Today on the presidential campaign trail

Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., hugs Stephanie Alloush and her daughter Tayler, foreground, who cried after greeting Obama near the Harry Truman National Historic Site in Independence, Mo., on Monday, June 30, 2008. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

IN THE HEADLINES

Obama announces support and expansion for Bush's faith based programs ... McCain to visit Colombia, Mexico to show support for free trade ... Hispanic voters gaining strength in key states

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Obama to expand Bush's faith based programs

ZANESVILLE, Ohio (AP) -- Taking a page from President Bush, Democrat Barack Obama said Tuesday he wants to expand White House efforts to steer social service dollars to religious groups, risking protests in his own party with his latest aggressive reach for voters who usually vote Republican.

Obama contended he is merely stating long-held positions -- surprising to some, he said, after a primary campaign in which he was "tagged as being on the left."

In recent days, with the Democratic nomination in hand and the general election battle with Republican John McCain ahead, Obama has been sounding centrist themes with comments on guns, government surveillance and capital punishment. He's even quoted Ronald Reagan.

On Tuesday, touring Presbyterian Church-based social services facility, the Democratic senator said he would get religious charities more involved in government anti-poverty efforts if elected.

"We need an all-hands-on-deck approach," he said at Eastside Community Ministry.

The event was part of a series leading into Friday's Fourth of July holiday aimed at reassuring skeptical voters and shifting away from being stamped as part of the Democratic Party's most liberal wing.

He said the connection of religion and public service was nothing new in his personal life.

Obama showed he was comfortable using the kind of language that is familiar in evangelical churches and Bible studies by calling his faith "a personal commitment to Christ." He said that his time as a community organizer in decimated Chicago neighborhoods, supported in part by a Catholic group, brought him to a deeper faith and also convinced him that faith is useless without works.

"While I could sit in church and pray all I want, I wouldn't be fulfilling God's will unless I went out and did the Lord's work," he declared.

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McCain to talk free trade in Latin America

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- John McCain portrayed free trade Tuesday as a win-win proposition for the U.S. and its Latin American economic partners, but labor leaders said it's been a big loser for Rust Belt voters.

The Republican presidential hopeful was beginning a three-day visit to Colombia and Mexico after a campaign swing through Indiana and Pennsylvania, two states hard hit by the loss of manufacturing jobs due in part to trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement between the U.S., Mexico and Canada, which McCain strongly supports.

On the day McCain left, Democrat Barack Obama repeated his vow to renegotiate NAFTA if elected president to include enforceable labor and environmental provisions. At a news conference in Ohio, a state hard-hit by job losses, Obama said, "The United States wanting to make sure that its ... standards aren't being undermined isn't imperialist."

Although Obama didn't mention McCain or his trip, a prominent Obama supporter criticized McCain's visit on a conference call with reporters.

"Today after he finishes his speech here in Indiana, he's hoping on a plane and going to Colombia and Mexico to talk about how much our trade agreements are going to help those countries, rather than taking about what we can do to help this country," United Auto Workers vice president Terry Thurman said.

"Now I find it no surprise that he's going to go to Mexico to talk about how great NAFTA is because he's certainly is not going to find much support for it here in the Hoosier state."

McCain conceded Monday he still has work to do to convince voters in industrial swing states in the Midwest, where the presidential election could be decided, that his support for free trade will benefit them, not just cost more jobs. He pledged to improve programs for displaced workers and unemployment insurance if elected, but acknowledged that wouldn't be enough.

"I have to convince them the consequences of protectionism and isolationism could be damaging to their future," the Arizona senator said.

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Clark: Obama had no part in McCain comments

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ret. Army Gen. Wesley Clark said Democrat Barack Obama played no part in remarks he made about Republican John McCain's qualifications to be president that have been sharply criticized by the GOP candidate's supporters.

"Sen. Obama had nothing to do with this," Clark said Tuesday in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America." "I'm very sorry this has distracted from the message of patriotism that Sen. Obama wants to put out, but I want to make very clear that as a Democrat and a former Army officer I fully respect Sen. McCain and all others who served, especially now on this Fourth of July."

The dustup began on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday when Clark, the former supreme commander of NATO under Bill Clinton, said McCain's military service was not the same as executive experience. McCain, a former Navy fighter pilot, was shot down over Hanoi and held prisoner by the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam war.

Several McCain supporters in Congress have criticized Clark's remarks as disrespectful of McCain's service.

Clark said Tuesday his point was that there is a difference between fighting in a war and high-level military decision-making.

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Hispanic voters gaining strength in key states

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Voting by Hispanics surged in the last congressional elections, showing strength that could swing this year's presidential vote in closely contested states like Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico.

A government report released Tuesday shows that 5.6 million Hispanics voted in the 2006 general election, an increase of 18 percent over 2002, the previous year for a federal election without a presidential race on the ballot. That compares to a 7 percent increase among white voters and a 5 percent increase for black voters.

"For years they called the Latinos the sleeping giant. Well, they woke us up," said Luis Vera, general counsel for the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC.

Vera said the debate over illegal immigration has energized Hispanic voters, a trend he expects to continue this year.

The presidential candidates are taking notice. Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama both addressed the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials last week and both are scheduled to speak at the LULAC national convention next week.

Hispanics made up only 6 percent of American voters in 2006, according to the report by the Census Bureau. But their numbers are big enough to be decisive in several battleground states, especially in a tight race.

Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Florida all have a significant number of Hispanic voters. President Bush narrowly won all four states in 2004, and they could all be hotly contested this year.

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THE DEMOCRATS

Barack Obama campaigns at Eastside Community Ministry in Zanesville, Ohio.

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THE REPUBLICANS

John McCain holds an informal news conference in Cartagena, Colombia.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"John McCain as a young officer demonstrated courage and character. But the service as president is about judgment. And the experience that he had as a fighter pilot isn't the same as having been at the highest levels of the military and having to make -- work with the president and other heads of state and make those kinds of life or death decisions about national, strategic issues." -- Ret. Army Gen. Wesley Clark

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STAT OF THE DAY:

Seventy-six percent of the people contacted in an AP-Ipsos survey in June said the country was on the wrong track. That's up from 71 percent in April and 66 percent near the end of 2007.

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Compiled by Jesse J. Holland and Joan Lowy.