8 Days to Change: Final Arguments

Chuck Todd, the numbers guy at NBC, has been cautious about this election--until recently. His startling impressions of tension and discouragement within the McCain campaign last week have since been verified by full-blown viral stories, with a McCain aide referring to Palin as a "diva." But it's his recent observations about the numbers that are the most remarkable.

For the first time, NBC shows that adding up Obama's likely and "leans" gives him more than enough for an electoral win. But Todd points out something even more devastating. Because of Obama's strength in the West, he conceivably could lose Florida AND Ohio AND Pennsylvania, and still win the election.

Most polls show Obama slightly to moderately ahead in Florida and Ohio, and ahead by double digits in PA, with nothing yet in the daily polls to indicate any trend away from him. But that's not all that Todd said.

I heard Todd observe that early voting numbers, especially in the South, suggest to him that African American turnout may eventually be between 98% and 100%. He notes that Georgia is now in play, and there are other states where no polling has been done recently that could also be moving towards Obama.

Now polls show the race is very close in Arizona, McCain's home state. (My source in Sedona, where McCain has one of his homes--apparently the one he lives in most of the time--says there is Obama enthusiasm there, too.) And it's not just states but areas, such as Florida's Gulf Coast, a GOPer stronghold which may be trending Obama.

Not to jinx it or anything, but unless McCain can find something that resonates in the final week, we could be looking at an epic victory.

There are cautionary voices. Todd's counterpart at CNN, Bill Schneider, points out that in some states (like PA) and some national polls, Obama is only a point or so higher, or dead even, with what John Kerry got in 04. It's just that McCain is 7 points or so lower than GW. But while this may be true in PA, for instance, it doesn't account for red states that Obama could win. Obama is also likely to get more votes than Kerry did in red states he still doesn't win, and pile up the popular vote that way as well.

After crowds totalling 150,000 in Colorado Sunday, Obama makes what his campaign bills as his "final argument" in Pittsburgh, PA and Canton, Ohio on Monday. Tuesday Obama is in PA, at Chester. I can't wait for the photos from the Burgh. Some consolation for the Steelers loss Sunday.

10 Days to Change: On Course

Saturday Barack Obama returns to the campaign trail with three events in the West. His absense for most of Thursday and all of Friday didn't hurt him, as the McCain-Palin campaign continued to destroy itself without needing any help. To the point that Politco said that despite some better looking state polls for McCain, Obama won the day Friday.

My snapshot in time at Dreaming Up Daily has the salient details of the Friday, but since this is my day for irrational exhuberance, I'll add this observation made by Dem pollster Paul Maslin in Salon:

"The current Obama margin is real, has been present and generally growing for more than a month, and is predicated on three very firm foundations unlikely to change in the final 10 days of this campaign... From my perspective, barring some unforeseen circumstance in the next 11 days, all that remains to be seen is the margin of victory, and whether, as these polls seem to be hinting, we're headed for a landslide."

The Hate Talk Express in Pittsburgh

I lived in the city of Pittsburgh from the late 80s to the mid 90s. I wrote a column for a weekly paper for part of that time, and op ed pieces for the dailies (there were two then), and articles for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

So I have been following this incredible story of the young white woman, a McCain volunteer originally from Texas, who claimed she was attacked by a black Obama supporter in Pittsburgh. She has since admitted that it did not happen.

She said it happened at an ATM in Bloomfield. I know that neighborhood. We used to go to a couple of restaurants there, and I sometimes shopped at an Italian grocery there--it's one of the Italian neighborhoods. It was always a quiet area as I remember it.

The facts of what she said, what police did and the outcome are in this Post-
Gazette story. Among her allegations were sexual assault, and at one point she said that the tall black man had been upset by seeing the McCain sticker on her car.

These are obvious the kind of charges that inflame race hatred. Not so very long ago, it was the kind of charge that often resulted in black men being lynched. So the questions being asked today have to do with why some people jumped at the chance to believe them. Among those who did were the Drudge report and Fox news, and other right wing Internet outlets. But apparently the first to further inflate it was the McCain campaign, first in Pittsburgh, and then all the way to the top.

TPM has documented the facts that the McCain communications director in Pittsburgh gave two local TV stations unverified details, including one which he apparently made up (that the backwards B marked in the woman's face was for Barack.)

According to CNN, both Sarah Palin and John McCain spoke to this young woman, before she admitted she'd made up the story. Was this extraordinary and very swift reaching out simply compassion for a campaign worker, or did they see political gain in this?

One person certainly did--Fox News executive VP Joe Moody (Joe the Racist?) whose daily memo setting up the talking points of the day said:

It had to happen.
Less than two weeks before we vote for a new president, a white woman says a black man attacked her, then scarred her face, and says there was a political motive for it.
Ashley Todd, a 20-year-old white volunteer for John McCain’s presidential campaign, says she was mugged at an ATM machine in Pittsburgh (my hometown) by a big black man. She further says he threw her down, then disfigured her by carving the letter "B" into her face with a sharp implement when he saw that she supported McCain, not Barack Obama. Part of the appeal of, and the unspoken tension behind, Senator Obama’s campaign is his transformational status as the first African-American to win a major party’s presidential nomination.
That does not mean that he has erased the mutual distrust between black and white Americans, and this incident could become a watershed event in the 11 days before the election.
If Ms. Todd’s allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee. "

The racism begins with the first sentence. "It had to happen"? And the strategy for exploiting it is articulated. What does an assault at a bank machine have to do with Barack Obama? Nothing, except providing the opportunity for race-baiting, for there is no other reason to "suddenly feel they do not know enough" about Obama. It is a clarion call to inflame the "distrust" between black and white. And why not, if it wins an election? Republicans have done it before.

I'll add just one comment. Having lived in Pittsburgh, I heard many stories about the bullying attitudes of the Pittsburgh police. But in this instance, it wasn't the police who leaped to emotional conclusions and inflamed a lynch mob mentality. They checked the woman's story, beginning with reviewing the video at the bank machine where she said she'd been attacked (she wasn't even there.) The McCain campaign continues its losing strategy of inflaming hate, but the Pittsburgh Police come out of this the heroes.

11 Days to Change: Is This The Oncoming Perfect Storm?

The state polls released Thursday are nothing short of astonishing. Here's how Chuck Todd described the first sets in the morning: Most of the national polls -- including our NBC/WSJ survey -- are now showing Obama with a double-digit national lead. And here come a slew of brand-new state polls that also suggest Obama is in command of this presidential contest. The University of Wisconsin’s Big Ten Battleground polls have Obama up 10 points in Indiana (51%-41%), 13 points in Iowa (52%-39%), 22 in Michigan (58%-36%), 19 in Minnesota (57%-38%), 12 in Ohio (53%-41%), 11 in Pennsylvania (52%-41%), 13 in Wisconsin (53%-40%), and nearly 30 in Obama’s home state of Illinois (61%-32%). Meanwhile, there are new Quinnipiac surveys that show Obama up five points in Florida (49%-44%), 14 in Ohio (52%-38%), and 13 in Pennsylvania (53%-40%). And finally, new CNN/Time surveys find Obama ahead by five points among likely voters in Nevada (51%-46%), four points in North Carolina (51%-47%), four in Ohio (50%-46%), and 10 points in Virginia (54%-44%). The lone state survey that shows McCain ahead: CNN/Time’s West Virginia poll, where McCain’s nine (53%-44%)."

Did you get the gist? Obama is ahead--often substantially--in every state surveyed, except West Virginia. By the end of the day, Nate Silver wrote: This is not the time when John McCain can afford a bad polling day. And yet he's had perhaps his worst one of the year...And boy, there is a lot of action: 29 new state polls enterring our database. And many of them contain great news for Obama."

