The Trail

The first challenge will be filling the 11,000-seat stadium that Paul has reserved for a speech during the Republican convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul in September.

-- Michael D. Shear

OBAMA RUMORS ADDRESSED

Dueling Posts

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign has launched a Web site to knock down false rumors about the candidate and his wife.

The site, FightTheSmears.com, lists the Internet-driven whoppers that have surfaced during Obama's campaign, including a supposedly sensational videotape alleged to show Michelle Obama using the term "whitey" from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

The site provides an e-mail form for supporters to "tell your friends the truth" about attacks that land in their inbox. "Rush Limbaugh and his fellow right-wing attack-dogs have been spreading baseless rumors about a non-existent video tape showing Michelle Obama using a racial epithet," reads the posting related to the rumor. "The truth is that no such tape exists, and this entire smear campaign is fabricated."

The site addresses Obama's religion (he's Christian, not Muslim) and the elementary school he attended in Indonesia (secular, as opposed to a "radical madrassa"). It provides video of Obama leading the Pledge of Allegiance on the Senate floor and a photo of Vice President Cheney swearing in Obama with the new senator's left hand on his family Bible (and not the Koran).

"The Obama campaign isn't going to let dishonest smears spread across the Internet unanswered," Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement.

-- Shailagh Murray