Palin's Got Next...Maybe

But there's trouble beyond the usual lower the expectations game. Her interview with Katie Couric, which finished last night but which was excerpted for days, has apparently inspired a new round of derision.

Yesterday I referenced the stunning dismissal by a conservative woman columnist. Also yesterday, withering evaluations from CNN's Jack Cafferty, who said that if Palin being a heartbeat from the presidency "doesn't scare the hell out of you, it should." Today, Palin's candidacy is dissed twice more.

In the New York Times. The "Domestic Disturbances" columnist Judith Warner, concludes: "Frankly, I’ve come to think, post-Kissinger, post-Katie-Couric, that Palin’s nomination isn’t just an insult to the women (and men) of America. It’s an act of cruelty toward her as well."

In Newsweek, world affairs columnist Fareed Zakaria begins: "Will someone please put Sarah Palin out of her agony? Is it too much to ask that she come to realize that she wants, in that wonderful phrase in American politics, "to spend more time with her family"? He concludes: "Can we now admit the obvious? Sarah Palin is utterly unqualified to be vice president...In these times, for John McCain to have chosen this person to be his running mate is fundamentally irresponsible. McCain says that he always puts country first. In this important case, it is simply not true."

Others set the pattern a bit earlier: On Thursday Carl Bernstein wrote in Huffpost:it is time to confront an awkward but profound question: whether in picking Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain has committed -- by his own professed standards of duty and honor -- a singularly unpatriotic act.

On Friday, another columnist in the NY Times, Bob Herbert wrote: "But Ms. Palin has given no indication yet that she is capable of handling the monumental responsibilities of the presidency if she were called upon to do so.
In fact, the opposite is the case.... The press has an obligation to hammer away at Ms. Palin’s qualifications. If it turns out that she has just had a few bad interviews because she was nervous or whatever, additional scrutiny will serve her well. If, on the other hand, it becomes clear that her performance, so far, is an accurate reflection of her qualifications, it would behoove John McCain and the Republican Party to put the country first — as Mr. McCain loves to say — and find a replacement for Ms. Palin on the ticket."

There's another tidbit making the rounds today, from TV talk show host Ed Shultz: Capitol Hill sources are telling me that senior McCain people are more than concerned about Palin. The campaign has held a mock debate and a mock press conference; both are being described as “disastrous.” One senior McCain aide was quoted as saying, “What are we going to do?” The McCain people want to move this first debate to some later, undetermined date, possibly never. People on the inside are saying the Alaska Governor is “clueless.”

Whether or not this is true (and the Obama campaign seems serious about taking Palin's debating skills seriously), Palin was conspicuous by her absense from the post-debate spin last night, whereas Joe Biden was everywhere. Palin reportedly watched the debate in a Philadelphia bar--with 300 chanting Obama supporters gathered outside.

Here's my current take: I don't think McCain will dump Palin before the debate, although with McCain you never know. He surely knows he needs something dramatic to change the momentum because Obama very likely got a big boost of it last night, and the daily tracking polls were already trending his way. He might make the big gamble with his base and dump her for Joe Leiberman. But I doubt it.

The more likely (if not most likely) scenario is that the McCain campaign will simply cancel the v.p. debate, saying that the media is so mean that Palin won't get a fair hearing.

Assuming the debate does happen however, I've changed my mind about something else. I was of the school that said the expectations for Palin are so low, she almost certainly will come out of her debate looking okay, if not declared the winner. I don't think that anymore. If Joe Biden simply talks the Obama-Biden line about the future, if he refers to her seldom but only as Governor Palin, and simply links her "views" to continuation of Bush policies, he'll be the clear winner.

The people say Obama won. Why?
This brilliant Al Rodgers image sums up the
general reaction to last night's debate. While
pundits scored it close and some said McCain
won, the overwhelming evidence based on polls
and focus groups is that Obama pulled a JFK.
For example, this.

Barack Friday for McCain-Palin

Once again, the day did not start well for McCain-Palin. Not when the quote of the day was this:

"If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself."

And it was written by a conservative Republican woman columnist, who called Palin so obviously unqualified that she should step down for the good of the country.

Not when McCain's rush to Washington to fix the economic crisis resulted in stories like this one about Thursday from the AP: By midnight, it was hard to tell who had suffered a worse evening, Bush or McCain. McCain, eager to shore up his image as a leader who rises above partisanship, was undercut by a fierce political squabble within his own party's ranks.

Friday, with the process to find a solution struggling to get back on track but with no deal yet, McCain reversed himself on not participating in the first debate until there was one, and suddenly flew down to Ole Miss, accompanied by what a pool reporter called "general confusion," seeming to confirm the view of an ex-advisor to McCain: "It just proves his campaign is governed by tactics and not ideology," said Republican consultant Craig Shirley, who advised McCain earlier in this cycle. "In the end, he blinked and Obama did not. The 'steady hand in a storm' argument looks now to more favor Obama, not McCain." Shirley added, "My guess is that plasma units are rushing to the McCain campaign as we speak to replace the blood flowing there from the fights among the staff." A further confirmation of staff chaos was the appearance of a web ad declaring McCain the clear winner of the debate--hours before the debate started.

Then the debate. While the debate itself got good reviews, the consensus from pundits and especially from the first polls and focus groups was that Obama won it. Particularly interesting, the undecideds in a CBS poll (40% said Obama won, 22% McCain, 38% a draw) were remarkably in tune with a focus group of undecideds in St. Louis, run by Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg ( 38% Obama, 27% McCain, 36% a draw.)

But this focus group also measured favorability before and after the debate. McCain's went up by 9 points, but Obama's went up by 39 points, to give him a 69%-62 total edge. This suggests that Obama may have gotten the "Reagan Effect" (I just made that up) that's part of the mythology of the 1980 election: Carter was slightly ahead until the debate and Reagan won by a landslide. The myth is that people were ready for change but unsure about Reagan, and the debate gave them enough confidence in him that they voted for change.

In another focus group (Media Curves), the Dems and GOPers went overwhelmingly for their candidate but the Independents gave the debate to Obama by 61-39, and they also gave him the win on every individual segment of the debate. So while Tweety and Pat Buchanan bloviated on their boxing metaphors, it seems that for the indies, Obama won every round.

Another important data point: in the CNN poll, Obama won among voters 50 and older. This is not only very important (because this is supposedly McCain country) but because this is a generational change, which is how the NYTimes is characterizing the difference in this debate. Put these two constituencies together--older voters and Independents-- and you have the makings of a sharp ascent to a landslide.

(The MSNBC web poll shows predictable results--Obama by like 80%-- but the comments are entertaining.) But the internals of the CNN poll are enough to make me weep with joy: Obama won on intelligence, likeability, sincerity, expressing himself more clearly, all by double digits. Obama won on being a strong leader by 4 points--and on being more in touch with the needs and problems of people like you--by 30 points! McCain won on spending more time attacking his opponent. McCain also won on terrorism by just 4 points, but Obama won on Iraq, the economy, the current financial crisis.

Nate Silver at FiveThirty-Eight.com has an interesting perspective on why these first polls show Obama winning, when some pundits and other observers thought it was more of a toss-up. He adds a note about the internals of the CBS poll, which showed that on their "your needs and problems" Obama went from a plus 18 before the debate to a plus 56 after, and on "prepared to be president" he went from -9 to plus 21. So did Obama just seal the deal? Stay tuned.


There was much talk about McCain's demeanor, which was not as surly, sullen, disengaged and strange as he is capable of. But a lot of talk about his defensive posture, and particularly his refusal to look Barack Obama in the eye, or even look at him at all, which was especially glaring in the parts of the debate when they were supposed to engage each other.

A lot of reasons were suggested. I've got two more I haven't heard anyone say. The first is a little technical--McCain can get this weird, animal caught in a trap look in his eyes when he's confronted (he did it on The View, for example), and he may have been told to avoid that at all costs, by not looking at Obama at all.

