Pollster.com

McSame/Failin=FAIL!!!
:)
In 11 of the last 12 presidential elections, the candidate winning the Gallup poll on October 10th went on to win the general election.
With Obama's comfortable lead here as of October 11th, barring a major terrorist strike on US soil, let us say:
"Welcome, President Obama"!
:)

This race is practically over. The numbers have stabilized and McCain's campaign strategy is all over the place. I suggest all of you to make easy money on Intrade.
___________________________________________
http://www.internationalpoliticstoday.com

For the umpteenth time, the national polls are comforting, as an Obama supporter. But the MUCH better news are the results from states. The holes the Palin/McCain duo are in there are much deeper and even more dire for them. Again... buy the champagne, search for some expensive cigars, find someone to make love to and celebrate, barring some nasty attack, and even then I don't think it'll save McCain. He's been so bizarre in his behavior that folks are beginning to worry about how effective a leader he'd be even in a military setting.

uh oh... race is tightening. boom should be all over this poll.

"wow, he went from down 11 to down 9... thats huge movement! i predict the race will be in a statistical tie by monday"

@Ryguy

You are hilarious. Boom knows this is over. His posts don't have that zip anymore. All that's missing is a formal surrender on the deck of the U.S.S. Obama

Slightly better for Obama from a week ago which I think is the best way to look at tracking polls.

Same with Ras and Hotline.

It's got to hurt to the McCain campaign that after an entire week attacking Obama with Ayers and the whole mudslinging that started a week ago, exactly. Obama holds on like if nothing has happened.

Look at this:

Gallup, October 4, 2008...Obama 50% McCain 42%
Gallup, October 11, 2008...Obama 51% McCain 42%

Rasmussen, October 4,...Obama 51% McCain 45%
Rasmussen, October 11...Obama 52% McCain 45%

No doubt that McCain's attacks have proven to be very, very effective :-)!!!

Keep it up McNasty.

The national trackers converge on a single message: McCain is screwed!

I didn't include Hotline tracker because it would hurt even more.

Look,

Oct. 4...Obama 48% McCain 41%
Oct. 11...Obama 50% McCain 40%

i would like to say that i am proud of mr. mccain for tempering the crowd of bigots at his rally. saying that obama is a decent person was an honorable and respectable move. thats the kind of tenner that i was hoping to see from the senator for the entirety of the campaign... a discussion of disagreements between friends. personally i think its too late to repair his image after the nasty campaign of lies that he has run, but it was a breath of fresh air to see him act like his old self again, instead of the strange monster that schmidt/rove created.

yes, it seems john mccain's attak ads *ARE* working - yust not in the way he intended. perhaps folks are taking mr. mccain's own adwice re: negative attack ads... ;~)

see john mccain's take on negative campaigning:
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=vsX2Gx9jl_o

doug s.

Palin is toning back her attacks against Obama in re the Ayers debacle. She is now working the abortion issue which will play well with the base but not move a lot of independents.

We will see if she still shows for the puck dropping event for the Flyers. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I don't think I would take the chance with the City of Brotherly Love. (I have no animosity toward Philly; been there many times and have been warmly received, but at a Philadelphia sporting event the Philly Brotherliness tends to take a back seat to anything unPhiladelphian, they even booed Santa Claus).

philly sports fans are brutal... cant see that going very well for her.

And Intratrade passes 78. Can't wait to see how the McCain surrogates spin their way out of this week on the Sunday morning shows.

Ryguy,

Agree. McCain used to be a very decent person, my favorite Republican. I remember the nasty things the Bush camp. did to him back in 2000. McCain got my simpathy back then, but now, with this shameless Rovian campaign, I no longer respect McCain. He is just a totally different person to me. He knows that this type of campaign is taking a toll on him, the cross-over support he used to get and the independent vote is evaporating. Those people appreciate the decent McCain of 2000, not this
Rove/Schmidt "creation."

doug s:

Obama should use that Youtube in an ad. Absolutely devestating.

John McCain can say the people he meet at every stop are angry. Is he really putting ANGER at the center of his campaign?

decatur mark - the dnc has used the ad. i dunno how often, i do not own a tv. :>)

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=nHW-RO1_WN0

doug s.

A PREVIEW OF WHAT LIFE WILL BE LIKE IN THE OBAMA THUGACRACY;

Victory Against Vote Fraud in Ohio is Short-lived; Sixth Circuit Says to Dems: "Go For It!"
—Gabriel Malor

On Thursday a federal district court ruled that Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner must perform voter verification required by the Help American Vote Act and provide that information to county election boards.

Yesterday, the Sixth Circuit vacated the order:

A federal appeals court ruled 2-1 last night in favor of Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to put on hold an order sought by the Ohio Republican Party involving information about new voters and concerns about potential fraud.
The three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Brunner is not required to provide county elections boards with the names of voters whose personal information does not match state motor-vehicle or federal Social Security records, as ordered Thursday by U.S. District Court Judge George C. Smith of Columbus.

The Court ruled that Republicans waited too long to challenge Brunner's policies and that this "late-game litigation" could not be permitted. Moreover, it is the panel's opinion that Brunner would likely win on the underlying question of HAVA requirements. The court believes “it would be nice if the system printed out a list of individuals...that did not match,” but “HAVA does not require that level of user-friendliness.”

The dissent says that Brunner's "lack of concern for the integrity of the elections process is astounding and deeply disturbing." The dissent and the Republican litigants are also crying foul because the panel rushed to deliver its opinion before the full Court had a chance to decide on their motion to accept the case en banc. That is still technically a possibility, but given the short time until the election and the fact that an opinion has now been issued in the case is less likely than if the panel had waited.

Ohio goes blue this year.

THE APPEALS COURT ACTUALLY RULED THAT SHE IS ALLOWED TO BREAK THE LAW SIMPLY BECAUSE THE DATABASE ISN'T "USER FRIENDLY" ENOUGH TO BE CHECKED.

OBAMA IS CURRENYLY DENYING EVER HAVING WORKED FOR ACORN OTHER THAN IN A SMALL LEGAL MATTER.

HE IS LYING. THIS, IN HIS OWN WORDS:

"In 1992, Mr. Obama was personally involved in voter registration efforts when he served as director of Project Vote in Chicago, helping to register 150,000 voters on the South Side. His success was widely written about at the time and credited with helping to elect Senator Carol Moseley Braun, the first African-American woman in the Senate.
Mr. LaBolt emphasized that Project Vote and Acorn were not as intertwined at that time as they are today, when a significant part of Project Vote’s revenues flow to Acorn and various of its affiliates as payment for services.

But according to Sam Graham-Felsen, who blogs on the Obama campaign’s Web site, Mr. Obama himself linked his 1992 work to Acorn in a meeting with Acorn’s leaders in November.

“Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drives in Illinois, Acorn was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work,” Mr. Obama said, according to a post Mr. Graham-Felsen made in February."

THE OBAMA THUGACRACY COMETH...

Boomshak.......stfu

Good afternoon boom,

Any comment on the day's polling so far?

WELCOME TO THE COMMUNIST STATES OF AMERICA:

"FRANK RICH: Fire stoked by McCain/Palin raging out of control..."

"MAUREEN DOWD: McCain/Palin rouse the mob against Obama..."

...and this all because two people in a crowd of 10,000 shout insults at Obama. yet Obama associates with Ayers, Wrigght, Rezko and ACORN for years, but we mustn't have "guilt by association".

BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID. THE NEW STALIN LIVES. THY NAME IS OBAMA.

@Commander_King:

That's just the point. The moobat left wants anyone with a dissenting view of THE NEW STALIN to stfu.

God help us all.

ROFL Bush is the biggest SOCIALIST in the HISTORY OF THE US. BOOMWINDBAG find yourself a good woman. You need it.

Boom you are f**ked up. You sound just like all the other right wing maniacs.You people need locked up for OUR protection.

boom, perhaps you need a soothing cup of herbal tea before you post further.

Still interested, though. Any comment on the day's polling (this site, after all, is Pollster.com)

@miatch:

"John McCain can say the people he meet at every stop are angry. Is he really putting ANGER at the center of his campaign?"

They are angry because they see Obama with his willing accomplices in the MSM handing our country over to socialists.

Time to be angry.

BoomWindBag you need to lay off the right wing blogs. God you remind me of an Aunt I have. She's ****ing NUTS. Clear your mind. Get it healthy again!

@Commander_King:

"Boom you are f**ked up. You sound just like all the other right wing maniacs.You people need locked up for OUR protection."

Communist.

@boompalin

Guess we are going to find out if more of your predictions are going to come true huh?

When was the last time you got one of your "educated guesses" correct?

Are the polls all tied up yet?

Why do you think if you just keep throwing idiocy out there that eventually you'll be right about something?

Are you currently working for the John McCain campaign, because you seem to be using their tactics?

In other words boompalin, YAWN... Big YAWN...

I am not a communist...you people are dangerous. making threats against our candidate and just acting like general maniacs.YOU are angry? We are the ones who should be angry.Having to put up with this right wing BS so damn long.

@Boom.

Don't you understand politial scare tactics don't work when the country is in real trouble? See the past week of McFailin's attempt to scare Americans. We are scared, of more time under republican control.

Get a grip, and get used to living in a Democratic Party country. The campaign that McFool has run has created a generation of Democrats to come. This won't be the "permanent majority" that the repugs promised but couldn't deliver, but will likely be a difficult force to reckon with for a generation. Much like what Regan gave the republicans in 1980...

