Though as The Times’s Robin Toner writes today, the southern United States has “become one of the biggest and reddest of the Republican strongholds,” Senator Barack Obama’s campaign is hoping to change that this November. The campaign is putting resources into several southern states, running ads and signing up voters:

Steve Hildebrand, the deputy campaign manager for Mr. Obama, said he saw “tremendous potential” in several Southern states. “If you go in and look at the number of unregistered voters in demographic groups that are important to Barack’s candidacy — younger voters, African-American voters — the potential is just incredible,” Mr. Hildebrand said.

Registering black voters will be important to any kind of “Southern Strategy” for the Democrats and the Wall Street Journal’s Christopher Cooper and Susan Davis looks at the Obama campaign’s efforts to sign them up.

Both Mr. Obama and his Republican challenger Senator John McCain sought to appeal to Hispanic voters over the weekend. But Time Magazine’s Michael Scherer reports that many in the Hispanic community detect a “mixed message” when it comes to Mr. McCain’s stance on immigration issues:

For months, that confusion has been somewhat intentional on the part of the McCain campaign. It was the issue of immigration, after all, that almost sunk McCain’s candidacy back in the summer of 2007, when the Senate debated and defeated a comprehensive immigration bill that was dubbed the McCain-Kennedy bill and derided as an “amnesty bill” by opponents. After the defeat, McCain’s public rhetoric on the issue changed significantly, even as his actual position only altered slightly. “I got the message,” he told Republican crowds hundreds of times in the early voting states. “We will secure the borders first.” But in public comments, McCain often delivered a somewhat mixed message of his own. He continued to favor all the parts of his comprehensive plan — border security, increased employer sanctions for illegal hiring and a path to citizenship for the undocumented — but he mostly refrained from using the word “comprehensive.” Instead, he spoke of a two-stage solution. First, he would secure the borders, a process that would be certified by border state governors. Then he would push for a process to allow the 12 million undocumented immigrants to become full citizens.

The fine line Mr. McCain is walking on the immigration issue may be an indication of the importance he places on keeping both Hispanics, a fast-growing demographic, and his party’s base happy.

Over the weekend Mr. McCain also looked to court evangelical Christian voters with a visit to the North Carolina home of the Rev. Franklin Graham and his father, Billy. The Times’s Robert D. McFadden writes: “Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, had requested the meeting with the Grahams. He called his hosts “great leaders” and said they had had “an excellent conversation.” In response to a reporter’s question, he said, as if slightly surprised: “Oh, I didn’t ask for their vote.”



Both candidates appear to be trying to burnish their foreign policy credentials. Mr. Obama has announced plans to take an overseas trip to Iraq and Afghantian and Europe this summer. Senator McCain heads to Latin America later this week. The Wall Street Journal’s Laura Meckler previews: “In Colombia on Tuesday and Wednesday, in the coastal city of Cartagena, he plans to highlight a pending free-trade agreement that he supports and rival Sen. Barack Obama opposes. Thursday in Mexico, the Republican candidate will talk about the war on drugs. The Arizona senator will meet with both nations’ presidents.”

And The Washington Post’s Michael D. Shear takes a closer look at what could become a familiar refrain from Republicans on the campaign trail. He reports that they are trying to cast Mr. Obama “as an opportunistic and self-obsessed politician who will do and say anything to get elected.”

Veepstakes: The Los Angeles Times’s Doyle McManus examines the long, long lists of potential running mates for both candidates, but notes: “The real question is who’s on the “short lists.” And that remains, for the moment, Washington’s deepest mystery.” Mr. McManus runs through some of the boldfaced names of vice presidential contenders.

Spouse Watch: USA Today’s Jill Lawrence interviews Michelle Obama who is “filling in her schedule with events that underscore her roles as girlfriend and working mom.” Ms. Lawrence observes: “The result, by accident or design, is that Obama’s softer side is on display when she needs it to be: after a winter of edgy remarks that made her a lightning rod and gave ammunition to Republican John McCain and his allies.”

Campaign Trail Roundup:

* Senator Barack Obama delivers a speech in Independence, Mo.

* Senator John McCain has holds a media availability in Harrisburg, Penn. followed by a town hall meeting in Pipersville.