Plumbers Union, Tax Collectors Notice

"The real winner" of Wednesday night's debate, John McCain said yesterday at a campaign stop in Downingtown, Pa., "was Joe the Plumber."

That might depend on the definition of "winner."

Joe the Plumber, a.k.a. Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher of Holland, Ohio, is suddenly (sort of) a household name, featured in a McCain ad and sought after by networks news anchors and newspaper reporters. McCain would like to meet him in person this weekend, but Wurzelbacher's got a date on Mike Huckabee's Fox News show and might not have the time.

But the emergence of Joe has allowed the state of Ohio to locate the man it says owes nearly $1,200 in back taxes. His motives for confronting Sen. Barack Obama at a campaign stop in his neighborhood earlier this week are the subject of intense Internet speculation. The city of Toledo is preparing a letter to his employer seeking to determine whether he is violating city codes, and the plumbers union is on his tail.

"Joe the Plumber really isn't a plumber," said Thomas Joseph, business manager of Local 50 of the United Association of Plumbers, Steamfitters and Service Mechanics, whose national membership has endorsed Obama.

Wurzelbacher, 34, had already taken tentative steps onto the national stage after talking to Obama on Sunday as the Democrat toured his suburban neighborhood outside Toledo. Wurzelbacher told Obama that he wants to buy the plumbing company he works for, and that his potential income of more than $250,000 would make him eligible for increased taxes under Obama's proposals.

"Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?" Wurzelbacher asked.

Obama's answer to that and a question about the flat tax -- that Obama thought it better to "spread the wealth around" -- captured the attention of conservative media and the McCain campaign.

"Joe wants to buy the business that he has been in for all of these years, worked 10, 12 hours a day," McCain told Obama at the start of Wednesday night's debate. "And he wanted to buy the business, but he looked at your tax plan and he saw that he was going to pay much higher taxes," deferring what McCain called "the American dream."

Joe the Plumber quickly became a metaphor for the middle class, and between them, McCain and Obama mentioned him more than two dozen times.

The result was an avalanche of attention: "CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric on the phone, "Good Morning America" awaiting an interview, reporters in the driveway of his modest home.

"I'm completely flabbergasted with this whole thing," he told reporters. He did not return a phone call from The Washington Post.

The morning also showed that the spotlight can be unwelcome. Reporters wondering who Wurzelbacher is quickly found that he owes the state of Ohio $1,182 in back taxes, leading sharp-tongued liberal commentators to say he was not so much concerned about rising taxes as paying taxes at all. (A spokeswoman for the state said it is possible Wurzelbacher did not know about the lien.)

Wurzelbacher also acknowledged to reporters that he did not have a plumber's license but said he did not need one to do residential work with the two-man Newell Heating and Plumbing Co., which does have a license.

David Golis, a manager in Toledo's office of building inspections, said that is incorrect. "We were just discussing that we will send a letter to the owner of Newell reminding him" of the city's requirement that all who do plumbing work be licensed or in apprentice or journeyman programs, Golis said.

Union manager Joseph said that Wurzelbacher applied for an apprentice program in 2003 but never completed the work.

And Wurzelbacher told reporters that the goal of buying the business was more aspirational than firm. He said his income is "not even close" to the levels at which Obama's proposed tax increases would kick in.

Even if Wurzelbacher's hypothetical were true, tax experts said it is unclear whether he would pay higher taxes under Obama's plan.

Wurzelbacher told Couric that it is Obama's approach to tax increases that are worrisome. "When's he going to decide that $100,000 is too much, you know?" the divorced father of a 13-year-old son said. "I mean, you're on a slippery slope here. You vote on somebody who decides that $250,000 and you're rich? And $100,000 and you're rich? I mean, where does it end?"

McCain senior adviser Matt McDonald said Thursday that the Republican nominee had mentioned Wurzelbacher's encounter with Obama in a previous speech, but the campaign had not said he would be the centerpiece of McCain's debate performance.

That Wurzelbacher is not a licensed plumber or that his situation is not relevant to Obama's tax proposal did not give him pause, McDonald said. "He's a guy who asked a question that needed to be asked," McDonald said. "He's not a campaign staffer; he's not a surrogate. He's not someone who was vetted, and this wasn't something orchestrated by the campaign."

Appearing on CBS's "Late Show with David Letterman" on Thursday night, McCain mentioned the attention Joe the Plumber was getting and said, "Joe, if you're watching, I'm sorry."

Earlier in the day in New Hampshire, Obama said McCain advocates tax plans that favor the rich.

"He's trying to suggest that a plumber is the guy he's fighting for," Obama said. "How many plumbers do you know that are making a quarter-million dollars a year?"

Wurzelbacher has made that he is conservative and no fan of Obama -- he told Couric that Obama's answer to his question was a "tap dance" that was "almost as good as Sammy Davis Jr." -- but declined to say who he will be voting for Nov. 4.

That is between him and the lever in the voting booth, he said.

By Robert Barnes, The Washington Post, October 17, 2008

Early in 2005, Barack Obama met with half a dozen advisers in Washington to plot strategy. Some of those who participated remember that the group focused less on the details of Obama's new job as the junior senator from Illinois than on managing his overall political image. He wanted to run for governor, maybe even president, someday, and preparing required a risky choice between two approaches to Washington.

Obama arrived as a celebrity, a best-selling author whose keynote speech was the only moment Democrats wanted to remember from their 2004 convention. He could capitalize on that reputation by speaking out against the Iraq war, scheduling prime-time television interviews and seizing control of high-profile bills. He could, as one Chicago friend suggested, "go in, do your thing and take the place by storm."

Or, others advised, Obama could assume the typical role of a freshman senator, maneuvering with deference and humility. By endearing himself to Washington's elite, he could build the foundation for his future.

"I think it's important to take it slow," Obama told his advisers. "I want to be liked."

The result of those meetings was a kind of road map for the months ahead -- a document his advisers called the "strategic plan." Its creation testified to the focus and self-discipline that are part of Obama's nature. While designed to outline Obama's first 16 months in the U.S. Senate, its central tenets have delivered him to the brink of the presidency: Seek advice. Listen. Make cautious decisions. Strive for consensus.

But above all, the plan reminded Obama to manage his image and cultivate his political future. He came to the Senate with an inkling that he might seek the presidency, friends said, but his ambition and self-confidence compelled him to run much earlier than he had anticipated. By August 2006, a little more than 18 months after arriving in Washington, he began asking people he had barely met what they knew about New Hampshire and Iowa.

With an eye on his next goal, Obama treated the Senate as a bridge to be crossed -- a place to learn the conventions of Washington, win powerful friends and shape what advisers referred to as his "political brand." Despite meager legislative accomplishments, Obama built a reputation among many Democrats as a hard worker, a reformer, an eager learner, a smart politician.

And he did it while maintaining a cool air of detachment, colleagues said. He focused on his professional goals and showed little interest in personal connections not outlined in the plan. In a senatorial culture famous for its chumminess, Obama generally preferred to eat alone and go back to his apartment away from Capitol Hill.

The understated approach was a considerable gamble for Obama at a key juncture in his career, and some old friends from the Illinois legislature worried that he would waste his cachet and chart a path toward obscurity. When they brought their concerns to Obama, he responded simply, "Have faith." He had his plan, and he intended to stick by it. He would thrive in the Senate by fitting in and not by standing out, by winning over Washington without giving too much of himself.

