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Just ask 21-year-old Ross Colebrook. The American University junior from Nampa, Idaho, is backing Sen. Barack Obama in the primary race but would support Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton if she were the Democratic nominee before he'd consider voting for a third party.

"I think third parties are a positive thing in general," he said. "The problem in the U.S. is that the system is set up in such a way that it hurts the major two parties."

Colebrook is among those who see third-party candidates as spoilers, a view that, coupled with a renewed excitement for major party candidates, is draining key support from third parties in 2008.

"It's always been the case that third parties' support comes disproportionately from younger voters because their ties to the major parties are not as strong," said Jeffrey Koch, a professor of political science at the State University of New York at Geneseo.

In states like Pennsylvania, where voters will cast ballots this Tuesday, and in West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Montana - upcoming primary states - coal sways voters.

While increased mechanization has produced a dramatic decline in coal industry employment, the numbers remain substantial. There are 47,000 coal workers in Pennsylvania and West Virginia and 21,000 in Kentucky, according to the National Mining Association. The three states are the country's biggest coal producers after Wyoming.

Both Obama and Clinton have rallied environmentalists with their promises to develop windmills, solar power and other renewable energy sources and order mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases from power plants to counter global warming.

It's an energy policy that would seem to target coal, which produces half the country's electricity but also nearly 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, each year.

The last 10 contests of the marathon presidential race could make front-runner Barack Obama the party's nominee or breathe new life into Hillary Rodham Clinton's candidacy. It starts Tuesday.

Leading in the popular vote, the number of states won and pledged delegates, Obama had hoped to wrap up the nomination earlier in the spring to begin the general election campaign against Republican Sen. John McCain. But Clinton won the last major primaries in Ohio and Texas March 4 and has vowed to stay in until the party's convention this August in Denver.

Since neither candidate will finish with enough delegates to clinch the nomination, both candidates are wooing "superdelegates" - elected officials and party activists who may back any candidate they wish.

Obama is counting on superdelegates to back the winner of the popular vote and pledged delegate count, a notion even some Clinton supporters agree with. He also figures prominent Democrats would be loath to deny the nomination to a black man who leads in delegates and votes. Clinton is hoping to close the gap with Obama in the final contests and persuade superdelegates that she would be the stronger general election candidate against McCain.

Frank Friel, director of security at the Independence Visitor Center, made the official estimate.

The crowd exceed the 30,000 who greeted Obama and Oprah Winfrey in December in Columbia, S.C.

Obama told the crowd the United States is at a crucial moment in its history, much like what the founding fathers faced in Philadelphia.

"It was over 200 years ago that a group of patriots gathered in this city to do something that no one in the world believed they could do," Obama said. "After years of a government that didn't listen to them, or speak for them, or represent their hopes and their dreams, a few humble colonists came to Philadelphia to declare their independence from the tyranny of the British throne."

Appearing at Wake Forest University with poet Maya Angelou, Clinton said the 2008 presidential campaign is helping the country in "letting go of not only the heavy burden of ignorance, but of prejudice and discrimination, sexism as well as racism."

"What is exciting - and for me humbling - is that this contest that I'm engaged in with Senator Obama exemplifies that," she said. "And because of what we are doing, I honestly believe we have broken one of those invisible barriers that never again will any little boy or girl in America not believe that he or she - black, white, brown, whatever - cannot grow up to be president. Because that is now over. We have created that possibility in this moment of time."

Angelou has known Clinton since she was first lady of Arkansas and delivered a poem at Bill Clinton's first inauguration. She is backing Clinton, but also spoke warmly of Obama, and Clinton dropped any criticisms of her opponent for the evening at the university's Wait Chapel.

"Certainly Barack and I are instruments of this historical happening, but it is much deeper and broader than both of us," she said.

Obama draws largest crowd of his campaign to Philly's Independence Park ... Clinton says she and Obama are inspirations for every child to believe in becoming president ... Former Clinton Cabinet member Reich, 2 former senators endorse Obama

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Obama greeted by largest crowd of his campaign

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Barack Obama was greeted by the largest crowd of his campaign Friday night in Philadelphia.

