CHICAGO TRIBUNE ENDORSES THE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE FOR THE FIRST TIME

Sent to Chill Baby, Chill by Dan Suffoletta

FROM THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE EDITORIAL BOARD
Tribune Endorsement: Barack Obama for President
2:33 PM CDT, October 17, 2008

However this election turns out, it will dramatically advance America's slow progress toward equality and inclusion. It took Abraham Lincoln's extraordinary courage in the Civil War to get us here. It took an epic battle to secure women the right to vote. It took the perseverance of the civil rights movement. Now we have an election in which we will choose the first African-American president . . . or the first female vice president.

In recent weeks it has been easy to lose sight of this history in the making. Americans are focused on the greatest threat to the world economic system in 80 years. They feel a personal vulnerability the likes of which they haven't experienced since Sept. 11, 2001. It's a different kind of vulnerability. Unlike Sept. 11, the economic threat hasn't forged a common bond in this nation. It has fed anger, fear and mistrust.

On Nov. 4 we're going to elect a president to lead us through a perilous time and restore in us a common sense of national purpose.

The strongest candidate to do that is Sen. Barack Obama. The Tribune is proud to endorse him today for president of the United States.

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On Dec. 6, 2006, this page encouraged Obama to join the presidential campaign. We wrote that he would celebrate our common values instead of exaggerate our differences. We said he would raise the tone of the campaign. We said his intellectual depth would sharpen the policy debate. In the ensuing 22 months he has done just that.

Many Americans say they're uneasy about Obama. He's pretty new to them.

We can provide some assurance. We have known Obama since he entered politics a dozen years ago. We have watched him, worked with him, argued with him as he rose from an effective state senator to an inspiring U.S. senator to the Democratic Party's nominee for president.

We have tremendous confidence in his intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions. He is ready.

The change that Obama talks about so much is not simply a change in this policy or that one. It is not fundamentally about lobbyists or Washington insiders. Obama envisions a change in the way we deal with one another in politics and government. His opponents may say this is empty, abstract rhetoric. In fact, it is hard to imagine how we are going to deal with the grave domestic and foreign crises we face without an end to the savagery and a return to civility in politics.

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This endorsement makes some history for the Chicago Tribune. This is the first time the newspaper has endorsed the Democratic Party's nominee for president.

The Tribune in its earliest days took up the abolition of slavery and linked itself to a powerful force for that cause - the Republican Party. The Tribune's first great leader, Joseph Medill, was a founder of the GOP. The editorial page has been a proponent of conservative principles. It believes that government has to serve people honestly and efficiently.

With that in mind, in 1872 we endorsed Horace Greeley, who ran as an independent against the corrupt administration of Republican President Ulysses S. Grant. (Greeley was later endorsed by the Democrats.) In 1912 we endorsed Theodore Roosevelt, who ran as the Progressive Party candidate against Republican President William Howard Taft.

The Tribune's decisions then were driven by outrage at inept and corrupt business and political leaders.

We see parallels today.

The Republican Party, the party of limited government, has lost its way. The government ran a $237 billion surplus in 2000, the year before Bush took office -- and recorded a $455 billion deficit in 2008. The Republicans lost control of the U.S. House and Senate in 2006 because, as we said at the time, they gave the nation rampant spending and Capitol Hill corruption. They abandoned their principles. They paid the price.

We might have counted on John McCain to correct his party's course. We like McCain. We endorsed him in the Republican primary in Illinois. In part because of his persuasion and resolve, the U.S. stands to win an unconditional victory in Iraq.

It is, though, hard to figure John McCain these days. He argued that President Bush's tax cuts were fiscally irresponsible, but he now supports them. He promises a balanced budget by the end of his first term, but his tax cut plan would add an estimated $4.2 trillion in debt over 10 years. He has responded to the economic crisis with an angry, populist message and a misguided, $300 billion proposal to buy up bad mortgages.

McCain failed in his most important executive decision. Give him credit for choosing a female running mate - but he passed up any number of supremely qualified Republican women who could have served. Having called Obama not ready to lead, McCain chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. His campaign has tried to stage-manage Palin's exposure to the public. But it's clear she is not prepared to step in at a moment's notice and serve as president. McCain put his campaign before his country.

Obama chose a more experienced and more thoughtful running mate - he put governing before politicking. Sen. Joe Biden doesn't bring many votes to Obama, but he would help him from day one to lead the country.

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McCain calls Obama a typical liberal politician. Granted, it's disappointing that Obama's mix of tax cuts for most people and increases for the wealthy would create an estimated $2.9 trillion in federal debt. He has made more promises on spending than McCain has. We wish one of these candidates had given good, hard specific information on how he would bring the federal budget into line. Neither one has.

We do, though, think Obama would govern as much more of a pragmatic centrist than many people expect.

We know first-hand that Obama seeks out and listens carefully and respectfully to people who disagree with him. He builds consensus. He was most effective in the Illinois legislature when he worked with Republicans on welfare, ethics and criminal justice reform.

He worked to expand the number of charter schools in Illinois - not popular with some Democratic constituencies.

He took up ethics reform in the U.S. Senate - not popular with Washington politicians.

His economic policy team is peppered with advisers who support free trade. He has been called a "University of Chicago Democrat" - a reference to the famed free-market Chicago school of economics, which puts faith in markets.

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Obama is deeply grounded in the best aspirations of this country, and we need to return to those aspirations. He has had the character and the will to achieve great things despite the obstacles that he faced as an unprivileged black man in the U.S.

He has risen with his honor, grace and civility intact. He has the intelligence to understand the grave economic and national security risks that face us, to listen to good advice and make careful decisions.

When Obama said at the 2004 Democratic Convention that we weren't a nation of red states and blue states, he spoke of union the way Abraham Lincoln did.

It may have seemed audacious for Obama to start his campaign in Springfield, invoking Lincoln. We think, given the opportunity to hold this nation's most powerful office, he will prove it wasn't so audacious after all. We are proud to add Barack Obama's name to Lincoln's in the list of people the Tribune has endorsed for president of the United States.

PENGUIN OF GOTHAM CITY INFORMS MCCAIN CAMPAIGN

OBAMA THE GREAT......MARKETER

In the increasingly unlikely outcome of an Obama loss in November, the Democratic presidential candidate might want to consider a career as a Mad Man: Last week, he edged out Apple, Zappos.com, Nike and Coors to win AdAge.com's 2008 marketer of the year. "I think he did a great job of going from a relative unknown to a household name to being a candidate for president," an AOL executive told AdAge, while BusinessWeek columnist Jon Fine attributed the candidate's success to social-networking campaigns. "It's a fuckin' Web 2.0 thing," he said. One executive who voted for Coors disagreed with Obama's marketing win, charging that political campaigns ran "false and misleading" ads and that political advertising in general went against the ANA's mission. Still, he's sexier than a Mac. Does that make McCain PC?

