By late afternoon, some 56,000 calls had come in to the more than 30 Election Protection call centers linking trained legal volunteers with voters, said  Marjorie Press Lindblom, director of a command center at Kirkland & Ellis LLP, a New York law firm where she is a partner.

Most of the calls to 1-866-OUR-VOTE were run-of-the-mill complaints about long lines, broken voting machines or confusion over paper ballots, said volunteers at the Kirkland & Ellis command center.

One call reported a poll worker in New York illegally asking voters for their party affiliation, one found a polling place that opened three hours late and one was a call froma woman who was asked to pay $40 to register to vote, they said.

Other callers needed help navigating the bureaucracy, such as a caller from Wisconsin who was living in a hotel and had no way to prove his legal residence to vote, said Mike Edsall, also a partner at Kirkland & Ellis.

 "It's empowering," he said of the volunteer work. "It's fun to be able to sit and puzzle though the problems with people and get them to where they can vote.

"You just give people the best advice you can," he said.

Working alongside the legal experts were volunteers for Video the Vote, a national network of volunteers armed with video cameras ready to record incidents of trouble at voting booths.

"I wanted to do something that wasn't part of a campaign, that was non-partisan, that said everyone has a right to vote, to participate in the process," said Christopher VanDijk, a New York-based actor and playwright who was volunteering with Video the Vote.

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Hart, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988, said he wished media outlets would send reporters with specialized expertise to cover candidates delivering major policy speeches.

"Do not send your political reporter to cover the speech. Send your foreign policy reporter or your economic reporter or your defense reporter," said Hart, whose second presidential bid was derailed by a sex scandal.

Hart, a former Democratic senator from Colorado, and Kerrey, a former Democratic  senator from Nebraska, appeared at a press forum in New York sponsored by the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, The New Yorker and Conde Nast Publications.

Kerrey, who ran for president in 1992, said his biggest frustration with the media was "short memories."

But he added: "It can work to your advantage as well as to your disadvantage."

Hart also noted that with access to the Internet and the growth of new media, "everybody's a journalist."

But Kerry quickly disagreed. "I would say that everybody is writing and putting stuff out there, but that doesn't make them a journalist in my view, " he said.

Kerrey, who is president of the New School in New York, recalled reading letters written during the 1860 presidential campaign by President Abraham Lincoln while seeking the same job more than a century later.

"His complaint was 'I have to say the same thing over and over and over,'" Kerry said. "He's basically complaining about having to stay on message."

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Photo credits: Reuters/Shaun Heasley (Kerrey in 2004, top; Hart in 2004, bottom)

Half of children and young adults age 8 to 17 would vote for Obama, according to the survey by the Harris Interactive Youth Center of Excellence.

Twenty-nine percent said they would pick Republican John McCain, while 18 percent said they were not sure, the survey said.

The survey was conducted online among 1,064 youth ages 8 to 17 between Sept. 17 and Sept. 22. Harris Interactive, a custom market research company based in Rochester, New York,  said it does not calculate or estimate a margin of error.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Baby at Obama rally in Ft. Wayne , Indiana in May)

"We really need to have more support for science in the White House, and we haven't had that in the last eight years," Chalfie said in an interview at his home in New York. He is a professor of biological sciences at Columbia University.

Chalfie said he called an old friend, Robert Horvitz, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2002, in order to join with the Nobel laureates in the sciences who have published an open letter in support of Obama. Horvitz was one of the 61 Nobel winners who signed the letter, dated Sept. 25.

"I said, 'Bob, the one thing I really want to do is, I understand there's a list of Nobel Prize winners supporting Barack Obama, and I want to get my name on the list,'" Chalfie said.

In the letter, the Nobel winners in medicine, physics and chemistry wrote: "The country urgently needs a visionary leader who can ensure the future of our traditional strengths in science and technology and who can harness those strengths to address many of our greatest problems: energy, disease, climate change, security, and economic competitiveness.

"We are convinced that Senator Barack Obama is such a leader," they wrote.

"During the administration of George W. Bush, vital parts of our country's scientific enterprise have been damaged by stagnant or declining federal support. The government's scientific advisory process has been distorted by political considerations. As a result, our once dominant position in the scientific world has been shaken and our prosperity has been placed at risk. We have lost time critical for the development of new
ways to provide energy, treat disease, reverse climate change, strengthen our security, and improve our economy.

"We have watched Senator Obama's approach to these issues with admiration. We especially applaud his emphasis during the campaign on the power of science and technology to enhance our nation's competitiveness. In particular, we support the measures he plans to take - through new initiatives in education and training, expanded research funding, an unbiased process for obtaining scientific advice, and an appropriate balance of basic and applied research - to meet the nation's and the world's most urgent needs.

"Senator Obama understands that Presidential leadership and federal investments in science and technology are crucial elements in successful governance of the world's leading country," they wrote.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Chip East (Martin Chalfie explains his work to journalists while his dog Bernie does tricks in his apartment)

Aides to John McCain bought a supply of Philadelphia’s trademark cheesesteaks for media covering his campaign this week from Geno’s – renowned for its signs that read “This is America. When ordering please speak English.”

The signs have sparked controversy, even though owner Joey Vento has said he does not refuse service to non-English speaking customers.

Critics say the signs are intimidating.

The Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations looked into the controversy and, earlier this year, ruled in a split decision that the signs did not constitute discrimination.

When Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton campaigned in Philadelphia ahead of the Pennsylvania primary this spring, they each sampled a cheesesteak – but neither ate at Geno's, according to local media reports.