The issue is their treatment in debates. Obama is objecting to the questions posed this week in one moderated by ABC News. Many of the toughest questions were targeted at Obama, the front-runner for the nomination, and he's said too much time was spent on political divisions instead of issues that matter to Americans.

Clinton said Friday that if Obama thinks the debate was tough, it pales in comparison to the pressures a president faces.

"I'm with Harry Truman on this - if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen," she told voters while campaigning in Pennsylvania. "Just speaking for myself, I am very comfortable in the kitchen."

But it wasn't so long ago that Clinton was the front-runner and complaining about her treatment in debates. After a debate last fall, her campaign compiled clips of her being targeted, and called it the "Politics of Pile On." In late February, Clinton complained that she always got asked the first question.

Details regarding the time and place for McCain’s planned Wednesday visit haven’t been set, Robertson said. The midday stop in the Eastern Kentucky city of Inez — also the hometown of Republican National Committee Chairman R. Mike Duncan — will be part of a broader tour aimed at connecting with rural voters, Robertson said.

“He wants to have an opportunity to let people in this area meet him, ask questions, even the tough ones, and have an opportunity to share his vision of how these communities can succeed,” Robertson said. “Sen. McCain’s focus is going to be to get out to a lot of communities similar to Inez.”

Robertson said the McCain campaign had been working to schedule an event in Eastern Kentucky since early April and had nothing to do with the recent controversial remarks Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, the Illinois Senator, made in San Francisco.

McCain and Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York have called Obama “elitist” for characterizing voters in small towns as so bitter over tough economic conditions that they “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” to vent frustrations.

Did citizens of the commonwealth get their money's worth for the session that ran 99 days? It depends.

Those without running water might appreciate the more than $225 million earmarked for water and sewer projects, but state workers and teachers will have to tolerate a 1 percent wage increase next year.

In all, lawmakers approved 179 of the 1,031 bills introduced. That comes to about $35,238 a bill.

The number of bills sent to the governor's office has been declining since 2002. In that year, legislators approved 368 bills, which worked out to about $8,150 a bill.

Each year, the last hours of a session produce a flurry of activity wrapped in a soap-opera like atmosphere. Tuesday, which marked the 60th working day of the 60-day 2008 session, was no exception.

Tears were shed. Songs were sung. Sharp words were exchanged.

Bills were tossed aside, resuscitated and thrown away again.

All the while, the clock ticked and tocked ominously in the background until the deadline of midnight came ... and went.

Television cameras and reporters witnessed at least five bills -- two in the Senate, three in the House -- receiving the necessary signatures from House Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, long after the midnight deadline passed.

The state's constitution says the General Assembly session cannot "extend beyond April 15."

The legislative record, however, will show that no bills were finalized, or enrolled, after midnight, said Robert Sherman, director of the Legislative Research Commission.

"To the best of my knowledge, neither of the Senate and House journals show that any business occurred after midnight," he said.

The sooner the better, said Williams, who expects thousands of new employees to start before year's end as veteran workers retire to take advantage of enhanced benefits that expire Jan. 1, 2009.

If there are not changes in the pension systems, such as reducing benefits for new hires, the $26.6 billion shortfall in the retirement fund will grow by hundreds of millions of dollars, Williams said.

"This is an important opportunity because of the new employees that are coming on line," said Williams, R-Burkesville, whose chamber approved the measure on a 31-7 vote. The House did not vote on it.

Beshear, a Democrat, said the issue can likely wait until the 2009 General Assembly session that begins in January.

"As I listened to Senator John McCain's remarks about the economy this week, I heard more of the same Republican policies that George Bush has brought us for the last eight years," Dean said in the Democrats' weekly radio address.

Among those policies, Dean said, are "privatizing Social Security, denying our children health care, adding $8 trillion in new deficits, no plan to turn our economy around or help people keep their homes."

