Palin plans meetings with world leaders

WASHINGTON - Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin may have little experience in foreign policy, but she's about to get a two-day crash course.

The first-term Alaska governor plans to meet seven world leaders and Henry Kissinger, former secretary of state, this week in New York, where the UN General Assembly is convening. The meetings might help her answer critics who say Palin, who obtained her first passport last year, is not ready to handle world affairs.

Today she is scheduled to meet separately with Kissinger, President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia, and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. Tomorrow she is to meet jointly with President Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia and President Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine. She then will meet separately with President Jalal Talabani of Iraq, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON - In what could be a historic year for a black presidential candidate, a new Associated Press-Yahoo News poll shows that a substantial portion of white Americans harbor negative feelings toward blacks and that blacks and whites disagree on how much racial prejudice exists, whose fault it is, and how much influence blacks have in politics.

One result is that Democrat Barack Obama's path to the presidency is steeper than it would be if he were white. National polls consistently show Obama running about even with John McCain, or leading by a notably smaller margin than the one Democrats have over Republicans in most generic surveys about which party is best suited to govern. The AP-Yahoo News poll suggests that racial prejudice could cost Obama up to 6 percentage points this fall.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Republican presidential nominee John McCain has taken a 10-percentage-point lead over Democrat Barack Obama among rural voters, a new poll says.

The Arizona senator leads 51 percent to 41 percent in a survey released yesterday by the Whitesburg, Ky.-based Center for Rural Strategies, a nonpartisan group.

Obama's support for farm programs was cited as a top concern by 51 percent of the respondents. Yet Obama doesn't seem to be overcoming Republican advantages on national defense and other issues, said Bill Greener, a Republican strategist who created the poll with Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg.

BLOOMBERG

John McCain, largely on the defensive during the Wall Street crisis, struck back yesterday with a hard-hitting TV ad seeking to tie Democratic rival Barack Obama to the Chicago Democratic machine.

"Barack Obama, born of the corrupt Chicago political machine," the announcer says.

Then the ad shows the silhouettes of what it tries to portray as a rogues gallery: "His economic adviser, William Daley, lobbyist, mayor's brother. His money man, Tony Rezko, client, patron, convicted felon. His 'political godfather' Emil Jones, under ethical cloud. His governor, Rod Blagojevich, a legacy of federal and state investigations.

"With friends like that, Obama is not ready to lead," the announcer concludes.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton called the ad a "false, gratuitous attack."

FOON RHEE