By JIM DAVENPORT
The Associated Press
Friday, June 15, 2007; 7:03 PM

SPARTANBURG, S.C. -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday that fathers have to share the responsibility for raising children and caring for families because their role doesn't end at conception.

Days before Father's Day, the first-term Illinois senator and father of two daughters delivered his life message as well as an assessment of what government needs to do in remarks at a Baptist church.

"It's about to be Father's Day," he said. "Let's admit to ourselves that there are a lot of men out there that need to stop acting like boys; who need to realize that responsibility does not end at conception; who need to know that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise a child."

He recalled his own upbringing as the son of a Kenyan father and a mother from Kansas. Obama said he grew up with a father he know only through letters and stories told by his mothers and the relatives who raised him.

He bemoaned the nation's economic divide.

Changes in the way we "work and live have trapped too many American families between an economy that's gone global and government that's gone AWOL. Too many rungs have been removed from the ladder to middle-class security and the safety net that's supposed to break any fall from that ladder has grown badly frayed," Obama said.

The Illinois senator said he would invest $50 million in programs to help people find transitional jobs and get training for permanent employment. That is needed, he said, to help men _ especially black men _ find work to replace hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs they've lost in the last six years.

"Without a job or an education, many black men simply cannot afford to raise a family _ and too many have made the sad choice not to," he said.

He said he would push to expand the federal earned income tax credit and the minimum hourly wages should be linked to the rate of inflation.

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JOHNSTON, Iowa (AP) _ Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said Friday that it all comes down to Iowa.

"I think that anybody who wants this nomination _ not just me, but it would apply to me _ if you don't do well in Iowa it is very hard to win this nomination," he said. "I think John Kerry effectively won the nomination in 2004 when he won the Iowa caucuses."

Iowa caucuses begin the primary process on Jan. 14, and Edwards has been one of the most frequent visitors to the state. On Friday, he was beginning a three-day campaign trip.

During a taping of Iowa Public Television's "Iowa Press" program, Edwards credited Kerry with having a better understanding of the caucus' significance. Edwards was second in 2004, a surprising finish that earned him a spot as Kerry's running mate.

"I actually give him (Kerry) credit for that," Edwards said. "If you remember, he figured it out, he closed his operations everywhere else and moved everything to Iowa. I and other people didn't do that."

In the interview, he defended his low-key campaign approach, which has often drawn smaller crowds than have turned out for rivals Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

"I know what it takes to campaign in Iowa," Edwards said. "You can't just go to events where there are 2,000, 3,000 people. You've got to get into people's homes, you've got to get into smaller town and communities and you've got to do the work, you've got to do the organizing."

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WASHINGTON (AP) _ Democrats Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson are objecting to a requirement that all presidential candidates in a debate on the Spanish language television network Univision speak in English.

The two have signed a letter to Univision, which is trying to organize a Democratic presidential debate for Sept. 9 in Miami. The audio would be translated into Spanish.

Both candidates speak Spanish fluently and say they would prefer to address Spanish-speaking viewers without a translator. Dodd, the Connecticut senator who wrote the letter, and Richardson, the New Mexico governor who signed on, embraced the debate with the understanding that they would be able to speak Spanish, and both campaigns say they feel that the rules have been altered to benefit those who don't.

Univision is the country's highest-rated Spanish-language television network and participation would expose candidates to the growing population of Hispanic voters.

"Your debate offers a unique opportunity for the candidates for president of the United States to speak directly to voters who very well may determine the outcome of the 2008 election," the letter says.

Richardson's campaign says he may not participate if Univision doesn't change the format.

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PEWAUKEE, Wis. (AP) _ Republican Newt Gingrich joked on Friday that the federal government should rely on FedEx or UPS to find illegal immigrants in the United States.

Gingrich, who is weighing a bid for president, said national couriers can send and track thousands of moving packages simultaneously while the government can't find millions of illegal immigrants who are stationary.

"We should spend a couple hundred million dollars to send a package to every illegal immigrant," he said to laughter. "FedEx and UPS will find them and we'll have them right there on the computer screen. Done."

In an address to about 300 people at a taxpayer rally, Gingrich called the immigration bill backed by President Bush a "monstrosity" that is "fundamentally dishonest and impossible to implement.

"The problem here is not illegal immigration, it's American employers who willfully refuse to enforce law," said the former House speaker and Georgia congressman.

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NEW YORK (AP) _ New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says people might be puzzled about his weekend destination: New Hampshire, the home of the nation's first presidential primary.

But the billionaire mayor, the subject of presidential speculation despite his denials, said it's purely a social visit.

"People will read into the fact that I'm going to be in New Hampshire tomorrow," Bloomberg conceded Friday on his radio show.

"They have a primary there, you know," noted host John Gambling.

"That may be, but the truth of the matter is I'm going to be in New Hampshire just for dinner," said Bloomberg. He went on to explain that he was heading there for one evening to attend his girlfriend's college reunion.

As for entering the 2008 race, he said he intends to serve his full term through 2009.

"I don't think the country is quite ready for me," said Bloomberg.

Not that it matters if he travels to the early primary states _ the mayor's supporters say if he launched an independent bid, he'd wait until after the early primary process has produced clear front-runners and then decide if his candidacy has a shot.

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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) _ Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Friday he needs to do more salesmanship within his own party on behalf of a bipartisan immigration bill that could get another chance in the Senate.

Both of Alabama's Republican senators have opposed the legislation, with Sen. Jeff Sessions leading the opposition.

McCain, the only Republican presidential candidate to side with President Bush in support of the bill, said "we need to do a little more salesmanship" among the Republican Party. But he said the Senate will be granting "de facto amnesty" to 12 million illegal immigrants if it doesn't act.

"We have to act to secure the border and account for these 12 million people who are here in this country illegally," he said while attending an Alabama convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

The bill, which would strengthen border security before opening a path to legal status for illegal immigrants already in the country, appeared dead last week when it failed to reach the Senate floor for a vote. But Senate leaders said Thursday it could come up again as soon as next week.

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Associated Press Writers Mike Glover in Johnston, Iowa; Dinesh Ramde in Pewaukee, Wis.; Nedra Pickler in Washington and Phillip Rawls in Birmingham, Ala., contributed to this report.