* * *

Most senators move their families to Washington, and Obama expected to follow that convention. In the final months of 2004, he explored Chevy Chase and other Maryland suburbs with his wife, Michelle, browsing neighborhoods and looking at houses. The couple called school administrators to discuss placement for Malia and Sasha, their two young daughters.

For a few weeks early in 2005, the Obamas joked with friends in Chicago about the magnitude of their upcoming transition: from a 2,000-square-foot condo in the Hyde Park neighborhood to a big house outside Washington, with the girls in private school and a glamorous social calendar.

Obama called several friends and politicians to seek advice about his move, and a few counseled him on the benefits of bringing his family along. Michelle and their two daughters would not only provide comfort after a long workday, but would also anchor Obama to his new life by forcing him to invest in friends, a neighborhood and schools.

"I was a strong advocate of him moving the family there, and I think his initial thought was to do that," said Abner Mikva, a longtime Obama mentor who commuted from Illinois to Washington as a congressman in the 1970s. "He wanted to have his family nearby at the end of a long day. But, for a spouse, the positives of the move are very minimal. The kids are overwhelmed. You become the senator's wife. You forfeit your own life and career."

The more Michelle Obama mulled over the possibility of moving, friends said, the more she wanted to stay in Chicago -- to keep her job as an executive at University of Chicago Hospitals, to live within a five-minute drive of her mother, to maintain a steady childhood for her daughters outside what Barack described as the "hothouse environment of Washington." Her husband agreed it would be best to move to the capital alone, and he resigned himself to a solitary existence in a foreign city.

A staffer helped him lease a one-bedroom apartment on the fringe of Chinatown, where neighbors half his age returned from nearby bars late at night and disturbed him with their revelry. Obama spent his first few days there without a shower curtain, accidentally flooding the bathroom floor. He asked a senior staffer to help him buy a bed. He distracted himself from the sterility of the apartment by filling his schedule with working dinners, incessant trips to the gym and a contract to write his second book, "The Audacity of Hope."

With his family in Chicago, Obama decided to treat Washington less like a home than an oversize office. It was a place to work hard, study issues and build a professional network. A place to leave at the end of each workweek, as quickly as he could.

He stuck to a simple routine, flying into town Monday or even Tuesday morning if his schedule allowed. He spent long days in his Senate office and long nights toiling on his book, sometimes e-mailing chapters to friends for fact-checking at 3 or 4 a.m. On Thursday afternoons, with his typical week in Washington nearing its end, Obama instructed staff members to reserve him tickets on multiple United flights -- always in coach for image purposes, staffers said -- so he could land in Chicago before his daughters went to bed.

As the Senate finished its last legislative session of the week, Obama's driver often parked nearby, ready to leave for Reagan National Airport at a moment's notice. After the final votes were cast, other senators celebrated with an idle cigar or friendly conversation on the Capitol steps. Obama, his week finished, sometimes broke into a jog as he hurried past them, headed for home.

* * *

During his first few months in Washington, as the Senate's 99th-ranking member, Obama publicly described the most important job of his life as "sharpening pencils," or "cleaning bathrooms," or "learning how to work the phones." True to the "strategic plan," he portrayed himself with self-deprecation even as he set about building something ambitious.

Obama assembled a talent-rich office led by Pete Rouse, who had been chief of staff for former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.). Rouse, a 34-year veteran of Capitol Hill, had planned to retire from the Senate in 2004, declining two other chief-of-staff offers. But Obama wooed him for several weeks, taking him to lunch at the five-star Mandarin Oriental Hotel and calling from Chicago to follow up.

Rouse initially declined the position, explaining that he had a long list of other responsibilities to keep him busy. Obama continued to press and eventually offered to let Rouse work for just one hour each day until he had time for more. As one of his first tasks, Rouse helped write the strategic plan along with Chicago political consultant David Axelrod, spokesman Robert Gibbs and others.

Obama "was persistent," Rouse said. "He told me, 'I know what I'm good at, and I know what I'm not so good at. I want a chief of staff that can help me navigate the Senate.' "

Obama's office received more than 300 speaking requests each week, and he turned down almost all of them. He waited two months before he held a news conference in Washington and seven more months before he made a notable public appearance outside Illinois. His assistant press secretary, Tommy Vietor, spent the first year refusing national media requests -- from CNN, NC, Newsweek -- that most senators pursue. Some news outlets started calling Vietor "Mr. No."

Obama "wanted to earn a reputation as someone who took the nitty-gritty details of his job seriously," Vietor said. "He never wanted to come in and play that role of just being the big, out-of-town star."

Obama purposefully focused on issues that were unglamorous, waiting his turn to speak last on the Senate floor about ethanol, highway funding and Illinois dams. He looked for opportunities to work alongside Republicans and build his image as a reformer, working on a major ethics bill and writing government-transparency legislation with Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.), one of the chamber's most conservative Republicans.

Meanwhile, Obama largely avoided major partisan debates such as those over judicial nominations and immigration. After making a strong stance against the Iraq war the centerpiece of his campaign, he waited 11 months into his term to give a speech about Iraq. His long-anticipated message hardly proved revolutionary: While some Democrats called for plans to withdraw troops, Obama asked for a troop reduction but not a concrete timetable for withdrawal.

He traveled to the far corners of Illinois 39 times in the first nine months of his term to host town hall meetings with constituents, spending his off days in backcountry libraries and cafeterias. While in Washington, Obama used his renown only when it helped the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee raise money.

Chris Lu, Obama's legislative director, advised his boss to stay at committee meetings "from gavel to gavel," even if every other senator tired of the proceedings and left. Obama sometimes complained of boredom in a Senate that moved at a "glacial pace," he said, but Lu insisted that he stick with the strategy. Late in one meeting of the Foreign Relations Committee, Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) scanned the room and found it empty except for Obama. "I'd like it noted for the record," he announced, "that Senator Obama is the only member still here."

That marked the beginning of one of Obama's most fruitful relationships in Washington. A 30-year veteran of the Senate and a one-time presidential candidate, Lugar mentored Obama across party lines. In 2005, he invited Obama on his annual trip to inspect weapons-destruction facilities in the former Soviet Union, and the two men returned with a proposal aimed at eliminating Cold War weapons stockpiles; it became one of Obama's most significant legislative accomplishments.

On the trip, his first major overseas journey while in national office, Obama relied on Lugar for everything -- including weaponry insights as well as etiquette tips before meeting British Prime Minister Tony Blair. "I feel very much like the novice and the pupil," Obama told a reporter on the trip.

Obama tried to re-create that type of relationship time and again in Washington. Every Thursday morning, he hosted a question-and-answer session for constituents with Sen. Richard J. Durbin, his fellow Democrat from Illinois. Most of the constituents came to see Obama, and they often directed their questions exclusively at him. Uncomfortable upstaging his senior colleague, he deferred to Durbin.

"He would always say that I knew more, so why not ask me?" Durbin said. "A lot of people would not have handled it so gracefully. He could have been the star, no question. But that would have bothered a few people, and he knew it. He was very careful to avoid making those kind of enemies."

In his first three months in office, Obama scheduled meetings with 14 senators -- including Democratic power brokers such as Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.), Robert C. Byrd (W.Va.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) -- to seek advice. He joked with each visitor about his typically meager first-term office -- "a whitewashed basement bunker," one staffer called it -- and then sought perspective on the history of the Senate, its leaders and traditions. He sent out early chapters of "The Audacity of Hope" to more than a dozen Washington colleagues, soliciting feedback.