But the primary one which is implied in some of the comments people made but not yet said--yet I'm guessing it is the paramount one among African American viewers--is that McCain is not comfortable with people of color. He has shown on every occasion he is on stage even briefly with Obama that he does not want Obama--a guy who likes to touch people, long handshakes, pat on the back, a brief hug--to touch him or to even look at him.

So my conclusion: for me, Obama showed what I know him to be: intelligent, knowledgeable, compassionate, presidential. Within the debate's time constraints, he defended himself very well, and drew distinctions with McCain very well. I could have said as much about John Kerry four years ago, and probably did. Kerry demolished the sitting president, GW Bush in their first debate. He won all three debates. But he either lost the election, or didn't win it by the kind of margin that it couldn't be stolen.

But this time, if the Reagan Effect is in play, this could be different. Friday also saw polls showing Obama going ahead in Virginia and New Hampshire, widening his lead in Michigan and maintaining it in PA, while surging in at least one of the daily tracking polls. This debate is not going to slow that momentum. The question is, by the time polls are taken that account for debate reaction, whether that momentum increases. A lot.

Tonight

Update: Okay so this didn't happen. But if anyone from Hollywood is reading, I'm available to write this up as a screenplay, maybe Wag the Dog II.

We're all conspiracy theorists now. And here's mine: House Republicans continue to gum up the works tomorrow, but John McCain meets with them behind closed doors. Meanwhile the markets are going crazy. Business channels are predicting apocalypse if a deal isn't struck today.

The meetings drag on into the evening. The networks cover the closed doors, panels back in the studio analyze what they don't know. Then finally the door opens. McCain steps out.

He says negotiations are at a critical juncture, he has to stay and continue trying to solve this crisis, so he won't be flying down to Mississippi for the debate. Even if it means he loses the election, it's country first.

Obama finds himself alone on stage at the debate, except for Jim Lerher, who improvises a kind of moderated town hall meeting.

But just five minutes into it, the networks break in: there's word that McCain is about to come out of the meeting and announce something. For awhile it's split screen: Obama talking, the closed door in Washington, but the voice of an excited reporter.

Then the door opens, John McCain emerges with the news that he has convinced the House Republicans to support a more modest version of the plan created by the Democratic and Republican negotiators based on the Paulsen initiative. He believes a bill will result that everyone can support. The crisis is over.

Now back to Ole Miss, where Jim Lerher asks Barack Obama for his reaction to the news.

That's my conspiracy theory, and like all conspiracy theory, it has facts to back it up. The chief one is this: before the meeting McCain attended at the White House Thursday--the one that was supposed to finalize the deal that most parties had agreed to, but was sent into chaos by House Republicans who proposed a radiclaly different plan which had already been discredited, and McCain said nothing about it for the entire meeting--before that, McCain had met with House Republicans.

Later McCain announced that he was confident he could bring House Republicans around to supporting a deal. I'm sure he is confident. The fix is in. All they'll be doing behind closed doors tomorrow is playing blackjack.

It's a perfect set-up. Nobody knows why McCain suspended his campaign and wanted to cancel the debate to come to Washington, and then he was silent at the big meeting, and nobody knows where he stands. The House GOPers and their intransigence will almost certainly send the stock market tumbling dramatically on Friday. The stakes get raised.

The media was set up by talk that House GOPers hate McCain. The Obama campaign was set up by McCain saying he wouldn't go to the debate. If Obama agreed to cancel it, it would have looked like he was taking McCain's lead. When he refused to cancel it, this scenario became possible.

Of course I'm hoping this is overly imaginative, a cautionary tale. I mostly hope that somebody in the Obama campaign also has an overactive imagination, and they are prepared for this. It's the worst outcome I can think of, short of the beginning of Great Depression II.

Twister

Talk about twists and turns. John McCain announced he was suspending his campaign on Thursday, and asked that Friday's debate be postponed, while he went to Washington to work on the bail-out bill. As Barney Frank says, this is the longest Hail Mary pass in the history of football, or Marys.

I've gone through the day and the prospects for the bail-out bill at Dreaming Up Daily. Here I'll stick mostly to the politics. Several progressive bloggers at first thought McCain's move was pretty shrewd--it seized the story, deflected from the coverage of bad poll numbers and his campaign manager's ties to Freddie Mac, and made him look like a bipartisan leader on the economic crisis. It was also a gamble to get Obama to follow him to DC and cancel the debate.

By day's end, none of it seemed to work. Neither Obama nor the debate commission agreed to cancel the debate. (Obama got in a good dig about presidents needing to be able to deal with more than one thing at a time.) Although Bush provided cover for McCain by giving him something to do in Washington (since he's not on the relevant committees, he had no real meetings to go to), he also mitigated any problem for Obama by inviting him as well, so by the time this news catches up to people, Obama will also be in the photo op in Washington.

A Survey USA flash poll strongly suggests McCain's gambit didn't work with the public--only 10% agreed that the debate should be cancelled. And at least one of those bloggers recanted. Now McCain really has a problem. If the deal isn't done by Friday, what does he do? Does he become the first candidate in history to duck a debate? Or does he murmur something about satisfactory progress and go? Incidentally, unprepared.

Also, many respondents in that poll thought the debate and the rest of the campaign should be focused on the economy. And indeed the Obama campaign said that the debate commission told them that there will be questions on the economic crisis at the debate--and they told them this several days ago.

Meanwhile, the poll numbers continue to look good for Obama, although the national ones are all over the place. Post/ABC has Obama up 10 points among registered, NBC up just 2 points, and Fox up 6 points. But there is a pattern, and it is being reflected in the state polls. As Mike Allen in Politico writes, "This is the first time that one of the candidates has dominated state polls in the most closely contested battlegrounds."

Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric also seemed to be a failure, with at least one major gaffe, but even this is not quite drowning out the continuing bad news for her from Alaska.

But the McCain campaign keeps trying to shake things up, so there's no telling what Thursday and Friday are going to be like. There are some signs that this erratic behavior is itself hurting McCain-Palin, as well it should.

What continues to amaze me is how thoroughly they are alienating the media--no longer just the eastern print media they like to run against, but everybody. When McCain threatened to kill the debate, that's a big revenue loss for television as well as a blow to democracy. McCain even alienated David Letterman, by cancelling his appearance at the last minute to go back to Washington--and then he was not only still in New York, but he was recording an interview with Katie Couric at the same time Letterman was taping his show: which wasn't lost on Letterman, who castigated him on the air.

Thunder

That clap of thunder you just heard is the new Washington Post/ABC poll that shows Barack Obama leading John McCain 52% to 43% among likely voters. That's nine points. And Obama is above 50%, which this late in the race is magic. Among registered voters in the poll, Obama leads by 10 points, 52-42%.

The last Post/ABC poll was Sept. 9, when Obama was ahead 47-46%.

There is nothing but good news in this poll. Though it measures who "leans" one way or another, the percentage of people who are sure who they are voting for has increased to 83% from 79% last time. On the internals, Ambinder isolates these: Voters, by 14 points more than McCain, trust Obama to handle the economy; his messaging that McCain is "out of touch" is bearing results, as 57% of Americans think that Obama better understands the complexities of the system. And when asked an open ended question about who'd best handle a crisis of any sort, half pick Obama, up significantly.

More good news for Obama: he's gaining back white women who defected to the McCain ticket; the Democrats have a 25 point enthusiasm advantage over Republicans, and concerns about McCain's age are rising. And here's an interesting nugget: Sarah Palin's biggest favorability rating drop has taken place among white Catholics."

This poll was taken Sept. 19-22, which means it began before the Monday Meltdown but includes that day. It has a margin of error of 3 points.

This caps a day in which state polls show Obama with slim to pretty good leads in battleground states, with one poll showing him slightly ahead in Florida and another tied in Ohio.

