Kohl kicks off campaign in earnest

BERLIN - Germany's main conservative party gathered Sunday for a key convention it hopes will pave the way for regaining power in the fall, with former leader Helmut Kohl invited to speak despite a slush fund scandal he has never fully resolved.\nPolls showing the right ahead in the Sept. 22 election race have boosted the Christian Democratic party's confidence going into its Frankfurt convention, where delegates are due to anoint Bavarian governor Edmund Stoiber as the challenger on Tuesday.\nStoiber cautioned his side in a Sunday newspaper interview that "we still have a long road ahead of us" in the battle to unseat left-leaning Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.\n"It would be the biggest mistake to assume that we have already won the election," Stoiber told Bild am Sonntag. "We have to make it clear every day that four years of Schroeder have brought people many disadvantages"