Older Americans dependable voting bloc

With just over eight weeks left until Election Day, the two sides are settling into an unusually broad set of state-by-state face-offs.

Steve Schmidt has helped to transform John McCain’s campaign into an elbows-out, risk-taking, disciplined machine.

Presidential rivals Barack Obama and John McCain entered the final eight-week stretch run to election day with competing appeals to working-class voters in key swing states that could decide the outcome of the race.

Bob Woodward paints a picture of an administration shrugging off bad news and postponing decisions as the crisis in Iraq deepened.