@Boom

Do you know what a communist state is? Have you read Marx and Engles? Do you truely believe that the United States of America, a representative democracy can enact the type of rule you are alarmed about? Calling people communist and socialists without the basis of fact only undermines your argument. Please, I beg of you, get informed.

boom, well youve finally done it. us dems have been scared of you for months now, knowing that you were on to our secret. now you know... we are actually not the democratic party... we are the... COMMUNIST party!!!! DUN DUN DUUUUN!!!! you broke the code with your superior reasoning. now that you know, and i assume you will tell all of your friends, we must truly begin the great culture war. by the time we're done we will eliminate presidential terms and make everyone keep a picture of emperor obama in their home. food rations will finally become regulated, 3 bowls of rice per day for each family sounds fair. 1 car shall be allowed per household... it will be a geo. these are among the less radical of our ideas. can you stop us boom?...can you....?

The truth is neither candidate, nor their advisers, has a clue how to solve the credit crises we are in. I predict the winner get's only four years, then we get republicans again. Ooohf.

WHAT HAS REPUBLICANS SO MAD:

We are at the precipice of having the most liberal leaders EVER in the history of the United States to take over every branch of our government. Our capitalistic institutions are being taken over by the government. We are being lied to and manipulated daily by the MSM.

We need a CHAMPION.

We got a pussy. We want a fighter, we get John McCain explaining "what a great POTUS Obama would be and that we can trust him".

We have had nothing but pussified, cowering, crouch and defend leadership for 8 years now and yea, we are mad. Even more so at our own leaders than we are at the Democrats.

We EXPECT you to be corrupt. We EXPECT the MSM to lie. But there is NO excuse for our own leadership to be such pussified weaklings.

Seems the votes have made the boom completely freak out. Wait till we have the supreme court :-) Ouch, that is gonna hurt.

I dont think anything ,even presidency or senate, structurally changes the way future of America looks like, more than Supreme Court. And we will have it,
Liberal Progressive Supreme Court
Not a bunch of "out of 18th century" right wing religious judges.

BOOM: as a conservative you have every right to be freaked out enough to call liberal, "commies" lol. My sympathies

i agree boom... f*ck john mccain for standing up against bigots. his new ad campaing should be

obama... is he a sand n*gger...or just the regular kind? vote john mccain... hes not muslim.

@DecaturMark:
@Boom

"Do you know what a communist state is? Have you read Marx and Engles? Do you truely believe that the United States of America, a representative democracy can enact the type of rule you are alarmed about? Calling people communist and socialists without the basis of fact only undermines your argument. Please, I beg of you, get informed."

If I had said two years ago when the Democrats were taking over Congress that in two years the government would be nationalizing banks, you would have said then that I was nuts as well, but here we are.

It's callied "boiling the frog". If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water he will jump out. If you put a frog in a pan or warm water and slwoly heat it to boiling, he will remain and die.

Right now, capitalism is being slowly boiled. It is death by a thousand pricks.

You need to get a clue.

We NEED Liberal control over EVERY branch of government? You have a problem with that Boom?

@boompalin

You are right boom, everyone is out to get you, no one but your people can lead this country. Better leave now before the storm troopers come to get you.

You know that once you're taken into custody they are going to force you to have an abortion, turn you into an atheist and make you smoke pot.

Look out all you red-blooded American's, those other American's who disagree with you are coming.

@Ryguy:

You are an idiot. One moron (likely an Obama plant) in a crowd of 10,000 shouts out a racist comment about Obama and suddenly all Republicans are racists, is that it?

Any criticism of Obama, because he happens to be black, is racist, is that it?

@Boom

Stop listening to Rush, Sean and Bill. they are only raising your blood pressure and not doing anything to advance the cause of liberty. You may need the health care that Obama is proposing if you become HPB. Many regular insurance companies have limits on pre-existing conditions.

Calm down and get informed. Read a variety of media, not just those that you agree with. That is a problem in todays 24 hr news cycle world. We can choose which articles and stories to believe because there are so many out there. But an informed person reads articles from varying news sources to derive his own opinion. Again. I beg of you please get informed.

@boompalin

Better move out of the country while you still can boom. Maybe Obama will sell the countries assets to Venezuela, throw you in as slave labor to sweeten the deal.

Maybe they'll make you an economic advisor or something. Explain to me again which piece of democratically backed legislation tanked the economy in just these last 2 years? What was that again?

Better run boomsarah, the commies are coming, the commies are coming...

@Commander_King:

"We NEED Liberal control over EVERY branch of government? You have a problem with that Boom?"

Communist.

not my point at all, boom. my point is that you criticized your own candidate for standing up for obama against bigots. did i ever say that all republicans are racist? clearly i did not. but had mccain played into the racist fears of those bigots who HAD MICROPHONES, that would have been frightening. him doing the honorable thing and bringing this election back to reality does not make him a pussy boom... it makes him more of a man. you wouldnt understand that

BOOM: You need a few years of therapy but you will get there buddy, once again you will be normal. If you go cold turkey on rush and hannity ofcourse

boom,

Interesting. You are obviously not a dope. Nor a mad Christianist, as far as I can tell. Yet you are locked in some ideological echo chamber. Who exactly is this angry "we" you refer to?

And I still want to know your assessment of the day's polls.

boomshak:
@Commander_King:

"We NEED Liberal control over EVERY branch of government? You have a problem with that Boom?"

Communist.

Right wing nutbag with outdated 19th Century ideas.

boom, the thousands and thousands of pricks that are killing capitalism are the republicans, who are overwhelmed by greed. the "haves" are owning more and more, at the expense of everyone else. since reagan, the amount of capital owned by the top 5% has grown, those below the poverty line have grown, the middle class has shrunk.

doug s.

@boompalin

Run boomsarah, run. The end of days are coming and you need to get back to Alaska before the Rapture so you can be there to speak to him in tongues and be protected from witchcraft.

Look out boom the commies are probably taking down all of your comments in the forum and they are going to torture you about them later.

Run boompalin, run...

@Boomshak and his pals
We don't have to be afraid of an Obama administration. As for thuggery, the only thugs have been the right wing frauds running our country since 1980, with one short, prosperous intermission. As for me, I will not tolerate the bullying by the right wing rent-a-mobs any longer, and I will personally slap-the-crap out of anyone of you creeps who tries that Nazi stuff out on me or gets in my face. Please, others of you who are sick of the right wing crap, don't take it any more. Get tough and speak in the only language this hypocrites understand, tough talk. Use Chicago rules; they bring a knife, you bring a shotgun; they bring a shotgun, you bring grenade launcher. Don't put up with their lies and intimidation. Quite letting them corner the macho-market. I think Boomshak and his ilk are just panicked that their hold on power is slipping and all of the economic fraud and manipulation has come home to roost and the emperor no longer has clothes. So "bring it on," as their Il'Duce declares. Only this time, we'll kick your fraudulent behinds back on to the pile of other non-liberty, fascist loving excrement.

Boom

It is not the democratic Congress that is buying the banks. It is a Republican President. It has nothing to do with the Congress. They gave the tools that the Executive branch asked for. It is the onus on the Executive branch to implement them. They are the ones buying the banks, not the Democratic congress.

Stalin was responsible for the death of what, 7 Million? 20 Million?

Anyone who would compare ANY current American politician to him is a fool.

@Commander_King:
Maybe he is the reincarnation of McCarty?

@Commander_King:
Maybe he is the reincarnation of McCarty?

@political_junki

A month ago I would have said you were being harsh to boompalin, but now I'm not so sure.

McCarthy was one stupid SOB and I would have said that boomsarah at least had a little bit of knowledge and was at least trying to defend his position with it. Now, well you've seen his stuff today.

Sad really. I guess we can say.

Good Night, and Good Luck...

And what does America need now? A NEW FDR. A NEW NEW DEAL.

Barack is clearly to the right of FDR, regardless of how many times people claim he is "the most liberal" blah blah blah.

The New Deal was essentially socialist, and it worked.

Just when I think Boom can't get anymore insane....he does.

@Boomshak:

You're confirming the theory about the rad right:

They believe there is nothing ever wrong with conservatism as an ideology. When there is a problem it's always with those who are promoting conservatism.

McCain blew it with MSM. How can you get them to like you, when you go 40+ days without allowing an interview with you or your VP candidate?

If you aren't strong enough or smart enough to stand up to the MSM and play their petty games, you don't have what it takes to take on the terrorists.

McCain's problems with the media were of his own doing. History shows that dictators have always complained about the media . . . the rad right is on the same path.

New Ohio poll out-- University of Cincinnati (Ohio Newspaper Poll on RCP):

10/04 - 10/08 876 LV McCain 48 Obama 46

Probably not enough to move Ohio back to toss up on Pollster map. Ohio remains toss up on RCP map.

Anybody knows if any other state polls will be released today?

Maybe Obama is to the right of Eleanor Roosevelt, but definitely not to the right of FDR.

@Boomshak

My only apology is that you got me so pissed that I've slipped into mis-spelling, and that IS bad, very bad. You guys have reaped the wild wind. You've believed that you are the sole source of patriotism and morality. Yet as a result of the leadership of YOUR crowd, our country will take decades to get out from under the burdens that have been created. I'm not sure that we ever will be able to salvage ourselves, particularly we can be guaranteed that about 1/3 of our country will be devoted to snarling and lying and resisting any success. I'm pretty tired of being "reasonable" in the face of right-wing, so-called conservative hypocrisy. I have never seen so many people be so distant from the very values they profess. We live in a country where a president can have any of arrested as an enemy combatant, tortured, and sent out of the country for unspecified times. And which wing of the liberal establishment produced that? And your telling us about Stalin and Obama? What a bunch of crap. What unbelievable, breathtaking lying and distorting. The only times that liberty in the U.S. has been genuinely at risk is during rule of the likes of Nixon and Dubya. Cosmic Hypocrisy is what you guys stand for.

Verbatim copy and paste:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/10/palin-schedules-bus-tour-of-west-virginia/
Palin schedules bus tour of West Virginia
Posted: 01:12 PM ET

From CNN Political Producer Peter Hamby
Gov. Palin will embark on a bus tour Sunday through West Virginia.