Despite the nation's current economic woes, including rising unemployment, lower wages and record gas prices, "Senator McCain believes we are better off," Dean said.

On Friday, Democratic candidate Barack Obama criticized McCain for comments he made in a television interview saying there had been "great progress economically" in the period since Bush became president. McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said the Arizona senator's remarks had been taken out of context, noting McCain went on to say the economic improvements were "no comfort to families now that are facing these tremendous economic challenges."

Voter registration forms, which can be found online at www.vote.ky.gov/register, also can be mailed to the county clerk's office as long as they are postmarked by April 21.

Kentuckians who are 17 years old but who will turn 18 before the Nov. 4, 2008, general election are eligible to vote in the May 20 primary, as well.

And those who have moved recently also must update their voter registration, said a reminder notice from Secretary of State Trey Grayson's office.

People who want to check whether they are registered or find their polling precinct can visit the state's online Voter Information Center at www.vote.ky.gov/vic.

Beshear said Friday that "the only way" he would call a special session is if legislative leaders "get their act together and sit down with us and we come up with an agreed-upon piece of legislation that we all would stand up ahead of time and say we will support this and we will pass this."

He added, "I'm not going to waste the taxpayers' money calling a special session just so we can come up and argue about it again."

If an agreement can be reached in advance, said Beshear, "I'm willing to call them back in for a minimal amount of time. I believe that is five days to pass a bill."

Only the governor can call a special session and set its agenda. A special session would cost taxpayers about $60,000 a day.

The New York senator approaches Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary clinging to a small lead in the polls, poised to ride support from whites, women and working-class Democrats to a possible victory over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

It may not be enough.

Even with a Pennsylvania win, she'll still trail in delegates and the nationwide popular vote as the Democratic presidential campaign enters the homestretch, a six-week rush that will give voters their last say in who wins the nomination.

By the time voting ends on June 3, more than 25 million Democrats will have voted in most of the country, likely giving a preference but not the nomination to Obama.

This year, though, the 59-year-old teacher switched his registration to Democrat, and he said he plans to vote Tuesday for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

Since Jan. 1, more than 178,000 people in Pennsylvania have changed their party affiliations, and 92 percent of them have gone from Republican or independent to Democrat.

Some 4.2 million Democrats are eligible to vote in Tuesday's presidential primary, and the Pennsylvania Department of State predicted Monday that turnout could be as high as 50 percent.

If a big chunk of the party-switchers side with Obama, they could give him a decided edge.

Polls showed that Clinton maintained a 5- to 7-percentage-point lead through the weekend, small enough to suggest that Obama could pull an upset.

Both camps labored hard to keep expectations down and gain any edge in last-minute campaigning. Clinton headed to Scranton, home turf of sorts for her, since her grandfather worked in a local lace mill and her father was born there.

"One day to victory, that's what the challenge is," the New York senator told an enthusiastic crowd. "We really need to bear down."

Obama, also in Scranton, ate waffles at a local diner - perhaps some symbolism to remind voters of his claims that Clinton often changes positions on key issues, such as the Iraq war.

Barack Obama had declined to commit to the event, tentatively scheduled for Sunday, saying he wasn't sure it would fit into his schedule. The Illinois senator previously had agreed to debate in North Carolina on April 19.

Hillary Rodham Clinton had agreed to the later date, and the state's Democratic leaders had urged Obama to join her.

The forum would have been the first moderated by CBS News anchor Katie Couric.

Obama and Clinton have debated 21 times during the campaign, including last Wednesday night in Philadelphia.

Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain will appear on World Wrestling Entertainment's live "Monday Night Raw" (8-11 p.m. EST on cable's USA network) but instead of smacking each other down, they separately will deliver some wrestling-themed stumping in taped messages before Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary.

"Tonight, in honor of the WWE, you can call me Hillrod," Clinton says in her message. "This election is starting to feel a lot like 'King of the Ring.' The only difference? The last man standing may just be a woman."

