“Um...”

That was the response from most people -– even lawmakers.

“Don’t be embarrassed if you don’t know the answer,” Israel reassured his perplexed interviewees. “Hardly anybody does, including most members of Congress.”

Israel made the video to push the Weekend Voting Act, legislation he introduced last month that would switch the days on which federal elections are held from Tuesdays to Saturdays and Sundays, when, presumably, more people would be able to cast ballots.

The clip is posted on the website of Why Tuesday? which is dedicated to increasing voter turnout through election reform.

Jacob Soboroff, the site’s director (and the son of former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Steve Soboroff), has crisscrossed the country on behalf of WhyTuesday? posting video interviews with many big-name politicians, including Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain.

Obama said he would support a shift to weekend voting. McCain didn't take a stance on that point, but he promised Soboroff that he would do anything to increase voter participation.

When asked if he thought an alternative idea -- declaring a national voters' holiday -- would work, McCain was skeptical.

“I’m not sure that people wouldn’t just go fishing,” he said.

Perhaps luckily for them, neither Obama nor McCain was asked the question that Israel posed to tourists and lawmakers in his video: Why Tuesday?

It turns out Congress chose Tuesday for a voting day in 1845 to make the process easier for citizens of an agrarian society. Back then, farmers needed to vote on a day that wouldn’t interfere with the three-day Sabbath or Wednesday, which was market day.

Today, according to Soboroff, one in four people who don’t vote say it’s because weekdays are inconvenient.

-- Kate Linthicum

Columnist Robert Novak reports that Gramm will stay on as a McCain adviser and surrogate. This comes after McCain repudiated his buddy for the former Texas senator's recent impolitic comments about America being "nation of whiners" and in a "mental recession."

The patch-up might come as a surprise to Carly Fiorina, the ex-Hewlett-Packard chairwoman who is a top advisor to McCain. In a damage-control effort, Fiorina on Sunday declared, "I don't think Sen. Gramm will any longer be speaking for John McCain, and I think John McCain was crystal clear about that."

And with McCain and Gramm making up, the Barack Obama campaign was handed another opportunity to go on the attack.

The Obama camp issued a statement that McCain's economic plan "gives nearly $4 billion in tax breaks to the oil companies but doesn't provide any tax relief to more than 100 million middle-class families. But that shouldn't come as a surprise since today we learned that Phil Gramm will continue to advise Senator McCain on economic policy despite calling Americans struggling in this economy 'whiners.' "

-- Stuart Silverstein

Credit: Karin Cooper / Associated Press

German reports say that Obama will speak Thursday at Berlin’s Victory Column rather than at the city’s historic Brandenburg Gate a mile-and-a-half away. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, among others, objected to the Democratic presidential candidate using the site for what is essentially a campaign event.

It was near the Brandenburg Gate in June 1963 where President Kennedy was greeted by ecstatic crowds and gave his famous, ‘Ich bin ein Berliner' speech.

But it’s not just a Democratic venue. The Brandenburg Gate also is where President Reagan, in June 1987, uttered his famous demand to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to raze the barrier dividing Berlin: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

Obama, who plans to visit Europe and the Middle East to burnish his foreign policy credentials, has said he didn’t want the location of his speech to trigger controversy. So the Victory Column site apparently is becoming the compromise.

And Obama isn’t being snubbed by Merkel, her people now claim. The Associated Press reports she'll meet Obama in Berlin on Thursday.

--Stuart Silverstein

Reuters photo of Victory Column in 2001 during "The Love Parade" by Fabrizio Bensch

UPDATE: An earlier version of this item had an hour-by-hour schedule that was provided to the media for planning purposes and not intended for publication. But even if you examine the broad current schedule for John McCain's campaign, you'll still notice something very revealing:

Yesterday morning the presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party flew from Omaha to Kansas City, Mo., for a town hall meeting at Union Station in late morning, and a series of local media interviews, of course, and he left Kansas City right after lunch for -- where else? -- Muskegon, Mich.