CLEVELAND, Ohio (CNN) — In what may be another signal that the troubled economy is forcing John McCain’s campaign to play electoral map defense, Sarah Palin has scheduled a bus tour for Sunday through West Virginia, a state that’s been leaning red throughout this presidential race.

@kiptin

Ohio is going to be close, no doubt. Current poll aggregation, however, does not favour McCain.

Look at how the numbers were previously:

Ohio Newspaper Poll 09/12 - 09/16 869 LV
Obama 42 McCain 48 /McCain +6

Now:

Ohio Newspaper Poll 10/04 - 10/08 876 LV
Obama 46 McCain 48 /McCain +2

Obama is narrowed McCain's lead from 6% to 2%. Notice that it was Obama who moved up :-)!!!

@Kiptin

McCain can have Ohio. Obama really doesn't need it.

@miatch

"The New Deal was essentially socialist, and it worked."

Actually, FDR's policies were not socialistic in mind when he made them. He saw that America needed work. His ultimate goal was to get the private sector back into the business of running business. But the atmosphere at the time was anti-business. Nearly all the public works initiatives the Federal govt sponsored had a partner with the intention of returning to them the overseeing of the business.

This is the

@ Boomshak

I've been a liberal Democrat for 36 years, and you know what? I agree with virtually every comment you've posted. It seems that every nation needs a chance to act stupid (i.e. embrace the socialist ethos because THIS time we have a TRULY great man who will lead us out of the wilderness and show us the light). I guess our turn has come. But the man hasn't even been elected and already the idealistic talk of bridging divides and bringing us together has turned to fascistic intolerance of any dissenting views. Enjoy the brave new world, Obamabots.

@KipTin

So what, perhaps what this country needs is a little drift back towards the left. Find a little balance after the hatchet job done to our social services and tax policies on behalf of the Grover Norquist types.

The country doesn't need to be either right or left. The middle the "Golden Mean" is a great place to find parity. It is what drives to greatness because everything needs to be balanced.

Too far to the right we get the current situation, too far to the left we get stagnation and look a lot like France. Democracy does not change overnight and it sometimes takes decades to "move the needle" on economic and social policy. The right had their turn and they've taken us off course. Time for a course correction.

KipTin

This Ohio Poll was an outliar for McCain weeks ago. They must do polling at KK, I mean McCain rallys.

By the way, Boomshak . . .

The reason McCain and Palin have tempered their attacks against Obama is that they were beginning to come across as HATE mongers.

Do you really think if their internals were showing this line of attack was working that they would stop it?

It's only the rad right that wants their red meat. They need an outlet for their anger at what is quickly appearing as a crushing referendum on their candidate, their ideology and the last eight years. If you don't satisfy the savages, they go berserk.

What's really amazing is that the vast majority of these folks seeking blood consider themselves "Good Christians."

Go figure.

This poll only confirms what every pollster is detecting, Obama is gaining ground in Ohio. This pollster had McCain up by 6% in Sept. Now it has McCain up by 2%. Does this mean that things are moving in McCain's or Obama's direction?

Great poll, it really looks like McCain is toast in this election. I just hope he has the decency to act like he did yesterday.

I predict the era of wingnut control of our country is soon over. There will always be the frightend little folks (wingnuts) who complain about everyone playing the game while sitting on the bench, but they will be on the bench. We all know what happend when the wingnuts were allowed to play in the game -- they suck at governing!

@H2OPlus

I think you are correct but you should also consider that down-ticket Republican's were probably starting to tell them to go away. Who wants to be in a close Senate or House race and have the McCain team breeze into town on the hate wagon to derail your fading hopes of re-election.

Read the heading of the poll:

"Gap Tightens between McCain and Obama in Ohio, 48 to 46 Percent, In The Ohio Newspaper Poll"

Looks like Palin is now going hard for the Anti-Abortion vote. Don't they realize most Americans do NOT want to put girls and doctors in jail for this most personal of decisions?

Anyway, the new line of attack for this coming week is ... abortion. See JLo at the NRO and Palin latest stump speech. Ayers, it seems, is yesterday's news, even with the moose-hunting wolf shooter.

Guns can't be far behind.

@Boom

That's right. Republicans need a leader and you don't have one. It's true, sad and your reality.

Enjoy your reality. The dems haven't had a leader for a long time either, and I know it does hurt. I would feel bad for you, if you weren't such an ignorant ****.

@Johncoz

Have you calculated the weighted National average today? Swing from the Debate?

@johncoz

Looks like they are really going to have the 29% of the extreme right locked up and ready to vote.

Maybe they'll start in on the Obama is the Anti-Christ meme.

This race is starting to look like a drag race between a moped and a top-fuel funny car. One side is really starting to pull away.

@johncoz:
Abortion? Well they are taking the fun out of it with playing so bad. I am sure >95% of anti abortion people already vote against Obama. This late at race hey want to go after that less than 5% when they are hemorrhaging voters all over the place?

Please, don't tell them. American women, especially suburban, educated women, even Republican, are pro-choice. The more Palin brings up the choice issue the more she will remind these women that McCain/Palin are out of touch with them.

@OneAngryDwarf:
Ditto!

@carl29

You'd think that they would know better by now. I get the anti-abortion thing is great for their fund raising. But it's lousy politics, and way late in the game to be trying to raise funds.

They are trying to raise funds for the Republican Party. They cannot raise money for the McCain/Palin campaign.

Hi thoughtful, I posted yesterday's this morning, and will do today's a little later and post tomorrow morning -- with link to graph for the week -- with some probably lame attempt at interpretation, lol.

Clearly though, this has been a shocking polling week for McCain.

Most money given to the McCain/Palin Victory fund is funneled to the Rep Party. They can keep some for legal and operational expenses.

miatch,

You are right. The other day Michael Smerconish, a radio-talk show host in Philly, was saying that McCain's attacks on Obama( with Ayers) was just dumb politics. According to him, and many of us here, McCain had already locked the "crazy-extremist" vote, and those attacks only make "sober" people runaway from him. Likewise, the abortion "war" will only make pro-choice women, which is the majority, stay away from McCain/Palin.

*Keep in mind that Smerconish is a Republican, more of a libertarian guy though, and has never voted for a Democrat for President. It seems that he is kind of "un-happy" with Republicans, precisely because of the "religious/social" issues so prominent in the party agenda. He has admitted that he is open to voting for Obama.

The son of William F. Buckley has decided—shock!—to vote for a Democrat.

Let me be the latest conservative/libertarian/whatever to leap onto the Barack Obama bandwagon. It’s a good thing my dear old mum and pup are no longer alive. They’d cut off my allowance.

Or would they? But let’s get that part out of the way. The only reason my vote would be of any interest to anyone is that my last name happens to be Buckley—a name I inherited. So in the event anyone notices or cares, the headline will be: “William F. Buckley’s Son Says He Is Pro-Obama.” I know, I know: It lacks the throw-weight of “Ron Reagan Jr. to Address Democratic Convention,” but it’ll have to do.

Dear Pup once said to me, “You know, I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.”

I am—drum roll, please, cue trumpets—making this announcement in the cyberpages of The Daily Beast (what joy to be writing for a publication so named!) rather than in the pages of National Review, where I write the back-page column. For a reason: My colleague, the superb and very dishy Kathleen Parker, recently wrote in National Review Online a column stating what John Cleese as Basil Fawlty would call “the bleeding obvious”: namely, that Sarah Palin is an embarrassment, and a dangerous one at that. She’s not exactly alone. New York Times columnist David Brooks, who began his career at NR, just called Governor Palin “a cancer on the Republican Party.”

As for Kathleen, she has to date received 12,000 (quite literally) foam-at-the-mouth hate-emails. One correspondent, if that’s quite the right word, suggested that Kathleen’s mother should have aborted her and tossed the fetus into a Dumpster. There’s Socratic dialogue for you. Dear Pup once said to me sighfully after a right-winger who fancied himself a WFB protégé had said something transcendently and provocatively cretinous, “You know, I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.” Well, the dear man did his best. At any rate, I don’t have the kidney at the moment for 12,000 emails saying how good it is he’s no longer alive to see his Judas of a son endorse for the presidency a covert Muslim who pals around with the Weather Underground. So, you’re reading it here first.

As to the particulars, assuming anyone gives a fig, here goes:

I have known John McCain personally since 1982. I wrote a well-received speech for him. Earlier this year, I wrote in The New York Times—I’m beginning to sound like Paul Krugman, who cannot begin a column without saying, “As I warned the world in my last column...”—a highly favorable Op-Ed about McCain, taking Rush Limbaugh and the others in the Right Wing Sanhedrin to task for going after McCain for being insufficiently conservative. I don’t—still—doubt that McCain’s instincts remain fundamentally conservative. But the problem is otherwise.

McCain rose to power on his personality and biography. He was authentic. He spoke truth to power. He told the media they were “jerks” (a sure sign of authenticity, to say nothing of good taste; we are jerks). He was real. He was unconventional. He embraced former anti-war leaders. He brought resolution to the awful missing-POW business. He brought about normalization with Vietnam—his former torturers! Yes, he erred in accepting plane rides and vacations from Charles Keating, but then, having been cleared on technicalities, groveled in apology before the nation. He told me across a lunch table, “The Keating business was much worse than my five and a half years in Hanoi, because I at least walked away from that with my honor.” Your heart went out to the guy. I thought at the time, God, this guy should be president someday.

A year ago, when everyone, including the man I’m about to endorse, was caterwauling to get out of Iraq on the next available flight, John McCain, practically alone, said no, no—bad move. Surge. It seemed a suicidal position to take, an act of political bravery of the kind you don’t see a whole lot of anymore.