READ IT @ AdAge.com

OBAMA LEADS IN NEWSPAPER ENDORSEMENTS 105 TO 33

Generals aren't the only ones who make endorsements. There was a time when the voters were fairly ignorant about politics and needed newspapers to tell them how to vote. Those times are gone (well, the second part, anyway). Nevertheless, the newspapers keep trying. It is not clear how much effect these endorsements have, except possibly when a strongly Republican newspaper endorses a Democrat or vice versa. One surprising endorsement came yesterday when the Houston Chronicle, the leading newspaper one of the reddest states in the country, endorsed Obama. Another surprise was the Obama endorsement from the Salt Lake Tribune the leading newspaper in the reddest state of them all, Utah. Other papers endorsing Obama are the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the NY Daily News. McCain's major endorsements have largely come from papers such as the San Francisco Examiner, the New York Post, the Columbus Dispatch, and the San Diego Union-Tribune, but all these are Republican oriented and all endorsed Bush in 2004. Editor and Publisher keeps score on endorsements. The current tally is Obama 105 to McCain 33. Here is the complete list. For comparison purposes, the final endorsement score in 2004 was John Kerry 213 over George Bush 205.

WHAT'S AT STAKE

What's at Stake

Nation Forum: A panel of legal analysts assesses the damage the Bush presidency has done to the judiciary--and what the next administration must do to repair it. 11:49 ET

MCCAIN GETTING HAMMERED ON HEALTH CARE

One of the great untold stories of this race so far is just how much McCain is being damaged on health care.

As Ben Smith has noted, Obama is blasting his rival on the airwaves primarily on this topic (Anybody who watches TV or listens to the radio in Washington, D.C. can testify to this.)

And McCain has not pushed back with any major ad campaign. His campaign aides have denounced Obama's claims through the media, but, in yet another example of how the Democrat's financial advantage is coloring the race, the shots have been unanswered on the air.

So many, many voters now are concerned about what will happen to their healthcare were McCain to be president.

According to a NYT/CBS poll earlier this month, 54% of voters surveyed said they were not confident McCain would "make the right decisions on health care." Only 10% said they were very confident he'd do so.

Further, there is anecdotal evidence that Obama's paid media onslaught has gotten people thinking about health care.

McCain held a conference call last night with Nevada voters and what is he asked about twice? His health care plan

VOTERS SAY THEY WERE DUPED INTO REGISTERING AS REPUBLICANS

by: Evan Halper and Michael Rothfeld, The Los Angeles Times

(Image: North Carolina Voter Education Project)

YPM, a group hired by the GOP, allegedly deceived Californians who thought they were signing a petition. YPM denies any wrongdoing. Similar accusations have been leveled against the company elsewhere. Sacramento - Dozens of newly minted Republican voters say they were duped into joining the party by a GOP contractor with a trail of fraud complaints stretching across the country. Voters contacted by The Times said they were tricked into switching parties while signing what they believed were petitions for tougher penalties against child molesters. Full Story Here»

VOTE OBAMA

POWELL ENDORSES OBAMA

posted from truthout.org

Sunday 19 October 2008

by: Elisabeth Bumiller, The New York Times

US secretary of State, Colin Powell endorses Senator Barack Obama for President. (Photo: Getty Images)

Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell endorsed Senator Barack Obama for president on Sunday morning as a candidate who was reaching out in a “more diverse and inclusive way across our society” and offering a “calm, patient, intellectual, steady approach” to the nation’s problems.

The endorsement, on the NBC public affairs program “Meet the Press,” was a major blow to Senator John McCain, who has been a good friend of Mr. Powell for decades. Mr. Powell, a Republican, has advised Mr. McCain in the past on foreign policy.

Mr. Powell told reporters after the taping of “Meet the Press” that he had been disturbed in recent weeks by the negative tone of Mr. McCain’s campaign, particularly its focus on Mr. Obama’s passing relationship with William Ayers, a 1960s radical and founder of the Weather Underground. The McCain campaign has sought to promote the idea that Mr. Obama is “palling around with terrorists,” in the words of Mr. McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, because of Mr. Obama’s weak links to Mr. Ayers.

“I thought that was over the top,” Mr. Powell told reporters. “It was beyond just good political fighting back and forth.”

Mr. Powell did offer Mr. McCain a small dose of solace by calling him a different kind of Republican, although one who would support the party’s standard positions.

“As gifted as he is, he is essentially going to execute the Republican agenda, the orthodoxy of the Republican agenda, with a new face and a maverick approach to it, and he’d be quite good at it,” Mr. Powell said. “But I think we need a generational change.”

In offering his endorsement, Mr. Powell becomes the highest profile Republican to add his support to the Democratic ticket. Aides said it was not yet known whether the two men would campaign together – or what Mr. Powell would do alone – in the final two weeks of the presidential campaign.

Those talks, aides said, were underway on Sunday.

Mr. Powell’s endorsement exposed a fundamental policy rift in the fractious Republican party foreign policy establishment between the so-called pragmatists, a number of whom have come to view the Iraq war or its execution as a mistake, and a competing camp, the neoconservatives, whose thinking dominated President Bush’s first term and played a pivotal role in building the case for war.

Mr. Powell, who is of the pragmatist camp and has been critical of the Bush administration’s conduct of the war, was said by friends in recent months to be disturbed by some of the neoconservatives who have surrounded Mr. McCain as foreign policy advisers in his presidential campaign. The McCain campaign’s top foreign policy aide is Randy Scheunemann, who was a foreign policy adviser to former Senators Trent Lott and Bob Dole and who has longtime ties to neoconservatives. In 2002, Mr. Scheunemann was a founder of the hawkish Committee for the Liberation of Iraq and was an enthusiastic supporter of the Iraqi exile and Pentagon favorite, Ahmad Chalabi, who was viewed with suspicion and distaste at the State Department when Mr. Powell was secretary of state.

Mr. Powell met with both Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama in June in preparation to make a possible endorsement. He has said repeatedly in recent months that he wanted to wait until after the political conventions and the presidential debates before making a decision.

Mr. Powell’s support of Mr. Obama was not a surprise to people who know him well and within Washington’s foreign policy establishment, but the Obama campaign welcomed it as a powerful reassurance to voters about Mr. Obama’s national security credentials. Other voters, however, could discount it as an action of a disgruntled member of the Bush administration or as simply the support of one African American for another.

Mr. Powell also told reporters on Sunday that he was troubled that a number of Americans believe that Mr. Obama is a Muslim, although he did not directly link that supposition to the McCain campaign. At a recent town-hall style meeting, Mr. McCain told an audience member who said she thought that Mr. Obama was an “Arab,” “no, ma’am, he’s a decent family man.”

“These are the kinds of images going out on Al Jazeera that are killing us around the world,” Mr. Powell said. “And we have got to say to the world it doesn’t make any difference who you are and what you are. If you’re an American you’re an American.”

