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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — In a bastion of the religious right, Barack Obama urged Americans Wednesday to look past the “bustle and busyness” of their everyday lives to find a way to help make the American dream real not just for themselves, but for all.

The call for service is part of a flag-draped week focused on God, country, veterans and freedom. They are larger-than-life themes, all prominent in the successful campaigns of President Bush and aimed at introducing Obama to Americans who know little about the presumed Democratic nominee.

Before a boisterous University of Colorado crowd, Obama said the quiet following Friday’s Fourth of July celebrations would be a good time for every person to consider how they can contribute “to our most pressing national challenges” — whether in the military, overseas or just next door.

“I hope that you take a moment to think about what you can do to shape a country we love, shape its future,” Obama said. “Loving your country shouldn’t just mean watching fireworks on the 4th of July.”

Obama talked in almost achingly intimate terms about the impact service had on him, as a boy who “spent much of my childhood adrift” and often had little idea “who I was or where I was going” because of the absence of his father. But early in college, he said, values like hard work and empathy instilled by his mother and grandparents resurfaced “after a long hibernation.” He eventually found himself working as a community organizer in a devastated South Side Chicago neighborhood, and said he was transformed.

Obama’s call echoed Bush’s “love a neighbor like you’d like to be loved yourself,” an enduring staple of the president’s political speeches of the last eight years. But Obama’s campaign said the focus on service was meant not to recall Bush, but to reach back to President John F. Kennedy’s generation-captivating “ask not” address or President Clinton’s legacy of creating AmeriCorps.

To Obama, the problem is not that Americans are not willing to serve. It’s that they have neither been asked aggressively enough nor given enough opportunities. In a clear slap to Bush, he decried that Americans eager to pitch in after the 2001 attacks were merely “asked to shop.”

His solution is to promise repeated calls for American sacrifice as president and, to put teeth behind that, a major proposed expansion of government national service programs, first unveiled in Iowa in December, that would cost $3.5 billion a year. His campaign said he would fund the spending with some of the savings from ending the war in Iraq and by canceling a new tax break for multinational corporations.

One new piece announced Wednesday would create a new “Green Vet Initiative” offering counseling, job placement and mediation with industry for veterans wanting to enter the rapidly expanding renewable energy field.

Other highlights include: increasing the all-volunteer military, expanding AmeriCorps, doubling the size of the Peace Corps, expanding YouthBuild, in which low-income young people build affordable housing; expanding service programs involving retired people and anyone over 55, and creating a tax credit making the first $4,000 of college tuition free for students who conduct 100 hours of public service a year.

As Republican rival John McCain was in Colombia promoting the benefits of free trade deals, Obama was addressing the United Steel Workers union’s annual conference in Las Vegas via satellite and burnishing his military credentials with a planned visit to the U.S. Air Force Academy and Peterson Air Force Base, both based here.

Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards was introducing Obama to the labor group.

Obama’s time here brought him onto the home turf of James Dobson, the popular and influential evangelical leader of Focus on the Family. Dobson recently said that Obama, in a 2006 speech, was “deliberately distorting” descriptions of Bible passages to suit his policies. Obama shot back that Dobson was “just making stuff up.”

As an unexpected entry in the battleground column for this November’s election, Colorado is one of the chief places where Democrats see a chance to turn a reliably red state into a blue one.

In 2004, Democrat John Kerry made a play for the state but lost it 52 percent to 47 percent to Bush. But Obama chose it as one of the states where he is airing the opening television ads of his general election race. Its biggest city, Denver, was chosen to host the Democratic convention in August.

And Obama’s choice of religious center Colorado Springs for his visit Wednesday showed the degree to which he is courting Republican religious voters and trying to make McCain compete for their affections. A religious political action committee supporting Obama has a new pro-Obama radio aid to highlight his faith — and is airing it on Christian radio in Colorado Springs, among other places.

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RENO, Nev. — Call it the political version of how to win the West.

Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama are tripping over each other this week in New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado, a prelude to a likely general election matchup and inevitable fight for three booming battleground states. President Bush narrowly won the three states four years ago and Democrats now see them as ripe for opportunity.

“I’m a Western senator,” McCain, the GOP nominee-in-waiting from Arizona, said in this gambling mecca Wednesday, signaling he intends to fiercely defend the turf. “I understand our issues.”

