Trail Bytes

As the presidential race heads into the home stretch, CBS News reporters are out on the road traveling with the Bush-Cheney and Kerry-Edwards campaigns.

Read their dispatches and keep up with the latest campaign news in Trail Bytes, updated daily on CBSNews.com

SEN. JOHN KERRY, D-MASS.

While most folks who visit the Hamptons are there to relax while mingling among the wealthy, Kerry's 16 hours there over the weekend was mostly work-related, as he raised $2 million upon his arrival Saturday night. Before jetting out on Sunday, he did get an opportunity to go to church and do a bit of hanging with celebrities as well.

Immediately after landing in the Hamptons, the vacation spot on the eastern part of New York's Long Island, Kerry headed straight to a $1 million fund-raiser hosted by financier and venture capitalist Alan Patricof, and featuring the music of Jimmy Buffet. Kerry later stopped by another $1 million fund-raiser at the home of "Sex and the City" creator Darren Star.

Kerry took the opportunity at the first event to assail President Bush for not urging the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to pull their ads attacking Kerry's service in Vietnam.

"The president needs to stand up and stop that," Kerry told the crowd. "The president needs to have the courage to talk about it."

His comments came a day before the campaign released a TV ad that went even further, charging the Bush folks with actually supporting Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

"George Bush's campaign supports a front group attacking John Kerry's military record," the ad says. "Attacks called smears, lies. Sen. (John) McCain calls them dishonest."

Just as the news of the ad was breaking Sunday morning, the candidate and his wife were dropping in on director Steven Spielberg at his East Hampton home in what aides called a stop "to say hello." The stop actually turned into a one-hour visit.

Before paying a visit to Spielberg, the Kerrys attended Mass at St. Therese of Lisieux Roman Catholic Church in Montauk, N.Y. At the end of the service, the priest thanked them for attending and many of the parishioners who stopped to chat with the two offered them "good lucks" and "God bless yous."

Not everyone was so happy to see the Democratic nominee in their neck of the woods, however. On the route to the airport, one sign was prominently displayed on the side of the road: "Kerry Go Home."
--Steve Chaggaris

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH

The president's top national security advisers gathered at the Bush ranch Monday morning to discuss defense priorities.

It's the fourth summer in a row, that President Bush has staged such a ranch meeting.

Those at the meeting include Vice President Cheney, Defense Ssecretary Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers.

With some 140,000 American forces in Iraq, that – and the larger war on terrorism – topped the agenda. Mr. Bush ahs already announced his plan to reduce the number of US troops abroad by 70,000 over 10 years.

If he takes questions from reporters after the meeting, the president is certain to be asked about the Kerry campaign's charge that Mr. Bush orchestrated the ad attacking his rival's military service in Vietnam.

The bush campaign has repeatedly denied that.

In fact, the Bush campaign Monday delivered a letter to the Federal Election Commission calling the Kerry campaign complaint "frivolous" and asking the agency to dismiss it immediately.

The Bush campaign also wrote TV stations around the country to denounce the Kerry campaign ad accusing the president of orchestrating the attack by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Under FCC law, stations cannot refuse to air the ad, but the Bush campaign asks that it make the Bush campaign denial a focus of other programming.
--Mark Knoller

SEN JOHN EDWARDS, D-N.C.

After two down days at his Washington, D.C., home, John Edwards came out swinging in defense of his running mate this weekend, proving the sunny senator is more than an optimistic injection for the Democratic ticket.

"First, the argument and the claim that John Kerry did not serve this country honorably and proudly and courageously, is a lie," Edwards told a crowd of 500 in Roanoke, Va., on Saturday.

Edwards likened the Republican 527 ad questioning Kerry's Vietnam service to the attacks on John McCain during the race for the 2000 Republican nomination, declaring, "There is one person who can stop this: George W. Bush." He continued, "This is a test; it's a test of backbone, leadership and we're going to see whether the president meets that test."

At town hall meetings in southwestern Virginia and neighboring West Virginia on Saturday, Edwards veered off the Edwards road to hope more than a few times, much to the delight of the enthusiastic crowds. "You remember President Bush came into office saying he was a uniter not a divider," Edwards reminded the Roanoke crowd. "It's just hard to say with a straight face," he added through howls of laughter.

Edwards also hammered his opponents on Bush's failure to fulfill a campaign promise to invest in clean coal technology development, calling it "another on a long list of broken promises from this administration." For good measure, Edwards went on to say, "Well, I hope the people of West Virginia aren't going to be fooled again."

The senator then moved on to criticize the administration's recent change in overtime pay policy, questioning, "How many times is this president going to have to prove whose side he's on?" And in an atypical campaign promise, Edwards continued, "The one thing you can count on, that if [Bush] is reelected to the White House, he's going to be with the same people for the next four years, except more intensely than he's been with them for the last four years."

Edwards didn't back down on Sunday, when he went further in his accusations against the president's involvement in the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ad. "These false attacks are tried directly to President Bush and his friends," he said to members of the national press before his front porch visit in McAdenville, N.C. In his statement, he spoke directly to the president. "Mr. President, the clock is running, the American people deserve to hear from you and they deserve to hear from you that these ads should come down."

When Mr. Bush failed to meet Edwards' demands by Sunday night, the senator opened fire at a rally in Milwaukee, saying, "It is time to say that these ads are wrong and that they should be taken down. It's also time for the president to come out of hiding."

Edwards' press secretary, Mark Kornblau, maintained that "unless the president shows some backbone," Edwards will continue to speak out on the ads questioning Kerry's service in Vietnam at Monday's campaign events in Wisconsin.
--Bonney Kapp

VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY

Vice President Cheney likes the "town hall" style campaign stops and enjoys the Q&A sessions. He's done three of them recently sitting by himself in the center of several hundred people. Last week, though, he made it a family affair.

He was introduced by his daughter Liz Cheney Perry to the audience in Joplin, Missouri, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in this hotly contested state.

"On the way here on the plane I asked my Mom and Dad, 'You know, I'm going to be introducing you. Do you have any words of wisdom?" she opened. "They came up with this very loving parental advice: 'Liz, Missouri is so important, please don't screw this up.'"

The crowd laughed but soon erupted in cheers as the vice president and Lynne took the stage, grabbed the two mics and sat down. They let everyone know that they were both there to answer questions.

"This is really fun for us because, you know, it's kind of unpredictable, unexpected," she said.

Both of Cheney's daughters and his wife have taken active rolls in the campaign this election year. Lynne often introduces the vice president before rallies, treating the audience to cute stories about how the two met or their early dating life back in Wyoming forty years ago.

Cheney's daughter Mary is part of his staff and at times can be seen pacing just offstage as her father addresses supporters.

But it's his eldest daughter Liz that literally brings a little special something to this week's campaigning. Philip Richard Perry, the vice president's five-week-old grandson is participating in his first election. Liz carries him on and off Air Force Two in his infant car seat, and he was spotted offstage today, enjoying a bottle during his grandpa's speech.

It didn't matter that it was the vice president of the United States speaking: it was time for Philip's fill-up.
--Josh Gross