READY TO TALK: Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, has agreed to her first interview this month, with ABC News anchor Charles Gibson later this week, it was announced Sunday. The interview will coincide with the deployment of her older son, Track, for Iraq. His unit departs Thursday, the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
EXPLANATION: Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama acknowledged Sunday that he was probably too flip when he said it was “above my pay grade” to answer a question about when a baby is entitled to human rights. Asked whether the answer was too flip, Obama said: “Probably. … What I intended to say is that, as a Christian, I have a lot of humility about understanding when does the soul enter into … It’s a pretty tough question. And so, all I meant to communicate was that I don’t presume to be able to answer these kinds of theological questions,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”
FACE TO FACE: Obama and Bill Clinton are planning to meet for lunch Thursday while Obama is in New York for a ceremony marking the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to aides. It will be the first one-on-one meeting for the two Democrats, though Obama has said he has phoned the former president for advice on numerous occasions. Also on Thursday, Obama and Republican presidential nominee John McCain plan to make a rare joint appearance at Ground Zero. The campaigns had pledged to suspend their television advertising on Thursday. “All of us came together on 9/11, not as Democrats or Republicans but as Americans,” they said in a joint statement.
POLL SAYS MCCAIN LEADS: Thanks to a substantial bounce coming out of last week’s GOP convention, McCain is leading Obama in the presidential race, 50 percent to 46 percent, according to a new poll. McCain overcame a 7 percentage point lead held by Obama before the convention began, according to the USA Today-Gallup poll. The addition of Palin to the Republican ticket led 29 percent of voters to say they were more likely to vote for McCain, while 21 percent said they were less likely. The poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
