On the Hustings

OBAMA CONSIDERING IRAQ VISIT

Under pressure from Senator McCain, Senator Obama is contemplating a trip to Iraq before the election this fall, an aide said. "A trip is under consideration but no final plans have been made," a spokesman for Mr. Obama, Thomas Vietor, said, according to the Wall Street Journal.

At a stop in Reno yesterday, Mr. McCain stepped up his rhetoric against Mr. Obama, faulting him for offering to meet with President Ahmadinejad of Iran while steering clear of Iraq, which the senator of Illinois last visited in 2006. "Why is it that Senator Obama wants to sit down with the president of Iran, but hasn't yet sat down with General Petraeus, the leader of our troops?" Mr. McCain asked, according to Bloomberg News. The Arizona Republican, who last visited Iraq in March, said the two men could travel together, but Mr. Obama's aides dismissed that as a publicity stunt.

Earlier in the campaign, Mr. Obama was mulling a trip abroad, but that idea was put aside after the primary contest with Senator Clinton dragged out.

CLINTON WRITES TO SUPERDELEGATES

Senator Clinton is sending Democratic superdelegates a letter arguing that she would be the strongest candidate to face Senator McCain this fall. "When the primaries are finished, I expect to lead in the popular vote and in delegates earned through primaries," she wrote, seemingly dismissing results in caucus states, where Senator Obama did better. "I hope you will consider the results of the recent primaries and what they tell us about the mindset of voters in the key battleground states." Mrs. Clinton also argued that her popularity in Ohio and Florida could deliver the election to the Democrats if she is the nominee.

OBAMA PLANS NEW YORK FUNDRAISER NEXT WEEK

Senator Obama is planning to be in New York next Wednesday for a $28,500-a-person fund-raiser to benefit a Democratic Party-led effort to bankroll the fall election, the New York Observer reported yesterday. Mr. Obama's visit to the Park Avenue home of Jane Hartley and Ralph Schlosstein is expected one day after the final primaries in Montana and South Dakota.

McCAIN SHIFTS ON TELECOM IMMUNITY

A top lawyer for Senator McCain's presidential campaign said telecommunications companies should be forced to explain their role in the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program as a condition for legal immunity for past wiretapping, a statement that stands in marked contrast to positions taken by President Bush, Mr. McCain, and other Republicans in Congress.

"There would need to be hearings, real hearings, to find out what actually happened, what harms actually occurred, rather than some sort of sweeping of things under the rug," a former vice president and chief patent counsel at Time Warner, Chuck Fish, said last week at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference in New Haven, Conn., according to an audiotape available on the conference Web site. "That would be absolutely verboten in a McCain administration."

LOBBYIST WORKING FOR OBAMA

The co-director of Senator Obama's presidential campaign in Puerto Rico is a Washington-based federal lobbyist for the government of Puerto Rico. Ethics watchdogs said the high-profile role of Francisco Pavia appears to contradict the Obama campaign's ethics guidelines, which forbid federal lobbyists from working on staff. But an Obama spokesman, Bill Burton, said Mr. Pavia is an "active volunteer" — not a paid staffer — and can hold the job without running afoul of the campaign's rules.

Mr. Obama and Senator McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, have been trying to outdo each other in their repudiation of lobbyists and the "special interests" they represent.

Senator Obama is competing strongly against Senator McCain for women, Catholics, and other groups that have shunned him in the Democratic primaries but will be pivotal in this fall's presidential race, early polling shows. Polls this month show the Illinois senator — assuming he clinches the Democratic nomination — leading Mr. McCain among women, running even among Catholics and suburbanites, and trailing with people over age 65. Results vary by poll for those without college degrees. And though Mr. Obama trails decisively with a group that has strongly preferred Senator Clinton — whites without college degrees — he's doing no worse than the past two Democratic presidential candidates.

DELEGATES

OBAMA 1981

CLINTON 1780

TO WIN 2026

TOTAL 4050