Hey, did you know that there’s also some other guy running for president? True story!

Your correspondent landed here about two hours ago. The candidate himself does not arrive until midday tomorrow, our time, and will have a press avail (word is, on a mountaintop) with Senators Hagel and Reed. That will be the major news of the day. While we were in the air, it appears that Maliki walked [...]

The McCain campaign is out with a second negative ad against Obama in four days, or two days if you don’t count the weekend. It is ostensibly about gas prices, and it hits Obama for refusing to back new offshore drilling, which would not have an impact on gas prices for another decade or so. [...]

Who says John McCain doesn’t talk straight anymore? At Yankee Stadium Sunday, McCain chatted on the field with Oakland A’s Manager Bob Geren, who asked what it was like to run for president. McCain then summed up his last four months in 15 words: “It’s like being in AA and all of a sudden you’re [...]

Both John McCain and Barack Obama are now framing the discussion in Iraq around the idea of withdrawal. That’s not new for Obama, but it is a shift for McCain, who spent much of last year dodging conversations about an end game in favor of focusing on the surge. The differences in strategy, however, are [...]

A quick dispatch before the (Obamaless, for now) Obama charter takes off from Midway. This not-a-political-trip marks the unveiling of the newly remodeled and repainted Obama charter plane. It’s spiffy on the outside, with the Obama logo on the tail and “Change We Can Believe In” painted where “North American” used to be. If I [...]

My colleague Aryn Baker files this report from on the ground for TIME.com, while Abigail Hauslohner gauges the mood in Baghdad regarding his visit. Meanwhile, I’m still in Chicago. The campaign charter is supposed to take off this evening for Amman, where we will be joined by the candidate. Scuttlebutt has it that he will [...]

Portions were just broadcast on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Calling the situation in Afghanistan “precarious and urgent,” Obama said the United States cannot wait until the election of a new President before it starts making plans to shift more troops into Afghanistan. What struck me most was his tough talk about Pakistan, whose dysfunctional government [...]

The campaign has finally selected a site: The Siegessaule, or Victory Column The announcement came through this morning: CHICAGO, IL – On Thursday, July 24, 2008, Senator Barack Obama will visit Berlin, Germany. Obama will give a major speech on the historic U.S.-German partnership, and the need to strengthen Transatlantic relations to meet 21st century [...]