LORETTO, KY – Kentucky loves its horses and its college basketball – and judging by the number of distilleries we drove through on the way to Hillary Clinton’s first campaign event on a four-day tour of the state, it loves its bourbon.

Senator Clinton toured the oldest such distillery in Loretto today, where Makers Mark Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey is produced. She even got to dip a bottle into the company’s trademark red wax to seal it tight – though she admitted she got a little sloppy.

“I think they’re going to give me the bottle because it dripped some,” she told the crowd gathered for a picnic outside. “So I think that I get to take that one home, which is not a hardship, you’ve got to admit.”

“There’s some benefits to running for president, every so often,” she joked.

In the spirit of the place, she even worked some boozy references into her energy plan. “Think of what you could do if we got back to just putting alcohol into the gas tank,” she said. “The model T Ford got better gas mileage than the SUV does today, and it ran on ethanol. You know what it ran on, it ran on moonshine.”

As the crowd whooped and applauded, Clinton continued “it had more power and went further and had more kick than what we see in our cars today. It may be back to the future. I think Kentucky can play a leading role in that, getting us organized for those biofuel futures.”

At a town hall in Roseburg, Oregon, Barack Obama took on Republican John McCain on both foreign policy and domestic issues - over and over and over again. All the while, Obama assured the crowd that the differences between Hillary Clinton and himself “pale in comparison” with differences Democrats have with the presumptive Republican nominee.

For the second day in a row, Obama took issue with George Bush’s appeasement comments as well as John McCain’s questioning Obama’s ability to keep the country safe. “If George Bush and John McCain have a problem with direct diplomacy, led by the President of the United States, then they can explain why they have a problem with John F Kennedy because that’s what he did with Krushchev, or Ronald Reagan, ’cause that’s what he did with Gorbachev, or Richard Nixon ’cause that’s what they did with Mao. That’s exactly the kind of diplomacy we need to keep us safe,” Obama said defiantly.

Obama then moved onto domestic issues, criticizing McCain’s health care plan and likened it to the president’s policies over the past eight years. “Like George Bush, he’s offering a plan that works great if you’re already healthy and wealthy, but if you don’t have health care or if you’re struggling to pay for it, John McCain’s only answer is a tax cut that won’t guarantee coverage and wont make it affordable,” he observed, adding, “I don’t think that the American people can afford to double down on the failed health care policies of the Bush years, I believe we need to end them.”

And he didn’t stop there - during the Q&A, Obama dismissed McCain’s record on fuel efficiency and the environment. “For him to come to Oregon as an environmental president, but his big strategy is to do more drilling and to have a gas tax holiday for three months, that’s a phony solution,” he said. “John McCain has consistently been opposed to fuel efficiency standards, to raising fuel efficiency standards on cars. How is he gonna meet any of these targets? Maybe he’s kind of imagining it the way he did imagining get out of the war in Iraq,” he said caustically.

For good measure, Obama noted McCain has not announced plans to fix Social Security or to reduce college tuition costs. Obama concluded, “He hasn’t said, because this is not something that he thinks necessarily is a priority.”

If there was any doubt that Obama believes the Democrats will unite to take on John McCain, he made it clear today. “So that’s the debate that we’re looking forward to having and I believe that whoever the Democratic nominee is, that the other person is going to be standing right next to ‘em making the case for fundamental change for America.”

The McCain camp, of course, weighed in on Obama’s Oregon Offensive, saying the junior senator from Illinois showed “weak judgment” by his willingness to bring the Iranian president to the world stage, and defended the Arizona senator’s commitment to increasing fuel standards, by sending out a list of times the Republican  has voted for strengthening CAFE standards.

LORETTO, KY – After seemingly sleepwalking through campaign stops in South Dakota and Oregon, Hillary Clinton got fired up after a visit to a Kentucky distillery – telling voters here that she’s not ready to quit on them.

“You’ve seen all those folks on TV. They keep telling me to quit,” she said. “Maybe I was just raised with the kind of values you were raised. You don’t quit on people, and you don’t quit until you finish what you started, and you don’t quit on America.”

Those TV pundits say Clinton faces an impossible deficit in the delegate count, even if the DNC decides to seat all the delegates from Michigan and Florida – and especially if superdelegates keep flocking to Obama. But the New York Senator continues to make a case that looks past the primary.

“I’m running for president because I believe I would be the best president and I’m the stronger candidate to defeat John McCain in the Fall,” she said. “Right now, I am leading in the popular vote. More Americans have voted for me. Right now, if you add up the states that I have won, it totals 300 electoral votes. You have to have 270 electoral votes to win.”

