Campaign 2008From The Trail
NBC/National Journal embed reporters file regular dispatches on their experiences from the trail.

LEE'S SUMMIT, Mo. -- For months, John McCain has been accusing Barack Obama of blind allegiance to the Democratic Party. But it would be dangerous, McCain said today, if Obama doesn't buck his party on defense spending.

"This weekend, Senator Obama was asked for an example of a time when he bucked his party," McCain said, referring to Obama's appearance on "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos. "His answer was defense spending. He says now he wants to increase it, but during the primary he told a liberal advocacy group that he'd cut defense spending by tens of billions of dollars. And he promised them he would quote 'slow our development of future combat systems.'"

The Republican presidential nominee added that America has learned that "this is an even more dangerous world than we had thought" and that this is not a time to "slow our development of future combat systems."

"This is not that time," McCain said. "And that's not bucking his party, that's telling them just what they want to hear."

Catering to the left is "wrong for America," McCain said, and Obama is "wrong for America." Continuing his camp's new tack of comparing his opponent to his running mate, rather than himself, McCain concluded: "This governor is right for America. Sarah Palin is right for America."

Todd Palin, the Alaska governor's husband, was traveling with the GOP ticket today. After introducing him as a "wonderful father," McCain made an oblique reference to Obama's controversial comments about bitterness in small-town America by saying that his ticket would bring the Palins' values back to Washington.

Americans aren't like Obama's description of small-town Pennsylvania residents who "only cherish their Second Amendment rights and their religion because they don't like the economic conditions," McCain said. "Americans in Missouri, Pennsylvania and all over this country value those rights because they love America, because they love America."

'Straight Talk Two' Takes Off

Sarah Palin flew solo today -- for a few hours.

Palin left McCain for the first time since the Republican convention today, bypassing a Chicago fundraiser and heading straight to Cincinnati, where McCain will be going in the evening.

That meant the plane that has been the press charter for the last week became Palin's plane. Campaign aides have dubbed it "Straight Talk Two."

Palin deplaned in Ohio to a handful of cameras before boarding an SUV and heading to her hotel. Campaign aides said going to Ohio was a better use of her time, but they would not detail what she would be doing.

-- Adam Aigner-Treworgy