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Blitzer: Tillman gave me a behind-the-scenes look at the famous aircraft.

Watch Wolf Blitzer's interview with Air Force One pilot Col. Mark Tillman today in The Situation Room at 5 pm ET.

ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Maryland (CNN) - Driving to this sprawling base just outside Washington, D.C. this week brought back lots of memories. Covering a president often means traveling with a president aboard this extraordinary aircraft, and as CNN's Senior White House Correspondent during the Clinton administration, I used to come here all the time to board Air Force One.

This week, I had a rare chance to catch up with Col. Mark Tillman, who's been flying the giant Boeing 747 since 1992, the final year of George H.W. Bush's presidency. He continued to fly for President Clinton’s full eight years, and became the chief pilot when President George W. Bush took office in 2001. Col. Tillman, who is now getting ready to retire, agreed to sit down with me and reflect on those years.

Read the rest of this entry »

Blitzer: Tillman gave me a behind-the-scenes look at the famous aircraft.

Watch Wolf Blitzer's interview with Air Force One pilot Col. Mark Tillman today and tomorrow in The Situation Room at 6 pm ET.

ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Maryland (CNN) - Driving to this sprawling base just outside Washington, D.C. this week brought back lots of memories. Covering a president often means traveling with a president aboard this extraordinary aircraft, and as CNN's Senior White House Correspondent during the Clinton administration, I used to come here all the time to board Air Force One.

This week, I had a rare chance to catch up with Col. Mark Tillman, who's been flying the giant Boeing 747 since 1992, the final year of George H.W. Bush's presidency. He continued to fly for President Clinton’s full eight years, and became the chief pilot when President George W. Bush took office in 2001. Col. Tillman, who is now getting ready to retire, agreed to sit down with me and reflect on those years.

Read the rest of this entry »

CNN Anchor Wolf Blitzer

(CNN) – Once again, the U.S. Supreme Court has reached a 5-4 decision with Justice Anthony Kennedy as the decisive swing vote.

The latest case involves the right to own a handgun in the District of Columbia. In this case, Kennedy went with the conservatives, including Chief Justice John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas. The majority concluded that the D.C. law violated the Second Amendment to the Constitution – the right to bear arms.

But Kennedy sided with the liberals in two other major 5-4 decisions, including Wednesday’s ruling that the death penalty could not apply to child rape victims. Last week, he sided with his liberal colleagues, Ruth Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, David Souter, and John Paul Stevens in concluding that terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay detention center have certain legal rights to stand trial.

All of which once again underscores the fragile balance of the court and the fact that the next president probably will have an impressive opportunity to change that balance for the next 20 or 30 years.

As I have pointed out before, John McCain says he likes justices like Roberts and Alito. Barack Obama says he likes justices like Ginsburg and Breyer.

This will be a major issue in the election for lots of Democrats and Republicans. The ramifications on a whole host of issues, not just abortion rights for women, are enormous.

What impact will Nader and Barr have this election season?

(CNN) - There are two intriguing third party candidates running for president his year: Ralph Nader and Bob Barr. Both are well known here in Washington. But will they have an impact around the country if the election between Barack Obama and John McCain is close?

Nader, a long time populist and liberal consumer advocate, has been here before. He won more than 90,000 votes in the Florida election in 2000 and was widely accused of helping George W. Bush beat Al Gore by just more than 500 votes in the state. Gore’s supporters believe that he would have won the state and the election if Nader had stayed out. Nader denies that, insisting he took votes from both Democrats and Republicans.

Barr is a former Republican Congressman from Georgia and is now running on the Libertarian Party ticket. In the House of Representatives, he was always an outspoken conservative. He took the lead in initiating impeachment charges against President Bill Clinton.

Given that conservative track record, he is likely to take votes away from McCain, especially in Georgia where he is relatively well-known.

Obama’s supporters are hoping he does. They believe Georgia is fertile ground for the Democratic candidate, especially if the Democrats can register hundreds of thousands of new young and African American voters in the state.

So let’s see how Nader and Barr do this time around.

CNN Anchor Wolf Blitzer

(CNN)–Barack Obama says he’s going to run a 50-state race for the White House. His aides say he will aggressively seek to make inroads in some of the traditionally Republican presidential states. It’s an ambitious quest but one that would be made easier if he raises hundreds of millions of dollars.