But that was—sigh—then. John McCain has changed. He said, famously, apropos the Republican debacle post-1994, “We came to Washington to change it, and Washington changed us.” This campaign has changed John McCain. It has made him inauthentic. A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget “by the end of my first term.” Who, really, believes that? Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis. His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking?

All this is genuinely saddening, and for the country is perhaps even tragic, for America ought, really, to be governed by men like John McCain—who have spent their entire lives in its service, even willing to give the last full measure of their devotion to it. If he goes out losing ugly, it will be beyond tragic, graffiti on a marble bust.

As for Senator Obama: He has exhibited throughout a “first-class temperament,” pace Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s famous comment about FDR. As for his intellect, well, he’s a Harvard man, though that’s sure as heck no guarantee of anything, these days. Vietnam was brought to you by Harvard and (one or two) Yale men. As for our current adventure in Mesopotamia, consider this lustrous alumni roster. Bush 43: Yale. Rumsfeld: Princeton. Paul Bremer: Yale and Harvard. What do they all have in common? Andover! The best and the brightest.

I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books. Imagine. He is also a lefty. I am not. I am a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets. On abortion, gay marriage, et al, I’m libertarian. I believe with my sage and epigrammatic friend P.J. O’Rourke that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.

But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves. If he raises taxes and throws up tariff walls and opens the coffers of the DNC to bribe-money from the special interest groups against whom he has (somewhat disingenuously) railed during the campaign trail, then he will almost certainly reap a whirlwind that will make Katrina look like a balmy summer zephyr.

Obama has in him—I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy “We are the people we have been waiting for” silly rhetoric—the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.

So, I wish him all the best. We are all in this together. Necessity is the mother of bipartisanship. And so, for the first time in my life, I’ll be pulling the Democratic lever in November. As the saying goes, God save the United States of America.

Yeah, political_junki, another Obamacan :-)!!!

McWorse/Devil - will be decimated.

Two weeks on Ayers, two weeks on Rezko and then the last gasp will be the Rev Wright. Then, and only after then will the piece of sh## Rove and his fellow felons ride off into our distant memory!

@maddiekat

I actually hope that they don't ride off into the sunset. Rove is currently in contempt of a Congressional subpoena.

That subpoena is related to the outting of a CIA agent which is treason a very serious offense. I hope that after the election we hear lots about Rove and his associates and that it translates into good old Karl being someones shower daddy in a federal prison.

Just keeping those fingers crossed.

with 3 polling days after the debate, Barrack Obama records a highest ever 8.4% average (unweighted) lead on the trackers. That is a swing of +2.2% since last Wednesday.

Last Sunday the Average of the daily Trackers was 7.6%.

I think that Boom could be the leader of the new Republican party that will lead the nation out of its socialist despair after four terrible years of Obama rule. Boom needs to write a political manifesto, the core ideas of the new conservative philosophy that the people, the REAL Americans, can rally around with Boom as their leader. This new manifesto needs a catchy title, something that will grab people's attention while giving assurance that the people have a new leader, someone that will never be a pussy like McCain.

I've got it!
Boom should call the book "My Battle"!

The reason McSame and Failin's personal attacks on Obama aren't working is because the major issue is the economy. Bush 41 tried personal attacks on Clinton in 92 and they didnt work then either. Just as with McSame, Bush 41 was facing a serious recession which he never acknowledged. If Obama does win, I believe that he will spend most of his time digging us out of this economic hole which the Republicans have caused.

Boom,

My comrades in the MSM and I know your on to our plan to turn the USA into a communist country, and there is nothing you can do about it. You will be one of the first to go in my Stalinistic purges. Long live comrade Barrack Obama...

I am not sure if you guys are aware while debating about socialism or communism but buying shares of companies and banks is called nationalization and is at the core of any socialist government such as France in 1981 or UK before that. So democrats or republicans, you'd better voice some concerns here because obama/mc cain both support this policy and you may all be consider as good labor/socialistic adepts in the next few weeks!

Former McCain icon, Rep Steve Lewis:
"“As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all," Lewis said today. "They are playing a very dangerous game that disregards the value of the political process and cheapens our entire democracy. We can do better. The American people deserve better.”

Undergirding the daily cut and thrust, the political tectonic plates are moving. History will be the judge, but we are blessed to be witness to these events.

I am European (Dutch) and it always strikes me how the heat turns up during the US elections. Accusations of 'socialism' and doom are strife. People really fear 'liberals'. It's amazing, because basically both the dems and the repubs are quite right wing / pro-capitalist compared to many parties in European nations.
Countries there have had many 'socialist' or labour governments and don't fear them that much. There have always been swings from left to right and vice versa.
The problem with the US is that it's a two party model with not all that much difference between them. Especially not in foreign or economic policy. Both parties are totally pro-business and quite hawkish in foreign policy. Yes, even the Clinton years were much better for the rich/elite than they were for the poor. Boom's rantings are totally laughable. The dems are socialists or stalinists? Really, he hasn't got a clue.
That said, Obama won't turn out to be the 'saviour' of change as many here tend to believe. 'Change' is just a campaign slogan, and it will be business as usual once this is all over. Dems and Repubs will always be pro-business and playing in the hands of the elite. They would be toast otherwise. Media only allows Obama a good run at the presidency because the elite is not too worried at all.
People that truly want change (guys like Nader), will always just be fringe.

I think Boom and his ilk should take their own advice, cash out their 401K's, sell their properties, auction off their boats and cars, and become refugees in some real "capitalist" nation like...well, er um. Looks like Britain just actually nationalized their banks, and that all the others in the G8 are suggesting something of that nature.

Oh wait...Iraq! THEIR stockmarket is still going strong! And look! They have a huge surplus! Plus it's obvious that they are so thankful for the assistance that Conservative Republicans gave them. Especially the Shi'a.

I'm sure they'd find a nice beach front plot for him to retire to!

@Zotz

I'm afraid you're mistaken. "My Fight" would be the literal translation of that certain book's title you are hinting at...

@all

Actually, this is beginning to frighten me. This is beginning to look like "1964 reloaded", except for the replacement of Barry Goldwater's (who, coincidentally, happend to be the guy whose Senate seat is now McCain's) role by Sarah Palin.

We need socialism.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/images/uscandidates2008.png Will you people take the far left socialist crap and shove it back into your asses? Moore for example is a socialist. Obama isn't close to him.

Boy the John Lewis statement really pissed of McCain. This race is going to come down to the 52% of thinking Americans, 30% of brainwashed folks who listen to Hannity and Rush, 10% who are racist, and 8% who can not make up their mind at a fast food joint. Thus I see O 52% M 40% and 8% still trying to decide if they should vote!

PJ_FFM,

You are so right. Want more probe of what Palin and McCain are doing? Right now CBS has a video of a man in a Palin rally in Johnstown, PA, holding on a stuff MONKEY with an OBAMA bumper sticker. What is it that after Palin started accusing Obama of all this things, her followers feel comfortable of openly expressing such racist views.

Take a look, guys:

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/10/11/politics/fromtheroad/entry4515246.shtml

PJ_FFM,

Don't worry we have the LBJ style ad ready to go against Mccain, we are just waiting to see if it is needed. When and if we decided it is, we in the vast Left Wing Conspiracy will signal the MSM. They will release our mushroom cloud, warmongering anti-Mccain Ad.

frenchie 75- The one thing that Paulson was given power to do was to buy shares in these banks. The problem is, they are non-voting shares....so the banks are going to be run by the same executives that ran the banks into near bankruptcy. They will likely do the same things- ridiculously extravagant executive salaries and separation buy-outs, bonehead high risk investments without evaluation of the liklihood the recipient will be able to generate any residuals, etc.

Non-voting shares. That's not "socialism", "communism", or "capitalism". It's stupidity...unless, of course, the politicians are going to get hired as consultants or lobbyists when they leave office. Then they'll get their paws on this gift from the taxpayer.

Palin and McCain know what message they are sending. Want more proof? Why after Palin started the name-calling, people in their rallies have increasingly turned aggresive against Obama, to the point of showing overt racism without any shame? Make no mistake, if people feel comfortable doing so, it is because they know that they will be socially accepted in that environment. Palin and McCain's rallies are now plain "Anti-Obama" rallies, period.

McWorse/Devil - will be decimated.

...and we're playing with fire? funny how us on the right side point out.. "hey america look who this guy associates with, look at his ideals." and then left goes crazy...how dare the american people start to question their "messiah". most liberals have no faith in any higher power so they religiously grasp on to the savior sent by the democratic party, and if we question it they go nuts and continue their baseless name calling (mccain is too old, yet biden their second favorite political messiah is only a couple years younger). america the libs are crazy wake up people I know times are tough...should we trust america in the hands of people who hate it?

Tucker Bounds just openly called Obama a lier.
This is really going too far

@Strike:
Most of your ramblings need not be dignified with an answer except this technical problem with your post:
Bidem is "Six = 6" years younger than McCain not a couple. And when you are in 60's 2 is very different from 6. And he is not becoming president, he is the VP. And his second in command is not an incompetent, ignorant, vapid, venal, corrupt VP nominee who lies like a bear rug.

I found boomshak

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4515218n&tag=centerColumn;centerColumnContent

@cinnamonape

Well...Watch what's coming early next week. Paulson will acquire some shares in the US banks as the UK Government did last week in order to establish new confidence in loaning money. Letting down Lehmans brothers was the biggest mistake yet since banks lost the confidence they could be rescued if needed...This action has accelerated the downfall of the market since no banks wanted to loan any more...really big mistake

I already saw it, mysticlaker. Again, this is not helping McCain with the cross-over vote and those Independents. Educated, middle-of-the-road people don't like this type of things.

Does anyone know when Obama will release his September fundraising results?

