Barack Obama set to announce his running mate ahead of his coronation next week as the Democrats' standard-bearer.

Before being crowned his party's presidential nominee in Denver, Colorado, Obama is expected unveil his choice for vice president -- a decision which could land at any time and which for weeks has been cloaked in secrecy and swathed in high drama.

The Illinois senator has been coy about names he is considering for his vice president, and his aides have put up a wall of silence after promising to divulge the news first to supporters, in a blitz of emails and text messages.

The New York Times reported that the White House hopeful has winnowed down his list of finalists to Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, Indiana Senator Evan Bayh and Delaware Senator Joseph Biden, who is a foreign-policy veteran.

It predicted earlier this week that Obama's choice would be announced Wednesday.

One woman -- Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius -- also is said to be in the running.

Obama's one-time rival for the nomination, US Senator Hillary Clinton, is not believed to be a contender for the vice president slot however, although she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have been granted a prominent role at the convention.

Amid frenzied speculation about his selection heading into next week's Democratic nominating convention, Obama said Tuesday that he wanted a running mate who was not afraid to speak his mind.

"I want somebody who has integrity, who's in politics for the right reasons," Obama said.

"I want somebody who's independent, somebody who's able to tell me 'you know Mr. President, I think you're wrong on this and here's why'."

Above all, he said, "I want somebody who is capable of being president, who I trust."

Despite suffering from a heavy cold, Obama was in fighting mood at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina -- one staunchly Republican state that his campaign is fighting hard for.

"I'm a big believer in winning. I don't intend to lose this election. John McCain doesn't know what he's up against right now," the Democrat said, after facing criticism for not taking a tougher line against his Republican rival.

Prior to going to the Democratic convention, Obama was set to return Saturday to Springfield Illinois -- the city where he launched his improbable White House quest -- for a pre-convention tour of battleground states.

Obama will speak at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, the hometown of venerated Civil War president Abraham Lincoln, which is where he began his bid way back in February 2007. He might also be accompanied by his vice presidential pick.

Obama has said talk of Democratic division has been "hyped by the media" and next week's Democratic convention will proclaim party unity. Disaffected supporters of Obama's defeated rival Hillary Clinton nevertheless plan to put on a show of protest.

Obama is set to deliver an nomination acceptance speech at a Denver sports arena Thursday that will be heard by a crowd of up to 80,000 supporters.

Meanwhile, the Republicans' convention, set for early September, comes after a long, hot summer of charge and counter-charge on the economy and national security.

A Los Angeles Time/Bloomberg survey had Obama on 45 percent and McCain on 43 percent -- in statistical terms, too close to call.

McCain, battling to carve an opening on the economy, flew to a Gulf of Mexico oil rig 220 kilometers (130 miles) off New Orleans to demand expanded offshore drilling.

"Senator Obama opposes new drilling, he said it won't solve our problem and that it's 'not real' -- he is wrong and the American people know it," the Arizona senator said.

"The nation is sending 700 billion dollars every year overseas to (oil-exporting) countries that do not like us very much. When I am president that is going to stop," he said.

AFP, August 20, 2008

The New York Times reports that: "Senator Barack Obama has all but settled on his choice for a running mate and set an elaborate rollout plan for his decision, beginning with an early morning alert to supporters, perhaps as soon as Wednesday morning, aides said."

The key words here are "all but" and "perhaps."

Perhaps Wednesday.

Perhaps Thursday.

Perhaps Friday.

There is no more clarity regarding who it will be.

In fact, the short-list remains the same as it has been for weeks:

"Going into the final days, Mr. Obama was said to be focused mainly on three candidates: Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia and Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware," speculates The Times. "Some Democrats said they still hoped that he would choose Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, or Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, who has been under steady consideration by Mr. Obama's campaign."

Here are a few tips:

Events in Georgia and Pakistan have made the prospect that Obama will choose the governor of a small- or medium-sized state with limited international experience a lot slimmer than in late spring or early summer. So Kaine and Sebelius are not looking strong at this point.

Obama needs a running-mate with foreign-policy "stature." That's not a governor, and it's probably not Bayh -- whose record of accomplishment in the Senate can best be summed up as "Democrat from Indiana."

So that leaves Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Clinton, whose international credentials are actually a good deal more solid than even her advocates recognize.

If it's Biden, the pick comes early. The Obama camp will want to pump him up pre-convention.

