Jul. 02, 2008 | In early June, the morning after he became the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama gave a speech focused squarely on the Middle East and Israel. While the timing was coincidental -- his appearance at the annual gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee had been scheduled long before the primary race played out -- the speech was fitting, headed into the general election. U.S. dealings in the volatile region promise to remain at the center of the race, and the next presidency. On Israel in particular, Obama faces strategic challenges in his bid for the White House: He has had to combat long-running smear campaigns painting him as anti-Israel, while his Republican opponent, John McCain, has mobilized powerful conservative allies of Israel against him, including Senator Joe Lieberman.

Jun. 20, 2008 | Barack Obama has been running for president for 16 months. He's written two best-selling books, has already spent more money on TV ads in most states than any presidential candidate in history and employs about 1,000 paid staffers -- and a legion of unpaid volunteers -- working around the clock to spread the word about him.

You'd think that would be enough to get some basic facts about the guy lodged in voters' heads. But you'd be wrong. In recent focus groups in key battleground states, participants told Democratic pollsters matter-of-factly that Obama, if elected, would refuse to be sworn in on the Bible. In one group conducted on behalf of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center, seven out of 12 independent Virginia voters taking part said they thought Obama was a Muslim (he isn't), and some questioned his patriotism, saying he needs to prove he's "for America." That particular clump of "low information" voters was probably an outlier, but a survey in March found 13 percent of voters -- up 5 points from the previous poll -- shared their belief that Obama was Muslim. Another 44 percent weren't sure what his faith was. And e-mails are flying around the Internet with winking implications that Obama isn't really American (and, worse than that, he's African, if you know what the writer means).