BOWLING GREEN, Kentucky - Katelyn Jenkins got a surprise visit from Sen. Hillary Clinton on one of the biggest days of her life so far. But odds are, she didn’t even notice.

The eight-week-old girl was getting baptised on Sunday morning at the State Street United Methodist Church, where the Democratic presidential contender paused in her campaigning to attend services.

At the sight of the former first lady, the baby’s father said: “I was pleasantly surprised and amazed.”

As for the red-haired baby in her father’s arms, she slept a bit, looked around a bit and fussed a bit.

“She just knew there was a big crowd, and everyone was looking at her,” said the baby’s father, adding that he was ”possibly” a Clinton supporter. The candidate briefly chatted with the baby’s parents after the service ended.

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Photo credit:  Reuters/Jason Reed (Clinton speaks at her West Virginia Presidential Primary night rally in Charleston, West Virginia on May 13, 2008)

BEAVERTON, Oregon (Reuters) - The battle for the Democratic nomination has been long and tiring. So much so that Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama seemed to forget how many states were in the United States.

“Over the last fifteen months, we’ve travelled to every corner of the United States,” the Illinois senator said during a campaign event in Beaverton, Oregon.

“I’ve now been in 57 states, I think — one left to go,” Obama said. “Alaska and Hawaii I was not allowed to go to … my staff could not justify it,” he added after hearing laughter from the audience.

Obama apparently did not realize that he had said 57, instead of 47, states visited so far.

“It sure seems like there are 57 states,” a travel-weary campaign aide said after the event. 

Obama has actually been to 46 U.S. states so far during the campaign. He has not visited South Dakota, Arkansas, Alaska or Hawaii, an aide said.

The Illinois senator and his rival, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, have criss-crossed the country as they vie for the Democratic presidential nomination. The winner will face Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain in November’s general election.

Photo credit: Reuters/Steve Dipaola (Obama speaks about economy in Beaverton, Oregon) 

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While Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton criss-cross North Carolina hunting for votes ahead of the May 6 Democratic primary election, one prominent resident of the state is missing: John Edwards.

He’s gone to Disneyworld, for a long-planned vacation with his family.

Edwards, who withdrew from his second presidential race in January, has not yet endorsed a candidate, though both Clinton and Obama have wooed him.

Though they’re supposedly away from the political infighting while at Disneyworld, Edwards’ wife Elizabeth is keeping her feet wet.

Elizabeth, who has had a recurrence of breast cancer, is now a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, specializing in health care. While at Cinderella’s Castle she took a  break for a phone call to talk with colleagues about Republican John McCain’s health care plan.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Lee Celano (Edwards waves as he walks with his family before announcing he would withdraw from U.S. presidential race) 

WASHINGTON - The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s former pastor, pinned the blame on the media for the controversy over his fiery sermons, saying they misinterpreted his remarks and the ensuing criticism was an attack on the black church.
 
Obama has tried to distance himself from Wright, criticizing him for remarks that have included charges that the Sept. 11 attacks were an act of retaliation for U.S. policy and that the government may have created the AIDS virus to kill black people.
 
On Monday, Wright argued during a National Press Club speech that reporters did not listen to his entire sermons so they did not understand the context of his remarks and that people who question his patriotism are off the mark.
 
“I feel that those citizens who say that have never heard my sermons, nor do they know me.  They are unfair accusations taken from sound bites and that which is looped over and over again on certain channels,” he said. “I served six years in the military.  Does that make me patriotic?”

“How many years did Cheney serve?” he said, referring to Vice President Dick Cheney’s deferrals from the military draft. For his full remarks, click here. 
 
Does Wright’s remarks clear the air, does it help or hurt Obama, or has the issue run its course? 

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Wright speaks to the National Press Club).

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - Say goodbye to the FAFSA form if Hillary Clinton is elected president.

Reducing student loan paperwork may not qualify as a marquee issue like ending the Iraq war and establishing a universal health-care system. But it’s one way Clinton can portray herself as a detail-oriented policy wonk who will make voters’ lives easier.

While her rival Barack Obama delivers a broad message of hope and change, Clinton’s speeches are so laden with specifics you can almost see the bullet points.

For voters who deal with the federal bureaucracy on a regular basis, that can be an appealing proposition.

“The day I retired from the military, I became a third-class citizen,” one man told her during a question-and-answer session here. “I just wanted to thank you for what you’re doing for the veterans.”

Fayetteville is located next to the U.S. Army’s Fort Bragg, and Clinton spent much of her time discussing the difficulties faced by veterans. Surrounded by several retired military officials, Clinton promised to bolster a broad range of veterans programs from health care and tuition assistance to home loans.

She was cheered when she mentioned the shortcomings of Tricare, the military health plan.

And she promised to mothball FASFA, short for Free Application for Federal Student Aid, a form evidently much hated by the students forced to fill it out.

Clinton’s willingness to talk specifics was an important asset for Keith Zeigler, a Navy veteran who said Obama’s affluent, youthful supporters don’t have to worry about navigating the United States’ paltry safety net.

“They go to college to party. They have the money to pay their way out of trouble,” said Zeigler, who said he couldn’t afford to go to college and now drives a truck.

“They’re not educated in the ways of the real world,” he said.

Colin Powell was President George W. Bush’s first secretary of state, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s supporting the presidential bid of fellow Republican John McCain.

“I’m looking at all three candidates, I know them all very, very well, I consider myself a friend of each and every one of them, and I have not decided who I will vote for yet,” Powell said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Powell, like McCain, is a military veteran who publicly supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and he served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the first Gulf War in 1991.

But while McCain wants a continued U.S. military presence there, Powell said the armed forces will simply be unable to maintain 140,000 troops in Iraq beyond next year.

Whoever is president next year, “they will face a military force, a United States military force, that cannot sustain, continue to sustain, 140,000 people deployed in Iraq,” Powell said. “They will have to continue to draw down at some pace.”

Powell said he was impressed with fellow African-American Barack Obama, despite the Democratic Illinois senator’s relative lack of experience.

“Sen. Obama, he didn’t have a lot of experience in running a presidential campaign, did he, but he seems to know how to organize a task and he seems to know how to apply resources to a problem at hand,” Powell said.

“So that gives you some indication that (despite) his inexperience in foreign affairs and domestic affairs, he may be somebody who can learn quickly.”

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Photo credit: REUTERS/Lee Jae-Won (Powell speaks at the World Knowledge Forum in Seoul October 17, 2007)

WASHINGTON — Speculation about who would make a good vice presidential running mate for Republican John McCain ranges all the way from party also-rans Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney to Democrat Bill Richardson. But a new Gallup survey shows the largest bloc of rank-and-file Republicans — 31 percent — are those who cannot name a candidate for the job.

The next biggest group, 21 percent, prefer the choice marked “other.”

Huckabee and Romney, who were both defeated by McCain in the Republican presidential primary race, led the pack of named choices with 18 percent and 15 percent, respectively, in the telephone survey conducted March 24-27.

Some 8 percent of 453 Republicans and Republican-leaning voters polled would like to see Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as vice president.

She was followed by the “no opinion” category which drew 5 percentage points.

Then came three other former Republican hopefuls: Fred Thompson with 4 percent; and Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani with 2 percent apiece.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent who has appeared at campaign events with McCain, also got 2 percent.

Former Democratic presidential hopefuls John Edwards and Bill Richardson each drew 1 percent.

Gallup said the results have a 6 percentage-point error margin.

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Photo credit: REUTERS/Jason Reed (McCain speaks at the Naval Academy in Annapolis on April 2)