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LORETTO, KY — Hillary Clinton told a crowd assembled for a picnic at the Makers Mark bourbon facility that her thoughts and prayers are with Senator Ted Kennedy — hospitalized today after suffering a seizure at his home in Massachusetts.

“We had word this morning that my good friend and a great champion of working people, Senator Ted Kennedy, was rushed to the hospital with symptoms of a stroke,” she said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family, because he has been a champion for health care. Nobody has fought harder to make sure everybody got good health care. And I know that we all join together in wishing him well.”

Clinton pivoted from Kennedy’s hospitalization to the need to implement her universal health care plan. “What Senator Kennedy believes and what I believe and what many others believe is that every American should be entitled to the same health care as your member of congress is entitled to,” she said.

When Barack Obama left his Eugene, Oregon, hotel this morning, he walked over to a dozen or so people waiting to catch a glimpse of the Democratic frontrunner. As he did, reporters raced over to get his reaction to the news that Ted Kennedy has been hospitalized in Boston. Kennedy endorsed Obama shortly after the South Carolina primary, and has been an active surrogate for the campaign, appearing at numerous rallies alongside the Illinois senator.

Obama told reporters that he intends to phone Kennedy’s wife, Vicki. “We are going to try and find out as quickly as possible what is going on. Obviously my thoughts and prayers are with Teddy. He is one of my favorite people, and so hopefully he is going to be okay,” Obama said before ducking into his waiting SUV.

The candidate then dropped by a Eugene hospital, where he again addressed the press. “I know a lot of you are interested in the situation with Senator Kennedy,” he began. “I have been in contact with the family. Obviously they are in our thoughts and prayers - they, I am sure, will be releasing some sort of statement whent they have a better assessment of what the situation is. You know, as I have said many times before, Ted Kennedy is a giant in American political history; he has done more for the health care of others than just about anybody in history, and so we are going to be rooting for him and I insist on being optimistic about how it’s going to turn out.”

Soon after, Kennedy’s senate office released the following statement which was sent to reporters by the Obama campaign. “It appears that Senator Kennedy experienced a seizure this morning. He is undergoing a battery of tests at Massachusetts General Hospital to determine the cause of the seizure. Senator Kennedy is resting comfortably, and it is unlikely we will know anything more for the next 48 hours,” the statement read.

On Tuesday Kentucky and Oregon will weigh into the prolonged fight for the Democratic nomination, and while it’s typical that candidates hold their “victory” rallies in one of the states where voters have made their pick, the Obama campaign announced today their candidate will speak at an outdoor rally in Des Moines, Iowa. Of course Iowa is the state that first made an Obama nomination possible when a majority of Iowans caucused for him on January 3rd.

Tuesday is also the day when Barack Obama is expected to have a majority of the pledged delegates up for grabs, and while some have speculated this is tantamount to an Obama victory, the Democratic frontrunner has said he would not declare the race over. When asked about it just a few days ago, Obama would only say, “We will declare that we have the majority of pledged delegates.”

But actions speak louder than words - looking more and more like the presumptive nominee, the candidate will return to the state the campaign described as “a critical general election state that Democrats must win in November.”

NEW YORK—

Two ads were released today featuring Senator John McCain, but the candidate approved only one. The ad, “Leading” will air in Iowa and aims to play on the still-ongoing battle for the Democratic nomination:

“While Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama argue and fight with each other, John McCain leads.”

The commercial says that the presumptive Republican nominee will “fight against wasteful government spending,” advocates a gas tax holiday, and explains how he wants his health care plan to provide tax credits.

Click here to watch the ad:

The other ad is sponsored by MoveOn.org and is a scathing attack on McCain’s senior advisor, Charlie Black. Black has come under fire during the campaign for his lobbyist history, but today McCain was adamant that Black and campaign manager Rick Davis are no longer practicing lobbyists.

This week the McCain campaign instituted a new vetting procedure to find out if any employees have lobbyist histories, particularly if they have lobbied for any foreign governments. In recent days, three McCain advisors have left the campaign because of embarrassing revelations of work outside the campaign. Newsweek revealed that two aides had lobbied for the military junta in Myanmar in 2002 and just yesterday another staffer left because he was also working for a 527 group opposing the Democratic candidates.