Obama borrows The Rock's famous catchphrase during his appearance.

"To the special interests who've been setting the agenda in Washington for too long and to all the forces of division and distraction that has stopped us from making progress, for the American people, I've got one question: Do you smell what Barack is cooking?" Obama says before flashing a smile.

Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton have accepted an invitation to try to settle their long-running nomination fight primary on the World Wrestling Entertainment's popular "Monday Night Raw" program.

Unfortunately for wrestling fans, they won't be trading any blows. Physically, at least.

Neither would agree to appear against each other in person, so they taped messages to air on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary. Republican John McCain added his message as well.

Clinton tells fans to call her "Hill-Rod," recites her agenda and promises to be "a president who will go to the mat for you."

Little more than a month ago, few voters knew of Barack Obama's controversial pastor or Hillary Rodham Clinton's make-believe story about sniper fire in Bosnia.

Obama hadn't ruminated to his own detriment about bitterness in small-town America. And Clinton hadn't felt it necessary to rearrange her staff after her top strategist supported a Colombian free trade pact she opposes.

Obama hadn't bowled. Nor the former first lady gamely knocked back a shot of Crown Royal, then picked up a beer mug.

All this - and more - has occurred since the most recent Democratic primaries, Clinton's late-winter wins in Texas and Ohio on March 4 and Obama's victory in Mississippi a week later.

For example, Democratic Sen. David Boswell, who annually crusades for legalized casino gambling in Kentucky, is also citizen David Boswell, sales manager and registered Frankfort lobbyist for the Owensboro Executive Inn, which wants to open a casino on its premises. Boswell said he would have pushed for casinos regardless of who pays his salary. But he added that a casino would help the hotel, and what's good for his employer is also good for his Senate district.

"When this facility doesn't do well, it sends out a shock wave across the community," Boswell said.

The Kentucky Constitution forbids legislators from voting on measures in which they hold a personal interest. However, that law is interpreted in such a way as to render it essentially meaningless. The Legislative Ethics Commission says it has not reprimanded any lawmakers for conflict of interest in more than a decade.

Senate Republicans scored points this session by accusing House budget Chairman Harry Moberly of a conflict for funding projects at Eastern Kentucky University, where he is executive vice president. But Moberly, D-Richmond, is hardly unique. Kentucky's part-time lawmakers, most of whom work elsewhere when the General Assembly is not in session, routinely push bills, amendments and budget requests related to their jobs.

"It ended in possibly the poorest fashion I can remember in the 16 years I've been here," said Rep. Bob Damron, D-Nicholasville -- one of many Democratic lawmakers who have publicly complained about how it all fell apart.

Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear offered one explanation for the burned-up last-minute attempts to compromise on overhauling the state employee pension system, changing government ethics laws and approving road construction. He said they were casualties of a "seeming dysfunction with the legislative process."

But the often tumultuous 2008 session -- particularly its spectacular flame-out -- revealed just as much about the disjointed leadership of the Kentucky Democrats as it did about the breakdowns of the broader legislative process.

Various groups of Democrats in the Capitol are blaming one another:

Financial reports filed Sunday offered a window into the challenges facing the presidential campaigns as Clinton and Obama continue to slug it out for the Democratic nomination and Republican McCain awaits off stage.

Obama began the month of April with $42 million in the bank for the primary to Clinton's $9.3 million.

But Clinton had debts of $10.3 million at the start of the month, much of it money owed to her main polling, phone banking and advertising consultants. The largest single debt was to the firm of her demoted former chief strategist, Mark Penn.

She also owed $1.17 million to The Spoken Hub, a phone bank operation, and $528,000 to ad maker Mandy Grunwald's firm.

The New York senator was carried to victory by whites, women, the working class and the elderly - the third time she's been rescued from the brink of political death after must-win victories in New Hampshire in January and Ohio in March.