Meanwhile the endorsements keep coming in: The New York Times, Scott McClellan, the Goldwater family, Andy, Opie and the Fonz... A damn good article by Joe Klein in TIME called "Why Obama is Winning..." Another amazing national poll, from NYTimes/CBS showing Obama is even getting Bush voters for a 52-39 margin among probable voters, and 51-38 among registered voters.

It's almost too much. There are alot of metaphors that might apply, but let's explore this one: the perfect storm. Obama is increasing his hold on a majority in the national polls, but the state polls also reflect both wider margins and the above 50% trend, so it's a popular vote and an electoral vote surge.

Plus, as Obama increases his lead in states where he's had a small lead or been slightly behind, he is also getting closer to making other states competitive. So the rock-ribbed Republican state of Indiana is trending blue, and the state of Georgia--which the campaign more or less gave up on--is getting closer, and some polls have Obama ahead in Montana. What's next? Louisiana? Maybe so. Texas? Arizona? Alaska? Who knows?

Also elements of the perfect storm: dissension and conflict among Republicans and within the McCain campaign. More Republicans declaring for Obama. Money problems for McCain and the Republicans, not so much for Obama and the Democrats. Enthusiasm growing for Obama, as supporters sense they are part of history.

And every day that passes is one day McCain doesn't have to catch up. It's one more day in which voters are going to the polls while the Obama storm is building.

The last day that this trajectory could change is Oct. 29, next Wednesday, six days before election day. That's the day that Obama has half hour blocks on the TV networks. If somehow he screws that up, gives McCain something to seize on, then it could get tense. David Axlerod on TV Thursday indicated he will use the half hour to talk about what he will do as President. That might suggest a fairly conventional closing argument, feel-good 30 minutes, or something new, something that takes us past election day and goes into more detail about what Americans can expect in an Obama presidency. That's riskier in terms of the election, with more possibility of a downside, but also the potential to seal the deal. It also might help make the transition to governing. It could be, as Obama might say, a teachable moment.

But this is getting beyond the territory of numbers politics. Something is happening. These Republicans, like former Mass. Governor William Weld, don't have to endorse anybody. Yet they are, they are endorsing Obama. To be with the winner? Sure. But maybe there's something else. The country is in real trouble. We need to get behind a leader for the future. He's got lousy initials--I can't see anyone calling him BHO--but this is FDR time, maybe even more than JFK. This could be a perfect storm called destiny.

12 Days to Change: A Moving Video About Moving to Obama


Is this a different kind of election? See four minutes from conservative for Obama.

12 Days To Change: What, Me Worry?

I was wrong, today is my designated day to worry. Problem is I can't find anything particularly to worry about.

I could just be a good Democrat, and be gloomy because we might be winning. Roger Simon had a funny piece at Politico about that on Wednesday, which began: The Democrats are poised on the brink of victory. And they cannot stand it. The news is too good. Something has to go wrong."

There was a glimmer of a possibility with the AP poll that asserted the race is suddenly tied again. But then Nate Silver poohed poohed its likely voter method, and Joe Sudbay at Ameriblog claims that 45% of this poll's pool was comprised of evangelicals, whereas the 2004 voter pool was 23%, and is likely to be less than that this year.

It turns out that even yesterday's "bad news" was wrong. Florida early voting is not going to GOPers, as the NY Times said. Nate Silver again: "Among people who have already voted, Democrats lead overwhelmingly. Zogby pegs Barack Obama's advantage at 27 points among people who have already voted. The New York Times details how Democrats are overperforming, sometimes dramatically, in states where early voting is underway. (By the way, the New York Times' data on Florida is wrong, as it includes absentee ballot requests as well as early voters. According to an Open Left diarist, Democrats have a 24-point advantage among those who have actually voted early in Florida)."

But of course it doesn't take a Democrat to realize that this week's Conventional Wisdom could well be forgotten by next week. And this week's is definitely: landslide ahead. Simon Rosenberg wonders if the race is definitively breaking for Obama. George Stephanopolis writes of GOPers in awe of the Obama ground game. USA Today marvels at early voting for Democrats.

It does appear that Obama is at the very least getting a bump in the polls from the Powell endorsement (for instance, up 11 in the WPost/ABC tracker.) McCain might have been gaining a little ground before that. So there is still time for the movement to reverse again. Of course the problem for McCain is he must make up sooooooo much ground. And the opinion polls by election day will mean less, because of all the people who will have already cast their votes.

And McCain-Palin can't endure too many more news days like Wednesday. Virtually all their coverage was negative. Chuck Todd uncharacteristically talked of his impressions of body language (rather than poll numbers) when McPalin sat for an NBC interview, and he saw tension between them, and between Palin and her staff, as well as general exhaustion from their campaign. What I saw in the bit of that interview broadcast so far was the posture of resignation.

This was a day after Palin flubbed a question by a third grader on the role of the vice-president.

And as Politico noted, the only story that had people talking on Wednesday was about the $150,000 the RNC paid for Palin's clothes from fancy department stores, and the $13,000 in costs for makeup. Some of her small town Walmart patriotic real American women were calling into CNN absolutely livid, some GOPers contacted party hq and wanted their campaign contributions back, and Lawrence O'Donnell suggested that this expenditure is probably not even legal.

O'Donnell also said that late deciders tend to break for the person they perceive is winning. Yet another difficulty for my worrying assignment.

Well, there is one thing. This race is going pretty much as I said it would: getting organized, raising money and Obama getting known in the summer, a great speech at the convention, and after the debates the flowering of enthusiasm, building a great big wave to election day. It seems like I got it right--so that does worry me.

13 Days to Change: My Home Sweet Patriotic Racist Home

Except for how well the Steelers are doing, it's hard these days to own up to western Pennsylvania as where I'm from. First Rep. Murtha said western PA is racist. Today John McCain more or less endorsed the same idea, although he calls it "patriotic." As in the most patriotic place in America. Patriotic=white racist on the Hate Talk Express.

Evidence that the McCain campaign believes this is in their tactics, like this provocative robocall in which a voice that purports to be Obama goes off on a racial tirade during the call. Pretty clearly it's their belief that they can push the buttons of racism that suggest to the McCainiacs that they ought to try to flip PA, the only blue state they are even trying to win. And obviously they are counting on western PA to turn it for them.

Much of western PA is insular and xenophobic--and since I was born and lived for a number of years in small town W.PA, I can't dispute it. It's one reason that a lot of young people leave. I happen to love the city of Pittsburgh, and the history of the region is part of me, but it's a complex place, that can be limiting and discouraging. There is racism but I tend to see it more in terms of xenophobia. After all, the Steelers--the culture of the region in one word-- have a black coach, and the revered (white, Irish) owner of the Steelers is actively campaigning for Obama.

But western PA may be more ornery than racist. And so there is this phenomenon described by Nate Silver: So a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're votin' for the n***er!"Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: "We're voting for the n***er."

Which leads to the phenomenon that Ben Smith of Politico called "Racists for Obama": “What you see is it’s perfectly possible to hold a negative view of at least one aspect of African-Americans and yet simultaneously prefer Obama,” said Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Racial feelings are not as cut and dried — not as black and white — as people often say.”

What a world. What an election.

In other news, viewing the polls quoted in the post below and others, Marc Ambinder felt moved to sing, "The Polls They're Not A-Closin'": They're just not.

Now since it's past midnight and therefore my day to be worried (Margaret's day to be excited--we've decided on this division of labor for now), this doesn't mean the polls won't be a-closin this time next week. But McCain has an awful lot of ground to make up.

I'm also looking at Florida where early voting is not favoring Democrats, although the gap between GOPer early voters--a tradition in Florida--and Democratic numbers is closer than previous elections. I did hear Chuck Todd say on Monday that Obama can lose both Ohio and Florida and still win, in a number of ways. But it does seem more likely now that we won't know which way Florida is going to go until well after the polls close there.