Mr. McCain was asked about Mr. Powell’s endorsement during an interview on Fox News Sunday.

“I have always admired and respected General Powell,” Mr. McCain said. “We have a respectful disagreement.”

GOTTA LOVE THE LITTLE ONES!

Colin Powell might endorse Obama

By MIKE ALLEN | 10/17/08 10:07 AM EDT

Text Size:

Retired Gen. Colin Powell, once considered a potential running mate for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), now may endorse his opponent, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), according to Republican sources. But an air of mystery surrounds Powell's planned live appearance Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," and no one is sure what he will say.

Powell’s unassailable national security credentials could sway voters who are vacillating about whether Obama is ready to be commander in chief, and would make a national security emphasis by McCain in the closing days extremely difficult.

Powell, 71, a professional soldier for 35 years, has advised the last three Republican presidents.

The general’s camp is being coy about what he might or might not say on Sunday. But some McCain advisers suspect, without being sure, that Powell will endorse Obama.

WASHINGTON POST ENDORSES OBAMA

Barack Obama for President

Friday 17 October 2008

»

by: The Washington Post | Editorial

The Washington Post endorses Senator Barack Obama. (Photo: Bill Pugliano / Getty Images)

The Nominating process this year produced two unusually talented and qualified presidential candidates. There are few public figures we have respected more over the years than Sen. John McCain. Yet it is without ambivalence that we endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president.

The choice is made easy in part by Mr. McCain's disappointing campaign, above all his irresponsible selection of a running mate who is not ready to be president. It is made easy in larger part, though, because of our admiration for Mr. Obama and the impressive qualities he has shown during this long race. Yes, we have reservations and concerns, almost inevitably, given Mr. Obama's relatively brief experience in national politics. But we also have enormous hopes.

Mr. Obama is a man of supple intelligence, with a nuanced grasp of complex issues and evident skill at conciliation and consensus-building. At home, we believe, he would respond to the economic crisis with a healthy respect for markets tempered by justified dismay over rising inequality and an understanding of the need for focused regulation. Abroad, the best evidence suggests that he would seek to maintain U.S. leadership and engagement, continue the fight against terrorists, and wage vigorous diplomacy on behalf of U.S. values and interests. Mr. Obama has the potential to become a great president. Given the enormous problems he would confront from his first day in office, and the damage wrought over the past eight years, we would settle for very good.

The first question, in fact, might be why either man wants the job. Start with two ongoing wars, both far from being won; an unstable, nuclear-armed Pakistan; a resurgent Russia menacing its neighbors; a terrorist-supporting Iran racing toward nuclear status; a roiling Middle East; a rising China seeking its place in the world. Stir in the threat of nuclear or biological terrorism, the burdens of global poverty and disease, and accelerating climate change. Domestically, wages have stagnated while public education is failing a generation of urban, mostly minority children. Now add the possibility of the deepest economic trough since the Great Depression.

Not even his fiercest critics would blame President Bush for all of these problems, and we are far from being his fiercest critic. But for the past eight years, his administration, while pursuing some worthy policies (accountability in education, homeland security, the promotion of freedom abroad), has also championed some stunningly wrongheaded ones (fiscal recklessness, torture, utter disregard for the planet's ecological health) and has acted too often with incompetence, arrogance or both. A McCain presidency would not equal four more years, but outside of his inner circle, Mr. McCain would draw on many of the same policymakers who have brought us to our current state. We believe they have richly earned, and might even benefit from, some years in the political wilderness.

Of Course, Mr. Obama offers a great deal more than being not a Republican. There are two sets of issues that matter most in judging these candidacies. The first has to do with restoring and promoting prosperity and sharing its fruits more evenly in a globalizing era that has suppressed wages and heightened inequality. Here the choice is not a close call. Mr. McCain has little interest in economics and no apparent feel for the topic. His principal proposal, doubling down on the Bush tax cuts, would exacerbate the fiscal wreckage and the inequality simultaneously. Mr. Obama's economic plan contains its share of unaffordable promises, but it pushes more in the direction of fairness and fiscal health. Both men have pledged to tackle climate change.

Mr. Obama also understands that the most important single counter to inequality, and the best way to maintain American competitiveness, is improved education, another subject of only modest interest to Mr. McCain. Mr. Obama would focus attention on early education and on helping families so that another generation of poor children doesn't lose out. His budgets would be less likely to squeeze out important programs such as Head Start and Pell grants. Though he has been less definitive than we would like, he supports accountability measures for public schools and providing parents choices by means of charter schools.

A better health-care system also is crucial to bolstering U.S. competitiveness and relieving worker insecurity. Mr. McCain is right to advocate an end to the tax favoritism showed to employer plans. This system works against lower-income people, and Mr. Obama has disparaged the McCain proposal in deceptive ways. But Mr. McCain's health plan doesn't do enough to protect those who cannot afford health insurance. Mr. Obama hopes to steer the country toward universal coverage by charting a course between government mandates and individual choice, though we question whether his plan is affordable or does enough to contain costs.

The next president is apt to have the chance to nominate one or more Supreme Court justices. Given the court's current precarious balance, we think Obama appointees could have a positive impact on issues from detention policy and executive power to privacy protections and civil rights.

Overshadowing all of these policy choices may be the financial crisis and the recession it is likely to spawn. It is almost impossible to predict what policies will be called for by January, but certainly the country will want in its president a combination of nimbleness and steadfastness -- precisely the qualities Mr. Obama has displayed during the past few weeks. When he might have been scoring political points against the incumbent, he instead responsibly urged fellow Democrats in Congress to back Mr. Bush's financial rescue plan. He has surrounded himself with top-notch, experienced, centrist economic advisers -- perhaps the best warranty that, unlike some past presidents of modest experience, Mr. Obama will not ride into town determined to reinvent every policy wheel. Some have disparaged Mr. Obama as too cool, but his unflappability over the past few weeks -- indeed, over two years of campaigning -- strikes us as exactly what Americans might want in their president at a time of great uncertainty.

On The Second set of issues, having to do with keeping America safe in a dangerous world, it is a closer call. Mr. McCain has deep knowledge and a longstanding commitment to promoting U.S. leadership and values.

But Mr. Obama, as anyone who reads his books can tell, also has a sophisticated understanding of the world and America's place in it. He, too, is committed to maintaining U.S. leadership and sticking up for democratic values, as his recent defense of tiny Georgia makes clear. We hope he would navigate between the amoral realism of some in his party and the counterproductive cocksureness of the current administration, especially in its first term. On most policies, such as the need to go after al-Qaeda, check Iran's nuclear ambitions and fight HIV/AIDS abroad, he differs little from Mr. Bush or Mr. McCain. But he promises defter diplomacy and greater commitment to allies. His team overstates the likelihood that either of those can produce dramatically better results, but both are certainly worth trying.