Obama, who has nearly secured the Democratic nomination, sounds just as determined.

“We can win the West,” the Illinois senator said Monday at a museum in Las Cruces, N.M., as he stood alongside the state’s Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, a prominent Hispanic. “We’re going to fight as hard as we can in these states.”

Once a Republican stronghold, the historically conservative West has changed demographically over the past decade and, thus, politically.

Retirees from all over, including the liberal Northeast and West Coast, flocked to the region because of its available and cheap land, its dry, warm climate, its range of recreational activities and its magnificent mountains and sprawling deserts. Businesses sprouted in the region’s few dense population centers, and job opportunities followed. So did swarms of swing-voting Hispanic immigrants.

That growth exploded since the last presidential election. Census figures show that Nevada grew 10.1 percent, Colorado 5.5 percent and New Mexico 4.1 percent between July 2004 and July 2007.

Thus, the region has become far more competitive and margins of victory have tightened as Democrats made inroads into decades-old GOP dominance.

In 2004, Bush won New Mexico by 1 percentage point, Nevada by 2 and Colorado by 5. Of the 270 electoral votes needed for victory, the states offer a combined 19 — the same number that Democrat John Kerry lost to Bush by four years ago. So, if Obama can win all the states that Kerry did, plus the three Western states, Democrats would win the White House after eight years of Republican rule.

Democrats argue that they now have more of a chance to take the West, and Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico are among their top targets. Arizona would have been, too, if McCain, the state’s four-term senator, wasn’t the GOP opponent.

They point to recent electoral gains that swept Republicans from long-held offices, and note that both Colorado and New Mexico have Democratic governors. They argue that migration, in part from the more liberal coasts, works to their benefit. And, they claim that swing-voting Hispanics, whose numbers also have grown, are trending Democratic this year.

Obama is maneuvering to compete in the West even before he secures the nomination over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. He talked with veterans on Memorial Day in Las Cruces, N.M., discussed the housing crisis in the sprawl of North Las Vegas, Nev., a day later, and was campaigning Wednesday in Denver.

Obama allies argue that his appeal to independents will extend to voters here. They play down concerns among some Democrats about his standing with Hispanic voters, and say he’s just as strong with them as Kerry and Al Gore were when they ran. Nevermind that both lost to Bush.

During the primary, Hispanics preferred Clinton to Obama by nearly 2-to-1, according to exit polls. Obama’s bid to become the first black president also may give some Hispanics pause; racial tensions between the two groups are undeniable.

Republicans say they are concerned about defending the West only because of the strong national headwinds working against the GOP and not because of their candidate. They are comforted by McCain’s long-standing support among Hispanics and his personal links to the West.

The Arizona senator and former chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee argues that his decades of experience handling issues critical to the region gives him an advantage over the first-term senator. McCain argues that Obama lacks the knowledge and background on Western issues, such as land management, water shortages and Native American concerns.

McCain’s support for an eventual path to citizenship for illegal immigrants is a wild card with Hispanics. “We have to secure our borders first,” McCain said at a town-hall style event at a local Boys & Girls Club on Wednesday. It’s a position shift he made after broad-based legislation failed last year.

He also touched on other issues.

On alternative fuel sources, he said solar energy development needs to be embraced in both Nevada and Arizona. And, pressed about the construction of a nuclear waste repository in Nevada that many residents oppose, McCain told people something they didn’t want to hear.

“I support Yucca Mountain once it goes through all the processes it needs to go through,” McCain said. “But I also support reprocessing. A little straight talk, we have to do both.”

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DENVER — Republican presidential candidate John McCain called Tuesday for talks with China to negotiate a temporary halt to production of nuclear weapons-grade material and with Russia on a new treaty to destroy more nuclear weapons.

“Today we deploy thousands of nuclear warheads,” McCain said. “It is my hope to move as rapidly as possible to a significantly smaller force.” He did not set a specific goal but said the number would be consistent with U.S. security and global commitments.

Cautioning against relying solely on force or merely on talks, McCain proposed a bipartisan push to strengthen a broad array of international arms treaties and nuclear monitoring. And he criticized past administrations, both Democratic and Republican, for failing to halt the spread of nuclear weapons.