Also a new Pew poll confirms one element of the Post poll: more voters trust Obama to handle the financial crisis (47-35), and interestingly, independents alone favor Obama 44-30%. This is even more significant because this poll found a high percentage following these events. (This poll was also conducted Sept. 19-22.) Yet another poll agrees, from LA Times/Bloomberg, in which voters picked Obama to handle the financial crisis, 48% to 35%.

Apart from suggesting a trend, this poll has actual importance right now, because this is when people can start to vote. Early voting began Monday in the critical states of PA, Michigan, Virginia and North Carolina, as well as 7 other states. By October 5, that rises to 23 states allowing some form of early voting.
Obama is already likely to be getting a head start, because of the GOTV effort and the enthusiasm level, but these poll numbers could mean additional votes, even before November.

McCain is off balance, and efforts to regain it may be hampered by continuing bad news, both for him and for his VP candidate Palin. The New York Times earlier this week reported on his campaign manager's lobbying ties to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--hefty monthly payments simply for access to McCain--which ended in 2005. But now both the Times and Newsweek are reporting that this guy, Rick Davis, went back to Freddie Mac and asked to continue the relationship, and his firm has been collecting $15,000 a month (though nobody there did any work for it), right up until last month. Here's how the Times story starts:

One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement. The disclosure undercuts a statement by Mr. McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years."

This is not going to help McCain shake off the impression that he's the candidate most tied to the status quo in Washington, especially since this story involves an issue that is bound to be in the news for at least the rest of this week and probably much longer.

There's even a further downside to this crisis for McCain. Bush administration figures keep getting trotted out, including the 19% president and the vice-president who is so reviled that he was rejected by his own party's congressional delegation today. McCain, whose convention hid from the Republican party brand, is now going to be associated with the party and administration that voters would like to believe is already gone. This visibility reminds them it isn't, quite yet.

But for all this good news, there's opportunity for more twists and turns before this is over... And there's the fighting in the trenches. Some of it is pretty disturbing, as in Robert Kennedy's contention that hundreds of thousands of voters--mostly Democrats--are being disenfranchised. There are also the scurrilous ads, push polls and direct marketing pieces that are locally targeted.

But the Obama team is also in the trenches, looking for those seemingly small advantages, like the ad in Michigan that targets McCain for owning 3 foreign made vehicles (among his 13.) TIME's Amy Sullivan explains why this is potentially potent.

Then there are the rarely mentioned constituencies, like American Indians (the tribal endorsements in New Mexico could make the difference for Obama), or animal lovers. We hear a lot about hunters, but the Humane Society is backed by some 10 million members. And that organization has endorsed a presidential candidate for the first time in its history: Barack Obama.

As the TPM story suggests, this is not nothing: for many people, animals are a very emotional issue, and apart from Obama's good record, the reputation of moose-hunting, wolf-shooting and polar bear endangering VP candidate Palin may be very motivating.

Powell: Just Short of an Endorsement?


This is video of the moment I described in the post
below, in which Powell criticizes McCain's rash
statements on Georgia (without mentioning McCain
by name.)

McCain Unfit?

After a week of McCain the liar--which in a way continued today--we have evaluations of McCain, coming apart under pressure and even unfit for the presidency, from (among others) ABC, Bloomberg and most surprising perhaps, George Will in the Washington Post.

Sometimes these hot air purveyors say things on TV that they later soften or even contradict, but in this column Will actually amplified his remarks from ABC yesterday (in the video below.) Will is from the William F. Buckley school of conservatism, and already offended by McCain's infliction of Sarah Palin on the GOPer ticket. Now he's being just about definitive.

Under the headline, McCain Loses His Head, he begins: "Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama." He concludes: "It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?"

This impression makes Friday's debate absolutely crucial for McCain. If he can't stop this then, he's finished. The debate was being discussed a lot today, and it will be for the rest of the week. While some debates have been important, they usually don't move poll numbers much. And let's recall that John Kerry destroyed GW in the first debate last time, and won all three, although the third was a fairly tired effort. Still...Obama believes the debates will seal the deal.

Although foreign policy is the announced topic, commentators today didn't believe that the economic crisis would go unmentioned past the first minute or so. If the moderator doesn't bring it up, one of the candidates will. Now that McCain has the rep of being erratic, any tendency that way will be amplified. Conversely, if he just appears calm and reasonable, he could change the talk that's building.

Obama has gotten sharper on the stump last week, and if he can stay sharp--concise, direct, relating policy to people, and linking McCain with Bush policies--then he could seal the deal. The best essay I've seen on what he should do in the debate is this one.

Now another topic, synthesizing two items concerning Colin Powell today. Tweety was talking about the role of race, and one of his (black) companions mentioned that the most admired black politician among whites who have a hard time voting for an African American is Colin Powell. Presumably as a military leader he transcends the genre of black politicians, like athletes. They'd vote for Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods, too. I also read the salon story about Pennsylvania that indicates undecided "hard working" whites there who do have this problem are being pulled towards Obama anyway because of the economy. So...

Colin Powell has said that he may endorse someone for president. He's expressed admiration for Obama and wonder at the possibility of a black man winning the presidency. But he's a GOPer and friends with McCain. On the other hand, I can see him being thrilled with Sarah Palin. Now there's this little bit of new evidence on a foreign policy matter: in a CNN forum with a number of ex-secretaries of state etc., Powell spoke out pretty firmly against McCain's position on Georgia and Russia, without mentioning his name, indicating that his view was too simplistic, perhaps dangerously so. (There's a clip somewhere, but I've lost it.)

So I'm waiting for the moment--and it could be an important one--when Colin Powell stands with Barack Obama to announce his endorsement.

McCain Isn't Ready


The panel on ABC's This Week

Stride

Obama goes into Debate Camp on Tuesday, which is a shame in a way because he's hitting his stride on the stump. He has responded to the ongoing economic crisis--and apparently the reflexive use of that word "crisis" is now way too tame by several orders of magnitude--by showing the country exactly the kind of leader he can be: cool-heated, but passionate; thinking it through, demanding that the plan makes sense; understanding the urgency, but deliberate about coming to a plan that could make things worse if it isn't done right.

On the stump his themes are coalescing: now he's uniting his "change Washington" and "working across party lines to get things done", and "change from the bottom up" new politics, with throwing out the Republicans and their destructive policies and philosophies. And while the economic crisis provides him the case in point, he's demonstrating that this is what he meant--that all these themes and all his arguments apply.

And if the enthusiasm ever left, it is certainly back on the campaign trail: Obama is getting huge, enthusiastic crowds, beyond what local planners were prepared for: in Jacksonville, FLA for example, and today in Charlotte, NC. And think for a moment about those two places: these crowds have to worry the McCain campaign, and they speak to either the confidence or the folly of the Obama campaign. Some observers say NC is out of reach for Obama, and Florida was trending that way. Now at the very least the Obama campaign is forcing McCain to devote resources to defending them, and it seems to me they believe they have a real shot at winning them. Especially Florida.

This is not a conservative game plan. With things as tight as they seem to be in some polls in Michigan, PA and Wisconsin, prudence might suggest spending all your time there. But what may be happening is an effort to reinforce the ground game, the ongoing registration drives. Once registration is closed in all these states, maybe they focus for awhile on must-win states. (Obama goes to Green Bay tomorrow anyway.) I'm surprised however that they aren't in Virginia today, where voting has begun. But I expect they know what they're doing.

Meanwhile McCain got raked over the coals on ABC's This Week, with super-conservative George Will concluding, "John McCain showed his personality this week, and made some of us fearful."

I've been posting on the economic crisis itself over at Dreaming Up Daily. But there does seem to be a lot of push-back on the Paulson plan today. Some of it is coming from people who notice who is getting bailed out and who isn't, like this from comments at HuffPost: Dear Mr. Paulson:I know you are busy bailing out financial institutions but if you have a minute I was wondering if you could loan me $3000.00 I haven't been able to afford health insurance for years and would love to get a mammogram. Best regards.

