US election at-a-glance: 24-30 May

John McCain invites three potential running-mates - Mitt Romney, Charlie Crist and Bobby Jindal - to a Memorial Day weekend barbecue. He also criticises Barack Obama for not having visited Iraq since 2006 and offers to conduct a joint tour with him, an offer that the Illinois senator dismisses as "a political stunt". Hillary Clinton defends herself against accusations of insensitivity after invoking the assassination of Robert Kennedy when arguing for her continued presence in the race.

"I have not yet announced publicly, but I think [after the final primary] it will be time for her to give it up."
Former President Jimmy Carter

I think he has a lot of problems Rupert Murdoch on John McCain At-a-glance: 17-23 May

"I have never seen a candidate treated so disrespectfully just for running."
Bill Clinton objects to calls for his wife to drop out

"Clinton and her husband seem to be laying the groundwork - whether unconsciously or consciously - to go back to Democratic voters if Barack Obama comes up short in November with a very concise message: 'Told you so'."
Chris Cillizza, Washington Post

"[Mr McCain] has been in Congress a long time, and you have to make a lot of compromises. So what's he really stand for?... I think he has a lot of problems."
Rupert Murdoch offers his two-penn'orth on the US election

"Where there are pretty young women cheering and clapping in droves, there is politics with a future. By this standard, this campaign has offered us two inspirational political futures: Barack Obama's, and Ron Paul's."
The National Review's John Derbyshire adopts PJ O'Rourke's method of assessing the state of the race

"If you do an analysis of the election, if we had played by the rules of the Democrats, I would have won, and if the Democrats have played by the rules of the Republicans, Hillary would have won this long ago."
Mike Huckabee wishes he lived in a parallel universe

"Why don't you try to learn something about the monument?"
At Mount Rushmore, Hillary Clinton avoids an answer when asked whether she could imagine having her head carved into the mountain

Polling in the last three primary locations - Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota - has been very thin on the ground.

One poll of Puerto Rico was published this week, by Vocero/Univision - it gave Hillary Clinton a 13-point lead over Barack Obama in the island.

There was also just one poll published this week in Montana.

The Mason-Dixon survey suggested that Mr Obama has a comfortable 17-point lead over Mrs Clinton in the Big Sky State.

South Dakota was not even polled once this week.

The last poll of the state's voters, published by Dakota Wesleyan University on 15 April, suggested that Mr Obama would win the state by 46% to Mrs Clinton's 34%.

Mrs Clinton declined to comment when asked whether she thought her head would ever be carved on Mount Rushmore

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