“We should also begin a dialogue with China on strategic and nuclear issues,” the likely Republican presidential nominee said in a speech at the University of Denver. The goal would be to encourage China to conform to the practices of the other four nuclear powers recognized by the Non-Proliferation Treaty, “including working toward nuclear arsenal reductions and toward a moratorium on the production of additional fissile material.”

Noting that the United States and Russia “no longer are mortal enemies,” McCain said the two countries, as the owners of the majority of the world’s nuclear weapons, “have a special responsibility to reduce their number.”

The Arizona senator said the U.S. should “enter into a new arms control agreement with Russia reflecting the nuclear reductions I will seek.”

He also called for exploring with Russia the possible elimination of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, and the sharing of early warning data and prior notification of missile launches. And he said he’d be willing to seriously consider Russia’s recent proposal to extend the reach of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty to the entire globe and to take another look at the failed Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to overcome the shortcomings that prompted him to oppose it in 1999.

McCain sought to distinguish his approach from that of his predecessors or his likely Democratic opponent Barack Obama.

“If you look back over the past two decades, I don’t think any of us, Republican or Democrat, can take much satisfaction in what we’ve accomplished to control nuclear proliferation,” he said.

“The truth is we will only address the terrible prospect of the worldwide spread of nuclear arms if we transcend our partisan differences, combine our energies, learn from our past mistakes, and seek practical and effective solutions.”

Quoting both Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Ronald Reagan on the need to rid the world of nuclear weapons, McCain emphasized a bipartisan problem-solving style. He said he was open to listening to a slew of people and weighing a bevy of proposals — a tacit contrast to President Bush, who critics contend has engaged in partisan go-it-alone diplomacy that has strained U.S. relations with allies.

“We cannot achieve our nonproliferation goals on our own,” McCain said.

McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war who is making national security a cornerstone of his campaign, has increasingly called Obama naive on foreign policy matters.

McCain used the speech to take an indirect slap at Obama, who has said he would be willing to meet with the leaders of rogue states like North Korea and Iran, and to break with neoconservatives who advocate a military hard-line.

“Today, some people seem to think they’ve discovered a brand new cause, something no one before them ever thought of. Many believe all we need to do to end the nuclear programs of hostile governments is to have our president talk with leaders in Pyongyang and Tehran, as if we haven’t tried talking to these governments repeatedly over the past two decades,” McCain said.

“Others think military action alone can achieve our goals, as if military actions were not fraught with their own terrible risks. While the use of force may be necessary, it can only be as a last resort not a first step,” McCain added.

In response, the Obama campaign said, “By embracing many aspects of Barack Obama’s non-proliferation agenda today, John McCain highlighted Obama’s leadership on nuclear weapons throughout this campaign, and his bipartisan work with Richard Lugar in the Senate.”

Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued a statement praising what he called McCain’s “change of course” on arms control.

As McCain spoke from a podium flanked by American flags in a university atrium, anti-war protesters angry over his support of continued military involvement in Iraq interrupted him four different times. Each time, they were escorted out and the several hundred people in attendance tried to shout them down by chanting McCain’s name.

McCain grew increasingly irritated and then used the opportunity to press his case against withdrawing troops.

“This may turn into a longer speech than you had anticipated,” McCain said tightly before adding: “And by the way, I will never surrender in Iraq, my friends.” He received a standing ovation before continuing his nonproliferation remarks.

He spoke with recent nuclear nonproliferation developments as a backdrop. On Monday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran may be withholding information needed to establish whether it tried to make nuclear arms. On Tuesday, the U.S. and North Korea began talks on Pyongyang’s long-delayed nuclear declaration. And last fall, Israeli warplanes destroyed a suspected nuclear installation in Syria.

Monday: Barack Obama pays his respects after placing a wreath at the Veteran's Memorial Park in Las Cruces, N.M. (AP Photo)

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LAS CRUCES, N.M. — It’s the first event on the first day of a campaign swing through three Western states, and Barack Obama is covering all his bases.

He’s got patriotism, a Memorial Day event for veterans. He’s got cowboys, the location is the Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum. He’s got Hispanic voters, Gov. Bill Richardson introduced him. He’s even got a nod to the environment: The Organ Mountains loom behind him as birds sing and the warm New Mexico wind blows.