If it's Clinton, the pick comes later. There is no need to "introduce" Hillary Clinton, and no desire to explain the concerns about Obama's relative inexperience on the global stage and his relative weakness among blue-collar voters in battleground states that made the choice necessary.

There has been a bit of Al Gore buzz.

And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is still talking up Texas Congressman Chet Edwards.

Not the Chet Edwards.

Yes, the very same.

That was a joke, as is the speculation about Chet Edwards -- or, at this point, anyone else named Edwards.

Obama is cautious, and smart.

His choice will be savvy, solid and, above all, safe.

By John Nichols, The Nation, August 18, 2008

Heading into the candidates' appearances on Saturday night at Saddleback Church, the conventional wisdom in politics was Barack Obama should have a clear upper hand in any joint appearance with John McCain - one the young, eloquent, cool, charismatic dude who can charm birds from the trees, the other the meandering, sometimes bumbling, old fellow who can barely distinguish Sunnis from Shiias.

Well, kiss that myth goodbye.

McCain came roaring out of the gate from the first question and was a commanding figure throughout the night as he spoke directly and often movingly about his past and the country's future. By contrast, Obama was often searching for words and while far more thoughtful, was also less emotionally connective with his audience.

To be sure, Obama held on to the loyalty of his own supporters - many have written in blog sites since how much they respected both his nuanced answers and the honesty of his convictions, especially his Christian faith.

There is no evidence that he lost ground through Saddleback. Moreover, Democrats can poke lots of holes in McCain's arguments and can charge that he is too much the warrior who would be too quick to send troops hither and yon. So, there is much for Democrats to chew on.

But the point is that McCain showed that he can be a much more formidable and effective campaigner in a joint appearance than hardly anyone imagined. The debates this fall are going to be pivotal to the final outcome of the election, and McCain gave a clear wake-up call to the Obama team that he may be much tougher to beat than expected.

Moreover, McCain is now on a sustained roll in his campaign. Since the time he shook up his organization a few weeks ago, he has been much more focused and has started to get through to voters. Democrats - and the press - didn't like the quality of those ads, but they seem to have worked politically. His stand on drilling and on Russia have also strengthened his aura of command. And now Saddleback.

That's quite a run and it is reflected in the polls: not only have the national numbers tightened up but McCain has actually moved ahead (slightly) in three key battleground states: Ohio, Virginia and Colorado.

A web site that averages all significant polls, RealClearPolitics.com, has previously projected that just looking at polls, Obama was ahead in states with over 300 electoral votes; now he is down to 275 - a tiny cushion since 270 is the magical number for winning.

At Saddleback, Obama surely held on to his base support but McCain strengthened his and probably appealed to some undecideds, too.

In short, the tide is moving for the first time in the Republican direction. And the realization is setting in that McCain might just win.

We are still many weeks away from the election and the overall landscape clearly favors the Democrats, but these latest developments put pressure on Obama and his party to pull themselves together or face a stunning upset. What must they do? For starters:

* Obama must select a running mate who gives a lift to his campaign and can also hammer home a message in the convention and in the vice presidential debate this fall. He definitely needs a fighter by his side. (For my money, Hillary Clinton looks better and better; if not her, Joe Biden is probably the best fighter - perhaps Evan Bayh, or a surprise choice.)

* The Democratic convention in Denver has to be a roaring success, not only uniting the party but sending a much clearer, crisper message about why 4 more years will be 4 more years of tears.

* Obama himself must find his voice again, not only in his acceptance address but in the debates. He needs to bring passion as well as inspiration, a clear sense of what the choice is, and a compelling sense of why he is strong enough as well as wise enough to lead the country through tough times.

In the meantime, the message of the moment is that John McCain is no old fuddy-duddy who isn't sure where he is going; he was on fire at Saddleback and for the first time, he looks like he could win in November.

By David Gergen, CNN, August 18, 2008

He is a lively and feisty if unpredictable campaigner with working-class roots and a street-level feel for the hot spots of the globe - which he can use to go toe-to-toe with Sen. John McCain.

"If I had to bet my life on it, I'd bet it is Joe," said one of the other contenders.

Said another, "Barack is moving toward a seasoned Beltway type, and that probably means Biden."

One of the contenders also revealed a tidbit about timing. That person says Obama's camp wants to know how to get in touch on Thursday afternoon.