By the summer of 2006, when Obama launched a national tour promoting the book and stopped regularly along the way to campaign for House and Senate Democrats, some of his colleagues began to wonder if the timetable they had imagined had been moved up. When Obama spoke late that summer at Sen. Tom Harkin's steak fry in Iowa, a gathering known as the jumping-off point for aspiring presidential candidates, his intentions -- if not his final decision -- seemed clear.

Obama's ambition could have alienated him in the Senate. But, having managed his reputation so skillfully, he found surprising encouragement.

"When he got here, some people were skeptical, and they took a wait-and-see attitude," Rouse said. "He had to do some work in terms of proving himself to his colleagues in the Washington establishment."

Said Daschle, who advised Obama during his transition and encouraged him to run for president: "He is a great listener. We share a common view about listening. The best way to persuade is with your ears. It has been a huge factor in his success."

* * *

Listening, staff members said, also became Obama's primary strength as a decision maker. When an issue confounded him, he assembled what he called a "brainstorm group" to mull it over. He sometimes retreated to his office for hours at a time to call experts.

The access thrilled Obama, friends said. Once, as he was telling a friend about a recent policy conversation with Nelson Mandela, Obama abruptly started laughing. "I'm sorry," he said, shaking his head in disbelief at his own clout. "But -- Nelson Mandela!"

The access to top minds rarely yielded original legislative ideas or landmark accomplishments for Obama in the Senate, in part because Democrats were in the minority for his first two years and he began traveling as a presidential candidate after that. But he used the discussions to inform his votes and his policy stances, and to shape the political ideology he outlines in "The Audacity of Hope."

Several people who spoke to Obama about policy hung up the phone with the same impression: His curiosity extended beyond the issues of the day in the Senate. He was building a base of knowledge in preparation for a bigger job.

Obama encouraged two of his policy advisers, Michael Froman and Karen Kornbluh, to arrange casual meetings with Washington-area thinkers. They would assemble a conversation group -- six economic experts, say, or eight communications specialists -- and arrange a dinner. Obama opened the meetings by introducing himself, then spent most of the meal listening.

His Senate staff meetings followed a similar formula. On the eve of an important vote, Obama would clear his schedule and assemble key advisers in his office. Surrounded by Rouse and half a dozen policy experts, Obama stretched out on the couch in his office, sometimes resting his head on a pillow and closing his eyes. He asked everybody in the room to take turns sharing their advice, insisting on the participation of even his most quiet, junior staffers.

"He liked it when staffers disagreed among themselves about a particular issue," said Lu, Obama's legislative director. "He wanted us to argue it out in front of him, and he probed each side's arguments and asked hypotheticals, almost like a judge. He wanted to hear from everybody in the room."

Said Rouse: "I don't think, in the early years before he started running for president, that he ever fully embraced Washington in the sense that he really enjoyed the daily reality of being a freshman senator in the minority. But it was obvious that he loved thinking about these complex policy issues and talking them out. He was in his element doing that."

Obama's most frequent complaint about life in the Senate, friends said, was that the banalities of day-to-day legislating left him too little time for contemplation. To maximize his short weeks in Washington, his staff minced his days into 15- and 30-minute blocks -- an endless succession of meetings that often caused him to run late. Obama's itinerary sometimes included items such as: 9:57 to 10 a.m.: Walk to meeting. He began most workdays before 8 a.m. and stayed at his office until well after dinner.

About a year into his tenure in Washington, Obama told staffers that he needed more time to himself. He wanted 30 minutes in the mornings to run on a treadmill and let his brain sort through the clutter of a day. He wanted the freedom to eat lunch in his office, alone with a newspaper. He wanted an occasional 15-minute chunk of free time placed on his official schedule, so he could call home to Chicago or rest on his couch between meetings.

He had always guarded his space, once living in such seclusion as a student at Columbia University that when his mother visited his barren New York apartment, she chastised him for being "monklike." Similarly, in Washington, colleagues teased Obama for disappearing from view after work. He preferred takeout meals in his office to long, social dinners. He attended only one baseball game -- for a work-related function.

"He's not somebody who is necessarily going to move somewhere new and become a social butterfly, especially with Michelle and the girls not there," said Martin Nesbitt, a close friend of Obama's from Chicago. "He gets along well with everyone, but if it's not with a close friend or something work-related, he also likes some room to himself."

Obama went out for dinner occasionally with his staffers, but he always apologized, they said, for occupying their free time. He met Cassandra Butts, an old friend from Harvard Law School, for dinner about once a month.

Once, early in Obama's Washington tenure, Durbin invited him to a weekly dinner with his congressional friends. Obama fit in nicely, appeared to have fun and thanked Durbin at the end of the night for the invitation.

"I thought maybe he'd become a part of the group after that, but it never really happened," Durbin said. "His life was busy and getting even busier, and he had a lot of things drawing him into his own particular world. He never came again, and I think we all understood."

* * *

By March 11, 2006, Obama had made significant progress toward his goals. He had few legislative accomplishments but a long list of professional admirers. His invitation to speak at the Gridiron Club's annual dinner that night offered the latest evidence of his good standing with the Washington establishment.

Axelrod, one of the Obama advisers who had conceptualized the "strategic plan," helped write Obama's speech, which was typically on-message. Obama joked about his weak resume and his unwarranted fame. He so endeared himself to the audience that, when President Bush spoke later, he said: "Senator Obama, I wanted to do a joke on you, but it's like doing a joke on the pope."

True to the Gridiron tradition, Obama wrote a parody and sang it before issuing a series of self-deprecating one-liners. "I've been very blessed," Obama told the crowd. "Keynote speaker at the Democratic convention. The cover of Newsweek. My book made the bestseller list. I just won a Grammy for reading it on tape. . . . Really, what else is there to do? Well, I guess I could pass a law or something."

"Most of all," he continued, addressing the reporters in the room, "I want to thank you for all the generous advance coverage you've given me in anticipation of a successful career. When I actually do something, we'll let you know."

Seven months later, on Oct. 22, Obama appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press." Moderator Tim Russert asked an obvious question -- was he going to run for president? -- but got a surprising reply.

"I don't want to be coy about this, given the responses that I've been getting over the last several months, I have thought about the possibility," Obama said, adding that he hadn't made up his mind.

"But it's fair to say you're thinking about running for president in 2008?" Russert asked.

"It's fair," Obama replied. "Yes."

By Eli Saslow, The Washington Post, October 17, 2008

Traditionally Red State Finds GOP Struggling to Match Obama Operation

Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain will take different messages to different audiences in different parts of Virginia over the next two days, but they will have the same goal in mind: to urge their supporters to spend the final stretch of the campaign fighting for every vote they can find.

Obama will hold a rally today in Roanoke, a conservative part of the state where he hopes to keep the race relatively close. McCain will travel tomorrow to Prince Willian County, where he aims to cut into Obama's Northern Virginia base.

In his quest to win the Old Dominion, Obama is trying to end 44 years of Republican dominance and become the first Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson to carry the state. McCain's challenge is more immediate, as he has less than three weeks to reverse polls that show a trend against him.

By every organizational measure, Obama's campaign appears to have the advantage -- it has nearly three times as many offices, has contacted tens of thousands more potential supporters, and has helped register nearly half a million new voters this year, most of whom state officials believe favor the Democrat.

But Virginia remains a state with strong conservative tendencies, and it is unclear whether a majority will pull the lever for a Democrat whom McCain has derided as having "the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate." A key to a McCain comeback will be whether Republicans have built a strong enough get-out-the-vote operation in a state where none has ever been needed, something many party leaders question.

