WASHINGTON - For all those Internet-savvy supporters of Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, there’s something new made just for you — that is if you have one of those new fangled iPhones unveiled by Apple last week.

You can now remind yourself just how soon it is until election day with a new “Countdown to Change” clock that is made for easy viewing on the iPhone. (For those of you in the more analog world, most Web sites are not easily formatted for viewing on Blackberrys and iPhones.)

The application was posted by Apple on July 16 and created by Nick Pettit, a software engineer and student at University of Central Florida, but he said he did not have a direct connection to the Obama campaign.

“The campaign did not hire me, and the application is not in affiliation with any political group,” Pettit said in an e-mail to Reuters. “Obama’s pragmatic approach to social media on the web definitely served as inspiration, however.”

Pettit said it has been viewed about 1,370 times as of Friday mid-afternoon.

Ironically when we pulled up the site on our desktop computer, just below the clock was an advertisement for Obama’s Republican rival Sen. John McCain .

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

Potential Republican vice presidential candidate Rob Portman is already being hectored with job requests before he even knows if he’ll be Sen. John McCain’s running mate.
 
U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab, receiving an award on Wednesday night for her work on trade, turned the spotlight on Portman who had introduced her on stage.
 
Portman, a former Ohio congressman now widely mentioned as a possible vice presidential running mate for McCain, was briefly U.S. trade representative before becoming President George W. Bush’s budget director and then returning to private practice.
 
Schwab plied him with compliments, insisting that any of the accomplishments she’s made since becoming the top trade negotiator two years ago were because of the groundwork that Portman had laid.
 
“I thank you for your leadership. I thank you for your vision and while you’re here and perhaps contemplating the vetting process, I thought maybe I’d give you my resume,” Schwab said to laughter from the Washington International Trade Association, a group of mostly lobbyists and lawyers.
 
“Just remember me assuming you end up where many of us hope to see you,” Schwab said, to more applause.
 
Portman looked at the resume, held it up for the audience to see, grinned and left the stage. 

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Portman in 2007 testifying on Capitol Hill)

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama drags with him a gaggle of reporters (wire services, newspaper, radio and television) wherever he goes, but when he heads overseas soon, he will have some television news stars accompanying him.

All three broadcast television network anchors, ABC’s Charlie Gibson, CBS’s Katie Couric and NBC’s Brian Williams, are negotiating to tag along, and according to the Washington Post they could each have an exclusive interview in different countries.

Obama is expected to travel through Europe (there has already been a kerfuffle about where he speaks in Berlin) and the Middle East, and he is also expected to make stops in Iraq and Afghanistan to see firsthand the status of the wars. He has been an outspoken critic of the conflicts, arguing the Bush administration took its eye off al Qaeda in Afghanistan to go to war with Iraq.

The interesting contrast the Washington Post and New York Times make about Obama’s trip is that when his rival, Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain, went to London, France and the Middle East no television network anchors joined the trek.

But there are risks associated with having high-profile anchors and bright television spotlights along for the ride — if Obama makes a gaffe, it has the potential to lead the nightly newscasts and give McCain an opening to attack. 

One need only look at McCain’s March trip when got tangled up in Amman, Jordan, where he mistakenly accused Iran of backing the Sunni extremist group al Qaeda in Iraq. The United States believes it is Shi’ite militants that Iran is backing and Democrats jumped all over him. 

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Jim Young (Williams with Obama in May after an interview); Molly Riley (Couric before an interview in 2007)

OMAHA, Nebraska - U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain considers Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel a friend.

“A very dear, close friend of mine, and I’ve cherished his friendship for many, many years” is how McCain put it on Wednesday.

So what does he think about Hagel, an outspoken Iraq war opponent, going with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on a visit to Iraq and Afghanistan?

“I’m certainly pleased that Sen. Obama is being accompanied by Chuck Hagel, who has military experience, who has knowledge of these issues, even if we have some disagreements,” McCain told reporters.

Hagel, sometimes mentioned as a possible vice presidential running mate for Obama even though he is from the opposing party, has criticized McCain for supporting the Bush administration’s current Iraq war strategy.

What does McCain think about Hagel on Iraq?

“Sen. Hagel is wrong,” McCain said, while adding that at least Hagel had reached an informed conclusion based on visits to Iraq.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Obama mugs for the camera with Hagel and Sen. Richard Lugar at Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in January 2007) 

WASHINGTON - What is it about Czechoslovakia and people with strong national security backgrounds?

First Republican presidential candidate John McCain referred to the country twice in as many days, even though it has not existed since 1993, when it split into the separate nations of Slovakia and the Czech Republic following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Now comes former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn, who mentioned Czechoslovakia while joining Democratic presidential Barack Obama on the campaign trail in Indiana.

Both men are recognized as strong voices on national security issues with a good handle on foreign affairs. But both had a slip of the tongue when discussing the Czech Republic, which has been negotiating with the Bush administration to host, along with Poland, part of  a U.S. missile defense system.