But back to Biden. Besides his experience, he brings other things to the table.

He is from a modest Catholic background in Scranton, Pa. He represents Delaware, but has long been a figure in Eastern Pennsylvania - a key swing state.

And he is a voluble and combative character, even with his ready smile.

"Joe won't be afraid to get in McCain's face, which is what Obama needs," said one non-contender source.

Others have pointed out to Obama that this is why Biden would be hard to control as vice president.

But maybe Obama has decided to worry about that later.

Biden makes sense for another reason: his son Joseph "Beau" Biden III, the attorney general of Delaware, is a captain in the state's National Guard. He's deploying Iraq in September - and could prove to be an invaluable personal link to the situation on the ground.

Biden has largely escaped any hint of scandal, personal or political, in a long career, even though he was forced to withdraw from the Democratic race in 1988 amid charges of plagiarism.

Those charges now seem sadly trivial given all that's happened since.

Another name on Obama's short list is Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana.

Also in the running is Virginia govenor Tom Kaine. But he may fall short because of his lack of foreign policy experience.

Also vetted were Sen. Hillary Clinton and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.

And who is the dark, dark horse in this Veepstakes? I think it's former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

Watch out for that silver tongue though - while his verbosity could prove powerful on the stump, it could be irritating everywhere else.

In the 19th century Americans took very seriously Washington's warning against "entangling alliances" which might interfere with the country's unfolding "Manifest Destiny" of dynamic growth and expansion. A corollary to this belief was that the "Great American Democracy" was a unique-perhaps even divinely inspired-form of political organization vastly superior to the Old World’s tired regimes of aristocratic privilege and downtrodden masses.

In the 20th century America entered upon the world stage powerfully and decisively coming to the aid of embattled European democracies and leading them to victory in two world wars and the Cold War. Launching these extraordinary interventions were three memorable Democratic presidents - Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.

Though American actions in the two centuries were starkly different - isolationism in the 19th, and intervention in the 20th - one compelling theme was constant: American Exceptionalism - a general notion that foreigners were a source of problems and Americans were a source of solutions. This attitude was often naive, and jingoistic, but it provided a sturdy foundation for American patriotism through most of our history.

This enduring national consensus, however, collapsed during the "Perfect Storm" of the 1960s when a toxic brew of social, military and political convulsions tore gaping holes in the fabric of our national life - self-inflicted wounds that remain unhealed to this day.

Out of this turmoil there emerged a powerful body of left-wing opinion and activism that turned the old national consensus upside down. Rejecting Henry Clay's "my country - right or wrong," the left substituted "my country - always wrong." More extreme elements declared their country to be the most oppressive society in history - racist at home and imperialist abroad - while discovering sublime virtues in genocidal tyrants from Mao Tse-Tung to Pol Pot.

While this raging ideological virus infected in varying degree a wide range of American institutions - e.g. media, academia - its principal victim was the national Democratic Party.

In less than a decade the party that boldly sponsored the Berlin airlift, the Marshall Plan, and the NATO alliance went from the confident activism of the hawkish John Kennedy - "pay any price, bear any burden to assure the success of liberty" - to the "Blame America First" defeatism of George McGovern - who aptly themed his 1972 acceptance speech as "Come Home, America."

Betraying allies in Vietnam, ignoring genocide in Cambodia, accepting communist aggression from Angola to Afghanistan, and bowing to humiliation in Iran, America's defense of liberty abroad was reduced to Carter's pathetic gesture of boycotting the Moscow Olympics.

The sorry Democratic mismanagement of both economic and foreign policy led to a series of landslide Republican presidential victories and finally a decade of GOP congressional dominance. Yet, amazingly, none of these severe reality checks halted the Democrats' steady leftward drift.

To understand this hostile takeover of the Democratic Party it must be seen in the context of what happened to all "parties of the left" in Europe in the second half of the 20th century. Traumatized by the shocks and dislocations of world wars and Cold War the entire European political spectrum moved decisively leftward. While the socialist parties led this progression, the parties of the center and right - shaken by their own crises of confidence - succumbed as well. European capitalism and nationalism was decisively weakened and the door opened to a continent-wide shift to collectivism and the transnationalism represented by the United Nations, and the European Union.