We’ll see in the coming weeks and months how that works out. My instinct tells me he won’t be spending lots of time in Utah and Wyoming, for example.

Still, I do think Obama will campaign actively in North Carolina and Georgia – two states with large numbers of African Americans. His campaign as well as the Democratic National Committee will try to get hundreds of thousands of new voters registered, especially African-Americans and young people. That is potentially very fertile ground for Obama and could make a critical difference in November.

Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic Party, was criticized in recent years by some fellow Democrats for spending scarce DNC money in some of the Republican states. He said he wanted the Democratic Party active across the United States. His critics thought that was a waste of money and time.

But now, that investment seems to have paid off. Witness the recent Democratic successes in those three special Congressional elections in Mississippi, Louisiana and Illinois where seats long held by Republicans, including the former Speaker Dennis Hastert, were captured by Democrats.

Obama and McCain are each strong on certain issues.

(CNN) – In some of the more recent public opinion polls, Barack Obama comes out doing much better than John McCain on several domestic issues. McCain, on the other hand, does better when it comes to the war on terror.

The latest USA Today-Gallup Poll, for example, shows that Obama is seen as doing a better job than McCain on health care (51 percent to 26 percent), the economy (48 percent to 32 percent), energy (47 percent to 28 percent), and taxes (44 percent to 35 percent).

In this same poll, they basically tie on such matters as the war in Iraq (43 percent to 43 percent), moral values (40 percent to 39 percent) and illegal immigration (34 percent to 36 percent).

But it’s a totally different situation when it comes to the war on terror. McCain is seen as doing a better job by a 52 percent to 33 percent margin.

All of which suggests that Obama probably would win the election if the biggest issues involve the economy and other domestic matters. But that could change if the war on terror were to emerge as issue number one. Under that circumstance, voters might flock toward McCain.

It’s a fascinating insight into the minds of voters – but remember: it’s only a current snapshot. Things can easily change between now and November 4. They always do.

Blitzer: Obama, McCain are at odds over tax policy.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - There’s nothing wrong with people changing their minds. We all do it – all the time. But as Luke Russert reminded us at his father’s funeral this week, politicians have a hard time admitting that they ever change their minds. They are apparently afraid that they will be accused of flip-flopping, which supposedly is bad for a politician.

Luke said that Tim Russert would also point out that the Americans are a very forgiving people. They will certainly accept politicians changing their minds as long as they are up front about it. What’s wrong with political leaders simply saying they’ve had a change of heart? “I used to think one way, but now think another.”

I was reminded of this when Barack Obama announced this week that he was opting out of the public financing of his general election campaign despite earlier expressing support for the public finance system. His decision certainly made financial sense, given that he could probably raise at least $300 million for the campaign compared to the roughly $85 million available in public financing.

In explaining his decision, Obama insisted the current presidential general election finance system was “broken,” something Democratic Senator Russ Feingold, a leader in campaign finance reform, denied. Would it have been so bad politically for Obama if he would have just said: “The country needs me in the White House and this decision will help make that happen. We can’t take any chances. As a result, I changed my mind”?

Blitzer: How active will Bill Clinton be on the trail for Obama?

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Bill and Hillary Clinton attended the memorial service for Tim Russert at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington on Thursday. That was the first time I have seen them since Senator Clinton dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Barack Obama. She was very enthusiastic that day. It dawned on me yesterday that we still haven’t heard the former President formally endorse Senator Obama. I am sure he will be on the Obama bandwagon openly and energetically fairly soon. But I wonder what’s taking so long. Then again, is it really all that long?

As our CNN contributor and Democratic strategist James Carville has pointed out, it was only the other day when Al Gore endorsed Obama. We shouldn’t be surprised that Bill Clinton is waiting for the right moment to deliver his big endorsement speech. And having covered the Clinton White House, I can predict that it will be a major media event when he does. Bill Clinton is just one of those remarkable political figures. When he wants to do something, he has a knack of doing it in a spectacular way.

Stay posted with Wolf. Download the politics screensaver.

But after that big endorsement is made, how active will the former President be on the campaign trail?

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Watch CNN's Wolf Blitzer and David Bohrman discuss what transpired between Sens. Obama and McCain at Tim Russert's funeral mass Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – It was a pretty amazing sight. John McCain and Barack Obama came to Tim Russert’s funeral mass today here in Washington. The fact that they took time out from their campaigns to do so was already impressive, and certainly a lovely tribute to Tim. But they also did more. They wound up sitting right next to each other during the 90 minute service.

