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Developments on the campaign trial

June 17, 2008

Al Gore announced his endorsement of Barack Obama yesterday and promised to help the Democrat achieve what eluded him - the presidency. In a letter to be e-mailed to Obama supporters, the former vice president and Nobel Prize winner wrote, "From now through Election Day, I intend to do whatever I can to make sure he is elected president of the United States." In 2000, Gore won the popular vote but lost the disputed 2000 election to George W. Bush.

Barack Obama says he is going to visit Iraq and Afghanistan before the November election. The presumed Democratic presidential nominee said he spoke with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari yesterday about the war and told him he looks forward to seeing him in Baghdad. Obama's comment to reporters was his first firm declaration that he will be making the trip. Obama said he told Zebari that he was encouraged by the reductions of violence in Iraq, but that as president he would carefully move to end U.S. combat operations there. The campaign of Republican John McCain has chided Obama for not having visited Iraq since 2006.

New senior advisers were named for Barack Obama's campaign yesterday, including Hillary Rodham Clinton's former campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, as chief of staff to the presidential candidate's yet-to-be-chosen running mate. Also prominent in the list of new top aides are Jim Messina, former chief of staff to Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, who will be Obama's chief of staff, and Stephanie Cutter, communications director for Sen. John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, who will be a senior adviser to Obama and chief of staff to Obama's wife, Michelle. Solis Doyle stepped down as Clinton's campaign manager in February, and is the first former high-profile Clinton staffer to join Obama's camp.