Maybe we'll avoid another big step towards oligarchical dictatorship via the Shock Doctrine this time, but it's going to happen pretty fast. Meanwhile, anything to keep my mind off that dismal Steelers game.

Saturday Off

Have you noticed that with these wonderful 24-hour cable news channels, we get less news? CNN used to have something called Headline News that actually did the news every 30 minutes. Currently it's the Caylee station. (If you don't know, don't bother asking, you're better off.) And they all take Saturday and Sunday off, for reruns (your favorite prison shows on MSNBC). So in the midst of an economic crisis that threatens to begin Great Depression II, and when every minute counts in the attempt to craft a solution that doesn't give in to the Shock Doctrine machinations of the Bushites, and incidentally, the presidential election campaign entering its final decisive weeks--everybody, including reporters online, take the weekend off.

So just about all of Saturday's news was the tracking polls, ticking up for Obama, with two hitting the magic 50%. He hit McCain on all the economic issues, including social security today in Florida, with a crowd of 20,000 in Jacksonville, apparently some sort of record. He's going to stay in FLA all next week, preparing for Friday's debate from Tuesday on. The weird thing is that this debate is supposed to be about foreign policy, but it would be extraordinary if newsman Jim Lehrer doesn't bring up the bail out that by then may have passed Congress. There's going to be a lot of news made this week on that subject, although we may not get much of it.

The Seattle Times, which endorsed Bush in 2000, has come out with an early endorsement of Barack Obama:

Obama should be the next president of the United States because he is the most qualified change agent. Obama is a little young, but also brilliant. If he sometimes seems brainy and professorial, that's OK. We need the leader of the free world to think things through, carefully. We have seen the sorry results of shooting from the hip.

Our country is on the wrong track. Average, middle-class citizens have lost confidence that if they work hard, they can improve their lives, afford to send their kids to college and not be tossed out of their homes.

American optimism has been wracked by President George Bush and a previous Republican Congress. If you want change, you do not keep what is essentially the same team in power. You try something different. You vote for the stronger matchup, Obama and Sen. Joseph Biden, a smart and steady hand on foreign policy and other matters."

The editorial compares Obama and McCain on the economy, energy, education and Iraq, and finds Obama with the better positions and solutions. It ends: "On numerous other issues, from media consolidation to health care, Obama has the stronger take. He makes up for a thin résumé with integrity, judgment and fresh ideas. Obama can get America moving forward again."

McBush

The McCain Panic

Will the Surge Work?

Obama is surging in the polls. The folks at 538 figures it's a plus four swing in the past week, with good numbers coming out of state polls, many with data before the Monday financial crisis. They conclude that Obama is in a stronger position now that he was before the conventions. They say he has a structural advantage in the electoral college, but also point to this: as the election gets closer, movement in poll numbers become more important.

They were analyzing numbers announced by 9/19. Chuck Todd said a week or so ago that whoever is leading on Oct. 15 is very likely to win the election. Part of that has to do with early voting--in Virginia (which begins now!) and Ohio, for instance. And that assumes that the polls--or an average of the polls-- are accurate. And we've seen several times this year, and in recent presidential elections, that when the race is so close, it can swing on what voters decide the day before or the day of voting.

So the real point here is that time is running out, and if you're going to establish momentum, this is a real good time to start. McCain's last chance to significantly swing momentum may be the debate on Friday.

Apart from another weird personal attack that sticks, the wild card is the government bailout plan to avoid Great Depression II. Will Barack's bi-partisan leadership Friday appeal to independents, or will McCain's blustery new-found populism strike a chord with voters who are angry at government bailing out the big boys? It may depend on how much of a megaphone the media provides McCain, because Obama is on top of the argument--he's saying that the middle class should not be paying for this. It also depends on whether McCain as well as Palin are scaring more people than they are riling up.

As for the polls this week, the Marist has Obama up 9 in Michigan--we'll see if other polls mirror that. Another poll has Obama up in Iowa by double digits, so it probably joins Oregon as pretty safe. Indiana has tightened in most polls, good for Obama. The polls continue to show a closer race in PA than I'd like to see, but even a small lead may turn into a big one with the enormous number of new Democratic registrations.

Numbers continue to show that VP candidate Palin is not helping generally and is hurting McCain with particular groups and in particular places, like Florida. Further, the chief investigator in the abuse of power investigation in Alaska says that despite the McCain campaign attempt to derail it, he is confident that he will issue a report with a conclusion in early October. Information like this, showing that Palin lied about the reason she fired the public safety chief, indicates that there is enough on the public record and in previously obtained testimony (some in a separate investigation) to reach a conclusion.

Now I'm going to post a minute or so from Obama's campaign speech in Coral Gables, in which he suggests that McCain is showing panic. Panic is a very important word in an economic crisis. In fact, that's what an economic/financial crisis like this one used to be called: "panics." Herbert Hoover tried to get away from the sound of that, so he began calling that little downturn that began in 1929 just a "depression."

I'll also post excerpts from Obama's earlier statement on the economy after his meeting with econ experts (in which he also says that this is not the time for panic), over at Dreaming Up Daily.

The Roll

The first debate will be one week from today. I'm writing in the wee hours before Friday's polls, but I'm willing to bet that Obama will improve on his 6 point lead in the Dkos tracking poll. He's ahead or even in all the tracking polls now, and in the new Pew survey. Update: Yes--Obama is up 7 in Dkos, but because McCain-Palin is down 1 point.

The state polls: good news in Oregon--a ten point Obama lead threatens to put the state out of reach for McCain. Another set of midwestern polls show virtual ties in ten states, including Ohio, although Obama is leading marginally in 8 of them. With the Obama ground game hopefully overwhelming GOPer cheating, a tie is a likely win.

On the stump, Obama looks like he's on a roll, taking advantage of opportunity. He's pretty much mocking McCain. I can't help thinking that Obama probably hoped to conduct this campaign on the issues, and on letting voters get to know him. But McCain's people went after him with personal attacks and lies that Obama had to fight back and try to destroy McCain's credibility.

That credibility may or may not be shredded with voters just yet, but it clearly is gone from the media. The latest big name to recant is Elizabeth Drew, who wrote a book praising McCain in 2002, but who now writes:

When Bush, issued a “signing statement” in 2006 on McCain’s hard-fought legislation placing prohibitions on torture, saying he would interpret the measure as he chose, McCain barely uttered a peep. And then, in 2006, in one of his most disheartening acts, McCain supported a “compromise” with the administration on trials of Guantanamo detainees, yielding too much of what the administration wanted, and accepted provisions he had originally opposed on principle. Among other things, the bill sharply limited the rights of detainees in military trials, stripped habeas corpus rights from a broad swath of people “suspected” of cooperating with terrorists, and loosened restrictions on the administration’s use of torture. (The Supreme Court later ruled portions of this measure unconstitutional.)

McCain’s caving in to this “compromise” did it for me. This was further evidence that the former free-spirited, supposedly principled, maverick was morphing into just another panderer – to Bush and the Republican Party’s conservative base.

Drew also writes: Other aspects of McCain, including his temperament, began to trouble me. He seemed disturbingly bellicose...McCain’s recent conduct of his campaign – his willingness to lie repeatedly (including in his acceptance speech) and to play Russian roulette with the vice-presidency, in order to fulfill his long-held ambition – has reinforced my earlier, and growing, sense that John McCain is not a principled man. In fact, it’s not clear who he is."

I've been reading Elizabeth Drew since her excellent reporting on Watergate. She remains one of the best political journalists around. What is probably unprecedented about her current view is that her 2002 book, Citizen McCain, is now being issued as a paperback. I assume this comes from the new introduction.

Barack Does Vegas


Jed Report's compilation of local Vegas TV coverage and
a few choice words from Barack: 2 min. 20 sec.

Line of the Day (and Maybe the Campaign)

The Turning?

