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The networks split on their campaign coverage. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell and ABC's Ron Claiborne (embargoed link) were both assigned to cover Republican John McCain's speech on the economy, in which he proposed a three-month suspension of the 18c per gallon federal gasoline excise tax as a fiscal stimulus for the slowing economy. CBS' Dean Reynolds stayed with the Democrats in Pennsylvania, where Barack Obama's bitter-and-clinging comments about small town life "are still getting attention, still proving difficult to explain, still being used as a weapon by his rival." Reynolds played a Hillary Rodham Clinton attack ad that "sounds like a Republican could have written it" before suggesting a pair of happy endings for Obama: first, Rodham Clinton "somehow overplays her hand" and alienates Democratic primary voters next week; second, the Pope's trip will "push those negative headlines off the front page--which would be an almost divine intervention."