Okay, I'm probably going to shirk this worrying thing. I am excited. But however you are feeling, you might be interested to know that over at Dreaming Up Daily I'm going to be posting Obama music videos. There are so many good ones out there (and a lot of bad ones too--which I listened to so you won't have to) that I'll easily have one a day up to and including election day. There are a few inspirational ones but mostly I'm looking for catchy dance tunes--there are several in Spanish, a couple from Africa, some reggae, etc. We can work to elect Barack and still start the celebration.

And why not? Why should you folks in battleground states get all the fun? Like the crowd in Miami on Tuesday. Here's James Rainey in the L.A. Times: One day a few years back, the old newspaperman who sat across from me pressed a phone to his ear and scowled. The reporter on the other end of the line was reaching for an ambitious metaphor to describe a brush fire."No, no, no," he barked. "Turn around. Look up the mountain. Tell me what you see. Just tell me what you see."

I remembered those words as I sat in the press tent at Miami's Bicentennial Park, where Barack Obama appeared Tuesday evening. So I stepped outside, and this is what I saw: a sea of people stretching out to a hill 100 yards from the stage. Women waving their arms in praise. Men hollering into the balmy twilight. Children hoisted on shoulders, their cameras flashing like fireflies.In other words, a spectacle. A love-in. A happening.

.....Many have developed a deep bond with their candidate...And you could see it in Miami, in row after row of white, black and brown faces, craning to catch a glimpse of their candidate. An hour after Obama left the stage, knots of his fans still gathered under the klieg lights, chanting "Obama, Obama!"

13 and 1/2 Days to Change: This is Tightening?

Two new national polls...Pew Research: Obama 52% McCain 38%.
Questions about McCain's judgment in picking Palin, his erratic behavior and negative campaign. Increasing confidence in Obama from the debates. Last Pew poll had Obama up by 10, 50-40.

NBC/Wall Street Journal: Obama 52% McCain 42%
Palin plummets, etc. but the big news: seniors moving to Obama. Last NBC poll had Obama up by 6.

14 Days To Change

A lot has happened in the past few days when I was inconveniently otherwise engaged so let's catch up. First the news that broke Monday evening, that Barack Obama is flying to Hawaii to be with his gravely ill grandmother. He will be absent from the campaign trail on Thursday and Friday. Madelyn Dunham is 85, and she largely raised Barack for much of his life. Here's Andrew Sullivan: "If you have read Obama's memoir, you will immediately understand why he would suspend a national campaign for the most powerful job on earth to be with his grandmother right now. One gets the impression from Robert Gibbs and from this decision that this might indeed be one of the last chances he gets. "Toot" was a formative figure - she brought him up with her husband during some critical years. Her death would be the death of his last parent."

There's already been some TV speculation on the political effect, and there's likely to be more when the windbags re-inflate in the morning. In campaigns past, the opponent might drop off the trail as well (when Nixon had to be briefly hospitalized in 1960, JFK stopped campaigning while Nixon couldn't) but that's real unlikely to happen this year. But the idea that McCain will own the news cycle for 48 hours is also unlikely. This is a drama within a drama, and may get more attention than McCain does. Every grandparent in Florida, PA and the rest of America is going to notice.

Before this, the big news was Colin Powell endorsing Obama on Sunday, following the announcement that the Obama campaign raised a truly astonishing $150 million in September. Both of these were far more important than any of the other topics the TV bloviators yakked about Monday. Powell was precise and eloquent--there's a lot of what he said in the Jed video I posted below.

Obama and Biden both warned over the weekend and on Monday that the race will tighten, but fourteen days out and signs are mixed, even in terms of polling. Nate Silver sez the trend over the past week or so is "slightly McCain," but the tracking polls on Monday showed a slight increase the past few days for Obama. (Update: the first two trackers released Tuesday show Obama gaining again slightly, with an 8 pt. lead in both.) A new tracking poll debuted from CBS/Washington Post Monday and it shows a healthy ten point lead for Obama, 52-42 among registered voters, and 53-44 among likely voters. Ambinder summarizes some salient numbers in the polls released Monday. Various polls find that McCain's Joe the Plumber is working no better than the Ayres attacks, and that McShame is still seen as overwhelmingly negative.

There's no doubt the GOPers have turned ugly, and Daily Kos is replete with diaries about slashed tires, vandalized signs, nasty confrontations and threats, including Obama hung in effigy. The Hate Talk Express is leading the band. But there are two important internals in these polls: favorability and enthusiasm. The New York Times/CBS poll finds that McCain's unfavorable rating is still higher than his favorable, and now so is Palin's, but the reverse is true of Obama--plus his favorability has risen to this point: "Mr. Obama’s favorability is the highest for a presidential candidate running for a first term in the last 28 years of Times/CBS polls."

Joe Biden's favorables are also up, and Palins are lower than any VP candidate in the history of the poll.

That's seems a pretty healthy sign for a ticket under attack. But will Obama-Biden voters vote? Democratic enthusiasm is higher, and I believe it was the CNN poll that says that nearly half the Democrats call themselves Very Enthusiastic, but only about a quarter of GOPers do. Update: new NBC poll Tues. finds these same proportions: over half of Dems enthusiastic, about a quarter of GOPers.

What about the states? There are reports of conflict between the McCain campaign and the state GOPers in Virginia and Florida--two states McCain must win. Two new polls confirm Obama ahead in Virginia, and although one poll has McCain slightly ahead in Florida, early voting began on Monday with long lines and heavy Democratic participation. North Carolina may have half of its votes cast before Nov. 4. Early voting in Nevada is also heavy, and heavily Democratic.

John King on CNN was reporting that the McCain campaign may be quietly abandoning Colorado, as well as North and South Dakota. McCain resources, he suggested, may be going into Pennsylvania, where McCain is substantially behind according to public polls. If I had to interpret the Obama campaign's body language, I'd say they are skeptical about Ohio, working really hard for Florida, and eager to pick off as many western states as they can, while keeping the pressure on in Indiana. (Obama is in Florida again on Tuesday, holding a jobs summit with several governors.)

The candidate who holds all the states his party won in 2004 and gets one or two the other party took will win the presidency. The basics of this race are the same 14 days out: Obama has leads outside the margin of error in all the blue states. McCain is behind in several major red states. Both candidates are currently campaigning chiefly in the red states.

So McCain needs a big national change, and he's not getting it from national figures of any description--Independent, center GOPers or even many conservatives. Powell is the biggest symbol of that, but there's also the major lopsidedness of the newspaper endorsements so far--many of them traditionally Republican-- and what they say in common: Obama is steady, new leadership; McCain has been eratic, and his pick of Palin raises serious doubts.

McCain's only path is winning ugly--really, really ugly--with an outbreak of racist know-nothingism that would end this country's chance of returning to relevance in the world. Fourteen days to the change we desperately need.

Colin Powell


This is Jed's compilation of Colin Powell's comments about Obama on Sunday, together with some of the McCain-Palin crap he refers to. This is a brief but very good video for those who heard about Powell's endorsement but didn't hear what he actually said.

From Here

The debates are over, and the McCainiacs have free reign to foist their crap on the public without direct rejoinder. My notes on their voter suppression efforts should be up in a few minutes at Dreaming Up Daily, but that's a major thrust. Although they got beaten back in Ohio by the unlikely agency of the U.S. Supreme Court and there's been a high profile push-back by the Obama campaign.

Actually I hope they keep up the negative crap and the voter suppression efforts, since nothing Obama can say will do as much to keep supporters from getting too complacent.

Complacency is also likely to be less of a problem if the polls tighten, as some expect they will, if only because they usually do. Although Five Thirty Eight thinks it's more likely that the numbers will simply stay the same. In any case, it seems unlikely the tracking polls will move towards McCain for the next couple of days as the Obama post-debate bounce shows up (as it has started to in some but not all of the tracking polls Friday.) But the tightening could start next week. Supporters don't need to know that even a 4 point national lead is pretty substantial.