Obama is signaling, even before the Democratic primary formally wraps up, that he intends to fight this fall for Western states that narrowly went Republican four years ago.

New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado aren’t definitely Democratic blue or Republican red. Instead, they’re known as “purple states” by political junkies.

Together, they account for only 19 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. But those votes could be vital in a close race, particularly if Obama’s weakness among white, blue-collar voters carries over from the primary race and cuts his chance of winning some other states where Democrats usually do well.

“We’re going to fight as hard as we can in these states. We want to send the message now that we’re going to go after them and I expect to win them,” the Illinois senator said Monday.

President Bush won New Mexico over John Kerry four years ago by the tiniest of margins — 49.84 percent to 49.05. His margins weren’t a whole lot bigger in Nevada (50.5 to 47.9) and Colorado (51.7 to 47).

The Obama campaign hopes that anger at Bush, combined with changing demographics as new voters move to the region, will nudge the states into the Democratic column.

Richardson, the nation’s only Hispanic governor, called the three states “fertile ground” for Obama, particularly if he courts Hispanic voters with Spanish-language ads, personal appearances and attention to their concerns, such as immigration reform.

Hispanic voters have been a weakness for Obama during the primaries. Many have sided with the more familiar Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, and there are questions about whether some Hispanics are reluctant to back a black candidate.

But Richardson said Obama can overcome that.

“As soon as he meets them, he builds support with them,” Richardson said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It’s a personal connection. They see a young man similar to John F. Kennedy. They see a minority like them. They see somebody who was brought up bi-culturally.”

Richardson also said that the growing number of service-industry jobs and high-tech jobs in some parts of the West are bringing more Democratic-leaning voters to the region.

Still, he acknowledges these purple states won’t be easy for Obama, whose caucus performance this year in the three states was mixed.

Obama lost narrowly to Clinton in the Jan. 19 Nevada caucus, lost the popular vote to Clinton in the Super Tuesday New Mexico Democratic caucus, but won handily in Colorado’s Democratic caucus, also on Feb. 5.

If he wraps up the nomination, Obama will face McCain, a senator from nearby Arizona, a military hero and a familiar face on the national stage for years. Many swing voters may feel more comfortable with McCain than a Hawaii-born, Harvard-educated, big-city law professor.

McCain said Monday that Obama “has no experience, no knowledge or background” on Western issues.

“I believe as a Western senator I understand the issues, the challenges of the future for these … states, whether it be land, water, Native American issues, preservation, environmental issues,” McCain said in an interview with the AP.

Obama said he needs to introduce himself to all Western voters, not just Hispanics. Issues like improving the economy, ending the Iraq war and providing universal health care will appeal to everyone, he said.

“I’m absolutely confident that we’re going to do very well west out here because people out west are independent-minded and are going to look at whether or not over the last eight years the country is better off under Republican rule. I think they’re going to conclude they’re not and they want fundamental change, something that I’m offering and John McCain is not,” he said.

Obama talked about veterans issues in a rural setting on the first day of his swing. Next up is a discussion of the housing crisis amid the sprawl of Las Vegas. Then comes a town hall meeting at a Colorado school for the arts.

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Opponents of abortion and race-based affirmative action have had more setbacks than victories so far this political season as they try to place measures with a strong pull for conservative voters on the ballots of numerous states this November.

At least five of the proposals have failed, and others face legal challenges. However, a proposal to ban most abortions already has made South Dakota’s ballot, and several of the other measures could ultimately advance — including two in the potential swing state of Colorado.

The pending measures are the product of two separate multistate campaigns, one mounted by anti-abortion activists who want to define human life as beginning at fertilization, and the other led by California businessman/activist Ward Connerly, who opposes affirmative action programs based on race and gender.

Connerly has prevailed three times in past elections, with voters in California, Michigan and Washington approving proposals banning government-sponsored race and gender preferences in public education, state hiring and public contracts.

Connerly targeted five states with similar measures this year, but the campaign already has suffered two defeats — conceding that too few signatures would be gathered by the deadline in Missouri, and bowing out in Oklahoma in the face of challenges to the signatures gathered there.