The ad reveals Black’s lobbyist history and calls for him to resign. The commercial says Black “made millions lobbying for the world’s worst tyrants” and names some of them including Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, and Jonas Savimbi of Angola—over very graphic images.  The ad was sent to Move On members and concludes with asking members to, “Call John McCain and tell him to fire Charlie Black,” and includes the phone number for McCain headquarters.

Click here to watch the ad:

Louisville, KY–

Joining his former rival today, Governor Mitt Romney also addressed the crowd of thousands at the NRA annual convention. Even though he did not share the stage with Senator John McCain he praised him and went after McCain’s democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama, “This is a person who has not stood with us on second amendment issues. He is a man who I’m afraid of who he would put in place a court. It would not be a court that would stand up for the issues that are so dear to us.”

He told the NRA members that McCain might not be perfect, but he’s right on the issues that matter to them:

“Now I know everyone here doesn’t agree with John McCain on every issue. I didn’t. I ran against him! But, I believe that he is right on issue after issue that counts. He is right about fighting global jihad. He’s right about winning in Iraq. He’s right about keeping government small and taxes low and he’s right about the constitutional rights that were put in our constitution by your founding fathers. Barack Obama is one of those liberals who thinks he know what the founders would have written if they were alive today,” Romney said, “And I prefer a president like John McCain who believes in the plain words they actually wrote. “

It would be hard to imagine that praise just over three months ago when they were in a bitter battle for the GOP nomination. For Romney’s address today he revived most of his stump speech that he gave on the trail—sticking with many of the same issues and stories that he told crowds during his campaign.

During his failed battle for the nomination, Romney tried to woo gun owners by saying he was a lifelong NRA member—instead it turned out that he had just had wielded a gun at some “small varmints.”

Louisville, KY–

Senator John McCain went to the National Rifle Association’s annual convention today to court gun owners—and go after his Democratic rival Senator Barack Obama.

McCain made an addition to his prepared remarks to respond to comments Obama made about the Arizona senator today:

“Earlier today, Senator Obama made a few remarks I would like to respond to. I welcome a debate about protecting America. No issue is more important. Senator Obama claimed all I had to offer was the ‘naive and irresponsible belief’ that tough talk would cause Iran to give up its nuclear program. He should know better,” McCain said, “I have some news for Senator Obama: Talking, not even with soaring rhetoric, in unconditional meetings with the man who calls Israel a ‘stinking corpse’ and arms terrorist who kill Americans will not convince Iran to give up its nuclear program. It is reckless to suggest that unconditional meetings will advance our interests.”

Obama’s attack earlier today compared McCain to President Bush and pointed to Bush’s “failed” policies abroad and went after McCain for supporting them. This back and forth all started yesterday when Bush spoke in front of the Israeli parliament and said that politicians that sit down to negotiate with terrorists are suffering from a “foolish delusion.”

Bush denied he was talked about Obama, but it started off a political firestorm which McCain addressed later yesterday. He went after Obama for saying he would sit down and talk with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahjmadinejad, which lead to the continued boiling over today where the Republican nominee-in-waiting went on to question Obama’s judgment:

“It would be a wonderful thing if we lived in a world where we don’t have enemies,” McCain said, “But that is not the world we live in, and until Senator Obama understands that reality, the American people have every reason to doubt whether he has the strength, judgment, and determination to keep us safe.”

McCain didn’t spare Senator Clinton either painting them both as wanting to limit the rights of gun owners, “Let’s be clear. If either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama is elected President, the rights of law-abiding gun owners will be at risk my friends and have no doubt about it. “

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According to Men’s Fitness magazine (out May 19th), Barack Obama is not just the fittest politician in the race for the presidency - he’s one of the nation’s 25 fittest guys.

So you don’t have to wait till next week - here’s the magazine’s reasoning:

“It takes a certain stamina to endure months of 16-hour days in pursuit of the land’s highest office. Obama is not the first politician dedicated to fitness, but the Illinois senator starts every day with a morning workout, whether it’s machines at the hotel gym or a brisk 45-minute run. He’s also quit smoking. Obama can be excused for enjoying the occasional state-fair corn dog because he mostly stays away from fatty foods. He’s also, as we’ve seen, a bit of a baller. Nicknamed “Barry O’Bomber” for his jump shot, the former high school hoopster now releases stress during pickup games—including one on every primary day. “He’s wiry-looking but actually pretty strong,” former Duke player and Obama staffer Reggie Love has said. “And he hates losing.He plays hard.” Now that we know.”

Obama on the move in Indiana