No, really. Muskegon, Mich.

At dinnertime he arrived near there in Ferrysburg, Mich., for a 105-minute fundraiser before flying to Detroit to sleep.

Today, he'll visit a General Motors technical center there for a tour and another town hall meeting with employees to be captured for eternity on camera, more local media interviews, of course, and a lunchtime fundraiser before flying out to New York to do another media interview.

And then comes the day's publicity moment, the Big Event, the taping of a priceless national TV interview for "Late Night With Conan O'Brien," the next Jay Leno, if there can be such a thing. An opportunity to be good-natured for a lot of younger voters.

Tomorrow, in New York City, McCain will do more media interviews before ...

... attending the real reason for getting up on a summer Saturday, two more fundraisers on Long Island, N.Y.

He'll sleep then in yet another hotel room and move on to somewhere else for, you'll never guess, more local media interviews with the same familiar sets of questions (his VP pick, Iraq, the economy), which he'll professionally act like he never heard before and answer with practiced straight-talk sincerity.

It's a mind-deadening grind for all involved, though all that the mildly attentive July world will see and possibly process for maybe voting on Nov. 4 are snippets of his answers on TV somewhere while it munches chips or veggies.

So what to make of McCain's oh-so-familiar routine?

Yes, good point, he does seem to be hopscotching all over. His campaign days sure don't start at dawn with morning shows. And there are the ubiquitous media interviews, as always.

They're free, after all. And though he can speak to 200 potential voters at a town hall, he can more efficiently reach hundreds of thousands through film of that session and media interviews afterward with slightly-starry-eyed local reporters, some of whom will secretively ask for autographs despite their outward objectivity.

Give you a hint. Follow the money.

Just 3 1/2 months out from the presidential election, McCain's national campaign schedule is being driven by the quest for money, not by the hunt for votes in 50 individual state elections. All right, every campaign says it's gonna compete everywhere. But they don't.

He's always looking for votes wherever he goes. But wherever he goes is determined not by potential votes but by where his finance folks have found enough donate-able money to set up fundraisers.

For McCain for now his itinerary is built on the quest for dollar$, not votes. That helps explain the widespread sense of unease among many Republicans nationally who do not deny he's working very hard.

But they fear he wasted his three-month general election head start not defining himself and not driving home the all-important central message of why he wants to be president.

Do you know what McCain's central message is? Do you know what his opponent's central theme is? See the difference?

Some still don't detect a national McCain strategy laid out with consistent unfolding messages drawing the portrait in voters' minds of the next commander in chief, day by day and event by event. One reason behind the recent campaign management shake-up.

The Arizonan, who's never much liked fundraising (which helps explain McCain-Feingold) and never built the kind of national donor network of Mitt Romney, George W. Bush or Hillary Clinton, sure didn't invest 175 minutes of precious candidate time going to Muskegon, driving and standing around talking and shaking hands and being photographed there because of a mother lode of votes to be had in nearby Ferrysburg.

Unlike last year, McCain is working hard to raise money now, and his schedulers fill in the blanks with interviews and other events to attract free media coverage wherever they happen to be.

The last two months he's raised $22 million each, about $734,000 a day. That's good for McCain, especially when the Republican National Committee is raising even more funds separately to benefit his campaign.

McCain's national campaign staff is slightly less than half the size of the 800-plus-person behemoth behind Barack Obama who, some estimate, is burning through more than $40 million a month. That takes some of the shine off the $52 million he reported raising in June.

And remember, Obama's money, while seemingly plentiful every month, must last through to election day. McCain's need only endure until the Republican convention Sept. 1-4, when his $82 million in federal funding gets delivered.

Still, the Republican candidate, of all people, devoting so much time to scrounging money instead of votes this close to Nov. 4, is an ominous sign in the eyes of many professional strategists.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Photos: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times

Now, Sam Nunn, a veteran retired senator and an oft-mentioned Democratic vice presidential running mate with Barack Obama, is doing the same thing.