Still the name of the game at this point is getting voters to the polls (or however they vote), and getting those votes counted. That's where primed and even anxious supporters do their thing, with what looks so far like excellent back-up from the campaign hq.

We may also be in for only a week or so more of McCain-Palin negativity--if they don't make the traditional move to a positive campaign in the last week, then they're really desperate, if not self-destructive. But this campaign has been unprecedented in so many ways, all historical bets are off.

But if you want to be premature (though not complacent) and look ahead to election night, you may recall that I said that by the time we're all the way down the East Coast to Florida, it might be over, if Obama indeed wins Florida. But according to Mike Allen at Politico, it might be indicated sooner: "The quandary is highlighted by Virginia, a state that has not voted Democratic for president since 1964 but where Obama is now leading in polls. There is no realistic McCain electoral college strategy that does not depend on winning the Old Dominion. If it is clear on Nov. 4 that Obama has won in Virginia by the time polls there close at 7 p.m. — it will still be daylight west of the Mississippi — the obvious conclusion will be that Obama is headed to the White House."

But Florida would seal it, Florida would be so sweet--and Team Obama believes it can be won on the ground. This LA Times article says they think they can win FLA with turnout, whereas they still need to persuade some voters in Ohio.

Words

I advocated in 2002 for environmentalists to stop talking about global warming and climate change, and start talking about global heating and the Climate Crisis. When Al Gore started using it, the Climate Crisis became preferred.

In the summer of 2004 I passed along a suggestion through someone with access to high levels of the Kerry campaign: the campaign slogan of "A Fresh Start." In the last weeks of the campaign, Kerry was using "A Fresh Start for America" as his slogan. No one ever acknowledged anything.

A few years ago I was interviewed on an Oregon public radio station about issues related to a piece I'd written, "Consuming the Future," and we talked about how to get the country back on track. I suggested that the theme of such an effort should be "We're all in this together." That's become a theme that Barack Obama repeats often.

Then there are little things, that get picked up and passed around, who knows how--and who knows who really came up with them first. I've heard nomenclature from my blogs repeated by Keith Olbermann, for example, although I doubt he reads these. But my readers may have noticed that he's picked up the "Hate Talk Express" title I used for a couple of days. However, this time, even if he stole it from here, he didn't steal it from me. I stole it from the text by a front pager at Daily Kos--and I don't even remember which one.

It's a weird way to participate, the invisible way, and at times it all seems like my fantasy. Which it probably is, but on the other hand, I must be on to...something.

Time to Fight

At a campaign stop in New Hampshire--where it was clear that he has refined his stump speech for the ultimate power of a closer--Obama warned his supporters against complacency. And he's right. The polls are apt to contract (although probably not right away--the last debate bump starts showing up Friday), and even with lots of early voting, the real fight lies ahead.

Fortunately the stage is set, since the Obama campaign paid such attention to organizing and gathering the resources for just this moment. But it's going to take more than hope, or talk, or for that matter, blogging. So even though I've stepped back from most campaign activity--leaving it to the younger generations who frankly are going to do it better--I will be making calls in these final days.

And vigilance plus support of those who are more active are also important. Vigilance for the kind of desperate robo-calls the McCain campaign--not 527 groups, not even the RNC, but the McCain campaign itself--are making. Like this one and this one and these two.

Vigilance for voter suppression tactics, as is happening in Ohio--although this year, it's a Democratic state government, and the Ohio Secretary of State has announced that she's going to fight hard against attempts to disenfranchise 200,000 voters.

Other Thursday news: Five Thirty Eight does its regular mid-monthly projections of battleground states--the last one!--and projects Obama to win 364 electoral votes, with 169 for McCain, and 5 a tossup...The Washington Post endorses Obama: "Mr. Obama has the potential to become a great president." And Lawrence O'Donnell--one of the few voices I attend to, though I don't always agree--predicts that Colin Powell will soon endorse Obama.

About that early voting: there were some interesting reports about how Obama is dominating early voting in five states, and about the lines in Atlanta-- some white voters abandoned them after awhile, but not a single black voter did. In the Five Thirty Eight thread linked above, a comment from Kenyada explained: "I’m not sure you understand. This vote is 400 years in the making...This is not only a vote for a candidate; it is a vote for America, the America we heard about from our parents and their parents, across the generations. Freedom and Liberty sound so trite these days, but I remember those words spoken by my Dad on his way to the March on Washington. January 20th will be a dream fulfilled."

But before January 20 comes November 4, as well as early voting wherever it occurs. There's work ahead. It's time to fight for every vote.

Update: This comprehensive piece in salon notes that the first day of early voting in North Carolina (which was Thursday) saw big turnout, predominately African American. Some battleground states, the piece states, could see as much as half of the vote in early voting. Half the registered voters in Colorado have requested mail-in ballots. Yet states like PA that don't have early voting--and even those that do--may not be prepared for the sheer number of voters on election day.

A study in contrasts--to say the least--after the third presidential debate.

Grand Slam

I have just a few minutes to spare here before I have to do some work I actually get paid for, but the third debate is over, once again all the focus groups and instant polls show Obama won by pretty much the same margin as the first two (or for that matter, the VP debate as well.) He scored well again with Independent voters, and in the two focus groups of undecideds on CNN and Fox, the only movement was to Obama.

It didn't take long for the conventional wisdom to develop among the pundits: Obama was cool, calm and collected, while McCain was angry (an exercise in anger management, David Gergen said). So the verdict is that McCain may have helped himself a bit with the base but not outside it, and the election is pretty much over, barring the unforeseen.

I do have one bone to pick with the CV, at least that part of it expressed on the largely right-leaning lineup that Charlie Rose assembles. One after another, including Charlie, opined that Obama hasn't given a clear idea of what he'll do to address the financial crisis, or how he will approach the question of a recession at the time of huge government deficit.

Well, I hope these folks go back and read the transcript of the debate, because I heard it, loud and clear. Obama said several times that we face tough economic times, and the government will need to set priorities, because we can't do everything we want right away. And he signalled clearly that he was for economic stimulus--as he proposed and as the Democrats in Congress have proposed--and for investing government funds in energy independence and growing a green economy, in healthcare and in education, because these will pay dividends in a strong economy later on.

If and when I see a transcript I'll try to document this, but not tonight. As for the obligatory sports metaphor--I'll pass on the boxing analogies thank you very much--the Philadelphia Phillies weren't the only pennant winners tonight.

McCain Reboot=McCain Repeat


Jon Stewart and The Daily Show hilariously match McCain's "new stump speech" unveiled Monday to his GOPer acceptance speech.

The Good News

Despite the ugliness fomented by the McCain-Palin campaign--and partly because of it--there is more good news. Tuesday's talk was about the CBS/New York Times poll which has Obama with a whopping 14 point lead among likely voters, 53% to 39%.

Is it too good to be true? While it may be an outlyer, Nate Silver believes it's only a modest one. And Tuesday's round of state polls showed similar numbers in the battlegrounds of Michigan, Colorado, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Looking at pollster.com averages, Kos notes that Obama is polling over 50% in states that add up to 308 electoral votes.

But what the New York Times chose to emphasize about its own poll is this: "The McCain campaign’s recent angry tone and sharply personal attacks on Senator Barack Obama appear to have backfired and tarnished Senator John McCain more than their intended target, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll has found....The top reasons cited by those who said they thought less of Mr. McCain were his recent attacks and his choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate."

Still, there are other indications that Obama is getting more positive support rather than simply benefitting from negative views of McCain. TMP highlighted a number within the LA Times poll which shows a plurality of voters for the first time say Obama is experienced enough to be President. In the NY Times poll, 7 of 10 said Obama has the right temperament and personality to be President, with McCain breaking even. More than 60% said Obama understood their needs and problems, less than half said that about McCain.