Before the service started, they were chatting rather amiably and intensely for 15-20 minutes. Those of us who were invited to the Holy Trinity Church in Georgetown were impressed that Tim, even in his tragic and untimely death, was able to bring these two presidential candidates together.

It was a powerful statement of Tim’s unique role here in Washington.

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who presided over the gathering, warmly welcomed McCain and Obama. He spoke eloquently about Tim’s faith, family and journalistic profession.

So did Tim’s remarkable 22-year-old son, Luke, who delivered some beautiful Words of Remembrance. He told them what his dad would have told them: the American public wants their presidential candidates to discuss the most important issues of the day and not get bogged down with trivial personal attacks.

Luke also said that his dad was often so irritated when politicians refused to acknowledge they had changed their minds on important policy issues. There’s nothing wrong, Luke said, in someone’s changing his or her mind. He’s right of course. Obama and McCain were clearly paying attention.

I suspect those strong words will have an impact on these two presidential candidates in the coming weeks and months.

Blitzer: Obama, McCain are at odds over tax policy.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - When it comes to tax policy, John McCain and Barack Obama have very different views.

Take the matter of corporate tax rates. McCain wants to reduce that rate. He says that would make American companies more competitive around the world since the U.S. has one of the highest corporate rates. He notes that Ireland used to be an economic basket case until it reduced its corporate rates. As a result, investors from around the world began to flock to Ireland for business deals. That created lots of jobs in Ireland, which now has a strong economy.

Obama wants a windfall profits tax on Exxon-Mobil and the other big oil companies. They have been making record profits as the price of oil has skyrocketed. According to recent polls, most Americans blame big oil for their pain at the pump. McCain opposes such a windfall profits tax. But he goes one step further. Under McCain’s proposed corporate tax rate cut, Exxon-Mobil and other big oil companies would have even larger profits. That’s because McCain has no exemption for the big oil companies.

This is but one tax issue on the table right now. The two presidential candidates disagree on several others. Obama has proposed a $1,000 tax cut for middle class workers.

But the big issue for both will be whether to roll back the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. McCain originally voted against them but now supports them. Obama wants the Bush tax cuts for those making more than $250,000 a year eliminated. He wants to go back to the tax rates that existed during the Clinton administration. This will be a huge fight in the campaign.

Blitzer: The economy may be the top concern - but Iraq will still shape the race

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The debate between John McCain and Barack Obama over the war in Iraq boils down to a few critical differences.

In a nutshell, McCain says the military surge in Iraq finally is working and insists Obama was totally wrong to oppose it. He says Obama also has been wrong in not visiting Iraq in more than two years and in not sitting down with Gen. David Petraeus, the outgoing U.S. military commander in Iraq, for a private briefing.

Obama says McCain’s judgment is flawed because he was among those who voted to authorize the war back in 2002 and pushed for the invasion. Obama, an Illinois state senator at the time, opposed the war from the start. Obama also says McCain doesn’t discuss the approximately $10 billion a month that the U.S. is spending on the war – money, Obama says, could be better spent here at home.

McCain says the U.S. can win in Iraq and return home with honor if it keeps troops there. Obama says that that the only way the Iraqis themselves will step up to the plate is to give them a timetable for a troop withdrawal.

The polls show the state of the economy is the most pressing issue for most voters right now. I have no doubt about that. Still, what happens over the next five months on the ground in Iraq will have an enormous impact on the presidential election. I have no doubt about that either.

The next president will have a big impact on the direction of the Supreme Court.

(CNN) - The latest five-to-four decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on the status of terror suspects at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba once again underscores the deeply divided nature of the court and the huge stakes in the presidential election.

The court broke up largely along the liberal-conservative makeup – with the traditional swing voter, Justice Anthony Kennedy, once again breaking the tie.

In the majority were the liberals – Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens.

In the minority were Chief Justice John Roberts, and Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.

The next president of the United States probably will be in a position to nominate at least one and maybe more Justices. John McCain says he would nominate conservatives like Roberts and Alito; Barack Obama says he prefers liberals like Ginsburg and Breyer.