Her victory came despite being outspent by an estimated 3 to 1 by the much better-financed Obama - and despite a surge of voters registering as Democrats that broke for Obama. The margin of her victory wasn't known as of 9 p.m. EDT, but several TV networks and the Associated Press declared her the winner based on exit polls and early return trends.

Clinton was desperate for a win, especially a big win, to jumpstart her campaign heading into the final stretch of primaries. She's looking for a series of victories to convince pivotal superdelegates that she's the strongest Democrat and that Obama is a flawed candidate who can't win big states against the Republicans this fall because he couldn't beat her in them in the spring.

"I think maybe the question ought to be: Why can't he close the deal? With his extraordinary financial advantage, why can't he win a state like this one, if that's the way it turns out?" Clinton said in Conshohocken, a Philadelphia suburb, before the polls closed Tuesday.

Clinton on Tuesday once again failed to do well among young and African-American voters, who are growing increasingly alienated from the New York senator. She won with some harsh tactics - too harsh for a lot of Barack Obama supporters.

Obama, on the other hand, stumbled badly. He outspent Clinton by an estimated 3 to 1. He had six weeks since the last primary to ingratiate himself with people he's had a hard time wooing: blue-collar whites, small-town residents and older women. Instead, he once again lost the white vote handily and couldn't put his opponent away.

The momentum that seemed so strong in February, when Obama won 11 contests in a row and seemed on the verge of knocking Clinton out of the race, was all but gone Tuesday.

Also gone, or at least fading, was the feeling among Democratic voters on both sides that either candidate was ultimately acceptable.

Clinton won at least 52 delegates to the party's national convention, with 60 still to be awarded. Obama won at least 46, according to an analysis of election returns by The Associated Press.

The final delegate count isn't expected until Wednesday at the earliest because many of Pennsylvania's counties are split into multiple congressional districts. Pennsylvania awards delegates according to the statewide vote as well as the vote in individual congressional districts.

Election officials were working late Tuesday to assign votes from split counties to the appropriate congressional districts.

In the overall race for the nomination, Obama led with 1,694.5 delegates, including separately chosen party and elected officials known as superdelegates. Clinton had 1,561.5 delegates, according to the AP tally.

Obama, who had hoped to drive the New York senator from the race, fought hard during weeks of campaigning in the state to appeal to blue-collar white voters, a group he has seldom won during four months of Democratic contests.

But Clinton won support from two of three whites without college degrees, and about the same number of whites from families earning under $50,000 a year, according to preliminary figures from exit polls of voters conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks. It was one of her stronger performances of the year with these groups.

There was little indication Obama was winning over constituencies he may have offended when he said at a fundraising event that small-town people were bitter and clung to guns and religion as a result. Gun owners, people who attend church at least weekly, and rural residents were all supporting Clinton by margins of about six in 10.

Even so, while more rural voters named Clinton than Obama as the candidate who was in touch with people like them, more than half said they connected with both contenders.

FINALLY, THE MAIN EVENT

After a six-week lull since the last Democratic primary, Pennsylvania voters were so eager to participate in the hotly contested battle between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama that one in 10 voting Tuesday had changed their party registration since the start of 2008 so they would be eligible to vote in the Democratic race. The contest was open only to registered Democrats. About half the party-switchers had been registered Republicans, while the rest had been unaffiliated with either party or were voting for the first time in Pennsylvania.

Most of those new Democrats were mobilized to come out for Obama, and they were nearly one-fifth of Obama's supporters. Even the former Republicans favored Obama over Clinton, largely invalidating rumors that Republicans would vote strategically in the Democratic primary in support of Clinton, hoping she would be easier to defeat in November.

WHO VOTED

Clinton, campaigning for her mother, told about 300 people at Duke University that former President Clinton didn't have a complete grasp of the inner workings of Congress when he took office in 1993.

The former first daughter said her mother will benefit from her time as a New York senator.

Chelsea Clinton said her mother stands her ground on issues but knows how to work with Republicans. And that, she said, will help her mother navigate challenges and fulfill her campaign promises.