Today the elitists who dominate the Democratic Party have embraced the "New Europe" and its worldview. On virtually every issue - Iraq, taxes, abortion, global warming, energy, hostility to religion, suspicion of Israel, regulation, U.N. worship etc. etc. - differences are only of degree, not kind.

The fawning reception of Barack Obama in Europe illustrated this perverse harmony. Clearly Obama's view of the future fits with Europe's. They see him as the anti-Bush, their best bet ever to lash "rambunctious" America to the collectivist chariot of Europe's "Brave New World."

While heir to Western Civilization, America has always stood apart in the degree of its faith, patriotism, individualism, opportunity, and vitality. Most basically the presidential election will decide whether this American Exceptionalism will endure or not. The Democratic Party has already given its answer. In November, ordinary Americans will give theirs.

By William Moloney, Rocky Mountain News, August 19, 2008

For all the pundits who predicted that Democratic nominee Barack Obama would crush McCain in the general-election money race, this should come as something of a surprise. After all, Obama raked in a record-breaking $280 million during the primary season; McCain's receipts totaled a measly $120 million. But as the last few months of federal fundraising disclosures have shown, "the real surprise" of this year's cash chase--as I wrote on July 11--is that "it's much more competitive than anyone expected." And the latest numbers are no expection.

While Obama netted a massive $51 million in July--again clobbering McCain, who racked up $27 million--the important statistic to look at is the combined amount of cash-on-hand for each candidate and his party (i.e, how much is actually available to spend on getting the nominee elected). In this case, the totals are nearly identical: the Republicans finished July with $96 million in the bank ($75 million for the RNC, $21 million for McCain) versus $94.3 million for the Democrats ($25.8 million for the DNC, $65.8 million for Obama). Bottom line: neither candidate is struggling financially.

That said, a tied race is better news--at this point--for McCain than it is for Obama. Why? Because on Sept. 4, the Republican nominee--who opted into the public financing system--will receive a check from U.S. taxpayers for $84.1 million. Obama won't. Going forward, this gives McCain two advantages over his Internet-fueled rival from Chicago. For starters, he's free to spend his entire savings ($21 million) plus his entire August fundraising haul (another $25 million or so) before the Republican convention; that $45 million kitty, which can't carry over into the general election, dwarfs Obama's estimated budget for August (about $30 million). That's why McCain has been clobbering Obama on the airwaves in an array of battleground states.

Secondly, for the final two months of the campaign, McCain will be able to stop detouring from the trail to attend private fundraisers, relying instead on $42 million a month in public funds plus an estimated $130 million from the RNC to see him through. In other words, McCain will have far more money after Sept. 4 than he's ever had before--and he won't have to work for it. Obama, meanwhile, will still have to step off the stump for glitzy fundraisers like this week's $7.8 million bashes in San Francisco if he hopes to continue raising $50 million a month--which is what he'll need to keep up.

The big question, of course, is whether McCain's surprising cashflow will actually help him get elected in November. So far, the signals are mixed. According to RealClear Politics, McCain has built slight leads over Obama in three of the swing states where he's invested more heavily in TV: Ohio (1.5 percent), Nevada (three percent) and Missouri (2.3 percent). But in the other four target states--Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa and New Mexico--he still trails by at least five percent and shows no signs of gaining. As Evan Tracey, the chief operating officer of TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group, told TPM Election Central earlier this week, "the concern for McCain is that he's outspending Obama... but not building any real leads in these states."

On the other hand, the DNC's war chest is significantly smaller than the RNC's, so Obama will likely wake up on Sept. 4 trailing McCain by more than $80 million. ($84 million in taxpayer funds + $80 million in RNC savings = $184 million for McCain, while $50 million in campaign funds + $30 million in DNC savings = $80 million for Obama.) There's no doubt that the Illinois senator can more than make up that gap in the two months before Election Day, especially by tapping early, maxed-out donors for a quick infusion of general-election cash. Whether it's good for his campaign to be grubbing for money while McCain spends his time appealing directly to voters--that could be another story.

UPDATE, 7:47 p.m.: It's worth remembering, as reader not.Brit does below, that the RNC's funds won't be spent solely on McCain and that Obama is investing heavily in the "ground game"--voter registration, turnout efforts, etc. That said, the massive money gap between McCain and Obama simply never materialized, and it will be Obama, not McCain, who has the most ground to make up this fall. (Especially given that the RNC's turnout machine is already a proven commodity.) Bottom line, though: this election won't be decided by who has the most money--it'll be decided by how that money is spent. Whether Obama's efforts to expand the map outweigh McCain's largely negative messaging remains to be seen.