Here’s Nunn’s slip-up on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON - Did we miss the memo that it was National Satire Week? 

First the New Yorker magazine tried to satirize some of the myths about Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama but drew widespread condemnation.

Now those funny guys at JibJab have put out their latest cartoon poking fun at the 2008 presidential campaign.  Does this work better than the New Yorker?

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

CHICAGO - Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama is determined to keep his process for choosing a running mate a closely guarded secret, but he will appear in public on Wednesday with two men, Evan Bayh and Sam Nunn, who are widely thought to be under consideration for the No. 2 slot.

Bayh, an Indiana senator, and Nunn, a former Georgia senator, will appear with Obama at an event in Lafayette, Indiana that will focus on national security.
The event, billed as a “Summit on Confronting 21st Century Threats,” will cover such topics as nuclear non-proliferation, bioterrorism, cyber security and emerging national security threats, the Obama campaign said.

The Lafayette appearance comes a day after Obama renewed his call for an end to the Iraq war in a speech in Washington in which he urged the United States to refocus attention on Afghanistan and other national security priorities.

Obama, a 46-year-old first-term Illinois senator, is trying to counter the criticism of John McCain, his Republican rival in the November election, that he lacks the foreign policy seasoning to serve as commander-in-chief.

The Washington speech was aimed at laying out Obama’s views ahead of his upcoming trips to Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Jordan, Israel, Britain, Germany and France.

Nunn, 69, is a former chairman of the Armed Services Committee and is a respected voice on foreign and military policy.

The 52-year-old Bayh campaigned intensely for Hillary Clinton during the Democratic nomination battle but he has since thrown his support behind Obama. As a member of the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committee, he has been vocal on foreign policy issues.

Bayh is said to have an even temperament that might be a good fit with fellow Midwesterner Obama. 

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Obama makes foreign policy speech in Washington, July 15, 2008)

ST. LOUIS  - Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who prides himself on his national security expertise, has twice in two days referred to recent Russian activities against Czechoslovakia, a country that no longer exists.
 
“I was concerned about a couple of steps that the Russian government took in the last several days. One was reducing the energy supplies to Czechoslovakia,” McCain told reporters on Monday in Phoenix.
 
He went on to repeat similar language on Tuesday at a town hall meeting in Albuquerque.
 
He was clearly referring to the Czech Republic, citing that government’s agreement with the United States over missile defense, an action he said prompted Moscow’s retaliation.

Czechoslovakia split into two parts, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, in 1993 after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
 
McCain’s campaign headquarters in suburban Washington D.C. got the distinction correct, issuing a written statement under McCain’s name late on Monday saying that “Russia’s 50 percent cut in oil deliveries to the Czech Republic” was deeply disturbing.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Fredy Builes (McCain and wife Cindy arrive in Colombia on a recent visit)
 

ALBUQUERQUE - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Tuesday his search for a vice presidential running mate is proving difficult because he has many qualified candidates.

A host of high-profile names have been circulating for weeks who McCain might be considering for vice president, including former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

At a town hall meeting in Albuquerque, McCain specifically took a question from a youngster described as a reporter, and the youth asked him about his vice presidential search.

McCain said the search “is somewhat difficult because we have so many highly qualified individuals” to consider.

He gave no names. But he said he was operating under a specific timeline that he hopes to meet “well before.”

McCain has said he wants to announce his choice before the Republican nominating convention in St. Paul in early September.

He has given few clues as to who he might pick, but McCain told a fund-raising event in Albuquerque on Monday night that he and Romney, who McCain defeated in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, have become good friends.

It was only a few months ago when the two were at each other’s throat in the often-acrimonious campaign.

“Mitt and Ann Romney and Cindy and I have become good friends,” he said in describing how he feels the Republican Party is united now for the battle against Barack Obama for the Nov. 4 election.

In fact, he said, based on Romney’s television appearances on McCain’s behalf, “He does a better job for me than he did for himself, as a matter of fact.”

He also praised other Republican one-time rivals Mike Huckabee, Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani.

Photo credit: Reuters/Rick Wilking (McCain, Romney at a meeting March 27)

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WASHINGTON - With the presidential election four months away, most opinion polls show Barack Obama holding a single-digit lead over John McCain.

But in the kissing contest, the Illinois Democrat is trouncing his rival.

A nonscientific survey by the dating site Match.com found that 77 percent of respondents believe Obama would be a better kisser than the Arizona Republican.

“While the majority of our member base considers themselves ‘middle of the road,’ it appears that America is leaning to the left with their lips,” said Darcy Cameron, the dating service’s director of marketing and advertising.

The service solicited 1,433 responses from visitors to its HappenMagazine.com Web site.

The two women who would actually know about the candidates’ tongue technique, Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain, were not polled.

No word on whether Obama Girl and the McCain girls participated.

Photo: Obama and McCain share a hug in Manchester, NH on Jan. 5. REUTERS/Brian Snyder