"I think that she'll be a better president because she'll be more progressive and she's more prepared," Clinton said. "She'll just hit the ground running from Day One in a way that my father was not as equipped to do."

Her win Tuesday in the important swing state of Pennsylvania was hard-fought and decisive. Barack Obama's well-funded effort to shut her down did not come close to an upset.

But despite her victory, the dynamics of the race are the same as they've been for more than two months. Obama remains the front-runner, and that gets more important the closer the campaign comes to the end of the primary season.

"He's content to essentially run out the clock with his narrow lead, while she needs something dramatic to happen," said California-based Democratic consultant Dan Newman. "A one-run advantage in the first inning isn't a big deal, but a one-run lead in the ninth looms large."

Clinton now faces a dwindling number of contests, and she's at a steep financial disadvantage.

Beshear's general counsel has said Cave's appointment wasn't properly confirmed by the General Assembly.

Fox's appointment was not confirmed by the state House, Dick Brown, Beshear's director of communications, said Monday night. He said Fox will be notified soon that her appointment is not valid. Fox was not immediately available for comment.

Cave, a Lexington lawyer who was Fletcher's chief of staff, has objected, saying that Kentucky's constitution should override the statute Beshear's administration is citing.

Cave has stepped aside "under protest" until the issue is resolved.

McCain called the response to Katrina "a perfect storm" of mismanagement by federal, state and local governments.

The Arizona senator walked a few blocks of the hard-hit Lower 9th Ward, passing tidy rebuilt stucco houses standing next to abandoned structures, their facades still spray-painted with the markings of rescue workers who went door to door nearly three years ago searching for bodies. FEMA trailers still dot the neighborhood. McCain said his teenage daughter Bridget had been there with a volunteer youth group a few weeks ago to help in the recovery.

"Never again, never again, will a disaster of this nature be handled in the disgraceful way it was handled," McCain declared.

He made the same pledge over and over during the day: "I promise you, never again."

Jenna Bush told CNN's Larry King that she is open to learning about all the candidates - including the Democrats.

King asked Jenna Bush and her mother, Laura Bush, who appeared with her, whether they had a favorite between Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

"My favorite is the Republican," said Laura Bush.

Her daughter wasn't as sure.

Sentinel, a conservative imprint of Penguin Group (USA), said Wednesday it will publish the former Arkansas governor and one-time Republican presidential hopeful's next book, to be released Nov. 18.

The book, not yet titled, will offer an insider's view of Huckabee's campaign and also offer his vision for the future, publishers said Wednesday.

"There's going to be a lot of untold stories and untold anecdotes," said Will Weisser, Sentinel's associate publisher. "But the other part is the governor's vision for the future of American politics and society and what should we be working towards? How does the (Republican) party become more unified?"

Huckabee, who served as governor for 10 1/2 years, dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination last month after John McCain won enough delegates to clinch the party's nomination. Despite a financially strapped campaign, Huckabee won the leadoff caucuses in Iowa and seven other states.

Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are undeniably exhausted. They've been campaigning hard for more than a year, and their wall-to-wall schedules won't let up anytime soon. Neither wants to cede ground in their epic struggle for the Democratic nomination.

Fatigue, however, breeds unforced errors - and both candidates have made some in the past few weeks.

He turned in a weak debate performance in Pennsylvania, took heat for saying residents of small-town America were bitter and inadvertently praised Republican John McCain. She, too, had a sub-par debate and mistakenly claimed to have landed under sniper fire in Bosnia as first lady.

"Sometimes. Yes, of course," Obama, 46, acknowledged Tuesday when asked whether he was exhausted.

But the longer-than-expected race between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination will thrust the state into the national spotlight when it has its say May 6. Indiana also votes that day.

The primary, offering 115 national convention delegates, comes two weeks after Pennsylvania gave the former first lady the win she needed to stay in the race. But Obama is favored to win North Carolina, the largest prize among the contests remaining.