Though there is some danger of complacency, being up in the polls also increases enthusiasm, and that activist attitude--the movement as Obama calls it--plus the unique methods of organization and all the attention paid to it on the ground level are really paying off. For another example, some 17% of Ohio voters have been contacted by Obama advocates--an historic percentage.

And the interest is there, even for the seemingly crazy ideas, like Sarah Silverman's "Great Schlep"--there's this account of an Obama kid going to talk to his grandparents about Obama, and winding up talking to 100 retirees who wanted to hear him. Perhaps even more powerfully, there are events like this one leading to marches to the polls to vote in early voting states.

Meanwhile, McCain has announced that tonight's debate won't be a "game-changer," a cliche that will forever be associated with this campaign. If he doesn't come away with an inconceivably major victory, it could be a game ender.

Tuesday on the Hate Talk Express

While the rabble was being whipped up by a rabid right party hack before a Palin hate, during a diatribe on Obama, someone in the crowd shouted "Kill him."

From Keith Olbermann's Special Comment: "Obviously, Senator, you haven't heard your own speeches, and Gov. Palin's, and what people shout during them. And you haven't heard your state GOP Chair in Virginia, Jeffrey Frederick, giving talking points to 30 of your field-operatives heading out to canvass voters in Gainesville, Virginia. With a reporter present, telling them to try to forge a connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden to emphasize bombings and terrorism. And you haven't heard those volunteers, your volunteers Sen. McCain, shout back "and he won't salute the flag" and "we don't even know where Sen. Obama was really born."
Sen. McCain, these people are speaking for you!...

You, sir, are responsible for a phalanx of individuals who are shouting fire in a crowded theatre. There are some things to respect and honor about you, Sen. McCain. But on this, you're not only a fraud, Senator but you are tacitly inciting lunatics to violence. If you want to again grand-stand and suspend your campaign here's your big chance. Suspend your campaign now, until you, or somebody else, gets some control over it and it ceases to be a clear and present danger to the peace of this nation."

Stratergery

The McCain campaign was reeling all weekend, with one GOPer talker after another GOPer politician badmouthing and abandoning them. But there are still 21 days to the election. They can make some moves. Unfortunately for them, so can the Obama campaign. And the moves they made on Monday tells you the difference in their strategic thinking.

McCain went for a reboot, a restart of his underdog image. Unfortunately, his basic line--that he's a fighter--and even some of the actual lines (Obama is "measuring the drapes" for the Oval Office) are the latest in a long series of thefts from the Hillary Clinton primary campaign. So what does it say about a campaign that it compulsively steals ideas that have already proven not to work?

Obama on the other hand, who might be tempted to sit on a substantial lead, took the initiative by making several new proposals for an immediate economic "rescue plan for the middle class." The brilliance of this move is in several areas. First, he's telling people what he wants to do, just as they're getting used to the idea that he may well become President. He's zeroed in on ground-level changes, instead of financial institutions. Beyond the public measures he proposed, he also talked about public and private responsibility, about ending the era of living beyond our means. That reassures Independents and Republicans, as well as making sense. He's given people specifics they've asked for, but he's again done it in a larger context, in his call for change. In his themes of we're all in this together, and the importance of this political moment. "Believe in yourselves, believe in each other, and believe in the future."

It is brilliant as well in its timing. It gives Obama something to focus on in the final debate--not with a single surprise proposal, as McCain did, but with an integrated and thought-out plan he introduced in detail. And this initiative may have stolen the initiative from McCain, whose surrogates were loudly announcing all weekend that he would be making new economic proposals on Monday. He didn't, perhaps because his campaign got wind of Obama's intent, although the Obama campaign was typically silent about it much in advance.

Then on Monday McCain's campaign stated that McCain wasn't going to make any new economic proposals--but then suddenly it was announced that McCain was giving a speech on Tuesday with new proposals. So McCain is in the position of reacting, and having his business-friendly tax proposals (as they are rumored to be) contrasted with Obama's emphasis on jobs and Main Street.

With the poll number continuing to get better for Obama, with the Obama campaign outspending and outworking McCain, there is no let up, and Team Obama is continuing to be aggressive. Meanwhile contradictory messages continue to come from what's left of the McCain campaign, including on Wednesday's debate. Some suggest McCain will again stay away from the Ayers stuff that is proving so toxic to his approval numbers, while others promise that McCain will bring it up. McCain has himself raised the stakes and the expectations by promising supporters to "whip [Obama's] you know what."

Wednesday is the last time McCain may have the attention of a large TV audience, assuming people are still going to watch. If he loses this debate, there is no strategery in the world that can help him. And even if he wins, or some external events shake things up, it may only make his defeat a little closer.

But it's also no time for complacency for the Obama campaign--which seems to know that very well--or for supporters. It may still get even uglier (somebody in the McCain campaign says they are saving the really good stuff for the last two weeks) and other campaigns--apparently including Kerry's--thought they had it in the bag but did not. Whatever nervousness we may naturally have, however, the Obama campaign is earning our confidence. They really did that on Monday.

Monday on the Hate Talk Express

QUESTION: The chair of the Republican Party in Virginia has said, quote, in Time magazine, "both Barack Obama and Osama Bin Laden have friends that have bombed the Pentagon. That is scary." Is that appropriate for a state party chair to be saying?

MCCAIN: "I have to look at the context of his remarks.

I have always repudiated any comments that have been made that were inappropriate about Senator Obama. The fact is that William Ayers was a terrorist and bomber and unrepentant. I don't care about that. But Senator Obama ought be the candid and truthful about his relationship with Mr. Ayers in whose living room Senator Obama launched his campaign and Senator Obama said he was just a guy in the neighborhood."

What Election Are They Covering?

Dangling at the top of Daily Kos on Sunday was the latest Research 2000 daily tracking poll on the presidential race, showing: Obama 53% McCain 40%. Once again, it's not just the 13 point margin, it's the 3 points over 50%. It's McCain below 41%.

And at one point under that number, the Kos himself noted how the major media are doing their best to ignore what the numbers are saying. He referenced Chris Bowers showing that according to the Washington Post, Every state in which McCain has a lead, even if it's just 2.2%, is a "leaning Republican". Every state in which Obama has the lead, even if it's over 10 percent, is a "battleground". Bowers quotes 5 respected electoral projections, all of which have Obama winning handily--but not the major networks or newspapers. His conclusion: Maybe they are afraid of being accused of pro-Obama bias (probably). Maybe they are just biased toward McCain (possibly). Maybe they just suck at electoral forecasting (definitely). Maybe they are invested in a close campaign (absolutely)."

Maybe that's why they paid so little attention to the finding of VP candidate Palin's abuse of power as Gov. of Alaska, which is against Alaska law, voted unanimously out of a committee comprised of 10 Republicans and 4 Democrats. And about which Palin was permitted to lie repeatedly.

But the numbers are getting relentless. According to the latest Public Policy Polling survey in Colorado, "The numbers paint a picture that shows it nearly impossible for McCain to win the state at this point." And what one numbers person after another says--which is pretty much what a lot of Republicans are also saying--is that while it is not absolutely impossible for McCain to win...it is most unlikely. The only time since modern polling started that a presidential candidate was behind by 8 points this late, and came back to win, was Reagan in 1980, who was the change candidate in a change year. What seems to be happening then is that the change candidate this year has made the sale a couple of weeks earlier than Reagan did.

And now the Washington Post/ABC News poll is out with that same astonishing 53% for Obama, to 43% for McCain.

Here's another number from Sunday (that Reagan didn't have): Obama got 15 newspaper endorsements, and McCain got none. "In three weeks, Americans will be called upon to make an exceptional judgment worthy of the times. The forces of history appear to invite boldness and the Post-Gazette believes they should be heeded by voting for the only authentic, fresh agent of change in this race, Barack Obama." --said the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Among the other endorsements: the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the Asheville NC Citizen Times, and the Tennessean.