So just as there are stark differences between the two candidates on foreign and domestic policy, there are also stark differences on the future of the Supreme Court. And placing new justices on the court will have an impact for a lot more than just four or eight years. It’s something to think about during this political season.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – One of the most awkward developments for Bush administration and McCain campaign officials to defend is the appearance of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Iran, embracing and kissing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Iranians are widely accused by U.S. military and civilian officials of helping to kill American troops in Iraq. The Iranian leader is widely accused of supporting a covert nuclear weapons program. He has been quoted calling for Israel to be removed from the map. So why is the top U.S. ally in Iraq kissing him?

The Administration’s defense is that the Iraqis need to work out a good, long-term relationship with their Iranian neighbors. High-level discussions between the Iraqi and Iranian leadership, they say, will help – not hurt – the overall security situation in Iraq.

The Democrats, including Barack Obama, make the point that Iranians have in fact been the big winner in the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Iran is a more influential player in the region now, especially since it no longer has to worry about its former Number One enemy, Saddam Hussein.

All this takes on a greater significance now that the U.S. and Iraqi governments are trying to negotiate what’s called a Status of Forces agreement in Iraq. That would spell out the terms for a prolonged U.S. military stay. The Iranians are telling the Iraqis that the U.S. must pull out. And some Iraqis agree.

“The Americans are making demands that would lead to the colonization of Iraq,” Sami al-Askari, a senior Iraqi politician close to the Prime Minister told The Washington Post. “If we can’t reach a fair agreement, many people think we should say ‘Goodbye, U.S. troops. We don’t need you here anymore.’”

WASHINGTON (CNN) - If you had a chance to watch the John McCain and Barack Obama speeches this week laying out their respective economic strategies, you saw two very different approaches to dealing with what the American public sees as the top issue in the campaign. They strongly disagree on everything from tax cuts, health care, free trade, energy and the national debt.

If you had a chance to listen to their most recent pronouncements on national security, you saw two very different approaches when it comes to the war in Iraq and dealing with a potential nuclear threat from Iran. They strongly disagree on a timetable for a troop pullout from Iraq. They also disagree on how best to engage the Iranians diplomatically.

The same goes, by the way, on many other issues, including some of the major social divisions in the country. McCain, for example, opposes abortion rights; Obama supports abortion rights. They similarly disagree on gun rights, and the Constitution’s Second Amendment.

McCain says he would nominate U.S. Supreme Court candidates along the lines of conservatives John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Obama says he likes liberals like Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

All of which underlines that this coming general election campaign will enable the American voters to focus in on real issues where the two candidates strongly disagree. We will be learning a whole lot more about their positions in the coming weeks and months – and that is very good for the country. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait.

Will angry Clinton supporters come around by fall?

WASHINGTON (CNN) – There is no doubt that many of Hillary Clinton’s most passionate supporters remain very angry right now. They are especially angry over the way they believe their candidate was treated by some of Barack Obama’s supporters and the news media.

I have received numerous e-mails suggesting that Clinton was the victim of a mean-spirited sexism that elements of the news media spread around, and that the Obama campaign never did enough to dispel - even though Senator Obama now goes out of his way to effusively praise her.

“I’m a better candidate because of the work she did and she deserves our honor and our respect and our gratitude,” he said the other day. “And my two daughters see themselves differently because she ran for President of the United States of America.”

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, was a strong Clinton supporter. “I think if you look at the pundits, if you read the columns and go back and read them, some of them were really in my view malicious, very personal and venal sometimes,” she told me. “And I have a hard time understanding why that was necessary.”

Feinstein, like so many other Clinton supporters, is now totally on board the Obama bandwagon. Still, there are very hard feelings. Obama will need many of those ardent Clinton supporters if he hopes to win the presidency against John McCain. His campaign knows that.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Can John McCain put California in play in the general election?

He does have Arnold Schwarzenegger - a popular twice-elected governor - in his corner.

McCain also has some support in the Latino community given his long-standing backing of comprehensive immigration reform - although since the collapse of the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform legislation, which was backed by President Bush, the Republican candidate has stressed the need for border security first.

The Republican National Committee has been reaching out to the Latino community for years, though with only mixed results. Now the McCain campaign is undertaking its own aggressive outreach.

I recently spoke with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who acknowledged that the Democrats will have their work cut out for them to make sure California remains solidly blue in November.

