Washington - Barack Obama is firing back against John McCain’s ad ridiculing the Democratic candidate’s popularity. Obama’s campaign on Monday released a counter attack ad accusing McCain of being “Washington’s biggest celebrity.”

The ad features McCain’s guest appearances on NBC’s comedy show “Saturday Night Live” and on talk shows that usually host celebrity guests.

It is unclear whether the new ad will prompt the kind of news coverage generated by McCain’s ad accusing Obama of being a celebrity like Paris Hilton, but Obama’s hard hitting ad accuses McCain of embracing Washington lobbyists “running his low road campaign.”

The 30-second ad also shows pictures of McCain hugging President George W. Bush and accuses him of “lurching to the right, then the left, the old Washington dance, whatever it takes.”

Click here to see Obama ad, which will start airing on U.S. cable stations on Tuesday.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Rebecca Cook (McCain and Obama at recent campaign stops).

PORTAGE, Indiana - A visit by White House hopeful Barack Obama to Indiana set off speculation that he might be leaning toward picking Sen. Evan Bayh as his running mate.

Bayh, an Indiana Democrat, has long been seen as a strong candidate for the No. 2 slot on the Democratic ticket.

Like Obama, Bayh has an even temperament, but he would also bring to the ticket foreign policy experience as a member of the Armed Services and Intelligence committees. As a former governor, Bayh also has executive experience.

As Obama held a town hall in Elkhart on Wednesday, local media were abuzz with talk of Obama, a senator from neighboring Illinois, possibly announcing Bayh as his choice at the event.

But that did not happen. With Obama preparing to take a break from the campaign trail soon to visit his home state of Hawaii, it is highly unlikely that a vice presidential announcement will be made until much closer to the Aug. 25-28 convention.

Although Bayh supported Obama’s rival, Hillary Clinton, in the Democratic primary, the two men displayed camaraderie in Elkhart.

Obama hailed his Indiana colleague as “one of the finest United States senators that we have” and Bayh tried his best to bolster Obama’s efforts to link presumptive Republican nominee John McCain to the unpopular President George W. Bush.

When the two later stopped to greet voters and pick up some cheeseburgers at a diner in Portage, near Gary, some of the patrons joined the press in tossing questions to Obama about his running-mate.

To one woman who raised the subject at Schoops restaurant, Obama replied, “Evan Bayh is the senator from Indiana who is a friend and is supporting me in the campaign.”

“I haven’t made a decision about the VP yet,” he added.

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Photo credits: (top) Reuters/Rebecca Cook (Obama campaigns in Lansing, Michigan on his birthday, August 4. (bottom) Reuters/Jeff Haynes (Bayh supporting Clinton for the nomination in May)

WASHINGTON - With the clock ticking on his hunt for a running mate, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama spent nearly three hours on Monday meeting with his vice presidential search team and campaign advisers.

Obama visited the downtown office of Eric Holder, a former deputy attorney general who is leading the process of researching and analyzing potential vice presidential picks, and emerged with little to say.

Asked by reporters who he met with, Obama replied: “Some guys.” As he got into his car, he asked reporters how they were doing then told them: “Get back on the bus.”

A few minutes after Obama pulled away, the Politico newspaper reported that the other leader of the search process, Caroline Kennedy, daughter of President John Kennedy, and campaign manager David Plouffe and strategist David Axelrod left the building through a separate entrance.

The Washington Post reported Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine has had “very serious” talks about joining the ticket, according to sources close to Kaine. Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh are also being seriously vetted for the job, the Post said.

Neither Obama nor Republican rival John McCain is expected to make a choice during the opening week of the Olympic Games in China, which start on Aug. 8, giving them less than two weeks to make their decisions known or wait until near the nominating conventions.

The Democratic convention opens on Aug. 25.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama speaks alongside his top economic advisors during a roundtable meeting at a hotel in Washington, D.C., on July 28)

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Republican John McCain  added a pledge on Thursday to his list of goals if he wins the White House: help people quit smoking. 

McCain, who smoked two packs of cigarettes a day before ceasing 29 years ago, told a summit organized by cyclist and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong that preventive measures were key to keeping people healthy. 

“So as president, I will work with business and insurance companies in support of programs to help people quit smoking,” he said. 

Armstrong pressed McCain on whether he would stop a trend seen during the Bush administration in which funding for the National Cancer Institute had decreased. 

“We will reverse that trend,” McCain said, though he declined to be specific about how much he would increase funding. 

McCain veered off of his prepared remarks to speak briefly about his own battle with melanoma. He joked later with Armstrong about whom the champion cyclist would prefer to exercise with: McCain or his Democratic rival Barack Obama. 

“I don’t have an answer for you on who I would work out with,” Armstrong told reporters. “Probably best just to do a little triathlon. You know, we could hike one day with Senator McCain and play basketball one day with Senator Obama and then the other day they have to go ride with me, and then we’ll figure it out.” 

Armstrong also hinted that he might be interested in running for office someday. 

“There might come a time when you feel like you’ve reached a wall and you need to step into public office and try to make change through that channel or those ends,” he said. “But not right now.” 