Connerly blames harassment and political conniving for the setbacks; his critics contend the petition campaigns were rife with fraud and deception.

Signature-gathering is in progress for Connerly’s measures in Nebraska and Arizona. His allies already have submitted more than enough signatures in Colorado, although opponents have challenged nearly 69,000 of them.

Connerly, who is of mixed racial background, contends that the historic Democratic presidential race between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama proves his contention that racial and gender preferences are no longer justifiable public policy.

“The argument for it is that society is racist and sexist, and that argument is totally collapsing,” Connerly said. “We should go to socio-economic affirmative action … but don’t put race into the equation.”

Supporters of the so-called Human Life Amendment — which would define “personhood” as beginning with fertilization — initially targeted four states this year. But the proposal failed to clear a legislative committee in Georgia and was rejected on technical grounds by state officials in Oregon.

On Tuesday, however, backers of the proposal in Colorado announced they had gathered well over the required number of signatures to get it on the November ballot. Signature-gathering for a similar measure is under way in Montana.

The anti-abortion community is divided over the measures, partly on strategic grounds. The National Right to Life Committee has not endorsed them, nor have Roman Catholic leaders in Colorado and Montana.

Supporters embrace the measures as a frontal assault on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that established a nationwide right to abortion. They expect any voter-approved Human Life Amendment to be challenged by abortion-rights backers, triggering a legal battle that might lead to the Supreme Court.

“We think this is the best vehicle to challenge Roe,” said Brian Rooney, an attorney with the Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center, which helped draft the proposed amendments.

“Some people who are pro-life don’t think the Supreme Court is of the mind to overturn it,” Rooney added. “We say you’ll never know until you ask.”

Opponents say the proposals could have far-reaching impact if they became law, including the banning of some forms of birth control. Nancy Keenan, head of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said the measures were “far out of the mainstream” and were being pushed in part to re-energize “depressed and deflated” conservative voters.

“But we take these very seriously,” Keenan said. “It takes time and money to run a campaign to defeat them.”

An unrelated anti-abortion measure was pushed hard in Missouri before its backers abandoned it following a lawsuit by Planned Parenthood. The measure would have made abortion an act of “medical negligence” unless the woman was first evaluated for risk factors.

In California, anti-abortion forces are trying to place on the ballot a proposal requiring parental notification before a minor can obtain an abortion. California voters have twice rejected similar measures.

In South Dakota, voters two years ago rejected a measure that would have banned all abortions except to save a mother’s life. Abortion foes are trying again this year, placing on the ballot another broad ban with exceptions in cases of rape, incest and serious health threat to the mother.

Beyond abortion and affirmative action, there are several other potentially volatile ballot measures.

Already qualified for Florida’s ballot is a proposed state constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex marriage. Arizona legislators may place a similar measure on the ballot there, and gay-marriage opponents in California say they have submitted enough signatures to do likewise.

California’s situation is noteworthy because the state Supreme Court is scheduled to rule Thursday on gay marriage. If it approves same-sex unions, a ballot measure in November would provide voters a chance to affirm or overturn that ruling.

In Arkansas, conservatives are gathering signatures for measure aimed at banning gay people from adopting or being foster parents. Another Arkansas measure would require government agencies to verify all those seeking public benefits are legal U.S. residents.

Two years ago, left-of-center groups tried to counter the conservatives’ ballot-measure tactics by successfully pushing proposals in several states to raise the minimum wage. There is no such coordinated effort this year, in part because liberal forces feel optimistic about their overall election prospects.

“The right wing is organizing around same old bag of tricks on social issues, but I don’t think they’ll deliver as much as they expect,” said Kristina Wilfore of the liberal Ballot Initiative Strategy Center. “We’re not as desperate as the other side to change the conversation.”

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The prolonged race for the Democratic presidential nomination is complicating efforts to raise millions of dollars to stage the party’s national convention in Denver.

In previous election years, the nominee has been apparent by this time, and the host city has been able to rely on the winner’s supporters to raise money.

But with the outcome between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama still up in the air, Denver’s host committee is having to raise money on its own.

The Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee is responsible for raising about $60 million in cash and in-kind contributions. The national party has set progressive deadlines for doing so.

The next is March 17th. The committee is expected to have $28 million by day’s end.