CNN is just now announcing its results of battleground states polling: Obama gaining. Obama ahead in Ohio, tied in Florida in head to head, but when third party candidates are figured in, he's 4 points ahead of McCain.

Later--the CNN poll link is here. The CBS/New York Times poll is even better--a five point lead--and the internals are encouraging: McCain's bid to be the change candidate is failing, most voters associate him with Bush, almost nobody believes he picked Palin because she was the most qualified, Palin's popularity outside the GOPer base is non-existent, Obama leads on the economy, etc.

And although the CNN poll has Obama down 6 in Indiana, a new poll by the Indianapolis Star has Obama up by 3 points. I thought Indiana would be close, and Obama has a good chance of winning it.

I guess the impression is that at worst the race is now back to where it was before the conventions, but that polls in coming days and next week could show even greater Obama gains as the economic crisis sinks in. I have to say I was also bouyed by the campaign's video on their strategy. First, the registration numbers are amazing, and all those resources going to ground game--this was emphasized in the pitch--could really pay off. Second, there's been talk in recent days that Florida might be getting out of reach, that Obama might stop spending so much money there. But the campaign video emphasized the attention they're paying to Florida, and the major resources they're committing. And then, an hour after I saw this, the CNN poll came out--with Obama ahead by 4 points when the third party candidates are figured in.

Speaking of that, the Libertarian Bob Barr is now on the ballot in PA. I'm wondering who benefits?

Collapse?

A really bad day for McCain-Palin. Besides a re-energized Obama and a fiery Biden taking control of the economic meltdown issues, McCain appeared tired and testy on Today and Morning Joe, his CEO surrogate admitted that Sarah Palin wasn't qualified to run a company, and one of his advisors boasted that McCain had helped create the tech revolution symbolized by the Blackberry.

And McCain's losses among the media continued, in a fairly big way with this column by Richard Cohen in the Washington Post. Cohen had the rep of a McCain guy, always willing to give the maverick the benefit of the doubt. But no more, not with words like this: "... the John McCain of old is unrecognizable. He has become the sort of politician he once despised." "McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most."

But here's the most devastating part of Cohen's column: "I am one of the journalists accused over the years of being in the tank for McCain. Guilty." The reason was: "It had to do with integrity. McCain has soiled all that. His opportunistic and irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir -- the person in whose hands he would leave the country -- is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president. McCain knows that. He means to win, which is all right; he means to win at all costs, which is not."

"...McCain lied about his lying and maybe thinks that if he wins the election, he can -- as he did in South Carolina -- renounce who he was and what he did and resume his old persona. It won't work. Karl Marx got one thing right -- what he said about history repeating itself. Once is tragedy, a second time is farce. John McCain is both."

Consider all the lies that candidates tell--mostly Republicans, like both Bushes--and the media ignores or "balances" with denials from the other side without mentioning that factually they are lies. I can't recall so major news media people and even news institutions coming out and branding a presidential candidate as a liar.

And apparently once it starts, it becomes relentless. The New York Times even editorially analyzed a McCain commercial that appeared only in Spanish, and exposed McCain's "fraudulent" assertions about Obama's record on immigration under the title "What's Spanish for Lies?"

Meanwhile, Palin's popularity continues to plummet in tracking polls, some high level national press is camped out in Alaska to cover the McCain machinations attempting to forestall the legislative investigation into her potential abuse of power, and a David Brooks column gives voice to national security conservatives who are saying that she's simply not qualified to be VP.

What effect this is having on voters is not yet known, as polls coming out now are still within the shadow of the Palin convention bounce (the Dkos daily tracking poll had Obama up another 1 point on Tuesday, for a total lead of 4 pts.) But with the first debate less than two weeks away, an interesting dynamic is at work. There is polling evidence that the Palin bubble is gone, and so the two presidential candidates go into the debate either even or with Obama ahead. If the economic news continues to be bad--and it certainly won't be good, it just might fade--then McCain is going to find himself at the debate with the primary issue being exactly the one he is weakest on: the economy, and specifically the area of regulating financial institutions.

Not only is his campaign run by lobbyists for some of the most troubled Wall Street firms and banks, and not only is much of the current crisis traced back to the deregulation pushed through by his economics mentor, Phil "mental recession" Gramm, but McCain's own record on deregulation is very suspect, including his involvement in trying to limit government's ability to regulate the Savings and Loan scandal, as a member of the Keating Five. He has to be very worried that this topic will be resurrected.

McCain is already acting paranoid in media interviews (even though he hasn't had an actual press conference in over a month.) He doesn't respond well under pressure--the question is will people really notice it this time?

The McCain campaign looked to be on the verge of collapse before the GOPer convention, and he pulled a Palin out of the hat to live on for awhile. The question now is whether the final collapse is underway.

The Fundamentals

Reality Intrudes

It's a shame that so many will have to suffer before it is over, but the economic chickens are coming home to roost for Bush-McCain-Palin.

But even before reality intruded with a stock market crash and the fast unraveling of financial industries, there were signs that the fantasy world constructed by imagery and McCain lies was coming apart.

I noted some of the signs yesterday. Marc Ambinder sums up his list . Notably, he observes that "The Press Has Turned" against McCain, after giving him a pass on all those gaffes in the summer and the pre-conventions lies.

Given the Palin bubble, you have to wonder why they indulged in such overkill after the GOPer convention. Perhaps to score a knockout blow right away, but that didn't happen. They rose in the polls a bit, but not a lot. And now, Chris Kofinis on Keith and this guy agree with my intuition yesterday that the Palin bubble has burst. Voters are focusing on the fact that she would make a horrific commander in chief. And now Palin-McCain is refusing to cooperate with the Alaska investigation into her alleged abuse of power, which doesn't look all that good for her transparency and ethical reform image.

In the polls, the McCain bounce seems to have evaporated. At least one tracking poll shows an Obama resurgence (after being tied, he's up 3.) We'll see what happens the rest of the week.

So they've got nothing but some dwindling momentum, and a rabid right base that is more energized. As Ambinder suggests, Palin bought McCain some time.

Now the stock market crash has gotten the media's attention in a way that unemployment rising above 6%, falling production and consumer confidence apparently couldn't. Pig lipstick was more important.

Now some attention may be paid to what Obama and Biden have been saying about the economy. They both need to do a better job of more comprehensively explaining how we got into this mess, and what they will do to make things better. It's not guaranteed. But the election is theirs to win.

You Can't Run Away from Your Record, McCain

Lies Coming Home to Roost

Scared Straight

P candidate McCain didn't have a good weekend, media-wise. More of his campaign's lies were exposed by major newspapers and news services, including a whole list of them in this story. Paul Krugman had already concluded, in his column titled "A Blizzard of Lies," that "the Obama campaign is wrong to suggest that a McCain-Palin administration would just be a continuation of Bush-Cheney. If the way John McCain and Sarah Palin are campaigning is any indication, it would be much, much worse." Notice that word: lies. These folks usually stay away from it. Now it's becoming the buzz.

VP candidate Palin had an even worse weekend. There were major--and I do mean major--exposes of her time as governor of Alaska (in the NY Times) and mayor of Wasilla (in the Washington Post.)

Perhaps the most devastating critique of the McCain-Palin ticket came in a column by Frank Rich: " A week ago the question was: Is Sarah Palin qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? The question today: What kind of president would Sarah Palin be? It’s an urgent matter, because if we’ve learned anything from the G.O.P. convention and its aftermath, it’s that the 2008 edition of John McCain is too weak to serve as America’s chief executive. This unmentionable truth, more than race, is now the real elephant in the room of this election."

But all this means little unless there is evidence that it is making a difference in how voters view this election. That may come in the next few days--the most recent tracking polls show McCain's progress stopped and Obama gaining a bit. We'll soon see if this is a viable trend, although it looks like a stock market crash on Monday may also get a little attention and throw yet another wild card into the mix.