Also to all you socialist haters out there, consider these small facts:

1. Corporations use public land, resources, roads, infrastructure, etc. in order to operate, therefore they should pay their fair share of taxes to keep them going...in other words, why do the wealthy pay less than an individual (percentage-wise)?

2. Workers in a union use only the free-market approach that corporations do. A company always looks for the easiest way to accomplish a goal while acquiring the most profit possible from any business transaction. A worker should be able to do the same, they are selling their manual labor, thus, they should negotiate the best possible profit for their sale, and they should do so for the least amount of effort they can on their own part.

3. The rest of the industrialized world is aware of this and they have more equitable pay arrangements than America does...even in Japan, corporate executives take pay cuts before the common worker will...that America thinks any differently is only testament to the fact that the richest few have successfully duped a large percentage of the population into thinking that it is in their best interest to work for less, give companies more, and expect that they will be rewarded for their ignorance...

4. Market Socialism is the best economic system that we have available...Unregulated free-markets are unstable and detrimental to everyone, including the rich, who are too short-sided to think long-term, thus, our current debacle.

Haha. Perhaps Strike would like to explain how America is safe in the hands of a man who has voted with one of the worst Presidents in history 90% of the time, who picked the most unqualified VP candidate in history, and has run the most idiotic campaigns in history? But according to you we're not safe with someone who was on a education board that a former 70s radical was on? I don't see you condemning the conservative Republican who ran the board and is a McCain supporter, or condemning the Governor of the state who approved of the work the board did. And as for Wright, if you condemn Obama for Wright, which is ridiculous in of itself, then you must condemn McCain for Hagee and Parsley. Right wing bull**** at it's finest. Why don't you condemn Bush's ties to Saudi Arabia, which has more involvement in terrorism than Iraq ever did.

One of the most idiotic campaigns is how it should read.

@strike

Should we trust our economy in the hands of the Republicans who have run it into the ground?

Boomshack your a hack at trolling...

Strike-
"should we trust america in the hands of people who hate it?"

The only party that "hates" the United States is the Alaska Independence Party which Tod Palin was a member of and Sarah was obviously very friendly with.

This morning I wrote that to question Obama on Rezko, Ayers, Wright and Acorn is fair game. However, THE LANGUAGE "Pallin round with a Terrorist" is incitement in a charged post 9/11 context.

Ayers is a former terrorist. He and His wife well overstepped the mark in opposing the War in Vietnam 40 years ago. However are the Annenbergs and contless other Republican associates of Ayers "pallin round with a terrorist"? Of course not.

Sgt J Wright now known as Reverend Wright is an American war hero, a former Marine, McCain knows better than to attack a man who has served his country in battle with bravery and commendation;

Rezko, I hardly think MSM have given Obama a free pass over that relationship.

Is it not enough to say that Obama has had questionable relationships with people who are more than a little whacky and a convicted felon Rezko? It doesn't need the extra rhetora does it?

If there is an assination attempt on Obama there may well be good grounds to indict McCain and Palin with being an assessory.

@FED

Every body knows that Tucker is inadequate and has problems ever telling the truth.

@Oldy75

Actually I'm more concerned about a buildup on the far right wing as it was in 1964 (starting with the organizing effort of fringes who managed to build a long term majority among low level GOP party officials and up to the top) and in the post-1964 years... the fringes only need a leader, or at least some sort of crystallization point - and I really hope that Sarah Palin is unable to fulfill that function.

I've been worried Palin might be able to become a serious threat in the future by rallying the extreme right wing, but it looks like she's doing a fine job of snuffing herself out of existence. Really, I'm seeing very little I like from any Republicans save Paul these days.

Frenchie:"Well...Watch what's coming early next week. Paulson will acquire some shares in the US banks as the UK Government did last week in order to establish new confidence in loaning money. Letting down Lehmans brothers was the biggest mistake yet since banks lost the confidence they could be rescued if needed.."

I agree. But when you become a shareholder and provide equity...you should also become a voting shareholder. There is a fiduciary duty to protect those that have provided those assets to be invested. Even these loans have very little restrictions on their application.

Paulson is throwing money around without establishing standards that actually WOULD encourage trust in the system...which requires greater responsibility. That's why there continues to be a lack of confidence that very much has changed.

In China they'd take out a half dozen of the biggest "corruptors" and put them against a wall.

@thoughtful

You are too kind to Tucker Bounds, that dude couldn't find the truth with two hands and a map. He and Nancy Pfotenhauer are some of the most incredible liars I have ever seen on network television.

It isn't that they are good at it, they just seem to not care if they are speaking anything resembling the truth. They seem almost compulsive in their need to lie and you have a very difficult time talking them off of their points.

It is like they are working for Rupert Murdoch.

"'ve been worried Palin might be able to become a serious threat in the future by rallying the extreme right wing, but it looks like she's doing a fine job of snuffing herself out of existence. Really, I'm seeing very little I like from any Republicans save Paul these days."

Goldwater, despite his base of support in Arizona and continuing presence in the Senate, never was able to make a comeback. Of course, Nixon sort of preempted that by appealing to what once was a fairly substantial moderate-business end of the party. Reagan was the one to use the Goldwater base.

So perhaps not Palin..but some other palindrome will emerge. Of course, she's a lot younger than Goldwater was.

Forty years ago Martin Luther King spoke of a dream about the day a man would be judged not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character.

The hostility about "terrorist", or "Arab", or whatever, that has been happening at these rallies is tapping into a well-spring of racism, and we all know it. Obama is an uppity nigger, but you can't say that anymore so any other code word will have to do. It's a deeply visceral reaction that may not even be visible to many who are experiencing it.

There are of course many, many other issues in this campaign, but race lies at it unspoken center.

And what a tragedy that the candidate of the party of Lincoln should be the reluctant standard bearer of these racist anxieties.

I don't know whether the election of Obama will make a huge difference to the current economic crisis. But it will be a transformational vindication of the American Dream.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X2kjgdF1Xk

@cinnamonape

yes you're right. Some have created a financial security virus composed of a mix of good and bad mortgage investments which the rest of the world was happy to acquire!

i would strongly encourage to send these people to jail...unfortunately they are probably sunbathing somewhere...with our cash...

I'm always amazed to read the word "socialism" from some rebubs - and what they really mean is nothing but social democracy - or even social market economy like the one which made Germany the success it still is.

We don't run Gulag's in Germany, we have a free press, we have freedom of speech. Even our conservative party in many ways is more liberal the even Obama. We just think that being a have means you have responsibilities for the non-haves.

This seems to have a couple of advantages: no one in Germany is without healthcare but those who are even too far outside the society to go to the social offices run by government.

Everybody in Germany will end his career in politics if he proclaimed death penalty (and, mind you: the crime rate is like 25% of yours).
And we have quite strict gun laws which surprisingly don't give a free pass to criminals.

Yes, we have a lot of problems in Germany. Yet we still are among the most wealthiest of nations. Even with all the "socialism" going on here. Socialism like in you have up to 12 months of unemployment insurance. Socialism like in if you earn less than a certain amount of money government will pay for your rent. Socialism like in we want nobody to suffer who is too weak to take care of himself.

I'm well aware that the USA have a very different culture regarding social themes. And I will not simply dismiss this: each society has to work by the rules the majority of this society accepts as right.

Only: it seems like the majority in the USA does not accept the old, corrupted rules anymore. And the only rebub answer to the claim for more civilized rules is: civilization means socialism? That not only is stupid. It's as close to a crime as it gets.

Claiming Obama = Stalin means making fun of 20 million victims of the Stalin regime.

Boomshak, who obviously is a knowledged person, has no excuse for this analogy. He's outraged? Maybe. But this is no excuse. He's angry? No excuse. He's out of his mind - well: no excuse. Just an explanation of his mindless posts.

Socialism is NOT if the government runs some business. Even if this business is central to the econmy. Socialism is ruling out that people can run their own business.

Believe me: we Germans have a lot of experience with socialism, be it the communist kind or the nationalist kind.

But today we are NOT a socialist nation.

@Vokoban

In Europe you have social democracies. Not a lot of differences in any of the Western Europe countries.

Obama would be considered a conservative (Christian Democrat) by comparison in Germany and on the right of that as he does support capital punishment and there is very little support for that anywhere in Europe.

Vokoban: Thank you thank you thank you thank you!

@ thoughtful

Right. And that makes the rebub claims about socialism completely ridiculous.

I dare not to make suggestions for America to become a European state.

But things need to stay in perspective. And comparing Obama to Stalin is just a ridiculous as comparing Bush to Hitler.

I wouldn't call Bush someone with deep roots in democracy, but he's no one who committed genocide.

I'm calling for a rhetoric disarmament here. If this goes on words like faschism and stalinism would lose their horrific meanings - and that would pave the way for repetition.

Sure, the Democratic Party is indeed more conservative than the Christian Democrats in Germany or the Liberal Party of the Netherlands (Liberal = Conservative here). Which is why 92% of Dutchmen is hoping for an Obama victory. Because absolutely no-one can identify with the Republicans' ultra-orthodox views on gay marriage, death penalty, abortion etc. But this only concerns ethical issues. If you look at socio-economic policies, on the other hand, the Democrats' positions are very much in line with those of our Labour parties. Which is why there are still 8% of McCain supporters even in the Netherlands: they're the diehard freemarketeers.

@boomshak

lol, you've really turned into a pathetic, angry person.

tell us all boom, race tied by Sunday?

Mr Average,
I don't disagree. Though I would say the 8% McCain supporters in Germany are simply die-hard racists.