For the first time in memory, the two parties are holding their conventions right after one another. Within 72 hours of Obama's acceptance speech on the night of Aug. 28, in front of 75,000 adoring fans outdoors in Invesco Field at Mile High, the Republican Convention's opening gavel will come crashing down. How will it work? What will be the impact of these nearly simultaneous events? Nobody really knows, but the answer is critical. Usually, the post-convention polling sets a pattern that lasts at least until the candidates debate.

Will Obama's magic and aura last for the ensuing week, casting a fog over the Republican Convention, obscuring its proceedings and dulling its impact? Or will the winds of criticism against Obama, for four nights in a row in Minneapolis, dissipate the vapors and nullify his bounce?

Normally, when conventions are held several weeks apart, the party holding the later gathering has a huge advantage. It can absorb the worst the opposition has to dish out and then work for the ensuing weeks to reduce the size of its post-convention bounce. Then, when the party with the second convention meets, it can build on an even race and structure a bounce that lasts through the fall.

That's what happened in 1996 and in 2004. Both times, the challenger party had the first convention and, in both cases, it was a good one affording a standard 10-point bounce. In 1996, the Clinton administration nullified the bounce by signing welfare reform and other key legislation during the interval between the conventions. By the time the Democrats met in late August, Clinton had restored a 7-point lead. By the end of the convention, it was over 20 points. It didn't drop to the 7 points -- Clinton's actual margin of victory -- until the China fundraising scandals of late October.

In 2004, the Republicans used the time in between the two conventions to launch their Swift Boat attack on John Kerry, offsetting the tales of Vietnam heroism that had been spun at the July Democratic Convention. By the time the Republicans gathered in late August, the bounce was almost entirely extinguished and Bush's bounce from his convention lasted until October.

But this year, while the Republicans got the later convention, and hence an advantage, the Democrats may have nullified the edge by scheduling their gathering right before the GOP's conclave. This juxtaposition will not give the Republicans time to clear away the Obama bounce before their convention starts.

What makes this particularly important is that the Obama-McCain race is tied, according to most polls, going into the Democratic Convention. History suggests that the average convention gives its party a 10-point bounce. So what happens if the conventions afford identical 10-point swings and leave us, in September as in August, with a tied race, presaging a deadlock all fall?

One senses that the Republicans will be grateful if they can achieve a deadlock coming out of the conventions. They are justifiably afraid of Obama's charisma and skill at teleprompter speaking. It has been this ability that has held his candidacy up for all of 2008. His primary victories created a self-perpetuating cycle where each win laid the basis for another rousing victory speech, which spawned the next victory. In Berlin, he wove a similar magic and returned from Europe 9 points ahead.

Two facts offer the GOP some comfort if the exchange of conventions yields comparable bounces and a deadlocked outcome.

First, the Republicans have a great deal of ammunition left to fire. They really have not unloaded their main attacks yet, settling for more limited hits on Obama's celebrity status. When they unload attack ads focusing on Obama's tax program and on his naivete, they are likely to score big.

Second, each time an Obama bounce dissipates, voters must get more and more inured to the experience. An immunity will develop that will make voters less and less susceptible to his charisma. In any event, the convention will be Obama's last opportunity to speak with his beloved teleprompter. After that, he's on his own!

They grin at each other as they lift their celebratory shots of brutally cold Stolichnaya.

"Our toast to The One," they say in unison, "is that he's toast."

"Obama should have picked you, Hillary," John McCain tells her. "It isn't fair, my friend. But it just makes it easier for me to whup him."

"Don't worry, John, I've put it behind me," Hillary replies. "I'm looking toward the future now, a future that looks very bright, once we send Twig Legs back to the back bench."

They chortle with delight.

"He's a bright young man, but he got ahead of himself," McCain says. "He needs to be taught a lesson, and we're the ones to do it. Have you seen the new Bloomberg poll? Obama's dropped and we're even again. The Bullet's getting all the credit, but you and I know, Hillary, that it's these top-secret counseling sessions we're having. And thanks again for BlackBerrying me the Rick Warren questions while I was in the so-called cone of silence."

