BUTTE, Montana (CNN) - Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will appear together at three fund-raisers next week in New York, an Obama spokeswoman said.
Two of the fundraisers are aimed at raising money for Obama's Democratic presidential campaign, and one to try to retire the debt from Clinton's failed effort to win the nomination.
Two of the fund-raisers are Wednesday night. Thursday morning, they'll also appear together at a women's fund-raising breakfast for Obama.
The events are private.
The New York events will make five times the two have appeared together since Clinton ended her quest for the nomination last month.
Obama announced in June he would not take public funds for his presidential run, making him the first general election candidate to do so since public financing was instituted in the 1970s.
By doing do, he passes up over $84 million in public funding, but frees himself from a cap on spending. Obama has raised over $270 million to date.
John McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, has raised about $100 million as of the end of May and is expected to take public financing.
ST. LOUIS, Missouri (CNN) - Sen. Barack Obama, speaking on board his campaign plane as it headed to St. Louis on Saturday, continued to defend his position on Iraq - and questioned reporters' parsing of his words.
"I am surprised at how ... the press ... I'm not trying to dump on you guys, but I'm surprised at how finely calibrated every single word was measured," Obama said.
"I wasn't saying anything that I hadn't said before. That I didn't say a year ago. Or when I was a U.S. senator. If you look at our position, it's been very consistent. The notion that we have to get out carefully has been a consistent position," he said.
"The belief that we have a national security interest in making sure Iraq is secure, I've been saying consistently," he added. Noting "the worst-case scenarios and the parade of horribles that has been trotted out by John McCain and others about genocide if we left," he said he has always reserved "the right to protect people from genocide."
"So a lot of these statements that I've made have been entirely consistent," Obama added.
Late Saturday afternoon, McCain's campaign responded to Obama's comments.
In a statement, campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said, “We are all absolutely committed to ending this war, but on Thursday Barack Obama’s words indicated that he also shared John McCain’s commitment to securing the peace beforehand. What’s really puzzling is that Barack Obama still doesn’t understand that his words matter."
In North Dakota on Thursday, Obama denied that he's shying away from his proposed 16-month phased withdrawal of all combat troops from Iraq, calling it "pure speculation" and adding that his "position has not changed."
However, he told reporters questioning his stance that he will "continue to refine" his policies as warranted.
Presumably unhappy with the media's coverage of his earlier statements on Iraq - and after the Republican National Committee issued attack emails asserting he's "reversed" his position - Obama called a second news conference later Thursday to reiterate that he is not changing his stance.
Watch: Obama clarifies his comments on Iraq
"We’re gonna try this again. Apparently I wasn't clear enough this morning on my position with respect to the war in Iraq. I have said throughout this campaign that this war was ill-conceived, that it was a strategic blunder and that it needs to come to an end," he said.
"I have also said that I would be deliberate and careful in how we got out, that we would bring our troops home at a pace of one to two brigades per month and that at that pace we would have our combat troops out in 16 months."
WASHINGTON (CNN) - CNN's Jennifer Mikell has this week's Trailmix, a countdown of the best moments from the presidential campaign.
WASHINGTON (CNN) - President Bush heads to Japan for his final G-8 summit of world leaders on Saturday, as the global economy slumps, energy prices soar and food shortages loom in the developing world.
Bush says he will press other leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations to follow through on their commitments from earlier summits, but has warned there is nothing he or anyone else can do in the short term about oil prices.
"It took us awhile to get into the energy situation we're in and it's going to take us awhile to get out of it," he said Wednesday in an appearance at the Rose Garden to preview his trip.
He continued to advocate more drilling in currently protected areas of the U.S. as a medium-term fix for skyrocketing fuel costs.
"Ultimately, of course, we're going to transition away from hydrocarbon. But we're now just in a transitional period and we need more oil to be able to do so," he said.
Bush's main economic goal at the summit may be defensive, said David Gergen, former adviser to presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton.
"What's essential in this summit for George W. Bush is to make sure the world economy does not spin downward," he said.
Yet Bush is not raising expectations about what he and the other G-8 leaders can realistically accomplish on the economic front. "One thing we need to make clear when I'm with our partners is that we're not going to become protectionists; that we believe in free trade and open markets," he said Wednesday.
A former administration official who served on the National Security Council under Bush says the G-8's purpose is not to come up with quick solutions.
From CNN Politics
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