McCain was nowhere near the press corps when the Geno's order arrived at the Philadelphia hotel on Tuesday, so it was not known if he ate one. The McCain campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

The order came with a supply of bumper stickers featuring Geno's saying, a few of which now decorate the press section in the back of McCain's campaign plane where reporters and photographers hang pictures and mementoes from months on the road.

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The presidential nominee, touring an Ohio factory that makes parts for nuclear power plants, said the United States needs to build 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030 to create jobs and to help achieve energy independence.

"It's obvious to me we will be expanding nuclear power plants in America," McCain said, adding that the nation also needs to store and reprocess nuclear fuel.

"We can do that. Other countries in the world are doing that, and we can as well," he said.

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Photo credit: Reuters (Three Mile Island) 

"Sarah, Sarah, Sarah," chanted the crowd as the Republican vice presidential candidate stepped on stage in the town of Media.

"I see a lot of hockey moms out there for McCain," she said as the crowd roared its approval. She went on to introduce her family, calling husband Todd "Alaska's First Dude," before pointing out their daughters Willow and Piper.

Palin quickly launched into criticisms of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, whom she said "likes to point the finger of blame but, tell me, has he ever lifted a finger to help?"   

"In order to get others to say ‘Yes' to change, has he ever told his own party ‘No?'" she asked. "When it comes to reform, he likes to say, ‘I will,' but has he ever been able to say, ‘We did?'"

The two Republican candidates go their separate ways again on Tuesday, when McCain campaigns in Ohio and Michigan while Palin meets with several foreign leaders in New York.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Eric Miller (Palin supporter at Minnesota rally)

A woman in the audience thanked the Arizona senator for choosing Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate and accused the media of putting more effort into investigating Palin than  the Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama.

"We want the media to start doing their jobs and stop picking on little children because of their age and their pregnancies," she said, in reference to Palin's unwed, pregnant 17-year-old daughter Bristol. "Shame on you. Shame on you."

McCain waited until the applause died down and replied: "That is a great question."

"Gov. Palin, she can take it," he said. "She's a reformer, and she will bring change, and she will bring reform, and that's what Americans want very badly today."

Separately, McCain's senior advisor Steve Schmidt expressed outrage in a conference call with reporters over coverage of the campaign by The New York Times.

The Times on Monday ran a story saying McCain's campaign manager worked for several years to help defend mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac against stricter regulations.  The story comes at a time when McCain is criticizing the mortgage giants for avoiding increased regulation.

"Whatever The New York Times once was, it is today not by any standard a journalistic organization. It is a pro-Obama advocacy organization that every day attacks the McCain campaign, attacks Senator McCain, attacks Governor Palin, and excuses Senator Obama," Schmidt said. "This is an organization that is completely, totally, 150 percent in the tank for the Democratic candidate."

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Photo credit: Reuters/Mike Segar (McCain shakes hands with Bristol Palin, who is standing next to boyfriend Levi Johnston at the Republican National Convention)

The three years Obama spent as a community organizer "maybe ... is the first problem on the resume," said former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in his speech at the Republican convention on Wednesday.

Giuliani, who failed in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination and now runs a lucrative consulting firm, said community organizing sounded as though Obama had "immersed himself in Chicago machine politics."

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin also took a swipe in her speech,  saying her experience as a small-town mayor in Alaska was similar to being a community organizer, "except that you have actual responsibilities."

Obama was a community organizer after college in Chicago. He worked with a church-based group trying to improve conditions in poor neighborhoods and communities hurt when steel plants closed, according to his official campaign website.

He then went to Harvard Law School, became a civil rights lawyer, taught law and ran for the Ilinois State Senate. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004.

On the campaign trail on Thursday, Obama told a crowd in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that the Republicans "really had fun talking about the work I did after college."

"I don't know if they understand what it means for a young person, at the age of 22 or 23, to pass up more lucrative options and work with people who are having a tough time and seeing that when people work together, we can do amazing things, rebuilding communities and setting up job training centers and setting up afterschool programs for kids.

"Maybe that's not really interesting work for Rudy Giuliani, but for the people on the ground who are seeing a difference in their lives, that's important stuff," he said.

At another campaign stop in York, Pennsylvania, he said the remarks about community organizing showed Republicans were out of touch.

"Why would that kind of work be ridiculous?" he asked. "Do they think that the lives of those folks who are struggling each and every day, that working with them to try and improve their lives, is somehow not relevant to the presidency?

"I think maybe that's the problem. That's part of why they're out of touch, and they don't get it because they haven't spent much time working on behalf of those folks," he said.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Matt Sullivan (Obama campaigning) 

The Republican presidential candidate, who is staying at his comfortable home in the hills near Sedona, has been driven with staff, Secret Service, reporters, photographer and a television crew in tow to a Starbucks.

There, he quickly gets a cup to go and returns home.

On Friday, the six-vehicle motorcade -- four SUVS and two vans-- drove him 19 miles roundtrip to a Starbucks in Sedona.

On Thursday, the entourage of nine vehicles made a similar trip to a Starbucks in Cottonwood and back.

Members of the media are kept well away, confined inside the two vans, where they occupy themselves determining what McCain ordered, whether Cindy McCain's shorts were white or khaki, how much fuel the trips consumed or why the candidate doesn't just send an aide out for the coffee instead. 

For the record, on Thursday McCain had a cappuccino. Mrs. McCain's shorts were khaki on Friday. The questions of fuel consumption and why an aide doesn't fetch the coffee remained unanswered.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Mark Avery (Make-up artist tends to McCain at forum in California)