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 was the shortest summer vacation of his presidency. Just nine days – and it's over, as President Bush heads back to the campaign trail.

Between now and next Wednesday, when he arrives in New York for the Republican convention, candidate Bush will have campaigned in eight states, most of them battlegrounds that he won or lost by narrow margins four years ago.

None was narrower than his target today, New Mexico, where he suffered an agonizing defeat to Al Gore, losing the state by just 366 votes. That's just 11 votes per county, and a third of a vote per precinct.

With that in mind, the Bush campaign has built what it considers to be "an unprecedented grassroots operation" in New Mexico to get out the vote for Mr. Bush on November 2.

The president does rallies there Thursday in Las Cruces, Farmington and Albuquerque. He's accompanied on today's trip by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, to help Mr. Bush generate excitement for next week's convention, at which Giuliani will speak and which Mr. Bush addresses a week from tonight.

As of yesterday, a spokesman said the president was still working on his speech.

HOT RHETORIC

Hungry for news beyond the daily briefing by Scott McClellan, reporters, photographers and camera crews all but devoured former Sen. Max Cleland as he tried to drop off a Kerry campaign protest letter at the Bush ranch.

He didn't get past the security checkpoint a couple miles out, so he dropped by the Crawford Middle School where the White House press has its workspace.

The school didn't want him inside, trying to keep politics away from the kids, so Cleland spoke to reporters in the parking lot.

Demanding that President Bush do more to stop the Swift Boat Veterans group from running its ads questioning John Kerry's war record, Cleland said: "We want George Bush to put up or shut up. We want George Bush to stand up, come to the plate and say this is wrong."

The White House dismissed the visit as "a political stunt," and again denied Mr. Bush had anything to do with the ads.

However, earlier in the day, the Bush campaign's national counsel, Benjamin Ginsberg, resigned, after it was learned he was also giving legal advice to the veterans group behind the attack ad. He said his actions were both appropriate and legal.
--Mark Knoller

SEN. JOHN KERRY, D-MASS.

On Wednesday, Kerry made his third visit to Green Bay, Wis., this year and made it a point to focus on the main thing the city revolves around: football and the Green Bay Packers.

En route to a front-porch event (which, incidentally, took place in a backyard), Kerry stopped off at West High School and spent about an hour with its football team, which was practicing for this week's game. Eventually, he lined up at quarterback and ran a few plays, with his final play turning into a bit of a disaster.

Kerry described it later saying, "I got to run through a couple of plays and on one, my pitch-off sort of got fumbled ... so I grabbed the ball as fast as I could, fell on it and rolled over."

During the front-porch event, he spoke to a crowd of about 100 local residents in the yard of supporter Susan Laabs and, fully realizing where he was, strategically referenced Hall of Fame Packers coach Vince Lombardi three separate times during his remarks.

"Vince Lombardi said that who we are is really measured by what you do with what you have. And we can do more with what we have in this country," said Kerry.

Unfortunately, during the event, Kerry fumbled for a second time, though this one didn't involve a football.

As he was taking questions from the audience, he referred to the legendary Packers stadium, Lambeau Field (which has been called that for 39 years) as "Lambert Field."

If the voters catch wind of that gaffe, it could take Kerry another three visits to Green Bay to make up for it.
--Steve Chaggaris

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS, D-N.C.

John Edwards creatively segued from the swift boat ads controversy (about which he is obligated to address) to issues facing the African-American community when he spoke at a town-hall meeting to mostly black voters on Cleveland's East Side Wednesday.

Denouncing the ads and defending John Kerry's war record, Edwards easily, if not subtly, shifted gears. "We didn't care where somebody came from, we didn't care what the color of your skin was-we were all in the same boat together and we were looking out for each other," Edwards said, paraphrasing Kerry's description of his fellow swift boat veterans.

With that brief introduction, the senator meandered through the ticket's record on race, bringing up issues like affirmative action and predatory lending. Edwards then reached into his arsenal and pulled out the big guns, when he mentioned Bill Clinton, also known as the country's "first black president," which he also did the last time he addressed a mostly black crowd in New Orleans last week.

When the town hall opened for questions, one preacher in the crowd pointed out that the senator was right next door to the projects and spoke on behalf of an underrepresented constituency. "What is your campaign doing to win that vote, the corner vote what we label as drug dealers and the corner vote what we label as the lost generation?"

The ever-optimistic senator asked community leaders like the preacher "for your help to reach out to the very folks you're asking about." Proving every vote really does count this year in the crucial state of Ohio.

Many of the questions asked at the town hall regarded the probation and parole systems. The senator diligently answered the same question twice on expunging prior records. Finally, Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones grabbed a microphone, and declared there were other issues out there and asked those interested in that subject to "hold up."

Following the town hall, Edwards held a rally in Warren, Ohio, where he appealed to the labor workers in the crowd as opposed to the "drug dealer" vote. Edwards then raised $500,000 at an Oklahoma City fundraiser before heading to New Mexico, the third state of the day. Thursday, Edwards will share the state with President Bush and hold a rally in Mesilla, N.M.
--Bonney Kapp

VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY

It turns out the kind of things that make good campaign images are the same things children like to do on their summer vacations. Credit Vice President and Lynne Cheney for using this to its full effect on Wednesday as their three granddaughters accompanied them on their latest bus tour through northeast Pennsylvania.

If Kate, Elizabeth, and Grace (ages nine, six and four, respectively) had seen the day's official schedule they may have opted out of the trip that saw their granddad deliver his standard campaign speech in Wilkes-Barre, Pottsville and Bloomsburg. But it's the unscheduled events that make for great stories once school starts in the fall.

The two-bus campaign motorcade, with accompanying staff, press and security vehicles, made its first unplanned stop in Hazleton, Pa., at a voter registration event. The kids were on stage, bouncing around with early morning energy as their "Grandfather of the United States" (as Lynne Cheney has called him) delivered a message on the importance of voting.

"If anybody tells you that your efforts don't matter, matter that you vote or get out and volunteer or contribute to the campaign, remember what happened four years ago," he urged the crowd of supporters.

A few hours later, after the event in Pottsville, the motorcade stopped in front of a fruit and vegetable stand. While the vice president and his wife were shown the freshly picked goods, the girls had run across the street to feed a herd of cattle that had gathered to watch the commotion. With handfuls of hay provided by a local farmer, they were soon accompanied by their mother, Aunt Mary, and grandparents who watched the dairy cows munch their lunch in amusement.

(For the record, Cheney bought apples, tomatoes, green peppers and 12 ears of corn from Paul Levan's Farmers Market.)

After the last event, the press was told that Cheney family was planning to stop for dinner. Speculation was running high about which local Williamsport diner or café would make the best campaign stop. It turns out when you're traveling with three children under the age of ten, nothing beats the all-American Ronald McDonald.

The vice president sat in the back of the McDonalds enjoying a green salad with chicken, surrounded by the girls as they ate their Happy Meals.

"Such will power," Lynne Cheney quipped about her husband's healthy choice.

Finally as the sun set, the motorcade pulled across the street and the VP attended the first few innings of a Little League World Series game between North Carolina and Texas. The girls, wrapped in blankets, witnessed Texas catcher Chance Murski hit a grand slam before all piled back into the buses bound for the airport, Air Force Two and home.

A long day that will surely earn an "A" on the girls' "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" essays once school starts in a few weeks.
--Josh Gross