Armstrong’s foundation did not endorse McCain. The cyclist said he would also press Obama to talk about his plans and experience related to cancer issues.

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Photo credits: (top) Reuters/Mike Blake (Comic book biographies of the candidates displayed at Comic-Con in San Diego,  July 23, 2008) and (bottom) Reuters/Jim Young  (Armstrong testifies on Capitol Hill in May)

EPPING, New Hampshire - Though his rival may be on another continent at the moment, John McCain isn’t holding back from taking shots against Barack Obama. 

 The Republican presidential candidate came out on Tuesday with one of his sharpest attacks yet on Obama’s policies regarding the Iraq war, shortly after the Illinois senator wrapped up a visit to Baghdad. 

McCain pounded the Democratic presidential hopeful for opposing an increase in U.S. troop levels in Iraq — known as the “surge” — which has been credited with helping stabilize the country. 

 ”When we adopted the surge, we were losing the war in Iraq, and I stood up and said I would rather lose a campaign than lose a war,” McCain told reporters. 

 ”Apparently Sen. Obama, who does not understand what’s happening in Iraq or fails to acknowledge the success in Iraq, would rather lose a war than lose a campaign.” 

Fighting words — and ones he apparently intends to keep using. The Arizona senator debuted the same line at a town-hall meeting earlier in the day, repeated it at a brief news conference, and said it again during a network television interview.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder (McCain and former President George Bush speak to reporters in Kennebunkport, Maine July 21, 2008)

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)

CHICAGO - Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama went to church on Sunday and joked about being “too black.”
 
In a Father’s Day speech to several thousand people at the predominantly black Apostolic Church of God, Obama talked about how people need to have high expectations for themselves then shared a few anecdotes about running for president.
 
“You remember at the beginning, people were wondering — how come he doesn’t have all the support in the African American community. You remember that?” he said to shouts of “oh yeah.”
 
“That was when I wasn’t black enough. Now I’m too black,” he said to laughter and applause.
 
Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president if elected in November, is the son of a Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas.

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Photo credit: Reuters/John Gress (Obama speaks at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago on June 15, 2008)

 WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate John McCain admitted on Saturday it can be difficult at times to be proud of the United States.
 
“I’ll admit to you … that it’s tough in some respects,” McCain said when asked by a questioner at a town hall meeting how to be proud of the country.
 
“We have not always done things right and we mismanaged the war in Iraq very badly for nearly four years.”
 
McCain’s wife, Cindy, pounced on Michelle Obama, the wife of presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama, for saying in February that she was proud of her country “for the first time in my adult life.”
 
The Arizona senator said it was important for the United States to be more humble and inclusive.
 
“I think we can be proud of America because of what we’ve achieved and accomplished in this world,” he said.
 
“What we have to do is tell our friends around the world that we will be proud of America because of what we’re going to do.”

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 - Photo credit: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton (McCain speaks during a town hall meeting at Federal Hall in New York on June 12). 

Fox News Channel has raised the ire of Barack Obama supporters again, this time for referring to the Democratic candidate’s wife Michelle as his “baby mama.”

Fox ran a graphic reading “Outraged liberals: Stop picking on Obama’s baby mama!” during a June 11 segment about planned Republican attacks on the candidate’s outspoken spouse.

According to the Urban Dictionary, “baby mama” is slang for the unmarried mother of a man’s children.

Fox has had other Obama-related gaffes in recent weeks.

Anchor E.D. Hill apologized for referring to Obama’s fist bump with wife Michelle during a rally as a “terrorist fist jab,” while commentator Liz Trotta apologized for joking about an Obama assassination.

NEW YORK - Republican John McCain, who spent several years in a prison camp in Vietnam and declined offers to be released before his comrades, said on Thursday he did not consider himself a hero. 

Modesty? Say what you will about the Arizona senator, but he appears to sincerely feel that way. 

Which is why the question continues to come up. At fundraisers and town hall meetings, supporters — especially younger people — ask the 71-year-old why he doesn’t spend more time talking about his own personal story.

“I don’t consider myself a hero,” McCain said at a televised campaign event on Thursday night, when told by one audience member that many young people were unaware of the senator’s military history. 

“The great honor of my life years ago was in a North Vietnamese prison camp to serve in the company of heroes. I observed a thousand acts of courage and compassion and love,” McCain said.

Supporters would like to hear more about that. But the candidate is reluctant. 

“I’ve been an imperfect servant of this country,” he said, saying he did not put himself in the same category as those who served with him in the war.

Many beg to differ. Even Barack Obama, the Democratic White House candidate, regularly refers to McCain as an American hero — before ripping into his policy proposals and tying him to unpopular Republican President George W. Bush.

McCain acknowledged that his story inspires, and promised to tell it to younger voters, whose support he is competing for. 

“It took me a long time til I was in a prison camp in North Vietnam, and I figured out that there’s nothing nobler than to serve a cause greater than your self-interest, and sometimes when I talk to young people they say those stories inspire them,” he said. 

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (McCain puts his hand to his head as he speaks to the National Federation of Independent Business).