But the mayor, a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions, vowed to do whatever he could to help Barack Obama. And he predicted that the Latino voters will represent a major boost for the Democratic candidate. They did support Clinton in overwhelming numbers in the primaries, the mayor said. But that was because they knew and loved her and former President Bill Clinton, and didn’t really know Obama. That, he says, has now changed.

CNN Anchor Wolf Blitzer

(CNN)–Democrats keep saying the same thing about their party. You hear it all the time in Washington and around the country. If they can’t win the White House this year, they say, the party should seriously think about giving the whole thing up.

To back up the point, they note the horrible job approval numbers for President Bush and his administration. They also note that some 80 percent of the American people right now believe the country is heading in the wrong direction. The economy is hurting at home and the war in Iraq remains very unpopular.

A vote for John McCain, they say, is a vote for a third Bush term. He agrees with the President on how to proceed in Iraq. He also wants to make permanent the Bush tax cuts, which he actually voted against back in 2001 and 2003.

All this explains why so many of these very same clearly frustrated Democrats are having such a hard time understanding why McCain is actually competitive with Obama in the most recent public opinion polls. Our latest CNN poll of polls, our average of the most reliable recent surveys, has Obama at 47 percent to McCain’s 45 percent. That is well within those polls' margins of error. Eight percent, by the way, say they are unsure who they would support.

Obama probably will get a nice bump in the polls in the coming days. That’s because Democrats are starting to unite around him. Hillary Clinton, they say, is likely to be effusive in her praise once she formally suspends her campaign.

But remember – polls are only snapshots. They always change over time, and there’s still five months before Election Day.

CNN Anchor Wolf Blitzer

NEW YORK (CNN) – One of the most memorable lines of Barack Obama’s speech Tuesday night in St. Paul involved his opponent in the general election: John McCain, a man “who has served this country heroically.” Obama then pointedly added: “I honor that service, and I respect his many accomplishments, even if he chooses to deny mine.”

It was consistent with Obama’s oft-stated praise of McCain’s military service, who was a POW during the Vietnam War. But it also included a polite dig.

McCain, for his part, pointedly noted that “the American people didn’t get to know me yesterday, as they are just getting to know Senator Obama.” It was his way of suggesting that the presumptive Democratic nominee is still a blank slate for a lot of Americans.

Just watching and listening to their respective speeches highlights their many differences including their backgrounds and age. Obama is 46 and McCain is 71.

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Did the campaign make Obama stronger or weaker?

(CNN) – It was exactly one year ago today when I moderated the Democratic presidential debate in New Hampshire. At that time, there were eight candidates in the race and all of them were on the stage: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich, and Mike Gravel. What a year it’s been.

Now, Obama is on the verge of winning this contest and moving on to the next chapter. The earlier rounds were the playoffs; now comes the championship.

Many political observers believe Obama is a stronger candidate today than he was a year ago. He has certainly improved his campaigning and debating skills. He’s learned a great deal. In short, he’s honed his skills and has improved his game.

But others insist he actually is weaker – having been bloodied up over these many months of a fiercely competitive fight. They point to his latest series of defeats to Clinton, including in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and, most recently, in Puerto Rico. They say he’s lost some of his mojo.

Still, he now has five months to regain it. How he reaches out to Hillary Clinton and her supporters and brings together the Democratic Party in the coming days will be critical.

Blitzer: Could there be a dream ticket?

(CNN) – At the end of January, I moderated a Democratic presidential debate at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles. By then, there were only two candidates left – Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I pointed out that this was an historic primary season since by then it had become clear that the party’s nominee would either be a woman or an African-American, and that would be a first either way. When the two of them walked on to the stage, the 2,000-plus people in the audience (mostly all Democrats) responded with real passion. They were totally pumped and excited. There was a prolonged standing ovation. The theater was electric. I remember that moment.

At the end of the nearly two-hour debate, I raised the so-called “Dream Ticket” question to the two candidates. It was the first time they had been asked that question directly: Would they consider running together on the same ticket? Neither made any commitment, but neither ruled it out.

That’s where the matter has rested all these months since then. Some of their aides, clearly caught up in the excitement of a very competitive campaign, say they hate the idea. There is no shortage of Obama supporters around the country who say they dread the notion of Clinton’s running as Obama’s vice presidential nominee. They say she simply brings too much baggage and would undermine his campaign theme of Change. They also insist they don’t want Bill Clinton back in the picture. Read the rest of this entry »