We're apparently going to hear a new number soon: a record-breaking month of September for the Obama campaign in donations and probably in the number of donors.

How about the numbers on the McCain-Palin attacks? Apart from the thorough debunking of the Ayers assertions in their campaign ad, public polls show that the attacks aren't working for McCain-Palin--instead the attacks are working against them. The Obama campaign has its own private polls that show the blowback on McCain-Palin is even worse, with their unfavorability ratings shooting above 50%.

The ugliness may be taking on a life of its own--which is what many people fear--but at least the pedigree of the hate-mongers is being exposed. Republicans who have been swimming with their heads above the slime for years are now drowning in it, with nobody to save them but racists, anti-Semites, hate-filled fundamentalists, secessionist nutjobs and exploitable morons.

Some of them--it looks like many of them--are trying frantically to get out of the scum pool before it's too late. McCain is losing GOPer leadership support, notably now in Florida, which he absolutely must win. Notes the Independent: "Senior members of the Republican party are in open mutiny against John McCain's presidential campaign, after a disastrous period which has seen Barack Obama solidify his lead in the opinion polls."

Democrats on the other hand are getting as close to Obama as they can, and talking openly of a 100 seat advantage in the House and a filibuster-proof majority of 60 in the Senate, though neither of those are yet as likely as an electoral college win for Obama.

The Obama campaign knows the numbers, but they know--and have always known--the numbers that count are the voted that are counted. So the ground game is amping up, Obama is campaigning in early voting states, even as the ads increase every week. And the campaign is reportedly going to announce today some voter protection initiatives to make sure registered voters get to vote, and their votes get counted.

I thought I was beyond shock, but the complete news blackout on the official conclusion of the Alaska legislature that Gov. Sarah Palin has unlawfully abused her power is simply mind-boggling. What would be happening if the shoe were on the other foot is the subject of this diary at Kos, which is also the source of this illustration.

Two Fears and Three Pretty Big Embraces

John McCain may have tried to dial back the rhetoric yesterday, but the controversy over it continued, and is likely to be part of the Sunday talk show dialogue. For the fear that McCain and Palin have whipped up, and the fear and hate demonstrated at their rallies, has touched off public talk about another fear: of violence directed as supporters of Obama, and most specifically against Obama himself.

Rep. John Lewis was the most noted voice on the subject Saturday, prompting denials from McCain and partial agreement from the Obama campaign, which doesn't believe that race is otherwise going to be much of a factor in the actual election. While Lewis raised the historical spector of a church bombing and George Wallace's rhetoric, in his Sunday column Frank Rich sticks with the history of the McCain-Palin campaign and where it might be leading. He chronicles the escalating rhetoric, from the Republican convention through last week, culminating in just how the Bill Ayers association was played: "That’s a far cry from simply accusing Obama of being a guilty-by-association radical leftist. Obama is being branded as a potential killer and an accessory to past attempts at murder. “Barack Obama’s friend tried to kill my family” was how a McCain press release last week packaged the remembrance of a Weather Underground incident from 1970 — when Obama was 8."

Update: Here's another narrative on this subject by Time's Michael Scherer, who predicts "This election is going to end ugly."

It all clearly plays into the "he's a Muslin" Barack Hussein Obama mantras, which are often rationalizations for racism and hate. All of this is not exactly coming as news to African Americans whose names aren't John Lewis. It was fear for Obama's life that caused a lot to hang back from supporting him, along with their skepticism that a black man could ever be elected. Now that the primaries and the polls have produced some hope about the latter, the former is still on their minds.

For instance, at the very start of a Philadelphia Inquirer story about Obama's four campaign appearances in largely black areas of Philadelphia on Saturday: Helen Henderson, 82 years old and African American, sat in the sunshine at 52d and Locust Streets yesterday, waiting for Barack Obama to arrive. She said she felt excited, honored and blessed. "I never thought I'd live to see a black man in the White House," said the retired nurse, who lives in University City. "I sent him a small contribution in the mail. I owe it to him because he's taking a chance for us. I pray for him."

But Obama had big crowds everywhere he went in Philadelphia Saturday, while Sarah Palin (also in Philly) was getting loudly booed at a Flyers hockey game.
So just as there is conviction in the Obama campaign that in the end it will all turn out well, there is hope as well as fear in those with historical consciousness. The Inquirer story ends with another point of view: " At Vernon Park, David Wilcots, 46, an environmental engineer, contemplated the prospect of an Obama victory, which he and other African Americans now believe is a probability. On the one hand, Wilcots said, the venom expressed by the crowds at Republican rallies last week makes him fear for Obama's safety. On the other, he marvels at what might transpire on Nov. 4. "It wouldn't resolve everything in race relations, but it would mean we'd reached a milestone in this country thought to be impossible a few short years ago," he said. "America would be embracing as president a black person, a person of mixed-race background, and a person one generation removed from Africa. Those are three pretty big embraces."

The only even theoretical road to victory for McCain is a big national change. Where exactly he campaigns makes little difference. But with a double digit national lead, Barack Obama can afford to talk globally and campaign locally. For the past few days he's been in Ohio, with a few big rallies but mostly in smaller places, where he doesn't necessarily get national media, but lots and lots of local media. This Times blog item tells the story. The photo is from the NYTimes, too.

Fatal Friday

Reviewing the day's polls, Nate Silver wrote: "With 25 days to go until the election, Barack Obama is presently at his all-time highs in four of the six national tracking polls (Research 2000, Battleground, Hotline and Zogby) and is just one point off his high in Gallup. He has emerged with clear leads in both Florida and Ohio, where there are several polls out today. He is blowing McCain out in most polls of Pennsylvania and Michigan, and is making states like West Virgina and Georgia competitive."

As it would turn out, this would be the high point of the day for the McCain campaign.

(I have to flag Nate's use of the word "presently" to mean "currently." Then again, about the only person I know who uses the word correctly is Keith Olbermann, who uses it to mean "coming up soon.")

Later the Newsweek poll came out, with Obama ahead 52% to 41%. Lawrence O'Donnell would presently point out that 41% is about as low as you can go in a national poll as long as you have an R or a D after your name.

Then again, Obama was up 52% to 40% in the Research 2000 daily tracker. He
was 51-41 in Gallup tracking and 50-45 in Rasmussen.

Through the day, McCain faced mounting criticism--from officials within his own party. A congressional supporter called the campaign out for their inflammatory rhetoric. The Republican governor of Michigan said: "He is not the McCain I endorsed," said Milliken, reached at his Traverse City home Thursday. "He keeps saying, 'Who is Barack Obama?' I would ask the question, 'Who is John McCain?' because his campaign has become rather disappointing to me." A poll of Republican insiders showed that 80% of them believe Obama will win.

Then McCain attempted to pivot slightly from the recent attacks he and Palin have been making to propose something economical: a fairly arcane but decent sounding proposal concerning seniors and their retirement accounts, which quickly turned out to be pretty useless--apparently of benefit mostly to people 100 years old.

But as McCain's supporters continued to express their racism and wing-nuttery at his rallies, McCain was forced--no fewer than three times--to caution them to be respectful, that they don't have to be afraid of Obama as President of the United States, and that he is a decent family man. At at least one point while he was saying this, he was booed. On Rachel, Ana Marie Cox of Time, who is traveling with the McCain campaign, said that while there are always some crazies at rallies, she was finding that McCain's rallies are now totally comprised of "wing-nuts."

Then while the evening cable shows were digesting these events, the Troopergate report finally was released. A committee of 10 Republicans and 4 Democrats in the Alaska legislature unanimously voted to release it, and it found Governor Palin guilty of abuse of power under state law. The best quick summary of its findings I've seen is Michael Scherer's here.