His reference to the former country, which split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, was the third mention of Czechoslovakia during campaigning this week. A former chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee who could know better, Nunn was on the campaign trail in Indiana with Obama.

"We in this country are about to, under this government, under the Bush administration, deploy [a] missile defense system in Poland and Czechoslovakia," Nunn said. For more details and a pretty funny video, check out our colleague Katie Fretland's item over on the Swamp.

-- Andrew Malcolm

If you had three choices regarding the laws governing same-sex marriage, what would you choose?

1. Same-sex couples should be allowed legally to marry.

2. Same-sex couples should be allowed legally to form civil unions but not marry.

3. Same-sex couples should not be allowed to obtain legal recognition of their relationships.

Well, the pollsters at Quinnipiac University posed that question, which is certain to become more prominent as the presidential general election campaign unfolds, to 1,783 Americans across the country.

And they found that:

1. 32% support same-sex marriage.

2. 33% support civil unions.

3. And 29% said no legal recognition should exist for same-sex couples.

Can't get much closer than that. But wait, there's more to this poll, and our colleague Katie Fretland over at the Swamp has the details here.

--Andrew Malcolm

Think marriage amendment and the 2004 presidential election in such places as Ohio.

Well, a new measure has now qualified for the November ballot in San Francisco. And it'll likely help draw out city voters from the Democratic and from the Republican party, all three of them there.

It's the measure to rename the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant, which treats waste water from San Francisco's west side, the George W. Bush Sewage Plant in an effort to embarrass the president for actions such as the Iraq war.

When the president becomes the former president in January, he'll be returning to his isolated Texas ranch near Crawford, which likely has a septic tank. So he won't notice the change if it passes.

-- Andrew Malcolm

But while he outlined the steps he thinks the future president should take, he says he won’t be beside him as vice president, even if the Democrats win.

Gore dashed the hopes of those pining for an Obama-Gore dream team ticket in an interview with Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News Thursday. The interview was conducted after Gore gave a speech on alternative energy in Washington.

“I have a personal term limit,” said Gore, who served for eight years as Bill Clinton’s vice president. “Only two terms as VP.”

Couric then wondered what Gore would do if Barack Obama came to him and begged, “Al, buddy, listen. I really, really, really need you."

Gore said the answer would still be no.

Speculation about a possible Obama-Gore ticket has bubbled in the blogosphere since last month, when Gore gave Obama a hearty endorsement after the primary struggle with Hillary Clinton had already been settled.

Gore, who won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to draw the world’s attention to global warming, even used his website to solicit donations for Obama.

But when Couric suggested that Gore was playing coy in denying an interest in the VP spot, Gore shook his head and vowed, “This interview will not come back to haunt me. You can believe me.”

-- Kate Linthicum

But a new analysis from the nonpartisan Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, finds that Obama is doing just as badly among white evangelical voters as his party’s 2004 nominee was at this point.

The report, based on a national Pew poll conducted last month, found that just 25% of white evangelicals support Obama, compared to the 26% who said they backed John F. Kerry’s candidacy in the summer of 2004. (Kerry wound up winning just 21% of that group, according to exit polls.)

The Pew analysis found McCain winning 61% of white evangelicals, and most of the remaining 14% of those polled said they did not know what candidate they would support. McCain’s big margin was not necessarily good news for the presumptive GOP candidate, since President Bush at this point four years ago was winning 69% (and, according to exit polls, took 78% in the end).

The bottom line is that neither Obama nor McCain is where they'd hope to be among this important voting bloc. And both are courting it heavily –- Obama with his recent speech endorsing government funding for faith-based social service agencies and McCain through his support for a California measure to ban same-sex marriage.

-- Peter Wallsten

At a Harlem news conference Thursday, Clinton said, “If all of us lived on live mics, 100% of us would be embarrassed.”

The ex-president ought to know. Clinton himself unleashed an outburst -- one that, he apparently was surprised to find out later was recorded -- against Jackson during the Arkansan’s first run for the presidency in 1992.