Mr. Obama's greatest deviation from current policy is also our biggest worry: his insistence on withdrawing U.S. combat troops from Iraq on a fixed timeline. Thanks to the surge that Mr. Obama opposed, it may be feasible to withdraw many troops during his first two years in office. But if it isn't -- and U.S. generals have warned that the hard-won gains of the past 18 months could be lost by a precipitous withdrawal -- we can only hope and assume that Mr. Obama would recognize the strategic importance of success in Iraq and adjust his plans.

We also can only hope that the alarming anti-trade rhetoric we have heard from Mr. Obama during the campaign would give way to the understanding of the benefits of trade reflected in his writings. A silver lining of the financial crisis may be the flexibility it gives Mr. Obama to override some of the interest groups and members of Congress in his own party who oppose open trade, as well as to pursue the entitlement reform that he surely understands is needed.

It Gives Us no pleasure to oppose Mr. McCain. Over the years, he has been a force for principle and bipartisanship. He fought to recognize Vietnam, though some of his fellow ex-POWs vilified him for it. He stood up for humane immigration reform, though he knew Republican primary voters would punish him for it. He opposed torture and promoted campaign finance reform, a cause that Mr. Obama injured when he broke his promise to accept public financing in the general election campaign. Mr. McCain staked his career on finding a strategy for success in Iraq when just about everyone else in Washington was ready to give up. We think that he, too, might make a pretty good president.

But the stress of a campaign can reveal some essential truths, and the picture of Mr. McCain that emerged this year is far from reassuring. To pass his party's tax-cut litmus test, he jettisoned his commitment to balanced budgets. He hasn't come up with a coherent agenda, and at times he has seemed rash and impulsive. And we find no way to square his professed passion for America's national security with his choice of a running mate who, no matter what her other strengths, is not prepared to be commander in chief.

Any Presidential vote is a gamble, and Mr. Obama's resume is undoubtedly thin. We had hoped, throughout this long campaign, to see more evidence that Mr. Obama might stand up to Democratic orthodoxy and end, as he said in his announcement speech, "our chronic avoidance of tough decisions."

But Mr. Obama's temperament is unlike anything we've seen on the national stage in many years. He is deliberate but not indecisive; eloquent but a master of substance and detail; preternaturally confident but eager to hear opposing points of view. He has inspired millions of voters of diverse ages and races, no small thing in our often divided and cynical country. We think he is the right man for a perilous moment.

NOW WHAT ARE THEY DOING?

posted from electoral-vote.com

McCain Campaign Strategy Appears Muddled

John McCain is campaigning vigorously in Iowa, Minnesota, Pennsylvania New hampshire, and Wisconsin--states he has no chance of winning barring something very unforeseen. But he is ignoring states like Virginia and North Carolina, that he has a chance of winning but is currently behind in and which he can ill afford to lose. It appears the campaign has completely lost its compass. Obama meanwhile, flush with cash, is campaigning in many red states, but with leads in virtually all the swing states, he has the luxury of going after states like Georgia and Indiana. McCain has no such luxury. He's 7 points behind in Virginia, and a loss there would be absolutely fatal to him as would be losses in Ohio and Florida, other states he is behind in. So what is in doing stumping all over Iowa and Wisconsin? He should be in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, and Ohio pretty much full time. It makes no sense at all.

MEET THE REAL JOE THE PLUMBER

posted from electoral-vote.com

At the debate Wednesday, John McCain kept bringing up the "fact" that Joe the Plumber would be taxed more under Obama's tax plan. The trouble with making Joe a national hero for conservatives is that the national media descended on Joe. They learned a couple of things, like (1) his name is Sam, not Joe, (2) he does not have a plumbing or contractor's license, items required by city ordinance, (3) the taxable income from his plumbing business would qualify him for a tax cut under the Obama plan, not an increase, and (4) he has an outstanding lien for over $1000 in backtaxes he owes. Maybe he wasn't such a great choice as role model for McCain after all.

WILL JOE THE PLUMBER BE THE OCTOBER SURPRISE THAT TURNS THE ELECTION?

The jury is still out. I think Joe The Plumber might be all the middle class plumbers, electricians, etc. that don't want to vote for the black guy....or, at least, that's why JM brought him up. We'll see. Mark

by Paul Alexander

McCain the fighter was back, with Barack Obama on the defense most of the night.

I once asked John McCain why Al Gore lost the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000. His answer was simple: the debates. It was McCain’s belief that three different Gores showed up for the three debates (who can forget the rouge-cheeked “Ronald Reagan” Gore?), which proved unsettling to voters.

During this debate season, we did not have three different McCains. We had two tepid, placating McCains, offering pleasant, affable commentary carefully chosen not to upset anyone, especially his opponent, before the “real” McCain appeared last night. The most passionate moment in McCain’s campaign so far was the moving, from-the-gut call-to-arms at the end of his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention—the fighter calling his fellow citizens to his cause. That was what we saw in the third presidential debate—McCain the fighter taking it to Barack Obama, who looked on the defense most of the night.

There were campaign-defining lines (“I am not President Bush!”), zingers (“that old washed-up terrorist,” meaning William Ayers), and personal digs (“who has never been south of our border,” meaning Obama). But the most memorable aspect of the debate was McCain’s passion. This was the in-your-face defender of the common man—one journalist once called him Citizen McCain—who was willing to lay into Obama in defense of all the Joe the Plumbers across American, who are not keen on ideas like a redistribution of wealth. Had the real McCain shown up for the first two debates how different his campaign may be today.

JOE THE PLUMBER'S PLUMBER

What John McCain doesn't realize, or simply can't admit, is that when you "spread the wealth around", you give a little more to the guy that needs it (that guy that works for Joe the Plumber) so he can - maybe - save a little more, and spend a little more too. That way, everyone benefits...everyone prospers a little more. Even the rich enjoy greater prosperity because the base of people who can afford to buy their products and services increases when more people (the middle class) have discretionary income. But that's not the real story. You see, the last thing the John McCain's of the world want is for Joe the Plumber - or worse: Joe the Plumber's plumber - to show up at the same restaurants they eat in. Having Joe the Plumber sitting at a 4 star restaurant next to John McCain scares the living shit out of John MCain. It's a direct assault on his "whiteness" and his sense of superiority. More on all of this in a future "comment". I've been waiting for the right moment. It just arrived. Mark

Ayers attacks in tonight's debate will not help McCain

Today, pundits and the mainstream media have nearly unanimously agreed that Sen. John McCain must give a knock-out performance in tonight's debate to have any chance of closing the gap with Obama in the presidential race.

McCain hinted earlier this week that he will bring up William Ayers tonight, and vowed to "whip," Sen. Barack Obama's, "you-know-what," but the lead New York Times story today suggested that negative attacks are actually hurting his campaign.

The Online100 agrees. 62% of the panel suggested that it is not a smart strategy for John McCain to bring up William Ayers in tonight's debate. But the majority of the panelists admitted that McCain probably will bring it up anyway.