"People have no idea how hard you have to work to shake the tree for every last vote," said Rob Catron, a longtime political consultant who has managed GOP campaigns in the Hampton Roads area for years. Republicans "still think, somehow, that Virginia is bulletproof when it comes to presidential elections," he said.

Aides say the selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate transformed their effort, energizing church communities, home-schooling leaders and social conservatives.

In Southwest Virginia, there are now waiting lists 300 deep for signs that used to sit on shelves. Victoria Cobb, president of the Family Foundation, is handing out conservative voter guides to churches she had never heard of before. And home-schooling champion Michael P. Farris's "Generation Joshua" is organizing teams of teenage McCain door-knockers in parts of Northern Virginia.

McCain's staff members also say they have recruited volunteers in 1,500 of the state's precincts, assembled one of their best phone and door-knocking operations, and used the latest technology to quickly update voter lists.

The Republican National Committee has also begun making automated phone calls in Virginia and in other battleground states that talk about Obama's connections to "terrorists," a reference to the Vietnam War-era radical William Ayers. And the Republican Party of Virginia has circulated a mailer bearing a dark-skinned face and the words "America must look evil in the eye and never flinch."

Still, Republicans are not bullish about their statewide effort, especially compared with an Obama operation that got in gear before the state's February primary.

The GOP "doesn't even know where the Republicans live" in Fairfax County, bemoaned longtime county Supervisor Michael R. Frey, expressing dismay at what he described as his party's lack of organization, unity and excitement.

"Until Sarah Palin was nominated, there was absolutely no enthusiasm for McCain's candidacy," said Farris, who ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 1993. "People were resigned to vote for him, but that was it. There was no reaching out. No one asked us to do anything. In the last few weeks, people have asked us. So we're going to do it."

Obama's campaign has staged huge voter-registration drives that have gone unmatched by McCain, according to local registrars, who say they are swamped by Obama's efforts.

In Fairfax alone, election officials processed about 1,000 applications per day before the deadline this month, General Registrar Rokey W. Suleman II said. A total of 61,000 registrants signed up in the county this year.

Although voters do not register by party in Virginia, Suleman said the vast majority of the new registrants probably are Obama supporters because virtually all the applications have come from drives led by groups backing the candidate. Suleman said he has seen no registration drives by the McCain campaign.

McCain has 20 "victory centers" in the state, but that is about a third of the campaign offices his rival has. Obama's 3,000 volunteers knocked on 262,000 doors on a recent weekend -- a huge number compared with the 300,000 doors that Democrats knocked on during the state's 2005 gubernatorial campaign.

By comparison, McCain's volunteers personally contacted 130,000 voters with a combination of phone calls and door-knocking during a recent week, a senior campaign strategist said.

Evidence that McCain's efforts are trailing is especially stark across voter-rich Northern Virginia. On an early October weekend, Obama's 16 offices buzzed, while McCain's five were nearly deserted.

In West Springfield, Republican volunteer Fred Tsai sat alone at the front counter of an isolated McCain campaign office. Another volunteer could be heard making phone calls in a back room, but no one else appeared during a 15-minute period on a Saturday morning. "We just opened up this past week," Tsai said.

Down the road, at least 200 volunteers overflowed out of a storefront Obama operation in southern Fairfax as they waited for instructions on going door to door. Many had driven down from the District and Maryland; many others had found the location through the Obama campaign Web site.

Similarly, in Gainesville in western Prince William, two young McCain volunteers sat alone by the phones in a cavernous new campaign office. But in Dumfries, Obama volunteers and paid staff fielded a steady stream of eager supporters wanting to help.

At the McCain office in Sterling on a recent Sunday afternoon, three people made calls at a bank of about 20 phones. "We may not have as many offices as Obama," said Kevin Brown, 18, one of the three. "But we've got a lot of spirit."

Trey Walker, McCain's top operative for the mid-Atlantic region, described those examples as the "normal ebb and flow" of a phone-bank operation.

"We're very happy with where we are organizationally," he said, calling McCain's efforts larger than any recent statewide campaign. "Our daily goal is to knock on thousands of doors a day across the commonwealth. We continue to exceed that."

The McCain campaign says that Virginia is its third-best state when it comes to meeting its goals for phone-calling and door-knocking. The number of voters volunteers contacted in a single week -- 130,000 -- exceeded all but one of McCain's battleground operations, a senior campaign strategist said.

And the volunteers on the campaign's front lines for McCain insist that they are succeeding, pointing to what they call "collateral," the signs and bumper stickers that used to languish on the shelves.

In Virginia Beach, Ken Golden said the 1,500 McCain yard signs he had in late September are gone. "He makes the announcement of Sarah Palin and, my God, the stuff is leaping out of the headquarters and the victory center."

At the Mecklenburg County Republican committee meeting in September, McCain chairman Tucker Watkins marveled at the 40 people who showed up to volunteer. A year ago, he said, six people attended the regular meeting.

Herbert H. Bateman Jr., a Republican on the Newport News City Council whose late father was a congressman, conceded that Democrats are working harder than ever in his community. But he said the mood feels no different from that of past years on the Republican side.

"I've received phone calls, I've seen signs in yards, and I've seen plenty of advertising by McCain-Palin," Bateman said. "I haven't seen them give quarter to anyone."

But some of Virginia's longtime operatives said they do not think McCain's turnout operation is strong enough. They say his campaign is being run by young people who have little experience with statewide campaigns in the Old Dominion. The state director for McCain's campaign was a junior staff member on Jerry Kilgore's gubernatorial campaign in 2005, tracking Democrat Timothy M. Kaine around the state with a camera.

A senior Virginia Republican called the McCain operations in the two most populous areas of the state -- Northern Virginia and Tidewater -- "lackluster" and said it makes him nervous. He said the veterans of past campaign have vanished.

"They're not there. They've not been active. They've not been encouraged to be part of the campaign," said the Republican, who is supporting McCain and does not want to be identified as critical of the effort.

Asked about the campaign's lack of longtime Virginia operatives, a top McCain strategist noted the string of losing Republican campaigns in the state recently, including Kilgore in 2005 and U.S. Sen. George Allen in 2006.

"It's probably a very positive thing in Virginia to have some new blood," the strategist said.

By Michael D. Shear and Amy Gardner, The Washington Post, October 17, 2008

CLEVELAND (AP) - Bill and Hillary Clinton know something about winning votes in Ohio. The politically powerful Democratic duo on Thursday began two days of separate appearances in the battleground state on behalf of Barack Obama's presidential bid.

President Clinton praised Obama's calm, analytical approach to the nation's financial markets crisis at a campaign rally in Cleveland.

"Look, this is not a complicated question. We've got to elect a president who will straighten our financial system out," Clinton told a crowd mostly of unionists during a 14-minute speech in a downtown park.

Clinton said economic concerns will override racism issues among voters in a presidential race involving a black candidate.

"We can't afford any racist votes, folks," the former president said. "We are in the ditch, and we've got to get our government going here, and people know that. Everybody knows we've got to go forward together."

From Cleveland, Clinton was heading to a fundraiser in Columbus with Gov. Ted Strickland and other leading Ohio Democrats.

U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, has planned to lead rallies for Obama on Friday at Youngstown State University in northeast Ohio and at a high school in central Ohio, in Delaware north of Columbus.

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin also is scheduled to return to Ohio on Friday, for an outdoor rally in the northern Cincinnati suburb of West Chester.

Bill Clinton's Cleveland rally was in the heart of Ohio's Democratic stronghold and where he could easily deliver a message about the nation's economic plight.

