On the Campaign Trail, Candidates Shape Foreign, Domestic Policies

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• JIM LEHRER:

  Ray Suarez has our campaign update.

• RAY SUAREZ:

  Today, Barack Obama was in Charleston, W.Va.; Hillary Clinton in Terre Haute, Ind.; and John McCain in London, England, all trying to drum up support for their presidential campaigns. For the latest on those campaigns, I'm joined by Jim VandeHei, executive editor of Politico.

  And, Jim, do we know in any measurable way, any observable way whether the Jeremiah Wright speeches have hurt Barack Obama or whether Barack Obama's own address earlier this week has helped?

  JIM VANDEHEI, executive editor, Politico: I think there's no doubt in the short term it's hurt him. And you start to be able to measure that in the polls. You see his numbers going down; you see him going down in Pennsylvania.

  I'm always a little hesitant to read too much into polls, because they really measure sort of the fickle nature of the electorate, but he's worried. I mean, he's been rattled by this in a way he's probably never been rattled by anything in politics. He knows it goes to the core of, is he electable and is he authentic?

  One speech — and it was a beautifully crafted speech — but no matter how beautifully crafted it is, it's not going to put those questions to rest. He knows it's going to require a sustained effort to make sure that he can reassure Democratic voters and independent voters and make sure that the Democratic establishment believes that he is the most electable and that he deserves this nomination, because it's going to go on and on. And as long as he continues to hold that lead in pledged delegates, he'll get the nomination.

• RAY SUAREZ:

  He was on the stump today in Charleston, W.Va. Has the campaign tried to change the subject? Were there new topics in play today?

• JIM VANDEHEI:

  There certainly has been. He's been talking about Iraq; he's been talking about the economy. He does not want to make this election about race. He never has, and he'll never want to.

  But the truth is, once you let that genie out of the bottle, you can't say, "You know what? I don't want to address that any longer." But he has to be skillful in doing it, because he doesn't want to put so much attention on it that that becomes the total focus of this campaign.

  So what he's going to do is continue to talk about those issues that he's had success on. You saw his campaign go after Hillary Clinton on NAFTA based on some of the reports we saw coming out of the documents that she released yesterday. I think you'll continue to see that focus on other issues.