A key player in Senator McCain’s presidential bid in 2000, Michael Murphy, is ending speculation that he was about to join Mr. McCain’s latest campaign for the White House. “I do not expect to join the campaign,” Mr. Murphy told Politico yesterday. “They’re my friends and I wish them well.”

Mr. Murphy regularly talks with Mr. McCain, but sources told The New York Sun that the strategist was only willing to come aboard on a full-time basis if he had substantial control over the campaign’s message. Giving Mr. Murphy that authority would have undercut others recently brought into Mr. McCain’s campaign, including a former aide to President Bush, Steven Schmidt.

OBAMA DENIES MOVE TO CENTER

Senator Obama is asserting that claims he is moving to the center on issues such as Iraq, wiretapping, and gun control, are uninformed and off base. “The people who say this haven’t apparently been listening to me,” Mr. Obama said in response to a question yesterday at a town hall-style meeting in Powder Springs, Ga., the Associated Press reported. He said his “friends on the left” and in the press were being overly cynical about his statement. “Don’t assume that if I don’t agree with you on something, that it must be because I’m doing that politically,” he said, according to the AP. “I may just disagree with you.”

McCAIN NEARS ACKNOWLEDGING RECESSION

Senator McCain, who has previously referred to the economy as “slowing,” seems to be moving toward an acknowledgement that a recession is under way. Speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” yesterday, Mr. McCain said he surmised that “technically there’s some question amongst economists” about whether the economy is shrinking, though there is no doubt that Americans are “hurting badly.” But, moments later, he seemed to go one notch further on the R-word, stating, “Americans are fed up and I understand it and so, if we’re technically in a recession, I would imagine we are.”

AHMADINEJAD: I’LL MEET McCAIN OR OBAMA

President Ahmadinejad of Iran told a news conference at an international summit in Malaysia that he is open to talks with Senator Obama or Senator McCain. “I announce my readiness to meet with all the presidential candidates of the United States and have a live debate with them,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said, according to an Iranian-funded news service, Press TV.

McCAIN MEETS POLISH FOREIGN MINISTER

Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, sat down with Senator McCain yesterday and spoke by phone with Senator Obama. “We share Senator McCain’s freedom agenda, America’s freedom agenda,” Mr. Sikorski said, before stressing a desire not to interfere in American politics. A key issue to Poland, missile defense, came up in talks with Mr. McCain, but the Polish official told the Associated Press he did not raise the issue in the phone conversation with Mr. Obama.

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Senator McCain is up with a new television ad touting his Vietnam War service and his record as a “maverick” in the Senate, while Senator Obama is out with a spot faulting Mr. McCain’s response to the spike in gasoline prices. Mr. McCain’s ad opens with film of 1960s hippies before turning abruptly to images of the future senator as a pilot and POW. “Shot down. Bayoneted. Tortured,” an announcer declares. “His philosophy: before party, polls, and self … America.”

Mr. Obama’s spot, which responds to critical ads funded by the Republican Party, shows Mr. McCain hugging President Bush and says their plans for new oil drilling “won’t produce a drop of oil for seven years.”

OBAMA DAUGHTERS IN RARE TV INTERVIEW

Senator Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, granted an unusual group interview to “Access Hollywood” showcasing the presumptive Democratic nominee’s family life. Malia said she sometimes gives her father advice, like not to offer a handshake to a youngster. “I was like, ‘You know, Daddy, you really don’t shake kids’ hands that much. You shake adults’ hands. … You just wave or you say ‘Hi,'” she said.

“She avoids me embarrassing her by giving these tips,” Mr. Obama explained.

Mrs. Obama gave few details when asked how the couple gets to share “an intimate moment” given the jam-packed presidential campaign schedule. “We have our alone time,” she said. “Our staff, they’re good about making sure that we get space.”