As recounted in the New York Observer, a few days after that year’s New Hampshire primary, which Clinton lost, a local television reporter asked him to comment on a (baseless, as it turned out) report that Jackson had decided to endorse Iowa senator Tom Harkin.

Clinton was furious. “It’s an outrage,” he fumed. “A dirty, double-crossing, back-stabbing thing to do. … For him to do this, for me to hear this on a television program, is an act of absolute dishonor.”

And last month Clinton slipped up again. He went on a tirade against Vanity Fair writer Todd Purdum (calling him, among other things, “slimy” and “dishonest” and worse) –- only to later learn that his verbal rampage had been recorded by his questioner and put on the Huffington Post by that amateur Web journalist Mayhill Fowler.

Clinton was far more cheery and diplomatic at Thursday’s news conference, which spotlighted work being done by his foundation.

According to the Associated Press, when the subject turned to Obama -- whom Clinton  portrayed as too inexperienced for the presidency during the primary season -- the ex-president said he was ready to campaign for the candidate. “I’ll do whatever I’m asked to do, whenever I can do it,” Clinton said.

-- Stuart Silverstein

Photo credit: AP

That's why, for instance, in 1999-2000 at their request, George W. Bush kept his teenage daughters out of the spotlight. Until their recent "Access Hollywood" interview, the Obamas did the same with their younger daughters and later said they regretted that exposure.

But now Sen. Barack Obama says he wishes what he calls the conservative press would lay off his wife, Michelle, because she's a civilian who "didn't sign up for this."

Today, she campaigned in Washington state where the state Republican Party welcomed here with an ad (see video below the Read more line, with a hat tip to WakeUpAmerica).

Obama says he finds criticism of his spouse "infuriating." And he adds: "If they have a difference with me on policy, they should debate me. Not her."

In an interview this week with Glamour magazine, Obama complained that “the conservative press -– Fox News and the National Review and columnists of every ilk” had been too critical in its coverage of her.

He said he thinks reporters from those organizations “went fairly deliberately at her in a pretty systematic way” and, he asserted, “treated her as the candidate in a way that you just rarely see the Democrats try to do against Republicans.”

Obama would get a real argument about that from some....

...GOP spouses. As other blogs have suggested Obama, and perhaps his wife as well, are going to have to develop thicker skin or it'll be a long fall on hubby's blood pressure.

Trouble is, when any candidate's family members openly campaign as actively as Michelle Obama has been promoting her husband's agenda at huge and small rallies, in media interviews and at fundraisers, they're considered pretty much fair game. And rightly so.

Many writers made fun of Laura Bush's hair and clothing choices in past campaigns. Teresa Heinz Kerry got a pretty rough ride in 2004. Bill Clinton caught tons of flak this past primary campaign season, as did Elizabeth Edwards for some of her outspoken statements defending her husband and attacking Hillary Clinton, who was attacked during her husband's campaigns. Writers on this website have made fun of Cindy McCain's choice of dresses.

Their spouses did not complain publicly.

Michelle came under heavy fire in February after saying she was proud of her country for the first time in her adult life (see videos below, including a comment from Laura Bush). She later tried to clarify by saying she's always been proud of her country. But the incident left a mark on Obama’s campaign that echoes around the Internet still.

Obama called the criticism of his wife ironic and insisted that she is “the most quintessentially American woman" he knows. To be accurate, it's not so often Michelle who gets criticized as what she's said.

“She grew up in a ‘Leave it to Beaver’ family,” Obama added.

Obama suggested that both candidates' spouses should be off-limits for the remainder of the campaign because they’re both simply “civilians.”

“They didn’t sign up for this,” said the freshman senator in his first presidential campaign.

But his complaint is likely to fall on deaf ears, especially as long as his wife attends her own fundraisers and campaign events, as does Cindy McCain without complaint.

Full interviews with both candidates are scheduled to appear in Glamour's October issue.

-- Kate Linthicum

Photo credit: Associated Press