One panelist suggested that the Ayers issue was, "a stupid sideshow that only hurts his ability to attract independent voters," and another respondent warned, "It will look cheap, desperate, and nasty and I'm sure Obama has a good reply waiting."

Is it a smart strategy for John McCain to bring up William Ayers in tonight's debate?
10/14/2008

34% of the panel however, including 70% of right leaning panelists agreed that bringing up Ayers during the debate would be a smart move for McCain. As one panelist commented, "Obama's long working relationship with Bill Ayers, his political godfather, goes to the heart of his character and judgment." Another respondent noted, "There is a way to use it effectively, but i doubt he will."

One panelist thought that McCain should use the attack, "but only in passing, perhaps mentioning that one is judged by the company they keep."

70% percent of the panel predict that McCain will bring up Ayers tonight regardless, and several respondents suggested that McCain is "running out of time."

Do you believe John McCain will actually bring up William Ayers tonight?
10/15/2008

Only 17% of respondents thought that McCain would shy away from using the Ayers attacks, although a few that commented, noted that Bob Schieffer, would bring up the issue tonight, as one wrote, "The debate moderator will make sure McCain is asked about it after talking about it so much on the campaign trail."

RESOLVED: SARAH PALIN IS NOT ANDREW JACKSON

Posted from dailybeast.com
by Jon Meacham

Bill Kristol's comparison of the Alaskan governor to Old Hickory doesn't fly.

First, a stipulation: I like and respect Bill Kristol. There is, as you might expect, a “but” coming.

This morning in Maureen Dowd’s column in The New York Times, Bill compared Sarah Palin to Andrew Jackson. I have just finished five years of work on a Jackson biography, and am therefore particularly sensitive on this topic, and I have written about my reservations about Governor Palin in Newsweek. So Bill’s remark resonated with me on several levels.

The chief problem with the Palin-Jackson analogy is that Jackson was, by the time he came to the White House in 1829, a senior figure in American life. He had defeated the British at New Orleans and added millions upon millions of acres of land to the United States through his Indian campaigns. He served as a judge, a senator, a general, and, in 1824, won a plurality of the votes for president, only to lose the election to John Quincy Adams in the House of Representatives. He was much more than a mayor and a governor of two years’ standing.

For Palin admirers, there is much to like in a Jackson analogy. He was largely unlettered, ran as a champion of the people versus elites, and consistently surprised political observers and prognosticators with success upon success. But Jackson was an experienced hand at public affairs, and his populism, while genuinely felt, was not unthinking or unreflective. Perhaps Palin’s vision of the world is more complex than we know. If it is, she has 19 days to prove it.

Jon Meacham, the editor of Newsweek, is the author of American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House.

Olbermann: McCain, Latest Pander Plan

by: Keith Olbermann, MSNBC Countdown

The GOP ticket is inciting supporters to violence against Barack Obama. Transcript 1:25 PM Eastern Time, today, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. During the warm-up act by a Red Meat Congressional Candidate aptly named Chris Hackett, Hackett mentions Obama and a Palin audience member shouts "Kill Him." And Gov. Palin, as usual, does nothing about it says nothing to these thugs and psychos. She may not have heard this one. It is impossible to believe that by now she has not heard about the other ones. Her silence is deafening. Read full post/see video here»

Cindy Rodriguez: "Wish It To The Cornfield" - Painting Acrylic, 2008

Description: While cringing about the upcoming presidential race between Barack Obama and Joe Biden vs. McCain and Palin, a three headed jack-in-the-box - Bush, Palin, and McCain formed into this piece that's been wished to the cornfield. Political satire inspired by an old Twilight Zone episode circa 1960, where a young boy would wish away people that he didn't particularly care for. Look out! Will be on Ebay for auction soon! Check back for updates.

Welcome to the Revolution

Posted from truthout.org
by: Steve Weissman, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

A painting of Barack Obama by artist David Choe. (Photo: Getty Images)

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States proclaimed itself the world's only super-power and hawked American-style capitalism as the only economic system worth considering. How the mighty have fallen. A needless war in Iraq now calls into question whether the American military can control the oil and natural gas of the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea, while the current financial chaos has driven the faith-based Bush administration to pray for government ownership in banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions. Full Story Here»

Obama Dominating Among Early Voters in Five Swing States

Obama Dominating Among Early Voters in Five Swing States

SurveyUSA has a lot of good habits as a pollster, and one of them is breaking out the results of early and absentee voting in states where such things are allowed. So far, SurveyUSA has conducted polling in five states where some form of early voting was underway. In each one, Barack Obama is doing profoundly better among early voters than among the state's electorate as a whole:

...    Poll    % Voted                  Non-Early
State  Date      Early   Early Voters   Likely Voters
====================================================
NM     10/13     10%     Obama +23%     Obama +6%
OH     10/13     12%     Obama +18%     Obama +4%
GA     10/12     18%     Obama +6%      McCain +11%
IA     10/9      14%     Obama +34%     Obama +10%
NC     10/6       5%     Obama +34%     McCain +5%

We should caveat that these are not hard-and-fast numbers. Estimates of early voting results are subject to the same statistical vagaries as any other sort of subgroup analysis, such as response bias and small sample sizes.

Nevertheless, Obama is leading by an average of 23 points among early voters in these five states, states which went to George W. Bush by an average of 6.5 points in 2004.

Is this a typical pattern for a Democrat? Actually, it's not. According to a study by Kate Kenski at the University of Arizona, early voters leaned Republican in both 2000 and 2004; with Bush earning 62.2 percent of their votes against Al Gore, and 60.4 percent against John Kerry. In the past, early voters have also tended to be older than the voting population as a whole and more male than the population as a whole, factors which would seem to cut against Obama or most other Democrats.

Now certainly, early voters tend to be your stauncher partisans rather than your uncommitted voters -- just 1-2 percent of early voters in 2000 and 2004 reported that they would have voted differently if they'd waited until election day. So it's unlikely that John McCain is actually losing all that many persuadable voters to the early voter tallies.

What these results would seem to suggest, however, is that there are fairly massive advantages for the Democrats in enthusiasm and/or turnout operations. They imply that Obama is quite likely to turn out his base in large numbers; the question is whether the Republicans will be able to do the same.

Keep in mind that there are veteran pollsters like Ann Selzer who think that most of her colleagues are vastly understating the degree to which youth and minority turnout is liable to improve in this election; Selzer's polls have been 5-6 points more favorable to Obama than the averages in the states that she's surveyed. So while these early voting numbers could turn out to be something of a curiosity, they could alternatively represent a canary in the coal mine for a coming Democratic turnout wave.

