Today on the presidential campaign trail

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., left, talks with an unidentified man carrying golf clubs as he leaves after playing golf at Olomana golf course in Kailua, Hawaii Saturday, Aug. 9, 2008. Sen. Obama is in Hawaii for a vacation. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

IN THE HEADLINES

Clinton-favored plan for guaranteed health care gets a top plank in Democratic Party platform ... McCain accuses Obama of seeking to legislate failure in Iraq ... A whisper campaign damaged Edwards' reputation well before he admitted to extramarital affair

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Guaranteed health care key plank in Dems' platform

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Democrats shaped a set of principles that commits the party to guaranteed health care for all, heading off a potentially divisive debate and edging the party closer to the position of Barack Obama's defeated rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The party's platform committee moved smoothly through a range of issues for the fall campaign and approved a document that will go to the Democratic convention in Denver later this month for adoption.

There was little dissent -- or room for it -- in the day's meeting and a compromise on health policy took one flash-point off the table.

Obama, soon to be the Democratic nominee, has stopped short of proposing to mandate health coverage for all. He aims to achieve something close to universal coverage by making insurance more affordable and helping struggling families pay for it.

Advisers to Obama and Clinton both told the party's platform meeting they were happy with the compromise, adopted Saturday without opposition or without explanation as to how health care would be guaranteed.

In return for the guarantee, activists dropped a tougher platform amendment seeking a government-run, single-payer system and another amendment explicitly holding out Clinton's plan as the one to follow.

The party now declares itself "united behind a commitment that every American man, woman and child be guaranteed to have affordable, comprehensive health care."

Under any system in play, most people would still put out money for health insurance as they do now, but they would get help when needed.

Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean praised "the spirit of this compromise." Judith McHale, a Clinton supporter who helped to lead the platform meeting, said Obama and Clinton advisers worked collegially throughout the process.

For the 186-member platform committee, one imperative was to satisfy Clinton loyalists still sore from the often acrimonious primary fight while keeping policy firmly in synch with Obama's campaign.

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McCain faults Obama on the war in Iraq

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Republican John McCain issued a scathing critique of Barack Obama's judgment and readiness to be commander in chief, telling a veterans' group his Democratic rival had tried to "legislate failure" in Iraq and placed his own ambition ahead of military success there.

Addressing the Disabled American Veterans convention here, McCain mocked what he called Obama's varying positions on the Bush administration's decision to send an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq last year. The GOP hopeful supported the so-called "surge" strategy, even as polls showed most voters opposed sending more troops into combat at the time.

Obama spoke out against the original invasion as an Illinois state senator and strongly opposed the subsequent troop increase in the U.S. Senate and on the campaign trail.

Since then, the surge has been credited with helping stabilize Iraq and reduce violence there. Obama has argued that it has not brought about the political reconciliation between rival Sunni and Shia factions needed to create lasting peace in the country.

But in a tacit acknowledgment that his original assessment of the troop increase may have proven incorrect, Obama's campaign removed criticisms of the strategy from its Web site last month.

Narrowly trailing Obama in national and many battleground state polls, McCain, a 71-year old decorated Navy veteran and member of the Senate Armed Services committee, has increasingly tried to portray the 47-year old Obama as lacking the experience and judgment to lead the country in a dangerous world.

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Before confession, whispers hurt Edwards' stature

HONOLULU (AP) -- John Edwards didn't ruin his reputation by admitting on television to an affair. By the time he sat down to come clean, the damage had already been done in private conversations by political insiders.

Edwards' refusal to deny forcefully the charges of infidelity exposed by the National Enquirer and the private suspicions expressed by those closest to him left the widespread impression that he had cheated on his wife, known in Washington not just for her battle against cancer but as a political force in her own right and one of her husband's best assets.

Without confirmation, the allegations were not widely reported by national media but still were damaging to Edwards. He was not being invited to speak at this month's Democratic National Convention, out of fear that the rumors could become a distraction at the carefully orchestrated gathering.

Barack Obama's campaign is preparing to announce the list of convention speakers in the coming days, and the fact that Edwards wasn't going to be included forced his hand. If he didn't tell the story first, it threatened to blow open as reporters explained why the party's last vice presidential nominee and third-place finisher in the primary was being snubbed.

Obama, asked about how the scandal could affect Edwards' role in his campaign and the convention, said the former North Carolina senator's focus on working people will be amplified by the party as a whole.

"If I'm not mistaken I think that they already indicated, the Edwards family indicated, that they probably wouldn't be attending the convention," Obama said as he landed in Hawaii on Friday for a weeklong vacation. "I understand that. This is a difficult and painful time to them. And I think they need to work through that process of healing. My sense is that that's going to be their top priority."

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THE DEMOCRATS

Barack Obama vacations in Hawaii.

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THE REPUBLICANS

John McCain has no public schedule.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"Now think for a moment about what we could have done with the hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars that we've spent in Iraq." -- Barack Obama in Saturday's Democratic Party radio address.

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STAT OF THE DAY:

Nearly 20 percent of Hawaii's population is multiracial compared with about 2 percent for the United States as a whole.

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Compiled by Ann Sanner and Ronald Powers.