"Oh, John, you know I love you and I'm happy to help," Hillary says. "The themes you took from me are working great - painting Obama as an elitist and out-of-touch celebrity, when we're rich celebrities, too. Turning his big rallies and pretty words into character flaws, charging him with playing the race card - that one always cracks me up. And accusing the media, especially NBC, of playing favorites. It's easy to get the stupid press to navel-gaze; they're so insecure."

"They're all pinko Commies," McCain laughs. "Especially since they deserted me for The Messiah. Seriously, Hill, that Paris-Britney ad you came up with was brilliant. I owe you."

Looking pleased, Hillary expertly downs another shot. "His secret fear is being seen as a dumb blonde," she says. "He wants to take a short cut to the top and pose on glossy magazine covers, but he doesn't want to be seen as a glib pretty boy."

McCain lifts his glass to her admiringly. "If I do say so myself, while the rookie was surfing in Hawaii, I ate his pupus for lunch. Pictures of him pushing around a golf ball while I'm pushing around Putin. Priceless."

"I have a little secret to tell you about that, John. Bill made it happen. He loves you so much. He called Putin and told him that if he invaded Georgia, he could count on being invited to the Clinton Global Initiative every year for the rest of his life."

"Wow. Should I call him? I saw your husband's kind words about me in Las Vegas on Monday, saying I'd be just as good as Obama on climate change."

"I think he'd like that," Hillary smiles. "He's still boiling at Obama. And you don't have to worry about my army of angry women. We've spread the word in the feminist underground - as opposed to that wacky Obama Weather Underground - that 'catharsis' is code for 'No surrender.' My gals know when I say 'We may have started on two separate paths but we're on one journey now' that Skinny's journey is to the nearest exit."

"But Obama's says he's finally ready to hit back," McCain says, frowning. "He's starting a blistering TV campaign and attacking me for attacking his patriotism."

"Now, John, you know that every time he tries to get tough, he quickly runs out of gas. Sometimes in debates, he'd be exhausted by the third question. He must use up all his energy in the gym. He doesn't have any stamina, and he certainly doesn't have our bloodlust. Besides, you can throw that Mark Penn stuff at him that I couldn't use in a Democratic primary about how he's not fundamentally American in his thinking and values. While he's up on his high-minded pedestal, you'll scoot past him in your Ferragamos."

"How can I ever thank you, my friend?"

"You can announce that you won't be running for re-election because you'd be 76, and you can pick somebody really lame to run with, like your pal Lieberman. That means one term for you, and two for me."

"It's a deal," McCain says, sticking out his hand to shake on it. "That was inspired to snatch his convention away - makes him look so weak. Listen, why don't you stop in Sedona on the way to Denver? Wear a black wig and I'll spirit you up to the cabin for the night. I'll catch a catfish in the mill pond and grill it for you. It will be an adventure." There's a knock on the door. Jesse Jackson sticks his head into the meeting.

"Is it over?" he asks his co-conspirators.

"Yes, he's over," they respond in unison.

Lieberman's office declined to discuss the topic. "Those questions are best left to the McCain campaign at this time," said Erika Masonhall, Lieberman's Senate press secretary.

"He's McCain's kind of guy," said a close friend of the candidate.

McCain, who in the past had said it would be hard to choose a supporter of abortion rights, told Steve Hayes of The Weekly Standard last week that he would not rule it out.

One source close to the campaign who is sympathetic to such a plan sketched out a scenario in which Lieberman was the choice.

"First, if your instinct is to run on experience, it doesn't hurt to have a vice president who's got it, too," said this source, a conservative.

But more than that, according to this source, picking Lieberman would dramatically support McCain's theme that he puts "country first" above all else.

"It would fit well into the narrative of his not having any politics in the White House," said the source. "No more Dick Morris, no more Karl Rove - we're governing here. It's an easy, natural message for McCain and it implies a one-term pledge without actually saying it."

As for the inevitable blowback from the right, this person acknowledged the convention would be "a messy week," representing a "shock to the system of a pro-life party."

Another well-placed Republican official who is in regular contact with McCain's campaign predicted a contentious gathering in St. Paul.

"You will not have a unanimous vote at the convention, that much I can tell you," said this source. "There will be some blowback."

Many leading conservatives have strongly pushed back on McCain's suggestion that he might choose a pro-choice running mate.