Lunsford to oppose McConnell for Senate

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A millionaire businessman who grew up on a tobacco farm captured Kentucky's Democratic Senate nomination Tuesday, winning a chance to challenge Republican leader Mitch McConnell, the powerful four-term incumbent.

Bruce Lunsford defeated another Louisville entrepreneur, Greg Fischer, and five other Democrats. McConnell, the Senate's top Republican, easily defeated his sole opponent in the GOP primary, truck driver Daniel Essek.

In Oregon, Democrats chose House Speaker Jeff Merkley to try to unseat the two-term Sen. Gordon Smith, the sole GOP senator on the West Coast, who faced only token GOP opposition.

Merkley defeated Portland activist Steve Novick, who won attention with lighthearted campaign videos that poked fun at the prosthesis he uses for a left hand, the result of birth defects.

McCain, Obama clash over Cuba

MIAMI -- Foreshadowing a fierce contest for the nation's largest swing state, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama clashed Tuesday over Cuba in a foreign-policy skirmish played out for Florida's potent Hispanic vote.

Speaking in Miami on Cuban independence day, McCain assailed Obama for his willingness to broach talks with the communist regime about democratic reforms, saying it would send "the worst possible signal." Obama struck back a few hours later on CNN, saying McCain would continue President Bush's "failed" policies.

McCain tried to undermine Obama's credentials on foreign policy, calling his ideas "dangerous."

"He also wants to sit down unconditionally for a presidential meeting with Raul Castro," said McCain, drawing boos from the hundreds of Cuban-American leaders and Republican activists in the audience. "These steps would send the worst possible signal to Cuba's dictators ... I believe we should give hope to the Cuban people, not to the Castro regime."

Obama said on CNN: "What I've said is that we would set a series of meetings with low-level diplomats, set up some preparation, but that over time I would be willing to meet and talk very directly about what we expect from the Cuban regime."

Obama raises $31 million in April

WASHINGTON -- Democratic Sen. Barack Obama raised more than $31 million in April, outdistancing Republican John McCain, who had his best fundraising month yet.

Obama reported having more than $37 million in the bank at the beginning of May. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton raised about $22 million, aided by a $10 million haul raised in the two days after her April 22 primary victory in Pennsylvania. It was her second-best fundraising month of the campaign.

McCain raised nearly $18 million in April as his presidential campaign consolidated his fundraising base. He spent only about a third of that.

McCain top adviser resigns

MIAMI -- A top adviser is leaving Republican John McCain's campaign because he doesn't want to work against Democrat Barack Obama.

Mark McKinnon, the chief media consultant to McCain, wrote in a memo last year that if Obama won the Democratic nomination, he would not actively campaign against him. With the results of Tuesday night's primaries in Kentucky and Oregon, Obama claimed he had a majority of convention delegates.

McKinnon, a former Democrat, said Tuesday evening he was making good on his pledge and was "moving from middle linebacker to cheerleader" for McCain.

Electing Obama "would send a great message to the country and the world," McKinnon said in the earlier memo, although he added that he intended to vote for McCain.

Seattle Times news services