EVERYBODY should know by now (even German liberal democrats, who are the free market party over here) that free market doesn't work without a set of rules to contain human greed.

to pdehaan:

your post at 4:20 pm nailed it - not much difference between democrats & republicans. your comment about clinton was spot-on. except he was actually a republican disguised as a democrat. his economic policies, as much as reagan's & dubyah's, are what has gotten us into this economic meltdown mess. which is why i was so glad that clinton ll went down. i'd rather suffer thru a republican who at least admits they're republican, then suffer thru another republican-disguised-as-democrat clinton.

i can only hope barack turns out to be a lot more liberal than he sounds. but, with his recent senate vote re-authorizing warrantless wiretapping, & giving immunity to those who broke the law regarding eavesdropping, my hopes aren't that high...

and, there is no one in national politics that will ever touch the "third rail" (ie: it will bring instant death) of our foreign policy, which is the only way to really defeat the "war on terror". and that is to hold israel's feet to the fire regarding its situation w/the palestinians. i am still waiting for a politician to state that israel needs to abide by u.n resolutions 242 & 338. i am still waiting for a politician to state that our giving foreign aid to israel is against usa laws, as israel refuses to support nuclear non-proliferation, & israel has nuclear weapons. i am still waiting for a usa politician to state that israel will no longer receive any foreign aid until it abides by u,n, resolutions and withdraws from all territories occupied in the 1967 war.

if/when the usa ever decides to take a true fair unbiased stand in israel/palestine issues, then, and only then, will the strength be taken out of the radical muslim fundamentalist's sails. and, don't anyone accuse me of being anti-semitic - i was bar mitzvah'd in 1969...

doug s.

Lunched today with some conservative repubs/independents. Not a single one was willing to vote for McCain/Palin. They weren't sure they'd vote for Obama/Biden, might not vote at all or go with Barr. Interesting.

new weighting ras...dem 39.3(UC) rep 33.0(-.3)indie 27.7(+.3)

I just got from phone banking to NV from CA for Obama's GOTV for FOUR HOURS!

At the end, I ended up talking to a mother who was lean McCain for FOURTY MINUTES...and got her and her family of SEVEN to shift to LEAN OBAMA!!

NV's GOING BLUE BABY!!!

I just got back from phone banking to NV from CA for Obama's GOTV for FOUR HOURS!

At the end, I ended up talking to a mother who was lean McCain for FOURTY MINUTES...and got her and her family of SEVEN to shift to LEAN OBAMA!!

NV's GOING BLUE BABY!!!

@Disco Stu

Way to go Stu!!!

@everyone. Excusssssse me. Let's be empirical. GNP and personal income grew more rapidly during Democratic administrations than during GOP ones. Not conjecture; not opinion; not fantasy; just the facts. Not only did income and GDP grow more rapidly during Democratic administrations, but inequality tended to decline as well. So like the Dutch guy said. We have two capitalist parties in this country. The Democrats and the GOP. The former seems to be more competent when it comes to managing the economy, however, while the latter seems to get away with torpedoing the economy and making it more unequal. Facts, data, not opinion.

Hitler and Stalin did not come to power because they supported "big government" programs to help the poor. They came to power because they were able to suppress dissent, were able to stigmatize their political opponents as unpatriotic and enemies of the fatherland (Nazis) or the motherland (commies). Hitler and Stalin and others like that might promise bread and coal, but their power was based not on their social welfare programs, but on their ability to limit the right of people to speak, to assemble and to vastly increase the power of the state to monitor and suppress political dissent. Sound familiar?

Which political party tends in the U.S. to attack the press? Which one celebrates they military as if it was the premier social institutions? Which president and political party has used opposition to our "homeland security" provisions as a way to score cheap political shots? Which political party has advanced the idea that the president can round up anyone as a security threat, label him or her an enemy combatant, and send him/her off to god knows where? Which political party has argued for the unbounded power of the president to do virtually anything under the guise of some endless war against terror? If you are honest you know the answer to these questions. It's the same answer and it's the GOP.

For you phony conservatives who think freedom and liberty are at risk because of programs to protect workers or consumers, I say you are simply fools. Liberal programs can be stupid, or wasteful, or ineffective, or even counter-productive, but they are not the road to dictatorship. Conservatives simply have lost the ability to distinguish between stupid/wasteful programs and those dangerous to personal liberty. Liberals, of course, have been too inclined to substitute good intentions for effective programs and too quick to charge critics of stupid and wasteful programs as being hostile to the poor. Liberals need to understand that there is nothing more dangerous to a liberal agenda than to make the working stiff out there feel stupid and angry while they are busting their chops while dumb government programs are being funded, partly at their expense. The best defense for the liberal agenda is to, first, make sure you show respect for the taxpayers who support these programs and, second, to make sure that such programs are cost-effective and dump them if they're not.

Disco Stu -- I've been phonebanking all day to NV from California. Where in Cal are ya? Btw, nice job on the persuasion! I got lots of Obama supporters, so I had less persuasion today. This thing's looking like a romp!

@Mike_in_CA

I'm a bit limited in movement. Is there someone you know I can contact so that I can start calling. I've contributed money, but now I'd like to do something. I need to blow off some steam by actually doing something besides blogging.

news from MN CD6 (since we are sharing :)
from fwiw dept.

just got back from the Mamas For Obama Rally here in the Twin Cities that my wife helped organize. Not sure how much we accomplished other than visibility in deep red MN CD6, but we got way more honks for support than the extended middle digit.

As a first time delegate to MN State DFL Convention, I got to tell you, it is amazing to see this level of grass roots enthusiasm SUSTAINED from the Super Tuesday through October! We had over 100 people show up with kids, dogs, all with handmade Obama signs, all disorganized and spontaneous. And we had a blast. Meeting again on Sat before Nov 4 for a repeat. GOTV + door knocking in between.

In red CD6 we had more Dems turn out for the primaries than Reps. I think there is a real chance of Rep. Bachmann (spit) going down in CD6, and Franken continues to lead in the widely swinging polls over Coleman.

I got to tell you, if the conservative CD6 is going blue, then we will have the bulletproof 60 in the Senate on Obama's coattails.

Everyone, I urge you to read the following at Sam Wang's website. Excellent suggestions, particularly concerning the need to focus on Congress now.

Yeah, I think that Kline is in bad shape as well in CD-2.

In case anyone did not notice, Obama now has his widest lead over McCain since the race began, according to RCP.

ooops everyone; here it he Wang site:

http://election.princeton.edu/2008/10/10/a-hard-look-at-reality-and-what-you-should-do/#more-1773

boomshat,

Would you agree that pure communism, boiled down to it's very roots, is more of a 'from the rich as they can give, give to the poor as they need' philosophy? Take away all the political baggage and forced 'class warfare', just the basest philosophy is a classless society, with no rich, no poor, everyone making approximately the same, everyone living approximately the same.

Would you state that the above definition of pure communism would appear to be the antithesis of Christianity?

If you agree (and I suspect that you would), do you know who St. Stephen was?

St. Stephen was the first Christian martyr. He was one of seven deacons (the first deacons appointed by the early Christian church) to more fairly distribute alms to the poor. Part of the duty to which he was assigned was to do everything in his power to get the rich to give more - be it by persuasion, shame, or other means.

Sounds a lot like pure communism to me.

You can read more about St. Stephen at:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14286b.htm

Oh, and the above web site is the official Catholic Encyclopedia, so it is not white-washed to be pro-communistic at all.

@MNLatteLiberal:
Thank you. Very heartwarming!

to the republicans... how dare you come on hear crying about the fear of liberals taking over the government. did i hear any of you complain when the most right wing leaders weve ever had took hold of this country? no, you celebrated, and you didnt compromise, you spat in our faces. so now its time for you to take your medicine. face it, extreme right wing philosophy has failed the american people. they dont want it anymore and they dont fear the word liberal anymore. your fear mongering word has no power any longer. so deal with it. the right wing had 8 god awful years of power, filled with corruption, lies, chipping away at the constitution, 0 accountability, and disasters on EVERY FRONT. now its time for the pendulum to swing back to a more liberal philosophy and you only have yourselves to blame for it. you went too far to the right after an 8 year period of a moderate in the white house, and you pissed people off.

so dont go running on here telling the world to watch out for liberalism. we're not that stupid or brainwashed. conservatives can not call liberal a dirty word...

Conservatism = Lets bury our head in the sand and keep the status quo.
Some thing the so called conservatives like to forget is that in the 50's you could not be a conservative and not be for segregation! As stupid as that sounds now, 50 years from now being anti-abortion or anti-gay marriage will be.
--------------------------------------------
How can a reasonably smart person keep an straight face and in the 21th century say that he supports a Vice Presidential Candidate that believes earth was created 6000 years ago?

Fiscal conservatism is understandable, but mixing it with the stupidest most backwards social ideas based on an obscure read of religion, that is something I will never understand.

Boomshark:
I bet you were one of the guys defending Bush for the last 8 years now you're mad at him? Well, welcome to the club. We've been telling you that for 8 year now. Your own candidate is advocating a socialist housing program so stop with the "socialists are taking over OMG!" Bush and the Republican party have killed the conservative movement partly because of people like you who didn't have the guts to stand up to your Dear Leader.

And it's ok, we forgive you. Even though we're corrupt and the MSM are liars we seemed to know Bush was a destructive force and McCain was a joke long before the Republican party realized it. We're a big tent party... welcome to the club.

PPP
COLORDADO:
OBAMA 52 MCCAIN 42
http://www.publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/

From PPP:
Colorado also provides a clear example of how Sarah Palin's popularity across the country continues to fall. Right after the GOP convention her favorability was 41/38. Three weeks later it was 38/47. Now it's dropped to 36/49.

The numbers paint a picture that shows it nearly impossible for McCain to win the state at this point. Only 6% of voters are undecided, and among those who do have a preference currently only 6% say there's any chance they could change their mind. Obama's lead at this point is such that McCain would have to win virtually every undecided, keep everyone who could change their mind currently supporting him in his camp, and win over almost 100% of current Obama supporters who say they aren't totally committed to him. The chances of all those things happening? Not very good.