It happened that Lawrence O'Donnell was already being interviewed on Keith (Keithless Keith tonight, David Schuster hosting), and had already said of the increasing pressure on McCain to denounce the violent responses of his crowds, and the subsequent undercutting of his own stealth point in affirming that noone needs to be afraid of Obama as President, that sometimes campaigns box themselves in so that they have no good options, and the McCain campaign has done just this.

There are a lot of pundits out there, but O'Donnell is one I listen to, because he is informed, very savvy and has a point of view different from the others. Of course I don't always agree--but he's been dead right on this sequence of events.

After a few minutes during which he evidently speed-read the report, O'Donnell returned with the idea that this undercut and even destroyed Palin's credibility to attack Obama, to differentiate herself and McCain as the clean candidates who wouldn't be business as usual in Washington. She was becoming a drag on the ticket, as her approval ratings went straight down, he said, and now she really is a liability. And the report has come out at the worst possible time for the Republican ticket.

I think it was O'Donnell who pointed out that this possibility was known at the time McCain chose her--the investigation was already underway. Indeed, I was among those who discounted her as a possible candidate because of this investigation. But McCain chose her anyway, he rolled the dice, and he lost.

So what's the good news for the McCain campaign? It's Friday, and McCain usually takes the weekend off.

(On the other hand, there is this pretty amazing rumor.)

Playing With Hate

We're hours away from the investigator's report on whether Governor Palin abused her power. Judging from the preemptive claims that came from the McCain campaign, they expect the report to be damning.

Probably not so damning as the extent of the Palins entanglement with Rabid Rightists in Alaska (as well as secessionists of the South) that make our worst seem like bunny rabbits in comparison. Or VP candidate Palin's own Fascistic rhetoric, and the loud shout-outs of racism infecting the McCain campaign from top to bottom that even the major media is noting.

Race is the topic of the day it seems, and whether Obama has a ceiling to his support, whether the Bradley effect is still real or relevant, or even if race is a factor in just one direction.

Racism works especially well when the rich and powerful are able to use it to divide the middle class and poor people, and divert them from blaming the real culprits causing their plight--namely the rich and powerful. That could be happening in this economic crisis, but it probably hasn't had time to build that way just yet. And it may not at all this time. People are looking at Wall Street first, and the subtext of blaming this all on people of color who got houses they couldn't pay for hasn't caught on as the main explanation.

But the Republicans are still trying, especially those local pols who are trying to position Obama as a street thug. Unfortunately for them, except in a few isolated pockets (and even they have television), white people are experienced enough with the variety of non-white individuals and families to differentiate (as opposed to discriminate).

Still, it is a time for vigilance, and all racism must be pointed out and condemned. Even if it continues, such vigilance may encourage a purging of this poison from the body politic.

This racism and other will go on at some level for the rest of the campaign, peaking on election day in mail boxes stuffed with hatred (and that New Yorker cover.) Whether McCain and Palin themselves can keep doing this is still an open question. Some pundits believe they have nothing else, and expect to see it in the debate Wednesday. But one, Lawrence O'Donnell maintains that it is polling so badly that McCain will give it up by the time of the debate.

Maybe so. O'Donnell says McCain is too impatient to stay with it, and that may be so. But his violent and abusive temper, revealed in this incident of screaming at a woman at a Vegas craps table, is not only a disqualification for the presidency, it could yet mean more incitement to violence.

Update: TPM notes that Obama has recognized the McCain-Palin rallys at which "It's easy to rile up a crowd by stoking anger and division." First Read quotes this and the McCain response, accusing Obama of trying to silence ordinary Americans. So I guess that makes them official Fascists. Meanwhile, a Fox News poll asked about the Ayers attacks and found that people aren't interested.

Game, Set... Match?

Barack Obama won the debate, and John McCain lost it. And America is getting used to the idea of President Obama.

Obama's victory was the clear verdict in the polls, the focus groups, the pundits--even more clearly than the first debate. The numbers do prove out my suspicion that voters have already made up their minds, but I do think this debate wasn't irrelevant. Obama looked and talked like the President, especially the President we need now. McCain looked and talked like another nightmare.

My first (pleasant) surprise came early, when Obama was the first to jump on corporate greed and today's AIG testimony. Completely took it away from McCain, who harped on the topic in the first debate.

As I foresaw, Obama was very comfortable with the so-called Town Hall format, and performed much better than the aimlessly wandering McCain. Although either the camera placement or the format or the TV director couldn't keep up with the candidates, and visually much of the debate was looking at the backs of heads and people walking out of frame. It was dizzying at times, and I wouldn't be surprised if people tuned out.

Pundits noted that Obama tied McCain to Bush early and often, but he also related all of his answers to people's lives--very important. I expected that, and he did it even better than at the first debate. And get this: when McCain didn't mention the "middle class" once in the first debate, Team Obama made a campaign ad pointing it out. So what did McCain do this time? He didn't say the words "middle class"again---not even once.

Obama was particularly strong on health care (Brokaw threw it up there--is health care a right, a privilege or a responsibility? McCain whiffed with responsibility, Obama homered with health care is a right), on taxes, on the moral imperative to stop genocide but our lack of standing to lead in the world because of Iraq and Bush diplomacy, on the Climate Crisis as the most significant crisis of our time, and on the call to service.

I'm not entirely sure if McCain is on board with his campaign's "racially tinged" negative blather that's been inciting crowds, but he sure looks racist: he suggested that a black questioner probably hadn't ever heard of Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae, he pointed to Obama and said "that one," and after the debate, he left Obama's outstretched hand dangling.

The internals of the polls and the questions with the focus groups show that voters are getting more comfortable with Obama, none more dramatically than this focus group, according to Amy Sullivan of TIME: Even more dramatic was the shift in the voters’ personal reactions to the two candidates. Before the debate, McCain had a 48/46 favorability rating; that improved to 56/36 by the end. But that’s about where Obama started the evening—54/36. After an hour and a half, Obama’s favorability numbers were 80/14. As Joe Biden would say, let me repeat that: 80% of the undecided voters had favorable views of Obama and only 14% saw him negatively for a net rating of +66. Not even Bill Clinton got such a warm response in town hall formats."

Nate Silver concluded: " I apologize if I sound like a broken record. But once again, Obama won the debate according to essentially every objective metric. And recall that, even if the debate were a tie, this would not have helped John McCain; he needed a clear win tonight. Instead, he's continued to dig himself into a deeper electoral hole."

That pretty much says it all.

But we can begin to see what's happening in the bigger picture as well as the constructive outcome in this suggestion by E.J. Dionne: " McCain kept highlighting the conservative past with his reverent references to Ronald Reagan. But at the moment, the conservative past is on trial. It represents the era Obama unmistakably wants to end. " We are clearly at the end of something. How fortunate we are that in Obama we have a capable leader with the ideas and ability to take us to the beginning of something new.

By the way, others are observing what I predicted for this debate: that in the town hall format, McCain did not (because he could not) go negative in the same terms as Palin and he have on the stump in the past few days. But this is not the last debate. I fully expect McCain himself to go completely negative in the most strident way next Wednesday in the final debate.

Final pre-debate thoughts

I look for McCain to run strong against corporate greed. The AIG hearing today gives him the perfect hook. I look for Barack to hone in on middle class concerns, but he may also have to get a bit technical about the financial markets. He knows more about them, and is trusted more on that issue. I also expect him to pivot to health care whenever possible, and that's where we might have fireworks.

More Numbers and Debate Prep

Today, Nate Silver sez: As the political world's focus shifts to the second presidential debate in Nashville, Barack Obama continues to expand his lead upon John McCain in all of our projection metrics, and now rates as almost a 9:1 favorte to win the election in November.