Both Clintons campaigned frequently this year in Ohio, which has suffered from foreclosures and lost blue-collar jobs, in the weeks leading up to the March 4 presidential primary.

Hillary Clinton won the state's Democratic primary race over Obama. She carried all but five of Ohio's 88 counties but lost the large urban Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati areas, home to the state's largest concentrations of black voters.

In September, she returned to economically hard-hit northeast Ohio, urging supporters in Elyria, about 30 miles west of Cleveland, to work hard for Obama and his running mate Joe Biden.

Obama was in New Hampshire on Thursday, a day after the third and final debate with his Republican rival John McCain. Obama continued to link McCain to Bush administration policies and stressed that the American economy is in turmoil.

McCain said Thursday in Downington, Pa., that an Ohioan he dubbed "Joe the plumber" during the Wednesday debate was representative of the problems facing small businesses across America, although the plumber isn't a business owner.

Former President Clinton made no mention of the plumber during the Cleveland rally.

WASHINGTON - This time, John McCain kept Barack Obama on the defensive.

The feisty Republican tried hard to find a lifeline Wednesday night, challenging his Democratic rival at every turn over his truthfulness, associations and record.

By that measure, McCain won the last debate of the 2008 campaign.

But that may not be enough.

McCain still desperately needs to change the trajectory of a race that's tilting significantly toward Obama. Democratic voters outnumber Republicans, the economic crisis has transformed the race in Obama's favor, President Bush is extremely unpopular, most voters think the country is on the wrong track and the Democrat is leading in key-state polling.

There's little McCain can do on his own to change the dynamic. Not that he didn't try. "I am not President Bush," he said.

"You didn't keep your word," McCain reminded Obama on the issue of accepting public financing, something Obama had said he would do if the GOP nominee followed suit.

McCain, seemingly more prepared and definitely more aggressive than in past debates, called Obama's tax plan "class warfare," accused him of failing to stand up to his party's leaders and said the Democrat twisted his record in ads.

With his repeated attacks, the Republican ran the risk of turning off voters. Their negative impressions of him have risen as he questioned Obama's character over the past week. A New York Times/CBS News poll this week found that more voters see McCain as having waged a negative campaign than Obama.

Yet, McCain had little choice but to turn up the heat - and endure the consequences.

With the election in less than three weeks, the debate season is over and there are no more high-profile opportunities that can guarantee McCain an audience of tens of millions of people. Flush with cash, Obama has bought 30-minute blocks of prime-time advertising six days before the election; McCain may not be able to afford the same.

Over the next 20 days, both candidates will go after the voters who say they could still change their minds.

There are a lot of them - about one-third of all voters - but McCain has to win many more than Obama. Not only is he behind in the polls, but the base of all-but-certain Republican voters is smaller than Obama's Democratic foundation.

The Arizona senator's challenge is great.

In the race for 270 Electoral College votes, Obama has comfortable leads in polls in Democratic-held states and is competitive if not ahead in surveys in Republican bastions. A look at the intensity of candidate visits and television advertising shows the contest is basically playing out in states that Bush won four years ago, with Obama slated to visit Missouri, North Carolina and Virginia this weekend. Only two states that Democrat John Kerry won in 2004, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, are getting serious attention.

The candidates went into the debate season 20 days ago, virtually tied in polls in the race for the White House.

Since then, Wall Street collapsed, the markets plummeted and the government intervened, putting the economy - and Bush's policies - at the forefront of voters' minds.

Again and again, McCain looked directly at Obama and let him have it.

- "You have to tell me one time when you have stood up with the leaders of your party on one single major issue."

- "You're running ads right now that say that I oppose federal funding for stem cell research. I don't. You're running ads that misportray completely my position on immigration."

- "You don't tell countries you're going to unilaterally renegotiate agreements with them."

Obama had a ready answer for McCain and brushed aside the negatives.

"I think the American people are less interested in our hurt feelings during the course of the campaign than addressing the issues that matter to them so deeply," the Democrat said.

McCain's eagerness could be seen in his demeanor as he waited to pounce after each Obama statement. Eyes wide, he breathed deeply, moved his eyebrows up and shot sharp glances in Obama's direction. Obama's usually earnest demeanor, meanwhile, was regularly broken by big smiles as McCain attacked.

Over the course of the debates, a confident and collected Obama held his own in what amounted to an audition for the chief executive position.

He displayed a knack for quick response again Wednesday when McCain raised issue with Obama's links to William Ayers, a radical during the Vietnam War era. "The fact that this has become such an important part of your campaign, Sen. McCain, says more about your campaign than it says about me," Obama said.

The debate said a lot about both candidates. McCain did better Wednesday than ever before but, even as he took punches, Obama succeeded in appearing presidential.

By Liz Sidoti, The Associated Press, October 16, 2008

The Republican appeared more lively and focused, but also angry and inconsistent. Early instant polls give the night to Obama.

John McCain came into the third and final presidential debate needing to somehow wrestle the campaign out of Barack Obama's arms. He did not do it.

There was no single moment that was likely to reverberate in the minds of American voters and change the course of an election that has moved dramatically toward Obama in the last several weeks. But the 90-minute debate was a perfect distillation of McCain's general election campaign, with all of its inconsistent messages.

He spoke passionately about education and free trade and put Obama on the policy defensive more than in previous debates, but he also spent precious minutes bickering over a domestic radical from the 1960s. He spoke of his desire to reach peaceably across the aisle, while at times exuding what seemed a barely controlled anger, his jaw clenched as he appeared to show disdain for his opponent.

McCain needed to focus with laser-like intensity on middle-class fears over the faltering economy, the universal concern of undecided voters. Initially, he did that. He spoke repeatedly about "Joe the Plumber" -- so repeatedly that by mid-debate Obama too was addressing the man who first surfaced this week at an Obama event to question the candidate about taxes.

But soon the Republican was off-topic and into the swamp of cultural issues that voters have said are not important as their retirement savings dwindle and their homes and livelihoods are threatened.

In a race in which millions of dollars have been spent for the votes of American women, McCain managed in a two-question segment to mock laws protecting a woman's right to sue for being paid less than a man, and the notion that late-term abortions should be allowed in cases where a mother's health is threatened.

"That's the extreme pro-abortion position -- quote, health," McCain said.

Early instant polls of voters gave the night to Obama.

"There was no knockout punch for McCain, and as far as Obama was concerned, at a time of enormous national anxiety and uncertainty he came across as a voice of deliberate and deliberative reason," said Mark Petracca, a UC Irvine political scientist who is a Democrat.

Still, McCain had reason to be pleased with parts of the debate. He appeared far more energetic and focused for much of it, and he touched more on the middle class' travails than he did in the previous two debates. On radio, where his tense demeanor could not be seen, he might have come across more positively, as Richard M. Nixon did in debates with John F. Kennedy.

But on Wednesday, McCain was not helped by television, and particularly not by the networks' frequent use of the split screen. He said repeatedly that Americans were "angry" and often looked like the angriest of the lot. Obama continued with the visage he has perfected in debates this year, a look of amused detachment.

"The debate was like a Rorschach test," said Democratic consultant Chris Lehane. "If you like McCain, you probably thought he won, and if you like Obama, you probably thought he won.

"And since there are more Obama supporters than McCain supporters, then it is a good night for Obama."

McCain set a pre-debate goal of separating himself from George W. Bush, and tried repeatedly to do so. He criticized Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, the administration's point man in the financial crisis, and pounced on Obama's suggestion that a McCain presidency would resemble Bush's.