LOOKING AHEAD: THE NOVEMBER ISSUE OF VOGUE

from left: Senator Biden's niece, Missy Owens; her mother, Valerie Biden Owens; Hunter Biden's wife, Kathleen; her daughters Maisy, eight, and Finnegan, ten; Jill Biden and daughter Ashley; Senator Biden's mother, Catherine ("Jean") Finnegan Biden; Kathleen's eldest daughter, Naomi, fourteen; Beau Biden's wife, Hallie; and her daughter, Natalie, four. On Jill Biden: Ralph Lauren Black Label cardigan. Anne Fontaine shirt. Michael Kors trousers. Details, see In This Issue.
Photographed by Arthur Elgort.
Sittings Editor: Tonne Goodman.

BUCKLEY BOWS OUT OF NATIONAL REVIEW

Posted from dailybeast.com

Christopher Buckley, in an exclusive for The Daily Beast, explains why he left The National Review, the magazine his father founded.

I seem to have picked an apt title for my Daily Beast column, or blog, or whatever it’s called: “What Fresh Hell.” My last posting (if that’s what it’s called) in which I endorsed Obama, has brought about a very heaping helping of fresh hell. In fact, I think it could accurately be called a tsunami.

The mail (as we used to call it in pre-cyber times) at the Beast has been running I’d say at about 7-to-1 in favor. This would seem to indicate that you (the Beast reader) are largely pro-Obama.

As for the mail flooding into National Review Online—that’s been running about, oh, 700-to-1 against. In fact, the only thing the Right can’t quite decide is whether I should be boiled in oil or just put up against the wall and shot. Lethal injection would be too painless.

I had gone out of my way in my Beast endorsement to say that I was not doing it in the pages of National Review, where I write the back-page column, because of the experience of my colleague, the lovely Kathleen Parker. Kathleen had written in NRO that she felt Sarah Palin was an embarrassment. (Hardly an alarmist view.) This brought 12,000 livid emails, among them a real charmer suggesting that Kathleen’s mother ought to have aborted her and tossed the fetus into a dumpster. I didn’t want to put NR in an awkward position.

Since my Obama endorsement, Kathleen and I have become BFFs and now trade incoming hate-mails. No one has yet suggested my dear old Mum should have aborted me, but it’s pretty darned angry out there in Right Wing Land. One editor at National Review—a friend of 30 years—emailed me that he thought my opinions “cretinous.” One thoughtful correspondent, who feels that I have “betrayed”—the b-word has been much used in all this—my father and the conservative movement generally, said he plans to devote the rest of his life to getting people to cancel their subscriptions to National Review. But there was one bright spot: To those who wrote me to demand, “Cancel my subscription,” I was able to quote the title of my father’s last book, a delicious compendium of his NR “Notes and Asides”: Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription.

Within hours of my endorsement appearing in The Daily Beast it became clear that National Review had a serious problem on its hands. So the next morning, I thought the only decent thing to do would be to offer to resign my column there. This offer was accepted—rather briskly!—by Rich Lowry, NR’s editor, and its publisher, the superb and able and fine Jack Fowler. I retain the fondest feelings for the magazine that my father founded, but I will admit to a certain sadness that an act of publishing a reasoned argument for the opposition should result in acrimony and disavowal.

My father in his day endorsed a number of liberal Democrats for high office, including Allard K. Lowenstein and Joe Lieberman. One of his closest friends on earth was John Kenneth Galbraith. In 1969, Pup wrote a widely-remarked upon column saying that it was time America had a black president. (I hasten to aver here that I did not endorse Senator Obama because he is black. Surely voting for someone on that basis is as racist as not voting for him for the same reason.)

My point, simply, is that William F. Buckley held to rigorous standards, and if those were met by members of the other side rather than by his own camp, he said as much. My father was also unpredictable, which tends to keep things fresh and lively and on-their-feet. He came out for legalization of drugs once he decided that the war on drugs was largely counterproductive. Hardly a conservative position. Finally, and hardly least, he was fun. God, he was fun. He liked to mix it up.

So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me.

While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.

So, to paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan: I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me.

Thanks, anyway, for the memories, and here’s to happier days and with any luck, a bit less fresh hell.

PALIN IS A LOSER ON SO MANY LEVELS

install the latest version of the Macromedia Flash Player.

Palin in her hate filled fervor at recent (borderline klan) rally trying to implicate Senator Obama with terrorists has shown her for what she really is... a desperate house wife seeing her political career going down the drain. She is clearly not what an empowered woman would be defined as... she is McCain's watchdog/stepford wife pawn. She should be sad, because clearly once this is over and Barack Obama is President, she will become an anecdotal footnote soon to be relegated to trivial pursuit board games.

The GOP will then discard her useless political carcass to the winds never again to be heard from, except maybe from a future episode of Surreal Life.

Illustration credit to Mike Thompson

Three 2008 Nobel Laureates In Science Endorse Obama

Barack Obama's campaign will announce today that three 2008 Nobel laureates in Science have added their names to a list of 62 Nobel winners endorsing the Democratic candidate for president: Martin Chalfie of Columbia University, Roger Tsien of the University of California at San Diego, and the University of Chicago's Yoichiro Nambu.

Here's Chalfie's recorded message to voters:

Full text of the letter to the American public from the Nobel winners is available after the jump.

FULL TEXT OF THE LETTER TO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC FROM 65 AMERICAN NOBEL LAUREATE SCIENTISTS

An Open Letter to the American People

This year's presidential election is among the most significant in our nation's history. The country urgently needs a visionary leader who can ensure the future of our traditional strengths in science and technology and who can harness those strengths to address many of our greatest problems: energy, disease, climate change, security, and economic competitiveness.

We are convinced that Senator Barack Obama is such a leader, and we urge you to join us in supporting him.

During the administration of George W. Bush, vital parts of our country's scientific enterprise have been damaged by stagnant or declining federal support. The government's scientific advisory process has been distorted by political considerations. As a result, our once dominant position in the scientific world has been shaken and our prosperity has been placed at risk. We have lost time critical for the development of new ways to provide energy, treat disease, reverse climate change, strengthen our security, and improve our economy.

We have watched Senator Obama's approach to these issues with admiration. We especially applaud his emphasis during the campaign on the power of science and technology to enhance our nation's competitiveness. In particular, we support the measures he plans to take – through new initiatives in education and training, expanded research funding, an unbiased process for obtaining scientific advice, and an appropriate balance of basic and applied research – to meet the nation's and the world's most urgent needs.

Senator Obama understands that Presidential leadership and federal investments in science and technology are crucial elements in successful governance of the world's leading country. We hope you will join us as we work together to ensure his election in November.

60 SEATS GOING TO DEMS WITHIN GRASP

Senate Projections, 10/14

Posted from fivethirtyeight.com

The Democrats appear to have nearly as much momentum in the race for Capitol Hill as they do for the White House, and now have approximately a 3 in 10 chance of winding up with a 60-seat working majority in the Senate.