Both state and national polls are contributing to this result... Obama also gets a monster number from SurveyUSA in Pennsylvania, which has him leading by 15 points, up from a 6-point lead two weeks ago. SurveyUSA polls can be a bit volatile, but with that said, we now have multiple polls (Quinnipiac, Morning Call, West Chester/NPR) suggesting that Obama has a double-digit lead in Pennsylvania. We also show Pennsylvania moving back ahead of Michigan, projecting an 8.7-point win for Obama there as opposed to 8.4 points in the Wolverine State. ..McCain needs a game changer. Or two. Or three. Tonight's debate, which features McCain's preferred town hall format, might be his best remaining opportunity.

Yesterday, Nate Silver sez: Are John McCain's negative attacks succeeding in eating into some of Barack Obama's support? They certainly aren't yet. In fact, Barack Obama has had perhaps his strongest individual polling day of the year...

The tracking poll numbers are pretty stable today, but it's the voter registration numbers beginning to come in that are potentially significant. Democrats are registering millions of new and switched voters. In PA, Republicans actually have lost significant numbers.

In Florida, this means that the Dems have about a quarter of a million net more voters this election than in 04. Ohio has registered a half million new voters, but there's no party affliliation breakdown, and it's the one state where early voting (which they did for the first time) doesn't appear to be meeting expectations. Of all the battleground states, Ohio appears the most troublesome. But Obama doesn't have to win Ohio if he wins Florida.

The buzz today, besides being about the economy, is about the campaigns going negative, and in the case of the McCain and Palin crowds yesterday, turning ugly and racist. In terms of the debate, Tom Brokaw apparently was not party to the agreement so he may be asking followup questions. He's been criticized recently for being biased towards McCain.

A quick fact check of McCain's most recent speech by the NY Times shows that it's full of inaccuracies and lies. Joe Klein notes that its "hyperbolic tone" isn't going to help settle down the stock market, and the fear that apparently is motivating a lot of the global nosedive. Will McCain say this stuff to Obama's face tonight? It's going to be fascinating. If McCain believes that going negative is his only chance, he'll be defeating himself as well as possibly tarnishing Obama. But if he maintains a positive tone, what does he actually have to propose, or say?

50%+ and Debate Prep

There's this belief among pols that once a candidate crosses the 50% threshhold, it means that the electorate is ready, and it will take a lot to defeat that candidate. After approaching it but hardly ever going over it for months, Barack Obama has been crossing that threshhold pretty regularly in the past week or two.

We saw it in the average of tracking polls yesterday, and he's been above 50% in a couple of them for days in a row. Now we're seeing it in state polls. A new PA poll, he's at 52% to 42. In the latest round of Rasmussen battlegrounds, he's at 50 or above in Florida (52%!), Missouri, Colorado and Virginia. In the Washington Post poll, he's at 51% in Ohio. In a Public Policy poll he's at 50% in North Carolina. Survey USA has him at 53% in New Hampshire and Virginia. And so on.

And while the NBC poll has him just under 50 at 49, the new CNN poll has him at 53% to 45.

It's that 50%+ as well as the leads themselves--and the consistency over polls and from state to state--that is beginning to convince the punditocracy that the electorate has made up its mind.

So it looks like Tuesday's debate is either McCain's last chance or too late anyway. It's a moderated Town Hall format, which is supposed to be McCain's strength but that seems to me to be one of those conventional crocks. McCain has had his worst moments in that format, he hasn't been spontaneous or effective in them for months, and the last thing he wants to do is to take questions from voters, since they are apt to be about the economy, etc.

The rules: Tom Brokaw is the moderator, which may mean some McCain-friendly questions. Questions will come from three sources, though Brokaw essentially chooses them all: they come from him, from "uncommitted likely" voters in the room (who ask only the question they've been chosen to ask) and from the Internet. The questioners are supposed to be demographically "representative" as judged by the Gallup organization.

There are to be no follow-ups (not even by the moderator) and no direct interaction between the candidates. They can move around a bit, but only in designated areas (in their own town halls, both McCain and Obama tend to pace.) Nothing said in anything I've yet read about what the time limits are, and whether both candidates get a shot at every question.

It's going to be hard for McCain to go negative, and even harder for him not to look unresponsive to voters if he does. Independent and uncommitted voters hate negative stuff in debates. Despite media mumblers who long ago stopped actually looking at campaign video and listening to what the candidates say, Obama is very comfortable in this format, and he relates very well to voters. Above all, he really answers their questions.

What's going to be very interesting to me are the snap poll and focus group results. If they favor Obama by about the same margin as they favored him and Biden in the first two debates, that to me is very good evidence that voters have indeed made up their mind, and everything they see now is through that mindset. (I don't believe incidentally that the CNN focus group of uncommitted voters is made up of all uncommitted voters. Because as soon as they commit, they're off the island. They aren't on TV anymore.)

What can we expect then during the debate? McCain has to come with something new, something positive, and show some understanding of economic problems. Blaming it all on earmarks and gubment spending won't wash. Obama should have more to say about the financial crisis that's up to the minute--past the bailout vote and Blue Monday at the stock market. He's also likely to crank it up over McCain's positions on deregulation, health care, Medicare and Social Security. But my guess is that he'll wait for McCain to throw the first punch, or just make the first assertion that Obama can counter.

After the debate, Obama heads for Indiana and Ohio.

Gamble

The polls for Obama are not only great, they're getting better. Now the average of the four tracking polls has him above 50%, and 8 points ahead. Two state polls in Virginia show him ahead there, one by a substantial margin. And another poll has him ahead in North Carolina by 6 points.

Update: The NBC poll announced late today has Obama ahead by 6 points nationally, 49% to 43%. NBC has pretty consistently shown the race tighter than other polls have. This poll also found that Obama and Biden won their debates by a margin of 50-29.

But the wheels were turning at both campaigns over the weekend. For some weird reason, the McCainers actually announced that they were changing the subject from the economy and going after Obama. Maybe they didn't count on this, but Team Obama read these stories. So even as VP candidate Palin was starting the push by latching on to the NY Times story about Obama and Bill Ayers that conveniently ran that day (along with several anti-Palin screeds, which somehow she didn't mention), the Obama campaign was pushing back. Hard.

Obama zeroed in on the tactic on the stump. He described it as a smear campaign. There was a quick ad (the one just below this post.) Surrogates began fighting fire with fire--when Ayers came up, Paul Begala had the name of a shadowy McCain associate. Then the news trickled out that surrogates would be invoking the Keating Five. And then the big deal: the Obama campaign openly promoting a web site and 13 minute video (unveiled today) about McCain and the Keating Five. And here's the site. Today McCain himself went on the attack, in what's likely to be a preview of his part of the debate tomorrow.

Each of these strategies is a gamble that could help or hurt their campaigns. In responding quickly--and even pre-emptively--the Obama campaign tried to outflank McCain's new strategy. Palin's first attack got some bad reviews, including the AP analysis that it was "unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret." But cable news was repeating Palin's weekend attacks all morning.

For Obama, there's the risk of blunting his positive appeal with a negative counterattack against McCain, and turning off Independents, even as Democrats are cheered. There's of course also the risk of letting the attacks go unchallenged.

Since the attacks on Obama aren't new, do they have any actual force? Since the attacks on McCain are new--and in the case of the Keating Five, substantively related to the economic crisis reflected in a global market plunge today--do they have more force? Will McCain's objections even be listened to, or will they be discounted as desperate, and work against him?

Or have voters already made up their minds and it's all sound and fury signifying nothing? Since the VP debate did not cut into Obama's lead in the tracking polls at all, it is unlikely to stem the growing numbers in the state polls. McCain's debate performance tomorrow may be his last chance, or it may be too late.

There are also reports I pick up here and there of enormous enthusiasm for Obama across the country, especially among the campaign's well-organized volunteers. Today is the last day for new registration, so all their efforts will turn to early voting and election day.

Pre-emptive Strike