Now I see why Obama has not been in Colorado for a while

(sorry, this is long)

@political_junki:
"How can a reasonably smart person keep an straight face and in the 21th century say that he supports a Vice Presidential Candidate that believes earth was created 6000 years ago?"

Exactamundo! What struck me the most watching the Republican debates last spring (yeah, I must be a masochist), is that ALL, I repeat ALL of the 10 or 11 Republicans proudly announced that they did not believe in Theory of Evolution. The utter ignorance, the profound disconnect with reality, never mind science!

Can you see this happening in Europe? Can you imagine this pride in own stupidity in France? Or England? Or Germany? Can you imagine an educated civilized citizen proudly dismissing gravity because it is only a theory?

This is no idle question to me, a scientist. To me this is pivotal: a politician who does not understand that gravity works and goes on blind faith believing that gravity is Jesus giving him a hug, cannot be a friend to science and technology.

And someone who similarly dismisses evolution, will forever refuse genetics, genomics, micro and molecular biology - and the larger discipline of biology. And then we get stem cell research stagnation, we get uneducated edicts from dubya. We get Nancy Reagan outraged at the current White House.

There is a giant disconnect with Palin when it comes to science and technology. She wants to cure global warming without understanding and addressing its root causes. How do you explain causality and logic who is used to faith-based operations? She thinks the Earth is 6000 years old. She claims she saw human footprints in dinosaur tracks.

And yet, imho, we owe Ms Palin a huge debt of gratitude. Thanks to her, the GOP ticket is going down in a historic shipwreck, and she is our iceberg. She helped turn a close election into a landslide. I heart Palin, I heart her for being herself.

lost part of my sentence:
ow do you explain causality and logic TO SOMEONE who is used to faith-based operations?

The party ID chosen for this PPP poll in Colorado is 41%D, 37%R and 22%I.

As per the voter registration statistics (Sept'30 2008) available from the State of Colorodo the party ID is 32.1%D, 33.7%R, 33.7%I and 0.5%Others.

However this discrepancy in party ID chosen on this poll should not affect end result much because Obama and McCain get pretty much the same support from their respective parties and Obama leads by 21% among the independents.

@MNLatteLiberal

It isn't just that they are incurious, it is that they actively discourage innovation and worship "the gaps" in science and technology.

They wear ignorance like a badge of honor, forgetting the traditions of The Renaissance, The Enlightnement and the birth of rationalism. Some of the Christian Dominionists actual deny that the Sun revolves around the Earth because that goes against script from the 14th century.

Of course I'm sure that these are those same people who would reinstitute the Inquisition as a method of judgement and think that God created people just to plunder the Earth.

Aristotle had it right when he hypothesised that Man's nature is to enjoy the quest for knowledge, and it seems that religion specifically the monothiestic kind demands eradication of our basic human needs replacing them with "the edicts of superstition."

Ugh, sometimes I despair the species if you know what I mean.

@1angry:
"Ugh, sometimes I despair the species if you know what I mean."

To me this is just one more proof that there is no god. Were there god, s/he'd have already started with new monkeys. Clearly this batch was way off.

As to the rest of your post - agree 100%. I've invoked the examples of Copernicus and Galileo when discussing the current state of science under dubya. But we digress. This is happy time.

@Boris_Dieter,
Thanks for the link! Indeed, a great article and one of the reasons my wife and I have been working with Al Franken since January. I have forwarded the link to all our friends. We are going to spread it around the DFL here. There are many in "MN nice" mindset who are still voting Obama but are sitting out on Franken because of the great fiction Al wrote a few years ago.

@ boom and Kippy

http://www.yourdictionary.com/propaganda

"ideas, doctrines, or allegations so spread: now often used disparagingly to connote deception or distortion"

Oh, and BREAKING NOOZ!!!!OMFG!!1111!!!

It turns out McCain/Palin is a historical ticket after all:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/015130.php

"The McCain/Palin ticket is the first in American history in which BOTH candidates were found to have violated ethics standards BEFORE a national election."

Now that sure sounds like change we can believe in, my friends and fellow prisoners.

@MNLatteLIberal

All smiles here!!!

In another head scratching moment, not only did the McCain campaign send SarahP to Pennsylvania where they are down by like 12-14 pts, but they sent her to a Flyers game.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/11/hockey-mom-palin-greeted_n_133911.html

Talk about walking into the lions den. Philly fans are mean with a capital M and I just don't understand why they would do this to her.

MN Senate Debate: Franken vs. Coleman vs. Barkley [Live Analysis]

Obama 358, McCain 180

@MNLatteLiberal:
"Can you see this happening in Europe? Can you imagine this pride in own stupidity in France? Or England? Or Germany? Can you imagine an educated civilized citizen proudly dismissing gravity because it is only a theory?"

Ditto! That is why I am really hoping we will have a liberal supreme court by 2012;
Pretty soon some of these nuts right wing evangelical groups will sue the government to put "creationism" next to "evolution" in science books and we will be the laughing stock of the whole world.
These religious groups dont pay taxes for what? to spread ignorance and stupidty.
In Oregon, they are paying for a huge number of ad billboards with themes against evolution.
One of them is picture of a monkey and the ad says "Dont let them make a monkey out of you"
The utter stupidity and for spending money on that, they get tax breaks...
I always thought of McCain as a pragmatic and smart man but picking that Baboon of a VP really changed my opinion of him

@political_junkie

The worst part about them not paying taxes is that they are now endorsing candidates in direct violation of the IRS rules. They are actively trying to break down the seperation of church and state to forward their dominionist agenda.

I've seen a number of history video's where they are trying to rewrite history to say that the founding fathers meant this country to follow Christian virtues.

I'm all for taking away their tax exempt status because they seem to really be pushing a political and educational agenda instead of sticking to their domain.

Re: PPP Colorado poll. They are identifying the key --and frequently neglected-- demographic story of this election (and possibly many more in the future). Obama was always aware of it:

"Most of Obama’s gains over the last three weeks can be traced to the Hispanic vote.
Where his lead among those voters was previously 57-36, he has now upped it to 71-21.
The breakdown of white voters is exactly the same as it was previously, a 48-47 lead for
Obama."

“The overwhelming support Barack Obama is receiving from Hispanic voters in
Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada is likely to flip that trio of states into the Democratic
column after they all went for George W. Bush in 2004,” said Dean Debnam, President of
Public Policy Polling. “Perhaps more significantly though, they could be the harbinger of
a long term movement toward the Democrats in the Mountain West.”

Palin's tan credo made things even easier!

@Cane

I wish they would do a poll in AZ (where I live). I know that this is John McCain's home state but we have a huge hispanic population, and last election cycle you would see "Viva Bush" bumper stickers everywhere. This time, nothing. I've seen 2 McCain/Palin stickers and 1 house sign.

Now I live in Tucson near the university so my area is decidedly more liberal than some large sections of Phoenix but I know that McCain's antics in this campaign aren't playing well and I wouldn't be suprised if he's lost some of his lead here.

One detail about hispanics, I am a hispanic, we don't like negative campaigns. That's a big turn off for hispanics.

Read this:

"The Johns Hopkins researchers found that 88 percent of Spanish-language TV ads were positive. Only 40 percent of English-language ads were positive. Researchers say that Hispanics respond poorly to negative ads."

This is the best pollster among Hispanics, this guy is a Clinton guy, Sergio Bendixen:

"Mr. Bendixen said, 'One thing the Hispanic community truly dislikes is negative ads.'"

With hispanics, negative ads is not way to go.

Hola@carl vente nueve.

@1Angry,
I knew I liked you! My wife and I spent 4 years in Tucson in the late 80's. I worked at the U, and she had a store on Broadway/Country Club. Almost across from the ElCon mall. We lived in Oro Valley, then on River Road, just above the Rillito Downs. Swan/Ft.Lowell is where my lab was for a few years. Wow, that brings back memories.

@junki - and all that is under the umbrella of removing judicial activism while they are actively trying to overwrite the fundamental constitutional separation of church and state. And dubya was instrumental in the erosion of that line with actively working to pump taxpayer money into various faith-based programs.

Another thing that makes this dwarf angry is the real Bush Doctrine: spreading democracy around the globe, no matter what the cost. That is an idiotic prescription for failure, and one that could only come from an ignoramus who failed to understand history and the basic societal evolution.

If you give democracy to a caveman, he would know what to do with it no more than with a computer. To truly appreciate democracy, the society as a whole must struggle and earn it. It has to be from the bottom up and not gently bestowed onto primitive tribal systems. A society has to go through its various historical stages, from tribal to feudalism/monarchies and evolve into people's consensus on representative rule.

Tribal leaders cannot leapfrog to one man = one vote, no matter how hard we wish for that to happen. The tribesmen cannot be suddenly emancipated and grasp the concept of equality, egalitarity and so on.

And the cost of forcibly inserting that will into a region that has not advanced far enough to receive it is catastrophic.

Hola, MNLatteLiberal:-)!!

@MNLatteLiberal

Wow, small world. Where did you work? I worked for the Steward Observatory, mostly doing work at the Mirror Lab, the LBT and the MMT.

As to the rest of your statement, I couldn't agree more. What drives me nuts about the neocon supporters is that most of them are so uninformed about what they are really supporting. They see the policies of spreading democracy and never think about the problems that causes.

Like they've never picked up a history book, or read anything about journalism, foreign policy, economics, constitutional law,or political science. I guess it is a little easier to make a decision when you are not burdened by details like critical analysis.

Oh yeah, and GO FRANKEN!!!