Noteworthy movement since our previous update includes Minnesota, which our model is finally giving to Al Franken after Rasmussen and Quinnipiac polls put him slightly ahead; North Carolina, where Kay Hagan is hardly out of the woods but now clearly appears to be favored, and Georgia, where one poll now shows a literal tie between Jim Martin and incumbent Saxby Chambliss, and several others have the race within the margin of error. Jeanne Shaheen and Mark Udall also appear to be solidifying their positions in New Hampshire and Colorado, respectively.

Indeed, it is difficult to identify any race in which the Republican candidate currently has the momentum. Alaska is perhaps the only state where the Presidential coattails clearly are liable to help them, but with a verdict still forthcoming in Ted Stevens' corruption trial, they have to dodge a bullet that has the potential to ruin their chances of retaining the seat. Meanwhile, the Republicans are being out-campaigned in North Carolina, suffering under the weight of the economy in states like Georgia and Kentucky, and are having difficulty mounting any offense in states like New Mexico where Barack Obama is strong. Even in Minnesota, where Al Franken's campaign has had many false starts, it's now Norm Coleman who is on the defensive.

The Democrats are now favored to take over eight seats from the Republicans: Virginia, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Colorado, Alaska, North Carolina, Oregon, and Minnesota. If the Democrats win all eight of those races, they will only need one more to achieve 60 seats, and they have good opportunities in Georgia, Mississippi and Kentucky.

The good news for the Republicans is that they have the financial advantage in most of these races, as the Democratic rank-and-file scrambles to put together a budget for candidates like Jim Martin in Georgia. But, all the money in the world won't help you if you don't have an attractive message to sell, and right now the Republicans' pleas for mercy are falling on deaf ears.

-- Nate Silver at 9:33 AM

GREEN MACHINES

It's the Green Economy, Stupid Harold Meyerson October 14, 2008 This year's explosion of Democratic populism should be no surprise, coming as it does in the midst of an economic downturn and at the end of a Republican presidency reviled for its plutocratic priorities. Democratic candidates just need to stay on message: Oil companies are the problem and green energy is the solution. Photo by Flickr user Ryan McD used under the creative commons license. Posted from prospect.org

WHICH POL ACED THE MELTOWN?

It may be a little premature for report cards—it's unclear if yesterday's Dow surge was a turning point or an anomaly—but a column in the Financial Times grades the world leaders' performances anyway. The big winner is Gordon Brown, whose British bailout plan served as a model for other countries and quite possibly resuscitated his flailing career. His American counterpart did not do so well. President Bush weathered this one about as well as he did Katrina, says author Gideon Rachman, with a comment—"this sucker could go down—that rivals "Heckuva job, Brownie," in showing off how out of touch he is. Sarkozy also performed well, but the meltdown's biggest winner might not yet be an underclassman: Barack Obama.

Read it @ Financial Times

THE GOP IS A MESS AND A FRAUD

Posted from realclearpolitics.com

By Eugene Robinson - WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON -- Since George W. Bush became president, the Republican Party has presided over massive, out-of-control government spending, converted a federal budget surplus into a half-trillion-dollar deficit, and looked the other way while Wall Street's greed and stupidity turned the hallowed free market into scorched earth. Now the party has to watch as a Republican president orchestrates the biggest government intervention into the workings of the private sector since the New Deal.

Can any Republican candidate claim with a straight face to represent the party of small government? For that matter, can any Republican candidate plausibly explain what the party is supposed to stand for these days?

It's pathetic to hear right-wing talk radio blowhards try to associate Barack Obama with "radical" or "socialist" views when a Republican administration is tossing aside "Atlas Shrugged" and speed-reading "Das Kapital."

The Federal Reserve even announced Monday that it will make unlimited quantities of dollars available for currency swaps with the Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank, as these institutions scramble to keep major commercial banks from failing -- and potentially taking U.S. banks with them. None of Bush's Cabinet members could be heard sniffing about the effete irrelevance of "Old Europe."

This attitude adjustment is necessary, mind you. The question isn't whether some kind of drastic, frankly socialistic measures are needed to save the American economy, but which ones -- buying up toxic mortgage-based investments (as the White House said it would do), buying up the troubled mortgages themselves (as John McCain wants to do), or pouring money into selected banks and taking part ownership (as the White House now says it will do). Sitting back and letting the dire situation correct itself is not an option, because the market's phoenix-like solution begins with self-immolation.

Politically, though, there is at least some justice in the fact that a Republican president has to deal with this Republican-made crisis. That little piece of irony isn't worth $700 billion, but so far it's all we're getting.

After eight years of the Bush administration, the Republican Party -- to put it bluntly -- is a mess and a fraud.

There is an intellectual case to be made for the economic philosophy that the party purports to represent. I disagree with it strongly, but I respect its integrity -- in a way that this administration and the Republican leadership in Congress clearly did not.

The Republican Party said it believed in free and unfettered competition, but it picked winners and losers through a system of crony capitalism. All it takes to make my point is a name: Jack Abramoff.

The Bush tax cuts, which heavily favored the wealthy, showed that the president and his allies in Congress didn't believe in progressive taxation. I think that's outrageous, but the administration goes further and actually seems to prefer a regressive tax scheme. That's the only explanation I can think of for why hedge fund managers making hundreds of millions of dollars a year pay taxes at a lower rate than their chauffeurs.

Now that it's election time, the party -- as usual -- is trying to convince Americans that it stands on the side of the little guy. Sarah Palin has been trotted out to convince everyone that the party cares deeply about the eternal roster of cultural issues -- God, guns, gays, abortion, etc. If McCain and Palin were elected, the party would doubtless return these issues to the storage locker until the next election, at which point they would be dusted off once more.

Oh, and isn't the Republican Party supposed to stand foursquare against intrusions on privacy? Then why were Republicans so unmoved when it was revealed that the Bush administration had been conducting unprecedented surveillance of Americans' private electronic communications?

When Ronald Reagan was president, I had a sense of what ideas and principles his party stood for. When Newt Gingrich and his "Contract with America" brigade took Washington by storm in 1994, I knew what they believed -- loopy though it was -- and what they hoped to accomplish. I defy anyone to give a coherent explanation of what today's Republican Party, under George Bush and now John McCain, wants to do except perpetuate itself in power.

When a political party reaches the point of lurching incoherence, the most effective cure is a good, long spell in the wilderness. Americans should help Republicans out by sending them home to get their act together.

The Moment

Monday 13 October 2008

by: John Cory, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Arizona Senator John McCain. (Photo: Gunby / AP)

Senator McCain. Was this the moment? The epiphany? The realization that stoking the flames of bigotry and fear had come home to roost?

As I watched your town hall gathering, I wondered what was going through your mind when you came face to face with the incendiary results of your campaign tactics. What did you see and feel when that elderly woman said Obama was an Arab? Or the man who said he feared an Obama presidency? And all the others?

I saw your face. I watched your body language as you took the microphone and quickly distanced yourself from that one.

At that moment, did you see your reflection in the mirror of her eyes? A reflection, not of a maverick, but a pariah? Did you see the decades of American scar tissue? Birmingham? Burning crosses? The noose? Did you see that awful year in American history when Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated, cut down in the prime of their dreams for a better America?