"Sen. Obama, I am not President Bush," McCain said, in a powerful moment for him. "If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago. I'm going to give a new direction to this economy in this country."

Obama, entering the debate with a widening national lead in most recent polls and with momentum in key states, had far less to prove in the debate. He sought to hit the same note of cerebral passion that had marked his earlier debate performances. He, too, returned repeatedly to the difficulties of the middle class, often referring to college as a disappearing dream for some Americans.

With the mien of the front-runner, he could afford to note, as he did several times, issues on which he and McCain agreed. McCain, tasked with tearing down Obama, was forced into a negative posture that risks alienating voters in times of crisis.

In one response on the matter of free trade, McCain opened and closed with gibes at Obama.

"Well, you know, I admire so much Sen. Obama's eloquence. And you really have to pay attention to words. He said, 'We will look at offshore drilling.' Did you get that? Look at," McCain said.

He closed by calling free trade with Colombia a "no-brainer."

"Maybe you ought to travel down there and visit them, and maybe you could understand it a lot better," said McCain.

Much of the pre-debate tension hinged on whether McCain would use the debate to criticize Obama's connection to 1960s radical William Ayers, now an education professor in Chicago.

McCain has gone after Obama on the Ayers issue in interviews and elliptically at events but did not discuss it in the second debate.

On Wednesday, after moderator Bob Schieffer brought up the nasty tenor of the race, the two candidates launched into a long discourse on the subject in which each blamed the other.

McCain tried to make the case that Obama should not be president because of his past connections to Ayers and the community organizing group ACORN, which Republicans have criticized for voter registration irregularities. But soon he seemed to decide that voters might not care.

"All of the details need to be known about Sen. Obama's relationship with them and with ACORN, and the American people will make a judgment," he said.

Then he quickly changed course:

"And my campaign is about getting this economy back on track, about creating jobs, about a brighter future for America. And that's what my campaign is about, and I'm not going to raise taxes the way Sen. Obama wants to raise taxes in a tough economy. And that's really what this campaign is going to be about."




By Cathleen Decker, Los Angeles Times, October 16, 2008

The Republican aggressively attacks his rival as being an extremist. The Democrat counters that McCain is more focused on attacks than solving problems facing Americans.

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. -- A pugnacious John McCain repeatedly questioned the character and veracity of Barack Obama on Wednesday night, portraying the Democrat as an extremist in both his policies and choice of personal associates. Obama parried in their final presidential debate by suggesting the Republican was more focused on attacks than addressing the concerns of Americans.

The 90-minute session was by far the liveliest and most caustic encounter between the two men. It was not immediately evident, however, whether anything occurred at New York's Hofstra University to change the dynamic of the race, which appears to favor Obama with less than three weeks until election day.

McCain was the aggressor from the start. The Arizona senator sought to distance himself from the unpopular White House incumbent more explicitly than ever. "If you wanted to run against President Bush," McCain told Obama, "you should have run four years ago."

Undeterred, Obama responded, "If I've occasionally mistaken your policies for George Bush's policies, it's because on the core economic issues that matter to the American people -- on tax policy, on energy policy, on spending priorities -- you have been a vigorous supporter of President Bush."

McCain cited differences with fellow Republicans on spending and other issues, challenging Obama to cite where he had broken with Democrats. The Illinois senator said the first major bill he backed in Washington was to limit lawsuits, "which wasn't very popular with trial lawyers," a major Democratic constituency. He noted that he had also differed with his party on education and environmental policies.

"Sen. Obama," McCain responded dryly, "your argument for standing up to the leaders of your party isn't very convincing."

But the night's most vigorous exchanges involved a cast of the campaign's walk-on characters.

Asked about the increasingly nasty tone of the race, McCain cited remarks made last weekend by Democratic Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a hero of the civil rights movement. Lewis expressed concern about the slurs used at some McCain rallies and invoked Alabama's segregationist governor, the late George Wallace.

McCain called Lewis' comments "very unfair and totally inappropriate" and chided Obama for not repudiating them. "Every time there's been an out-of-bounds remark made by a Republican, no matter where they are, I have repudiated them," McCain said.

Obama said Lewis was concerned that at some rallies McCain supporters shouted "things like 'terrorist' and 'kill him' and that your running mate . . . didn't stop, didn't say, 'Hold on a second, that's kind of out of line.' And I think congressman Lewis' point was that we have to be careful about how we deal with our supporters."

That said, Obama noted he immediately disassociated himself from Lewis' comment, adding, "I think the American people are less interested in our hurt feelings during the course of the campaign than addressing the issues that matter to them so deeply."

McCain, however, persisted. Moments later, he demanded to know the extent of Obama's relationship with William Ayers, a Vietnam-era radical, and ACORN, a left-leaning organization accused of voter registration fraud. "All of these things need to be examined," McCain said.

Obama said his connections to ACORN were limited to working to implement Illinois' "motor voter law," which allowed people to register to vote when they registered their cars or obtained driver's licenses.

Obama condemned Ayers' violent past and said, "Mr. Ayers is not involved in my campaign." Ayers helped found the radical group that came to be known as the Weather Underground, which planned a series of bombings to protest the Vietnam War. Decades later, Obama and Ayers, who is now a University of Illinois professor, served on an education reform board in Chicago. "He has never been involved in this campaign," Obama said. "And he will not advise me in the White House.

"I think the fact that this has become such an important part of your campaign, Sen. McCain, says more about your campaign than it says about me," Obama said.

"My campaign is about getting this economy back on track, about creating jobs, about a brighter future for America," McCain replied.

The format differed from previous debates. In the first, Obama and McCain stood behind lecterns. The second was a town hall-style forum. On Wednesday night, the candidates were seated at a table a few feet apart, with the moderator, CBS' Bob Schieffer, facing them.

Several networks broadcast the debate in split screen, and it showed a striking contrast in demeanor. Obama laughed derisively during several of McCain's attacks but otherwise remained composed. McCain sighed, smirked and rolled his eyes during several Obama responses. At one point, he opened his eyes wide in wonder.

Though much of the evening was spent rehashing familiar issues, the two candidates did break some ground.

McCain suggested that Obama had stepped to the political fringe by failing to take a position on a late-term abortion ban when he served in the Illinois Senate and for opposing a measure that would provide medical attention to a child born of a failed abortion. "I don't know how you align yourself with the extreme aspect of the pro-abortion movement in America . . . in direct contradiction to the feelings and views of mainstream America," McCain said.

Obama said the medical-attention bill would have undercut the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, and there was an existing Illinois statute that required such care. He said he voted against the late-term abortion ban because it did not include an exception in case the mother's health is in jeopardy.

"Just again, the example of the eloquence of Sen. Obama," McCain said sarcastically, suggesting the word "health" had been "stretched by the pro-abortion movement in America to mean almost anything." McCain wiggled his fingers to indicate quote marks around "health."

McCain also suggested that Obama was outside the political mainstream on energy when Schieffer pressed each candidate to specify how much he could reduce foreign oil imports in his first term. McCain said he could eliminate dependence on Mideast and Venezuelan oil in four years by embarking on an aggressive program to start building dozens of nuclear power plants. He assailed Obama for siding with "extreme environmentalists" who say "it has to be safe."

"We've sailed Navy ships around the world for 60 years with nuclear power plants on them," McCain said.

Obama suggested it would take 10 years to stop oil imports from the Mideast or Venezuela. He also said the country should "look at offshore drilling," prompting a tart response from McCain.

"I admire so much Sen. Obama's eloquence," McCain said. "And you really have to pay attention to words. He said we will look at offshore drilling. Did you get that? Look at."

