John McCain and Barack Obama have begun recalibrating their strategies for the presidential campaign  in a contest recast by Mr. McCain’s unexpected selection of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate, the NewYork Times reports.

National party conventions are known as much for their nonstop partying as they are for their politics — a time for lobbyists, politicians and corporate executives to gather at lavish receptions and elegant dinners.

Television networks are assigning reporters to a new beat this election year: people who don’t watch the evening news. With polls showing a surge in primary-season ballots cast by voters under 30, media outlets are out to convert the newly energized voters into viewers.

As they traveled across Indiana and North Carolina over the last few days, trading charges and countercharges about the wisdom of suspending the federal gas tax for the summer, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama were really having a larger fight.