Did you hear the echo of Dr. King's words about being "judged not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character," and suddenly realize that it was not your opponent's character in question - but yours? Perhaps you heard the whisper of Langston Hughes when he asked, "What happens to a dream deferred ...? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?"

Did you suddenly smell the rot and fetid acrid aroma of fear and hate, the carcass of mendacious political tactics decaying at your feet? Or did you sniff the flop-sweat of your own campaign standing in a puddle of decimating poll numbers?

I watched your mouth dry up and wondered if you could taste the bitter words like "Arab," "terrorist," "treason," "kill him," - all served up on the plate of red meat politics by your campaign. Did it make you choke and want to spit out the rancid flavor of ignorance and violence? Or did you want to savor the success of the politics of personal destruction?

Did you feel the cold chill of defeat? Did your heart pound with the all-encompassing realization that you would never be president? Could you sense that the America you appeal to is stale and dying out and being replaced by the freshness of hope and tolerance and a rainbow of change?

No doubt, the media will genuflect before your image and be pushed by your campaign spinners to reanoint you as a maverick and honorable man in rising to the defense of your opponent. But your ads still sully the airwaves. Your surrogates still spew their venom. After all, this is just politics. People need to understand that. Nothing personal - it is just politics.

But here was this moment. And you know it, regardless of whether or not you were reading from cue cards or just looking down to avoid having to face the ugliness before you - you know.

And when the crowd booed as you struggled to use words about decency and honorable character to defuse the situation you created, you must have recalled the words from Proverbs, "He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind ..."

This is not a moment for you to be proud of in this campaign. Garnering credit for coming to the defense of Senator Obama is like an arsonist claiming heroism for saving lives after having set fire to the building in the first place.

It does not matter how the media or your advisers and consultants spin this moment because it can only reflect badly on you. If it is tossed off as politics as usual, your campaign appears shallow and less interested in what's best for America than what is best for John McCain. If it is said that there is no room for this kind of rhetoric in a presidential campaign, then you look weak and unable to control your own staff that continue to push these messages. If it is about leadership and going against the flow, then we see that a McCain presidency will be divisive and reinforce the meme of "two Americas." We have already had eight years of a divided country from the man who ran as a "Uniter not a divider."

This was a defining moment.

And you, sir, lost.

National Debt Clock runs out of numbers

Figure has ballooned to about $10.2 trillion; new clock will go up in 2009

In a sign of the times, the National Debt Clock, shown on Oct. 9 in New York, has run out of digits. The "1" from has been moved left to the space once occupied solely by the digital dollar sign. A non-digital, improvised dollar sign has been pasted next to the "1."

MCCAIN'S POIGNANT VALEDICTORY: By Tina Brown

The word I would use to describe this "endorsement" of Obama, written by Tina Brown on her site The Daily Beast, is "stunning". She captures it all so perfectly... the essence of Obama and why the man and his message are the perfect elixir for this once-every-hundred-years-moment we're in. Mark

It has taken eight years for the unravel, but we are now watching the past melt away.

There were two key moments in last night’s debate. The first when Obama spoke about the chance missed by Bush to rally the nation to service after 9/11, and the second when McCain in his closing words talked about his unique qualifications of toughness in tough times—but in doing so, essentially said farewell. The moments, an hour apart, were linked by the powerful emotional undertow of an election that has little to do with the war of manufactured “gaffes,” factual distortions and outright lies that both sides have been propagating in their desperate desire to win.

As always on TV, the moments were enhanced by the cruel physicality of the screen. The received wisdom so far has been that Town Halls are better for McCain because he can loosen up and relax and make direct contact with what are nowadays called "real people.” But a Town Hall also meant the public saw a tall lithe young senator primed for the terrors of the future, against a stiff, hunched old guy hobbling around the stage in a body held together by an act of will.

Whatever compromises with the truth Obama has made on his chilly rise to the top, he understands the central zeitgeist of the moment.

During the campaign McCain has aged dramatically. Like Dorian Gray, the bargains he has made with his conscience are reflected in the mirror. He has developed a strange Jimmy Cagney rasp and new verbal eccentricities that seem to have fused the speaking styles of Bob Dole and Ross Perot. Critics have already pounced on the explosive contempt of his jab, “You know who voted for [the energy bill]? ... THAT ONE.” The younger man watched him from his Frank Sinatra stool with the look of a family visitor marveling at the antics of the household’s resident crazy uncle.

This is all horrible to those of us who once fell in love with McCain's flinty heroism and independence. It's as if he when he made the decision that fateful day on August 10th, 2004 in Pensacola, Florida to grit his teeth and bear hug Bush, he contracted a political virus that ate away at the nobility of his soul. The most telling moment in the campaign was on Monday when in Albuquerque, New Mexico, McCain shouted at the crowd, “Who is the real Barack Obama?” and an audience member yelled back, “A terrorist!” And there was a panicked look on his face that said, “My God, what have I done?”

Whatever compromises with the truth Obama has made on his chilly rise to the top, he understands the central zeitgeist of the moment. Raising 9/11 at the debate as a psychic event rather than one of national security was a masterstroke that won the day.

“You know, a lot of you remember the tragedy of 9/11 and where you were on that day,” he told the small studio audience, “and, you know, how all of the country was ready to come together and make enormous changes to make us not only safer, but to make us a better country and a more unified country. And President Bush did some smart things at the outset, but one of the opportunities that was missed was, when he spoke to the American people, he said, 'Go out and shop.' That wasn't the kind of call to service that I think the American people were looking for. And so it's important to understand that the—I think the American people are hungry for the kind of leadership that is going to tackle these problems not just in government, but outside of government.”

Right now Americans feel they are experiencing another 9/11 as the brand-name financial institutions stagger and suddenly collapse before their eyes like the World Trade Center. Obama knows that the last dark years under Bush have been about the long postponed millennium. We all knew the shopping spree Bush sent us on had to end. It has taken eight years for the unravel, but now we are there watching the structure of the past melt away. Last night a former key player at Goldman Sachs told me at a dinner party the vast infusion of capital we need can only come from China. They have trillions of our dollars. But China won't come forward unless invited with a specific request by the president. And then they will, indeed, step in. “This is coming," he said. “And it will accelerate the twenty-first century.”

OBAMA RIDES WAVE OF ENTHUSIASM FOLLOWING ECONOMIC CRISIS

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Jeff Fusco / Getty Images

ON OBAMA: “I really believe that [he] has a much better grasp of what the middle class is going through right now,” says a former Bush donor who hosted a fundraiser for the Democrat.

Surveys indicate the financial crisis has drowned out other concerns, pulling even longtime Republican voters away from John McCain.
Faltering economy boosts Obama

By LA Times staff writers

The financial crisis is issue No. 1, and even longtime GOP voters are saying McCain is unsteady.