But what I see and sense, both online and in person, is that all this has reached one part of the electorate with major force: the people who are suddenly scared to death by the prospect of McCain-Palin.

They're coming out to cheer Obama in New Hampshire with new fervor, and they're contributing money to the Obama campaign. New 527 groups are gearing up, and there looks like a new urgency for Obama. People who loved him but were laying back, figuring this was a done deal, are getting up out of the chair. People who aren't sure they are that enamoured with him are looking at the alternative, and getting scared straight.

Add them to the 2.5 million Obama contributors, the half million who joined up just in August to break all records for campaign contributions by a healthy 11 million bucks (for an August total of $66m). And this was before VP candidate Palin. Among the new activists, about a thousand women demonstrating against Palin in Alaska.

So watch for more evidence of this in the coming week. VP candidate Palin may have galvanized some of the GOPer base, but she has also scared a lot of other people straight to Obama.

McCain Puts Country Last

Over at Dreaming Up Daily, I've posted my views on VP candidate Palin's qualifications to be commander in chief. Here I want to post some echoes of my view from a New York Times editorial today:

As we watched Sarah Palin on TV the last couple of days, we kept wondering what on earth John McCain was thinking. If he seriously thought this first-term governor — with less than two years in office — was qualified to be president, if necessary, at such a dangerous time, it raises profound questions about his judgment. If the choice was, as we suspect, a tactical move, then it was shockingly irresponsible.

One of the many bizarre moments in the questioning by ABC News’s Charles Gibson was when Ms. Palin, the governor of Alaska, excused her lack of international experience by sneering that Americans don’t want “somebody’s big fat résumé maybe that shows decades and decades in that Washington establishment where, yes, they’ve had opportunities to meet heads of state.”
The interviews made clear why Americans should worry about Ms. Palin’s thin résumé and lack of experience. Consider her befuddlement when Mr. Gibson referred to President Bush’s “doctrine” and her remark about having insight into Russia because she can see it from her state.

But that is not what troubled us most about her remarks — and, remember, if they were scripted, that just means that they reflect Mr. McCain’s views all the more closely. Rather, it was the sense that thoughtfulness, knowledge and experience are handicaps for a president in a world populated by Al Qaeda terrorists, a rising China, epidemics of AIDS, poverty and fratricidal war in the developing world and deep economic distress at home.

Ms. Palin talked repeatedly about never blinking. When Mr. McCain asked her to run for vice president? “You have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission,” she said, that “you can’t blink.” Fighting terrorism? “We must do whatever it takes, and we must not blink, Charlie, in making those tough decisions of where we go and even who we target.”

Her answers about why she had told her church that President Bush’s failed policy in Iraq was “God’s plan” did nothing to dispel our concerns about her confusion between faith and policy. Her claim that she was quoting a completely unrelated comment by Lincoln was absurd.

In a dangerous world, Americans need a president who knows that real strength requires serious thought and preparation. "

Also in the Times, Bob Herbert's column asks some pertinent questions also on my mind these days:

While watching the Sarah Palin interview with Charlie Gibson Thursday night, and the coverage of the Palin phenomenon in general, I’ve gotten the scary feeling, for the first time in my life, that dimwittedness is not just on the march in the U.S., but that it might actually prevail.

How is it that this woman could have been selected to be the vice presidential candidate on a major party ticket? How is it that so much of the mainstream media has dropped all pretense of seriousness to hop aboard the bandwagon and go along for the giddy ride?

For those who haven’t noticed, we’re electing a president and vice president, not selecting a winner on “American Idol.”

John McCain, who is shameless about promoting himself as America’s ultimate patriot, put the best interests of the nation aside in making his incredibly reckless choice of a running mate. But there is a profound double standard in this country. The likes of John McCain and George W. Bush can do the craziest, most irresponsible things imaginable, and it only seems to help them politically. "

As I've written before here (and I think the American Idol line was mine as well), Barack Obama asserted last week that "The American people aren't stupid." So far, that's more of a hope than something borne out by the evidence of recent elections, or of recent days.

Palintology

There will be plenty to say about the Palin Doctrine and her approach to foreign policy, assuming she can remember what she's been told it is a little better.

But her nomination has certainly been the buzz, and is largely credited with McCain's convention bump (which, by the way, appears to have peaked.)

There are so many polls now--and there are so many news ones starting soon--that they really are on the verge of being meaningless. I suppose the folks who average them or study the internals have some idea of what they mean, but there are so many premises, which may or may not reflect reality, that to depend on them is silly. Still, what else do we have to talk about?

As for the Palin bump, Nate at FiveThirtyEight suggests there is a theme in these recent polls: And what is that theme? Well, it's that the popular vote and the Electoral College are significantly diverging. Although the Republicans seem to be polling stronger than they were in the pre-convention period almost everywhere, the differences are much larger in traditionally red states, particularly in the South and the rural West.

In other words, McCain is gaining ground among his base in places where it doesn't matter if he gains ground. He was probably going to win that state anyway.

What the aggregate of polls suggests is that this race is very close, and a lot like 2004. We know that in many respects it is clearly different, but there is the possibility that the new factors wind up bringing us to the same virtually deadlocked place. So the few points McCain has moved up in some swing states is what makes this electorally closer.

That's right now, with the Palin convention bump. We don't know if this continues, or if this is the best that ticket can do. But we do know that Obama doesn't have much ground to make up. Bill Clinton said today he believed Obama would win "handily." That may be more a hope than a prediction, but it is still very much a possibility.

Poised

It's an interesting moment in this campaign. The McCain-PALIN convention bump is likely at its height, and analysts going inside the numbers see that it may not have been much. One might infer the McCain campaign senses this because they are still acting like they're desperately behind, recycling discredited Alan Keyes gambits.

On their distortions of Obama and their own lies about themselves, they're starting to see a lot of media push-back. At this moment the Huffington Post is headlining at least 20 examples, from the leftish American Prospect and Glenn Greenwald, to the Old McCain centrists Joe Klein and Mark Halperin (both of TIME) to the conservative Jake Tapper (ABC.)

Meanwhile, VP candidate Palin has gone back to Alaska, where a world of pain awaits her, and John McCain has to figure out how to get crowds by doing more than standing woodenly beside Palin.

Obama struck just the right notes in his response to the latest McCainiac antics (in the video below), mixing humor, passion and poise : "The McCain campaign would much rather have the story [be]about a phony and foolish diversion than about the future. Enough! I don't care what they say about me. But I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies, phony outrage and swiftboat politics. Enough is enough! These are serious times and they call for a serious debate about where we need to take the nation."

Besides media pushback (NBC's Brian Williams pretty much echoed Obama's sentiments, which is pretty brave considering the hot water NBC is in with the McCainiacs) and Obama's pinpoint statement, an Obama surrogate and a woman--Stephanie Cutter, aide to VP candidate Biden--took the offensive:

I have to wonder why John McCain would want to raise something like this. And maybe [former Massachusetts Gov.] Jane Swift [who appeared earlier on MSNBC] doesn't know his record but I wonder where her outrage was when John McCain said he was going to beat Hillary Clinton like a drum. Or participated in an event where one of his participants called Hillary Clinton a bitch. Those are direct comments targeted at somebody's gender. And I didn't hear any outrage then... They are having a false offense on putting lipstick on a pig, when John McCain doesn't even stand for equal pay for women, doesn't stand for children's health insurance, thinks the economy is just going fine when millions of children are going without health care. I mean where is the offense at that?"

