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Washington: Democrat Barack Obama stood in a Chicago pulpit on Father's day and admonished black men who have "abandoned their responsibilities" to their children.
Republican John McCain met with Iraq's foreign minister and hailed America's "enormous success" in the war.
The Sunday appearances fit the pattern as each candidate has tried to play to his strength moving into the second week of their head-to-head contest for the White House.
Obama has focused on social issues and the stumbling American economy, while McCain has sought to burnish his perceived strength in matters of national security and foreign policy.
Obama, who would be the United States' first African-American president, spoke earnestly about absent fathers in remarks to the largely black congregation at the Apostolic Church of God near his South Side Chicago home.
Black fathers, he said, are "missing from too many lives and too many homes" and needed to take an active role in raising their children. "They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men..."
McCain, meanwhile, praised Hoshyar Zebari, the affable Iraqi foreign minister whom he met on Sunday in Arlington, Virginia.
After the meeting, he did not answer a question about whether he would promise indefinite protection to the Iraqi people. "The situation on the ground is that we have made enormous success and the surge has worked," he replied.
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