@boomshat

Jeez, you're really freaking out! It's...kind of awesome! My favorite is when you compared Obama to Stalin. Oh man, my jeans are getting tighter...

Hey, numb-nuts: do you know, say, ANYTHING about Stalin? Like...anything? Yes, he had a big bushy moustache. Anything else?

Follow-up question: At what age did you decide that you hate/fear black people

I love all these people talking about how "liberal" Obama's going to be. Dumb****s: as Hunter S. Thompson said, NIXON was a ****ing liberal compared to the jokers in charge of the past 8 years. And that's not hyperbole. It's ****ing fact.

Leads by 6 in Zogby!
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1583

This says a lot about the current political landscape (warning boomshat, niTpiK, Boskop et. al. - it's not kind to a lot of GOPhers):
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/opinion/11herbert.html

O leads by 13 in the Research 2000 poll 53% - 40%.

R2000 Obama +13

Could we have the elections this tuesday??????

They have dug themselves a hole impossible to climb out of...

Palin and McCain negativity:

CANDIDATE FAV UNFAV NO OPINION
MCCAIN 42 52 6
OBAMA 59 31 10
BIDEN 58 29 13
PALIN 36 58 6

Biden and the Clintons in Scranton today. Good news for Obama in PA´s polls

OBAMA'S ECONOMIC PLAN (JUST RELEASED)!:

"In order not to inject Presidential Politics into the current economic crisis, we will withhold our brilliant plan until after all of the tough decisions have been made by the real leaders.

Then, once the actual solution is known, we will announce that the plan that worked was actually our plan all along. Barack himself will state that he sent a secret letter to President Bush suggesting this course of action weeks ago.

If you need proof, just check Barack's website where you will see a copy of the letter posted. It's real, we swear. We even dated it 3 week ago so you'll know it's authentic. You'll find it right next to the copy of Barack's birth certificate which no one has ever actually seen in person.

Finally, Barack will state in his best MLK voice that, despite all evidence to the contrary, 'I have always said this was my economic plan'".

Thank You,

Team Obama
"Change You Better Believe In"

INTRADE JUST PUT UP A NEW LISTING:

Odds that Barack Obama will declare within his first term that:

"I have never worked so hard on anything in my life, but I just can't find a way to deliver the middle-class tax cut I promised during my campaign due to George Bush's recession. I know you think your taxes are too high, but you may be surprised to learn, so do I, so...do I (bites lip)."

Zogby has Obama up by 6%, from 4% yesterday :-)

@carl29:

":Zogby has Obama up by 6%, from 4% yesterday :-)

Yep, McCain is losing because he is a senile turdbrain. My proof that he is senile? He was campaigning in Iowa yesterday where he trails by 12 points and has a snowball's chance in hell of winning. Next thing you know, the Devil will be making a campaign stop in Heaven.

Wow, looks like Boomshak is conceding. Didn't think I'd see that happening.

Where is the great Republican economic plan Boom? Yous guys got no clue other than cutting taxes for the rich. Unless you want to talk about McCain's $300 billion mortgage bailout. Is that one of the "tough decisions" you are talking about?

@zotz,

"Where is the great Republican economic plan Boom?"

I'm glad you brought that up. This week and at the debate, Joh McCain will be announcing a slew of very specific new proposals for the economy going forward.

Meanwhile, Obama will take a "wait and see" approach.

rasmussen 0 + 7 52-45

rasmussen O +7 52-45

Actually, Rasmussen has it O +6 51-45

Rasmussen Tracking:
51(O) - 45(M)

Obama leads by fourteen percentage points among women while McCain leads by two among men. Both men lead by an 86% to 12% margin among members of their own party while Obama holds an eight point advantage among unaffiliated voters.

Ras is in: Obama 51% McCain 45%

"Both men lead by an 86% to 12% margin among members of their own party while Obama holds an eight point advantage among unaffiliated voters."

Looks like the race is pretty stable right now:

According to Ras: "This is the seventeenth straight day that Obama’s support has stayed in the very narrow range from 50% to 52% while McCain has been at 44% of 45%"

Hotline: 49-41 +8

"For polling data released during the week of October 12-18, 2008, the partisan weighting targets will be 39.3% Democratic, 33.0% Republican, and 27.7% unaffiliated. For the preceding week, October 4-11, 2008, the partisan weighting targets were 39.3% Democratic, 33.3% Republican, and 27.4% unaffiliated."

Basically there will be a D+6.3 advantage after 0.3% more of Republicans, since last week, are now identifying as unaffiliated.

WHAT JOHN MCCAIN SHOULD SAY AT THE DEBATE:

"Ladies and gentlemen, you may have heard recently that I was involved in what is known as 'The Keating 5' scandal many years ago. I was subsequently exhonerated of any wrongdoing in that affair; however, I did associate at that time with characters who were guilty and frankly, I should have known better.

For this, I would like to now publicly apologize to the American People. As your leaders, we need to set a very high standard, not only in our own conduct, but in the conduct by those with whom we ally ourselves.

In this spirit, I would like to now ask that Senator Obama apologize to the American people for his former alliances with William Ayers, an unrepentant bomber of the Pentagon and Capitol Buildings, Reverend Wright, a confirmed anti-American bigot, Tony Rezko who is now in prison for multiple crimes and lastly, ACORN which is under investigation for massive voter fraud in 15 states.

Senator Obama, I yield the remainder of my time so that you may now apoligize to the American people for those alliances..."

Boom-
While he's at it , shouldn't he also apologize for picking a running mate who's 'violated the public trust' and 'abused her powers'? No?

boomshak,

What McCain needed to talk about is the economy. Attacking Obama is not working because is just meat to the base. People, non-partisan/non-political-junkie, have their priority put on the economy. For those people McCain's got no answer, period.

Boomshak you never get it do you :-)

McCain was one of the Keating 5 and not guilt by association where as in case of Obama it is all guilt by association. Is there any proof that he did anything wrong in association with those above mentioned people barring Rezko regarding his home? He did accept that it was a 'bone-headed' mistake to get into the real estate deal with Rezko.

God, Boom, you'd make an even worse politician than McCain! Can't you run for President sometime, please? Pretty please?

Guys, the keating 5 and all that stuff is just non-relevant. I'm glad that Obama hasn't failed for that trap. He understands that people wants to hear what the plan for the economy is. Obama has stayed on message and is paying off for him. McCain has spent all these days attacking, not focusing on the economy, and he is losing ground.

HERE' WHAT YOU MOONBATS DON'T GET:

Obama has the thinnest resume of any serious candidate for President, quite possibly ever.

He is a lifetime .187 hitter asking to bat cleanup in the 7th game of the World Series just because he gave a good speech in the locker room and looks good in the uniform.

To call him anything more than a mediocre Senator without any historic legislative achievements would be stretching the truth, even by his most ardent supporters.

CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN:
"Believe" being the operative word here. You see, it takes a great amount of faith to "believe" that someone who has done so little could do so much if only we make him the most powerful man on earth.

It is not as if they sprinkle "man-of-action" pixie-dust on one's head on Inauguration Day.

SINCE OBAMA HAS NO EXPERIENCE TO SHOW US, WE MUST JUDGE HIM BY HIS CHARACTER:
Obama cannot point to his past and say, "see here, this is how I will lead in moments of crisis", because, quite frankly, he never has. We have no frame of reference.

Instead he must say, "I have great ideas and you must trust that I have the character to bring them about as I have promised".

CONCLUSION:
So THAT is why Ayers and Wright and Rezko and ACORN DO matter. That is why they are all ECONOMIC ISSUES of the first degree.

Because Obama has done so little, we must "believe" he has the CHARACTER to do so much. Typically to judge a job applicant's character, you check their references.

Obama's reference check leaves more questions than answers.

@sunnymi:

Rasmussen Tracking:
51(O) - 45(M)

Obama leads by fourteen percentage points among women while McCain leads by two among men. Both men lead by an 86% to 12% margin among members of their own party while Obama holds an eight point advantage among unaffiliated voters.

Considering the horrendously bad campaign Senator McCain has run, the 24/7 adoration of Obama by the MSM, the terrible crisis in our financial systems, a race this close would make me quite nervous as an Obama supporter.

Historically, in the last week or so before an election, the conservative tide tends to rise.

It should be over but it isn't.

buenos dias a todos.

Boom, you never showed up for our rally yesterday. I made you a special McFail/Panic sign that looked very official. You were missed. Glad to see you back here though.

Let me 'splain somethin' to ya, amigo:
McCain was tried by his peers in the Senate and admonished for something he DID. A third of McCain campaign money back then came from one Mr. Keating. McCain had admitted wrong doing at the time, but since seems to have forgotten the lesson bank regulators taught him.

Obama, meanwhile, in sharp contrast, has not been found in ANY wrongdoing by his peers, he had been accused repeatedly by wingnuts like you. Do you see the difference?

McCain - guilty and admitted to being guilty
Obama - innocent and has nothing to apologize for.
Palin - well, she is still in denial. But abuse of power is something that comes naturally to her even though she will never grasp the concept.

@1angry:
AZ Materials Lab at the Dept. of Mat. Sci.

The list of things that McCain has to apologize for to the American people is so long that there wouldn't be any time to talk about anything else in the debate.

@ Doug S.

Agree with all you posted. Very hard to even contemplate that US foreign policy stand w/ regards to Israel and the middle east will ever change. Indoctrination of the US population in general that still sees the US as a 'benign' force, a 'beaken of hope' and 'peace maker' is near impossible to revert. Dissidency is only expressed through a few fringe sites such as www.zcommunications.org. You see both Obama and McCain talking tough on lobbyists and 'special interests', but don't expect AIPAC to suffer any consequences. That's not up for discussion at all.
Maybe, just maybe, a serious event such as a long lasting economic depression will shake things up a bit, but that could go either way, including the road towards fascism.