But at the moment my favorite analysis of where the race is was provided in a Kos diary by icebergslim. His advice: follow the money. McCain has just gone on the clock with his federal handout of $84M, and has yet to do much in organizing a ground game. The Obama campaign hasn't announced its August take, but they have said it is their largest to date, which means more than $55 million. And they've invested heavily in voter registration and get out the vote. There are more Obama offices in Allegheny County (Pittsburgh, PA--how bout them STEELERS!) than McCain has in some key states. Icebergslim:

Watch the movement. Not Barack's but McCain's. Watch what he will defend or what he will let go dark. Pennsylvania will be dropped. It cost a lot of money to defend the keystone state, along with advertising in the Philadelphia market. Keep an eye on Florida. This state has not been given much McCain love, the Florida market is expensive and you need MASSIVE offices open for GOTV. McCain will attempt to defend Virginia, but watch the ad buy for the expensive DC market. McCain will continue to campaign in Michigan, which the Detroit market is not cheap, but watch the state polling numbers. If McCain cannot pull that one from Barack, he will abandon it by mid October. McCain must defend Ohio. Ohio is the wildcard. Yes, they have a huge "fundy" base, but there are more non-fundy's who are hurting economically right now and McCain may not be their cup of tea. I look for New Mexico and Colorado to move to Barack. Yes, Colorado Springs got a lot of "fundys" but they are not the whole state, remember that. I am not sure about Montana, but a friend told me last night that Montana loves their guns, but hate the Patriot Act. This state could be Barack's.

This is what is going on. See what McCain must do? Again, folks this will be won on the GROUND."

Why Things Don't Change

Fired Up! Ready to Go!

The Numbers That Count

Obama supporters are likely in for a few bad days, as the GOPer convention bounce shows up in the polls. Based on when Obama's bounce was strongest, it could go on until Wednesday in the tracking polls. (So far, McCain has come closer but Obama is still ahead.) There's no telling when the polls will change after that, absent a precipitating event.

Truthfully, it's bewildering, because McCain crapped out with his speech. Apparently a lot of people were watching the NFL football game and then watched McCain. So we'll see.

But as comforting as it would be if McCain peaks and starts falling again immediately--and possibly as energizing--the numbers that matter are coming in now: voter registration. And Democrats continue to register many more voters than GOPers. Overall: Since the last federal election in 2006, volunteers like Graham combined with the enthusiasm generated by the Obama-Clinton struggle to add more than 2 million Democrats to voter rolls in the 28 states that register voters according to party affiliation. The Republicans have lost nearly 344,000 thousand voters in the same states.

There's a reason in these numbers why the GOPer convention derided the Northeast: it's almost solidly Democratic. (Just about the only state that's still in question for Obama is New Hampshire.) New registration in PA may have put the Commonwealth out of reach for McCain.

The Obama campaign itself has registered nearly 50,000 new voters in Virgina just in August, and aims to register another 35,000 or so by October. The overall gains--with emphasis on this year's swing states--show here.

GOPer David Frum sounds the alarm--the GOP vote is vanishing. The question is whether it will be overtaken this fall, or further in the future. But demographics are such that victory in November could assure a Democratic coalition for many years to come.

Then there's enthusiasm. Despite VP candidate Palin's energizing effect for McCain, polls still show Democrats much more enthusiastic about voting for Obama than GOPers are about McCain. And Palin has energized for Obama: a 10 to 1 immediate flood of donations, and reports are coming in of unusually big crowds at the openings of Obama hqs, in L.A. and Pensacola, FLA for example.

Now that the campaign is underway in earnest, various analysts are looking at the electoral map. The New York Times notes that the Palin Drone may be putting some states more in play for McCain, but these are mostly states GOPers are expected to win. While fortified turnout from this base is probably not enough to assure victory for Mr. McCain, strategists said, it would be very difficult for him to win without it. Obama still has more paths to victory, although there are blue states that are uncomfortably close at the moment, like Michigan. The Times notes that while McCain and Palin campaigned in their base states, Obama was in Ohio (a battleground) and Indiana (rarely not GOPer, but next door to Obama's Illinois.)

Al G. at the Field's analysis has the race being decided by 8 states, and his looks to be a conservative approach. At this point, I suspect if Tim Russert were alive and holding his little blackboard, the name written on it would be "Michigan." It's at the top of McCain's wish list, but it has so far been unwaveringly in the Obama column. But apart from noting that Obama still has many more ways to win than does McCain, it's really too early to narrowly focus. That process might begin in a few weeks, when the convention noise is out of the polls, and possibly after the first (and usually most important) presidential debate.

But even then, new voter registration continues in key states into October. So no poll numbers are definitive.

Sure, it's nerve-wracking, but for most people, the worst thing would be to get obsessed by numbers. Leave them to the pros. It's enthusiasm that's going to win or lose this election. So get fired up--and ready to go!

Not Bad Enough? Just Add Obstruction of Justice

Newsweek reports:

Key Alaska allies of John McCain are trying to derail a politically charged investigation into Gov. Sarah Palin's firing of her public safety commissioner in order to prevent a so-called "October surprise" that would produce embarrassing information about the vice presidential candidate on the eve of the election.

In a move endorsed by the McCain campaign Friday, John Coghill, the GOP chairman of the state House Rules Committee, wrote a letter seeking a meeting of Alaska's bipartisan Legislative Council in order to remove the Democratic state senator in charge of the so-called "troopergate" investigation.

The move underscored the huge political stakes in the outcome of a legislative investigation that is being closely monitored by both the McCain and Obama campaigns because of its potential impact on the fall election. "How can this possibly be read as anything but a partisan attempt to shut down a legitimate investigation that was approved and funded with bipartisan support?" said one state Democratic legislative aide, who asked not to be identified because of the political sensitivities.

Apparently there is enough there to fear in this investigation, or why risk making the cover up so public? It's not the crime, it's the cover-up is the usual truism, along with getting caught for obstruction of justice instead of the underlying crime. But then, for the party so skilled at stealing elections, this is easy.

And it's so transparent! The McSame campaign obviously feels it can get away with everything. Even announcing that Sarah Palin, in line to be a heartbeat away from the red button, will not answer questions on her views or qualifications by American journalists.

What's next? That's obvious. Soon we'll hear: Citing Eastern liberal sexist media hostility, Senator McCain has concluded that VP candidate Palin will not participate in the vice presidential debate.

Remains To Be Seen

I'm frankly surprised that McCain's speech got such a big audience, marginally larger than Obama's. I suspect that there was little overlap in the two audiences, but I could be wrong about that, too.

However, it remains to be seen whether this audience was a plus for McCain, because the reviews on his speech continue to be bad. Joe Conason in Salon is the latest: John McCain deserved much better from his campaign staff than he got when they handed him that jumbled convention speech and set him out onto that strange stage. Even though many of the men and women who work for him undeniably belong to that "old, big-spending, do-nothing, me-first, country-second Washington crowd" he scorns, there can be no doubt that they love him, so they should not have let him down so badly. His staff and advisors have had two years to prepare for that moment -- and they gave him words that literally put people to sleep.

The polls so far show some tightening, with Obama still ahead. Monday is the traditional day to measure the bounce. Then I guess polls taken a week after that tell us more about where the race actually is, especially the next round of state polls (the ones coming out now are quite favorable for Obama.)

Apparently Sarah Palin has some studying up to do before she meets the press. Word now that the Alaska investigation that the McCainites are trying to slow down may actually be speeded up.

This could be the beginning of a rebound for the GOPers, or it could be their high water mark, as good as it's going to get. Unemployment topped 6% today, a powerful number. It could be that the GOPer America is not just dying but dead, with just the remains to be seen.

McSame

We spent a nice, quiet evening here. Autumn is our sunny time, and we took a walk in the afternoon. While Margaret tried a biofeedback game on her computer, I shot some hoops before twilight. After dinner we watched an episode of "Mad Men" on DVD.

Then I watched the Daily Show but it's a day behind. Some brief channel switching turned up the usual smarminess, but online it was a little different. McSame's speech got panned. Greg Sergeant at TPM predicted that not only won't McSame get a bounce, reaction to his speech "will smother Palin's sizzle like a wet blanket." Ex-Bush speech writer Michael Gerson called it disappointing and tired, and Jeffrey Toobin said it was "shockingly bad."