The two again differed over taxes, McCain asserting that Obama would raise them and penalize working Americans like "Joe the Plumber," a man Obama met Sunday while canvassing a neighborhood in Ohio. "The whole premise behind Sen. Obama's plans are class warfare," McCain said. "Let's spread the wealth around."

Obama reiterated that he would cut taxes for 95% of Americans, raising them only on families making more than $250,000 a year and exempting small business owners. "We both want to cut taxes," Obama said. "The difference is who we want to cut taxes for. . . . The centerpiece of his economic proposal is to provide $200 billion in additional tax breaks to some of the wealthiest corporations in America."

Asked about their running mates and their suitability to take over as president, both men vouched for their picks. Obama said Delaware Sen. Joe Biden has never forgotten his working-class roots in Scranton, Pa. McCain praised Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a maverick who would bring a "breath of fresh air" to Washington.

In his closing statement, McCain again raised doubts about whether Americans could trust Obama, implying the Democrat's record was not as well known as McCain's performance as a reformer. "America needs a new direction," he said, underscoring his break from Bush. "We cannot be satisfied with what we've been doing for the last eight years."

Obama, in closing, hammered his central theme that electing McCain would amount to an extension of the incumbent's policies. With America in the throes of the worst economic crisis since the Depression, he said that "the biggest risk we could take right now is to adopt the same failed policies and the same failed politics that we've seen over the last eight years and somehow expect a different result."




By Mark Z. Barabak and Seema Mehta, Los Angeles Times, October 16, 2008

The Ohio resident who met Obama on Sunday is mentioned 26 times during the debate.

The star of Wednesday night's final presidential debate was neither Sen. John McCain nor his rival, Sen. Barack Obama. It was "Joe the Plumber," aka Joe Wurzelbacher, a brawny, T-shirt-clad plumber whose shaved head gives him a passing resemblance to Mr. Clean. His name came up 26 times during the debate -- a stand-in for hard-working, upwardly mobile Americans.

Obama met Wurzelbacher on Sunday during a visit to Holland, Ohio, where a TV crew captured a lively exchange between them.

"Do you believe in the American dream?" Wurzelbacher asked Obama.

"Yes, sir," Obama replied.

In the ensuing conversation, which lasted almost six minutes, Wurzelbacher explained that he is trying to buy a business and worries that he will pay higher taxes under Obama's proposal.

"Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?" he asked.

"It's not that I want to punish your success," replied Obama. "I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success too. My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. . . . I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

Obama concluded by telling Wurzelbacher, who looked dubious: "Even if I don't get your vote, I am going to work for you."

Early in the debate, McCain accused Obama of promulgating "class warfare" and introduced "Joe the Plumber" to America.

"Joe wants to buy the business that he has been in for all of these years, worked 10, 12 hours a day," said McCain. " . . . But he looked at your tax plan, and he saw that he was going to pay much higher taxes."

He continued: "When Sen. Obama ended up his conversation with Joe the Plumber -- we need to spread the wealth around. In other words, we're going to take Joe's money, give it to Sen. Obama and let him spread the wealth around. . . . The whole premise behind Sen. Obama's plans are class warfare."

Obama replied that his plan will cut taxes for 95% of Americans.

"Nobody likes taxes," he added. "I would prefer that none of us had to pay taxes, including myself. But, ultimately, we've got to pay for the core investments that make this economy strong, and somebody's got to do it."

The phrase "Joe the Plumber" was mentioned nine times during the debate. At one point, McCain even referred to him as "my old buddy, Joe the Plumber."

Wurzelbacher told the Associated Press: "It's pretty surreal, man, my name being mentioned in a presidential campaign."

It was unclear whether the McCain campaign had been in touch with him. However, in a post-debate interview with CBS News anchor Katie Couric, Wurzelbacher echoed familiar McCain themes. He said that Obama is well-spoken but that "there's got to be some action behind it."

Wurzelbacher told Couric that he had always wanted to question a presidential candidate "and really corner them and get them to answer a question of -- for once instead of tap-dancing around it. And, unfortunately, I asked the question, but I still got a tap dance . . . almost as good as Sammy Davis Jr."

Still, he refused to say which candidate he would vote for.

Spinners of all stripes invoked America's newly minted folk hero.

"There are a lot of 'Joe the Plumbers' out there, but the 'Joe the Plumbers' are going to get hosed by the McCain economic policies," said Obama campaign manager David Axelrod.

McCain's economic advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin countered: "This is a real American, who actually now understands exactly what Barack Obama is up to, and he's appalled."




By Robin Abcarian, Los Angeles Times, October 16, 2008

McCain evokes the blue-collar worker as a potential victim of Obama's tax plan. Obama remains cool, even in the face of what seems like intentional baiting by McCain, who at times mutters and grunts.

Next on "Access Hollywood," Joe the Plumber -- the guy who occupied so much of Wednesday night's presidential debate.

Mere minutes into the final presidential debate, John McCain evoked the blue-collar man as a potential victim of Barack Obama's tax plan -- one that would prevent him from buying his own business and, as the Republican candidate put it, from "living the American dream."

Three sentences into the evening, Obama made his case for saving the middle-class and stuck to it through thick and thin.

McCain, on the other hand, had several things he wanted to get off his chest.

"I am not President Bush," he declared, albeit without the conviction he brought to pleading Joe's case. "If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago."

Certainly, there was more of the angry McCain in this debate than there was in the previous two; even his voice was louder and less Reaganesque. But viewers looking for the Arizona senator to kick Obama's you-know-what were no doubt disappointed.

Finally, a half-hour in, Schieffer asked the question everyone was waiting for -- would the two candidates now make the same accusations their campaigns and running mates have been leveling?

McCain strangely chose to go on the attack and said he was disappointed at Obama's silence in the face of comments that compared him to George Wallace.

Obama pointed out that he had repudiated the remarks and moved quickly to the high road, arguing that voters were less concerned with the candidates' hurt feelings than with solving economic problems.

"I don't mind being attacked for the next three weeks," Obama said, sounding like the embodiment of benevolence. "What the American people can't afford, though, is four more years of failed policy."

It's hard to imagine that McCain had planned to give the Illinois senator such an easy lob; it allowed Obama not only to look gracious, but to point out that all the recent polls indicate that Americans feel McCain has been too negative.

Never before have the two men been in such direct opposition, both in policy and in personality. Obama remained cool, even in the face of what seemed like intentional baiting by McCain, who on several occasions praised Obama's "eloquence" as if it were a synonym for duplicity.

Meanwhile, after about a half-hour of self-restraint, McCain at times could not contain himself, muttering and issuing small grunts. The split-screen -- used by some cable news stations -- was not McCain's friend. In contrast to Obama's winning smile, McCain's eye-widening and explosive snorts undercut his tone and made him seem at times simply rude.

But if it came down to watching those reaction shots and that crazy graph that CNN insists is significant, well, I'll take the snorts every time.




By Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times, October 16, 2008

Their votes could determine whether the state goes to McCain or Obama. Many are torn between Catholic values and economic worries.

BERNALILLO, N.M. -- Rick Sepulveda can't make up his mind between Barack Obama and John McCain. The 49-year-old beer salesman thinks the Democrat would do a better job with the economy, but he can't stomach Obama's support for abortion, an affront to his faith.

"I'm pro-life. That's a big issue for me," Sepulveda said recently, after taking an order at the T&T Supermart here, 18 miles north of Albuquerque. But, he added, "McCain is another Bush."