"My crystal ball wasn't working well last year, and I certainly would not have anticipated this," said state Democratic Party chairman Jerry Meek. "But, in retrospect, having a May primary was a tremendously astute decision."

Voters, especially new ones, have taken note.

One day after Clinton's comfortable win in Pennsylvania, she and Obama looked ahead to contests on May 6 in Indiana and North Carolina and offered sharply contrasting assessments of the race to date.

"The big win that I had, the broad base of coalition that I put together, is exactly what we're going to need to have in the fall," the former first lady said, arguing that her Pennsylvania victory showed she was more electable than her rival. "And in fact that's what I've done, in big states, in swing states," since the campaign began, she told CBS.

Obama disputed that, saying he had defeated Clinton in primaries or caucuses in several general election battleground states and would "have a much better chance of winning" them in the fall. He mentioned Virginia, Colorado, Wisconsin and Iowa.

He also countered Clinton's suggestions that he's not tough enough to shoulder the presidency. "You know, I've always believed that if you're tough, you don't have to talk about it," he said.

Blevins, 55, of Martin County, was struggling to hear as U.S. Sen. John McCain, speaking without a microphone, answered questions from dozens of reporters.

Blevins had come to protest the Republican presidential candidate's presence, but when she politely asked him to speak up, McCain suggested that she come stand by his side.

"I didn't want to go up there," Blevins said. "But how could I tell him no in front of all those people?"

Red-faced and flustered, Blevins made attempts to shy away from McCain, but he kept asking her to stand next to him, saying he needed her help to answer the questions.

As two state universities approved proposed higher tuition rates Tuesday, a key state official said those requests and others will face tough scrutiny before gaining final approval.

Brad Cowgill, the embattled president of the state Council on Postsecondary Education, said the group has arrived at a consensus that tuition should generally go up 3 to 7 percent, with room for exceptions if schools successfully make their case at the council's tuition hearings April 30 and May 1.

On Tuesday, the University of Kentucky's Board of Trustees approved a 9 percent rise in tuition and Eastern Kentucky University's Board of Regents approved an 8 percent increase -- both for in-state students.

Officials at both schools said they regretted the increases but found them unavoidable after two rounds of budget cuts reduced their state funding by 6 percent.

McCain, a U.S. senator from Arizona, has embarked on a tour that will stretch through economically depressed areas such as Youngstown, Ohio; the hurricane-ravaged Ninth Ward of New Orleans; and the heart of Appalachia.

McCain's visit to Inez on Wednesday is particularly symbolic.

On April 23, 1964, the town of about 450 people famously served as a launching pad for Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty, a campaign initially conceived by John F. Kennedy.

Once again, Inez will find itself in the context of a philosophical battleground -- but this time it's between Democrats and Republicans seeking the presidency by way of rural America.

The alleged theft, which took place from January 2007 to January 2008, totaled $6,877, Luallen said Tuesday during a news conference.

She said the investigation started after an anonymous caller used the auditor's public hotline -- 1-800-KYALERT --to question labor reimbursements for inmates in the Kentucky Correctional Industries program.

The program at the state reformatory in LaGrange houses six industrial plants employing 175 inmates. Their salaries range from 25 cents an hour to $200 a month.

The program is a self-supporting division of the state Corrections Department, which produces goods and services in state prisons. Products range from furniture to embroidery.

Wright said that, as an activist, he is accustomed to being "at odds with the establishment," but the response to the sermons has been "very, very unsettling."

The interview, scheduled for broadcast Friday night, is the first the pastor has given since video of his preaching gained national attention in March, putting Democratic presidential hopeful Obama on the defensive.

Among the most remarked upon sound bites was Wright proclaiming from the pulpit "God damn America" for its racism. He accused the government of flooding black neighborhoods with drugs.

The controversy forced Obama to explain his 20-year association with the minister, who is stepping down from Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

But McCain says he was not hunting for votes in the Eastern Kentucky city, where Republicans outnumber Democrats nearly 3 to 1 and where even the Democratic judge-executive supports the likely GOP nominee.

