From the Los Angeles Times:
Barack Obama met with U.S. troops and received a military briefing on conditions in Afghanistan on Saturday during the opening leg of an overseas trip. …Obama's trip is scheduled to include a visit to Iraq, and his foreign policy judgment got an unexpected boost from that country's leader, Nouri Maliki, who praised the Democratic presidential candidate's plan for withdrawing U.S. troops over a 16-month period. In an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, Maliki embraced Obama's plan, saying: "That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes." …The Obama campaign put out a statement from his senior foreign policy advisor, Susan Rice: "Sen. Obama welcomes Prime Minister Maliki's support for a 16-month timeline for the redeployment of U.S. combat brigades. This presents an important opportunity to transition to Iraqi responsibility, while restoring our military and increasing our commitment to finish the fight in Afghanistan." …The presumptive Democratic nominee and senator from Illinois is part of an official congressional delegation that includes Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.). The lawmakers made a brief visit to Jalalabad airfield in eastern Afghanistan, greeting American troops from their respective home states.
From the Boston Globe:
[Barack Obama's] campaign already has by far the largest full-time paid staff in presidential campaign history, and unlike Republican rival John McCain's, continues to grow by the day.…Large staffs are working in traditional battleground states and every state will have at least some paid staff, with "large-scale operations in 22 states, medium operations in many others, and small staffs in only a handful of states," Hildebrand said.Obama and the Democratic Party have about 200 paid staffers working in Florida and more on the way, 90 in Michigan with plans to expand to 200 by August, at least 200 each eventually in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and 50 in Missouri with plans to expand to 150, according to published reports and interviews with Obama campaign officials. Hildebrand said state organizations should be at full strength by the end of August…As of May 31, the Obama campaign staff was well over twice the size of the Bush reelection campaign staff in 2004 and nearly three times the size of McCain's current staff, and has expanded significantly since.…Underlying the optimism is an unerring faith in the premise of the Obama candidacy that many Americans are angry, anxious, and engaged as never before in the political process because they want change.…"The climate has made millions of Americans who haven't been involved in a political campaign ever in their lifetimes very active," Hildebrand said. "We estimate that 70 percent of our grass-roots volunteers haven't worked in a campaign before. . . . We're somewhere just shy of 2 million volunteers, and we think we can potentially triple that on Election Day.... We think the turnout will be beyond record turnout, and if we're effective, we will have done two additional things - brought in millions of new people who are registered to vote and we will increase the percentage of registered voters who will turn out."
From the Grand Forks Herald:
...Obama isn’t paying attention to history. His campaign is serious about carrying [North Dakota].Anita Decker is heading the Obama campaign in North Dakota. Until her appointment early this month, no one here had heard of her, but Obama knows her well. …Just two weeks into her job — the press release announcing her appointment is dated July 9 — Decker has created quite a stir. She’s put together a string of events, last week including a picnic in Grand Forks and opening a campaign office in Bismarck. This week, the campaign will be at the State Fair in Minot. …Already, the campaign has the largest presence in the state that any Democrat, and probably any modern presidential candidate, ever has achieved. By the end of the summer, the campaign plans to have 50 campaign staff in North Dakota.All of this is unprecedented....His politics of aspiration, a belief that something can be done, fits closely with the rising tide of optimism that seems to be developing in North Dakota. Of course, he brings a community organizer’s understanding of how politics operate and how change is made.An inviolate rule of that game is to work where you can win. Given the pace of the campaign here, Obama believes he can win in North Dakota.
From the News Journal:
Let the grass-roots campaigning begin. Rain soaked the afternoon session, but supporters of Democrat Barack Obama's campaign kicked off a statewide door-to-door effort Saturday morning in Daytona Beach and more than 100 other communities. ...Jennifer Kuiper of Ormond Beach was one of about 30 Obama supporters who knocked on doors Saturday morning. Of the 50 doors she knocked on, the Flagler County English teacher was able to register six new voters. "We had a really good reception," she said of the neighborhood near Derbyshire Road, which she canvassed. "Most of them had decided on Obama already, but there were a few undecideds."
From the Pueblo Chieftain:
Volunteers scoured Pueblo's neighborhoods Saturday in search of voters. Pueblo's Barack Obama campaign office sent 16 volunteers in pairs into neighborhoods throughout the city to get people to sign up to vote, whatever their affiliation. With late-morning clear skies and temperature nearing 90 degrees, the teams tried to keep cool as they began knocking on doors and signing up voters. Kevin Ketchum, 23, drove from Florence to get an early start in his assigned area on Pueblo's West Side. His target area consisted of at least 100 houses and apartments in a three-block radius, starting with the Bethlehem Square Apartments on West 12th Street. This year was Ketchum's first to help with any campaign, he said, and it was his faith in Obama that convinced him to volunteer. "I want to do what I can to get Obama in the White House," Ketchum, who works at a local restaurant, said. ...Privately, Ketchum said he supports Obama because he "feels like he's more in touch with the common man" and with what direction the nation should take. Ketchum stuck to the map he was given and tried to stay on course. He said he was able to sign up people walking by but didn't want to get lost. Pueblo's campaign is a "grass-roots" effort, Ketchum said, run mainly on many small contributions and small volunteer groups, like the majority of newcomers to the political game who volunteered Saturday. But, small or large, Ketchum said he was confident it was enough to change things. "We're the ones who will make the difference," he said.