Republicans crow that they raised $1 million since Palin's speech. Unfortunately, unless that went to the party directly, the McSame campaign can't spend it. They're now on the federal dole.

And by the way, since Palin's speech, the Obama campaign has received ten times as much in donations: $10 million in 24 hours.

Palin is the heir to Bush without the taint. The GOPer convention never identified itself as the Republican party, and they're running on a platform of change--change from the current Republican presidency. That's apparently the strategy. If McSame were more likable, it might even work. Palin will pale eventually, perhaps soon. Obama and Biden are hitting the right notes about this convention on the campaign trail. They just have to make sure that every time they mention McSame, they mention that he's the Republican candidate.

The polls should be fluid for the next week or so. There's always counter-evidence. A CBS poll showed the race tied, though the swing from their last poll was too extreme for it to seem reliable. And there's a poll showing that independents were "reassured" by Palin's speech. Whatever that means. It seems that for any number of reasons this campaign is going to look close for awhile, whether it actually is or not.

The New York Times editorialized: Thursday night, Americans mainly saw the old John McCain...But there were also chilling glimpses of the new John McCain, who questioned the patriotism of his opponents as the “me first, country second” crowd and threw out a list of false claims about Barack Obama’s record, saying, for example, that Mr. Obama opposed nuclear power. There was no mention of immigration reform or global warming, Mr. McCain’s signature issues before he decided to veer right to win the nomination.

There could not have been a starker contrast between Mr. McCain’s night on the stage and the earlier days of the convention, a carnival of partisan rancor. It was not a forum for explaining policies or defining ideals, certainly none ever associated with Mr. McCain.

On Wednesday, the nastiest night of the week, Mr. McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, and other speakers offered punch lines, rather than solutions for this country’s many problems — ridiculing the Washington elite (of which most were solid members) and Barack Obama. “Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America, and he’s worried that someone won’t read them their rights,” Ms. Palin said. Mr. Obama, in reality, wants to give basic human rights to prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, only a handful of whom are Qaeda members, and shield them from torture. So, once upon a time, did Mr. McCain, but there was no mention of that in St. Paul, or of the bill he wrote protecting those prisoners.

Mike Huckabee dismissed Mr. Obama, the first black candidate of any major party, as a mere “symbolic” choice for president.

At the same time, the Republicans tried to co-opt Mr. Obama’s talk of change and paint themselves as the real Americans. It is an ill-fitting suit for the least diverse, most conservative and richest Republican delegates since The Times started tracking such data in 1996. It was, in short, a gathering devoted almost entirely to the culture war refined by Mr. Rove in Mr. Bush’s two campaigns.

On Thursday, Mr. McCain said he would reach out to “any willing patriot, make this government start working for you again.” Mr. Bush, too, promised the same bipartisanship in his campaigns, and then governed in the most divisive, partisan way. Americans have a right to ask which John McCain would be president. We hope Mr. McCain starts to answer that by halting the attacks on Mr. Obama’s patriotism and beginning a serious, civil debate.

Did somebody say debate? In just a few weeks.

Big Audience, Bad Impression?

Estimates for VP candidate Palin's speech were just over a million short of Obama's record. But at least with one focus group, she made a bad impression.

The Detroit Free Press assembled another focus group: GOPers liked her, independents universally did not.

Update: other focus groups of women show Palin didn't go over with Hillary supporters.

The audience was high among over 55. I'll be interested to see that focus group.

Meanwhile, a Democracy Corps survey concludes: "Barack Obama emerged from the Democratic convention with the Democratic Party unified behind him and a solid lead in the presidential battleground states."

A "rumor" is circulating that the Obama campaign took in $8 million in the first twelve hours or so after Palin's speech.

A pretty devastating "apology" to Palin from the media in Politico.
Excerpts: On behalf of the elite media, I would like to say we are very sorry. We have asked questions this week that we should never have asked. We have asked pathetic questions like: Who is Sarah Palin? What is her record? Where does she stand on the issues? And is she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency?

But where did we go wrong with Sarah Palin? Let me count the ways: First, we should have stuck to the warm, human interest stuff like how she likes mooseburgers and hit an important free throw at her high school basketball tournament even though she had a stress fracture. Second, we should have stuck to the press release stuff like how she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere (after she supported it). Third, we should never have strayed into the other stuff. Like when The Washington Post recently wrote: “Palin is under investigation by a bipartisan state legislative body. … Palin had promised to cooperate with the legislative inquiry, but this week she hired a lawyer to fight to move the case to the jurisdiction of the state personnel board, which Palin appoints.”

Why go there? What trees does that plant? Fourth, we should stop making with all the questions already. She gave a really good speech. And why go beyond that? As we all know, speeches cannot be written by others and rehearsed for days. They are true windows to the soul.Unless they are delivered by Barack Obama, that is. In which case, as Palin said Wednesday, speeches are just a “cloud of rhetoric.”

Fifth, we should stop reporting on the families of the candidates. Unless the candidates want us to. Sarah Palin wanted the media to report on her teenage son, Track, who enlisted in the Army on Sept. 11, 2007, and soon will deploy to Iraq. Sarah Palin did not want the media to report on her teenage daughter, Bristol, who is pregnant and unmarried.

Sarah Palin thinks that one is good for her campaign and one is not, and that the media should report only on what is good for her campaign. That is our job, and that is our duty. If that is not actually in the Constitution, it should be. (And someday may be.)

Demonizing "Community Organizers"?



But why? Billmon has some shrewd interpretations that point to dog whistle messages to hard right GOPers that amount to racism. What a surprise.

The Big Chill

After the Palin speech and the media reception, I have little to add that I didn't write this morning, well in advance of the event. The media in general is fauning all over her, in precisely the terms I predicted.

The viewing audience may be a different story. Some will either already know or will even read stories about the many inaccuracies, which being intentional and repeated, are simply lies. But even those who just discount most of what politicians say about each other will have noted what several MSNBC panelists called sarcasm, insult and condescension towards Barack Obama. Others mentioned that it is one thing to hear this kind of rhetoric from a voice you know, and another from someone who has tried to introduce herself moments before.

So to add to the earlier list of voting groups Palin probably loses, I think she turned off independents, who are also most likely to be troubled by her lack of qualifications. Being a moose-hunting mother is not much in the way of credentials for being next in line as Commander in Chief. Her only mention of the vice-presidency was that she would be an advocate for special needs children and their families. While laudable, it doesn't bear on the vice presidency.

Where Palin obviously scored was with the people at the convention. But who are they? Many Republican office-holders and especially reelection-seekers skipped this convention. The people who are there are Bush Cheney hard right Karl Rove fans, mostly old and mostly white. The McBush people may be trying to pin sexism on liberal media, but Palin's tone and the images of that convention make you really wonder about racism.

So the hard right wing base is fired up--apparently money and volunteers are coming in. The TV audience Tuesday was a bit over the 20 million threshhold--not as big as the Dems at the start, but respectable. Palin's speech was late--she finished past 11 eastern. I'm not sure this helped with anybody other than the people in the hall, the rabid rightists at home, and of course, the media.

Tom Edsall wrote this: "John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin puts his campaign firmly on track toward a hard-edged drive to mobilize the GOP's conservative base, threatening to erase what remains of his centrist maverick image and his appeal to moderate and independent voters...McCain and Palin now head a ticket that is emerging as more red-bloodedly conservative than Bush-Cheney in 2004 -- when conservatism would have appeared to have reached its zenith -- with a platform substantially further to the right on issues ranging from education to immigration."

The gamble is that with an energized base, McBush might be able to hoodwink enough people into forgettting he's the Republican candidate and believing he's for change, too. (Though when supporting this idea, Palin used the most mean-spirited and personally insulting lines aimed at Obama: "In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change.")

McCain is betting that the politics of resentment, the small politics that worked for Bush, would allow him to squeak through in another close election.

So now it's clear if it wasn't before: this election is a struggle for the soul of America.