At a time when President Bush is unpopular, McCain is visiting what he calls places forgotten by other presidential candidates. It is part of his strategy to brand himself as a different kind of Republican: one who cares about all the people, especially those in need.

"I want them to know that I will not forget my responsibility to the American people," McCain said. "I will not make promises I intend to forget and I will not make this my last visit to Inez, Kentucky."

On his tour of troubled areas around the country this week, McCain has already stopped in small towns in Ohio, West Virginia and Alabama. He plans to visit New Orleans on Thursday.

In an April 18 letter, former council President Tom Layzell urged Beshear to resolve his differences over who should lead the council "in a manner that best serves the long-term interests of Kentucky."

"I have been following the articles about the disagreement between you and the Council, and I write out of a profound concern for the potential it has to retard, perhaps even reverse, the progress Kentucky has made toward the achievement of its postsecondary reform goals," wrote Layzell, who now lives in retirement in Springfield, Ill.

The Herald-Leader obtained a copy of his letter through an open records request to the governor's office. Beshear spokesman Dick Brown said the governor was not going to comment on the letter.

Layzell said in an interview Wednesday night that he had also spoken with council members to emphasize the dangers of escalating the conflict.

It was a breezy, sunny day this week in lush southwest Alabama. McCain was surrounded by friendly African-American women serenading him with spirituals as they rode a ferry across the muddy Alabama River.

McCain, sporting his Navy cap and sunglasses, even scampered to the bridge to take a turn at the wheel, news cameras clicking away to record his moment as helmsman.

Perfect image - the maverick Republican wooing a voter group that few in his party bother to court.

Except that McCain, the longtime scourge of congressional "earmark" spending who has promised to veto every bill with earmarks if he's elected president, was aboard a ferry that's financed by a $2 million earmark in a 2005 spending bill.

"Her pitch was that she had just had a substantial victory in Pennsylvania and her campaign had raised quite a bit of money because of it," said Rep. Dan Boren of Oklahoma. "There wasn't a hard push or a hard sell. She asked me what are some of the things she needs to be talking about. I just told her the No. 1 issue is the economy."

Boren remains uncommitted but noted "it's really important to me how my district voted" - for Clinton.

Clinton also met with Reps. Ike Skelton of Missouri, Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania, Ron Klein of Florida and Brad Ellsworth of Indiana, among others.

Clinton's presidential campaign has spent months playing defense while Barack Obama whittled away at her lead in superdelegate endorsements. Her supporters urged undecided superdelegates to hold off on endorsing a candidate - if they weren't ready to back her. Let the primaries play out, they said, and decide which candidate has the best chance to win in November after all the contests are over.

The co-chairs of the Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws committee sent members a memo Friday announcing a meeting May 31 to consider the idea.

The committee stripped Michigan and Florida of their national convention delegates because they held primaries too early. DNC members in Michigan and Florida have filed challenges to restore the delegates.

Under the challenges, all superdelegates from both states would get to vote. The pledged delegates would only count for half votes.

Hillary Rodham Clinton won both contests and has been pushing for the delegates to be seated.

The time that Obama and Clinton will devote to these states is another price of their protracted primary battle, which already has consumed millions of campaign dollars and hurt their images as they batter each other - without McCain lifting a finger.

Democratic leaders who set the election calendar assumed their nominee would have been decided by early February. The survivor could have spent the spring shoring up the party's base and concentrating on the GOP opponent in the roughly 14 competitive states that will decide the next president.

That person certainly would not have spent April and May campaigning in Indiana, Kentucky, Montana and South Dakota. North Carolina probably would have been avoided, too.

Those states went solidly Republican in recent presidential elections, and Democratic strategists don't list them among the ones they need to win in November. Yet Obama and Clinton will spend weeks and big sums of money in those states as they try to end a nominating process that both say will last until June 3 or later.