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

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH

It's understandable if the president especially savors this day at his ranch: It's the last full day of his nine-day visit.

He leaves first thing Thursday on a series of campaign trips leading up to his arrival next Wednesday in New York for the Republican National Convention.

The Bush campaign announced the president's political itinerary for the next week:

Thursday: Three stops in New Mexico
Friday: A rally in Miami
Saturday: A campaign bus tour through Ohio
Sunday: Wheeling, West Virginia
Monday: Nashua, New Hampshire and Detroit.
Tuesday: Addresses the American Legion Convention in Nashville and then a campaign event in Alleman, Iowa
Wednesday: A rally in Columbus, Ohio, and arrives in New York City.
Thursday: Delivers acceptance speech at the GOP convention.

The Bush campaign also announced the political figures who'll accompany Mr. Bush during upcoming trips:

--Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is with Mr. Bush in New Mexico.
--Democratic U.S. Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, chosen to deliver the keynote address at the GOP convention, will be with the president in Miami on Saturday.
--Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney accompanies in New Hampshire on Monday
--And Sen. John McCain joins up with Mr. Bush on Tuesday in Nashville and Iowa.

At his ranch yesterday, President Bush did pre-convention interviews with TIME and PEOPLE magazines.

PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE

Looking to get the jump on the opposition yesterday, Bush campaign chairman Marc Racicot tried to put John Kerry on the defensive on the issue of attack ads.

Racicot said President Bush is the most aggrieved candidate, having been the target of $63-million worth of attack ads by privately funded political groups.

He said these ads have accused Mr. Bush of lying, condoning torture and poisoning pregnant women.

He declared that President Bush "stands with all Americans who want to see shadowy political activity removed from American politics." And he again challenged John Kerry to join with Mr. Bush in condemning all such political activity.

TALK ABOUT A SMEAR

Of course, when it comes to verbal assaults on President Bush, no political group can compete with the North Koreans.

Their official KCNA news agency referred to the American president yesterday as "a political idiot and human trash." A day earlier, a Foreign Ministry spokesman denounced Mr. Bush as "a tyrannical imbecile."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan dismissed the North Korean invective as the usual "bluster" from Pyongyang. And he said the U.S. stands by its demand that North Korea end its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
--Mark Knoller

SEN. JOHN KERRY, D-MASS.

In his two public events Tuesday, Kerry took on the president and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group, going so far as calling all the talk about his Vietnam service "pathetic."

He lobbed his first comment during remarks at Cooper Union College in New York City saying, "The Bush campaign and its allies have turned to the tactics of fear and smear because they can't talk about jobs, health care, energy independence and rebuilding our alliances."

That line turned out to be pale in comparison to what Kerry told a group of DNC donors at a $1.7 million fund-raiser in Philadelphia Tuesday night.

"It's become so petty it's almost pathetic in a way as I listen to these things," said Kerry about the criticism and allegations regarding his time in Vietnam.

He added that he had a conversation with Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., who told Kerry he "keeps hearing these commentators, Republicans all of them, saying, 'Well, John Kerry was only in Vietnam for four months. Blah, blah, blah.'"

"Well, I was there for longer than that number one," said Kerry. "Number two, I served two tours. Number three, they thought enough of my service to make me aide to an admiral," Kerry continued as he became more passionate in his defense of his service.

"And the Navy 35 years ago made the awards that it made through the normal process that they make. And I'm proud of them and I'm proud of my service and I'm proud that I stood up against the war when I came home because it was the right thing to do."

Later, he took on the issue of his post-service protests, which the Swift Boat group has criticized him for in their second TV ad.

He told the crowd, "You can judge my character" by his opposition to the war. "Because when the times of moral crisis existed in this country I wasn't taking care of myself, I was taking care of public policy. I was taking care of things that made a difference to the life of this nation."

"You may not have agreed with me but I stood up and was counted."
--Steve Chaggaris

SEN JOHN EDWARDS, D-N.C.

Since Saturday, John Edwards has referenced the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads at nearly every campaign stop, hammering the president for not asking the Republican-friendly group to pull their controversial ads that question John Kerry's military record.

At events in Ohio Tuesday, Edwards continued raising the issue, calling the Bush/Cheney campaign one "based on fear and lies" and pointedly saying that come November, the president would be "held accountable by what's being done by his friends."

At the same time Edwards said Americans were "sidetracked by some of these personal attacks," the North Carolina senator was adding to the distraction. At a Cleveland fundraiser Tuesday night, he spent four minutes of a ten-minute-long speech addressing the ad controversy and defending Kerry's military record.

With the recent focus on advertisements and events occurring 30 years ago, even the candidate is getting sidetracked. Addressing members of the AFL-CIO in Columbus, Edwards pointed out that during the three weeks the ads have been running, other issues have been ignored. His example: four Ohio soldiers have "lost their lives in Vietnam," Edwards stated. "I mean in Iraq," he added quickly.

Brian Jones, a spokesman for the Bush campaign, insinuated in an email that the Kerry/Edwards focus on the SBVfT ad was to "rob the president of any pre-convention momentum" and that "The only campaign to make military service an issue is the Kerry campaign, which has repeatedly attacked President Bush's National Guard service."

Regardless of the genesis of the attacks, it's the voters who have to listen to all of the candidates and the media address the controversy. "I don't think the campaign isn't about what happened in Vietnam-I think the campaign is about working people here in the state of Ohio and the United States and I think that's what we should be focusing on," said Ohioan and Kerry/Edwards supporter Mike Thomas.

Dru Bagley, another Ohioan agreed. "They're bogged down by the wrong issues. They need to bring it back home and stick with the issues."

John Edwards is likely to speak about the ads again today at events in Ohio and Oklahoma.
--Bonney Kapp

VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY
Lynn Karwoski, a small woman in a yellow dress, may have opened a large can of worms.

It's been a miasmatic topic that has been hanging around the Cheney campaign since the president called for a constitutional amendment in February: how can the vice president support a federal policy against same-sex marriage with a gay daughter who works on his own campaign staff.

"I would like to know, sir, from your heart, I don't want to know what your advisers say, or even what your top adviser thinks, but I need to know what do you think about homosexual marriages," Karwoski asked Cheney at a town hall meeting Q & A in Davenport, Iowa.

When asked by reporters, the vice president has answered the question in the past by saying he fully supports President Bush and his policies. But Cheney was put on the spot Tuesday by someone who operates far outside the Washington press corps and his answer has caused an unwanted stir days before the Republican National Convention.

"Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it's an issue that our family is very familiar with," Cheney responded in the rare occurrence where he acknowledges his daughter Mary's homosexuality.

"With respect to the question of relationships, my general view is that freedom means freedom for everyone," he continued. "People ought to be able to free, ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to."

He then restated his belief that the issue would be best resolved by the individual states.

"But at this point, say, my own preference is as I've stated. But the president makes basic policy for the administration," the vice president finished. "And he's made it clear that he does, in fact, support a constitutional amendment on this issue."

After the event, the campaign asserted that this was not a change in policy and provided quotes from past interview to back up this claim.

Mary Cheney often travels with her father as a senior member of his campaign staff. She was spotted at the event in Davenport while the vice president was giving opening remarks, but had gone backstage by the time the question was asked. She seldom if ever has any interaction with the media.

On Wednesday, the vice president returns to Pennsylvania for his second bus trip in as many months. He'll visit Wilkes-Barre, Pottsville and Bloomsburg before heading home to Washington. He'll spend the remainder of the week preparing for the Republican convention before heading to New York City this weekend.
--Josh Gross