Undecided Latino voters, particularly socially conservative ones like Sepulveda, could play the pivotal role in deciding who wins the five electoral votes in the Land of Enchantment, a state known for razor-thin margins in presidential races. Former Vice President Al Gore won by 365 votes in 2000; President Bush by 5,988 in 2004.

In New Mexico, Obama led McCain in recent polls and has a substantial lead among Latinos. But nearly 1 in 5 Latino voters, who make up almost a third of the state's electorate, remain undecided, double the rate for white voters.

Many of these voters are torn: drawn to Republicans by their Roman Catholic faith, but to Democrats by their concerns about the economy.

"A lot of Hispanics in New Mexico are Catholic and . . . wrestle with the values and platform and campaign positions of candidates on both sides," said J.D. Bullington, a longtime Republican lobbyist who registered as a Democrat this year. "That's the reason why there's a large number of undecideds in the Hispanic community. I think they take their time and listen carefully and balance it all out, all the way up to the election."

This year, with the economy overshadowing nearly every other issue, it's unclear how much weight voters will give values issues, such as abortion and gay marriage. But the state, while tilting toward Obama, is still in play, and both campaigns are targeting it.

In the week that ended Oct. 4, McCain spent $144,000 on advertising in New Mexico, and Obama spent $185,000. That's a tiny fraction of what they are spending in other battleground states, but airtime is cheaper in Albuquerque, and both have a steady presence on television. Both are airing Spanish-language ads that blame the other for the failure to reform immigration laws.

The Democratic nominee has 40 field offices around the state, from six in Albuquerque to a single storefront in the tiny southern village of Hatch.

"We thought it was important for us to get beyond the I-25 backbone -- Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Los Cruces -- into areas where we didn't do as well as we should have in 2004," said Obama state director Adrian Saenz, who added that the campaign has mobilized thousands of volunteers. "We're not taking anything for granted."

In New Mexico, as in other swing states, the Illinois senator hopes to expand the electorate. In the last month, the campaign has registered more than 35,000 new voters. Now, with voters already casting ballots, staff and volunteers are turning their attention to get-out-the-vote efforts for those newly registered voters and others, with neighborhood canvassing, phone banking and early-voting rallies.

McCain, who has visited New Mexico four times, has a slimmer ground operation, with 10 field offices, plus a presence in the state's 33 county GOP offices.

"Obama wants to waste his time opening offices here and there," said Ivette Barajas, spokeswoman for McCain's New Mexico effort. "Our ground operations are very effective and very strong. We saw that in 2004 with the Bush campaign, and we're going to see that here."

The senator from neighboring Arizona is also replicating a 2004 tactic of connecting like-minded volunteers with voters, such as veterans, mothers and social conservatives.

"You see people just like you who live in the same city, have similarities with you," Barajas said. "You're more likely to connect with those people."

She scoffed at Obama's chances among socially conservative Latino voters. "Hispanics feel that connection with McCain, they know who he is, he has the knowledge and the record," she said. "The community is asking, 'Who's Obama?' They really, really have to dig deep to get in touch with who this Obama person is."

Scott Jennings, who ran the state for the Bush campaign in 2004, said McCain needs to energize the southern conservatives to offset the Democratic advantage in large cities. Recalling that the Bush campaign had a high-level representative in the state every week in the month before the election, often in small towns off the traditional campaign trail, Jennings said the McCain campaign needs to do the same.

"The president and his wife and the daughters and the vice president -- everyone at that level of the campaign lavished New Mexico with attention and visits," he said, recalling one day when Bush held three rallies that attracted 45,000 voters. "I still to this day believe that attention was crucial."

Bush won over socially conservative Latinos in rural communities and ended up with 38% of the Latino vote statewide.

Churches have played a smaller role in the presidential campaign this year, though there have been reports of some leafleting in parking lots.

"It probably would start heating up about now," said Joe Monahan, who runs a well-read nonpartisan New Mexico political blog. "Four years ago it seemed to be pretty overt."

Esperanza Arellano, 28, an administrator for Rock Christian Outreach's school in Española, said her pastor had stressed the importance of voting for candidates who oppose abortion, though he has not named a candidate.

It's a message that has resonated with Lorenzo Lavato of Albuquerque. The 27-year-old, who works as a mechanic while studying civil engineering at the University of New Mexico, is a registered Democrat and was initially for Obama.

"He kind of sucked me in for a little while with his charisma," he said.

But in November, Lavato said, he will vote for a GOP candidate for the first time because of McCain's opposition to abortion and patriotism. He questions Obama's character because of his associations with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and William Ayers, a founder of the radical Weather Underground.

Another issue is race. Since Obama launched his campaign, pundits and politicians have questioned whether Latinos will vote in large numbers for a black man.

The issue came to the surface here when Bernalillo County GOP Chairman Fernando C' de Baca said: "The truth is that Hispanics came here as conquerors. African Americans came here as slaves. . . . Hispanics consider themselves above blacks. They won't vote for a black president."

His comments were loudly denounced on both sides, and he stepped down. However, for a small fraction of voters, De Baca's words may resonate.

Antoinette Trujillo, 43, owns the Corner Store, a small grocery in Bernalillo stocked with fresh fruit and vegetables and strands of dried red chiles. Outside the front door, she placed a sign that read, "Obamanos! '08"

An older Latino customer told her she ought to throw it on the road so cars would run over it.

"He didn't want to vote for a black guy," she said, rolling her eyes.

Several political observers said that for most voters, it is not overt racism but rather an unfamiliarity with black politicians.

Monahan said Obama's surrogates, most notably New Mexico's Latino governor, Bill Richardson, may have helped ease concerns about race. But he said the faltering economy may do more to bring skeptical voters to Obama.

"The money argument is trumping the race argument," he said. "The economy has gotten to be such a huge issue that it may be washing away" everything else.




By Seema Mehta, Los Angeles Times, October 16, 2008

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. - Leading in polls and exuding confidence after last night's debate, Democrat Barack Obama is edging into traditionally GOP states - now including West Virginia - as Republican John McCain looks to protect his turf less than three weeks before the election.

On the heels of the campaign's final debate, the Democrat is launching TV ads in West Virginia, which George W. Bush won four years ago and hadn't been on the list of target states until recently, according to two Democrats with knowledge of the strategy.

Obama lost West Virginia in the Democratic primary to Hillary Rodham Clinton as he struggled to win over working-class whites. But Democrats say the economic turmoil in the hard-hit state and TV ads Obama has been running in its neighbors have made West Virginia competitive. These Democrats spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering the campaign.

They say Obama's campaign also is considering pouring money into reliably Republican Kentucky and may yet return to the airwaves in North Dakota and Georgia. Those are two states Obama had tried to put in play over the summer, but he pulled out when they appeared out of reach.

The Illinois senator sounded increasingly optimistic at a breakfast fundraiser at the New York City Metropolitan Club.

"We now have 19 days," Obama said. "We are now 19 days not from the end but from the beginning. The amount of work that is going to be involved for the next president is going to be extraordinary."

But, he said, for anyone getting cocky or giddy, "two words for you: New Hampshire. I've been in these positions before where we were favored and the press starts getting carried away, and we end up getting spanked." Obama won the Iowa caucuses, only to lose to Clinton in New Hampshire in the primary.

McCain, for his part, planned to visit swing state Pennsylvania, but he also was being forced to go to Republican territory as polls show Obama with the edge in such places as Virginia, Colorado and Florida. Obama was heading in the next few days to Virginia and Missouri, states often out of reach for Democrats but up for grabs in a year with Republicans under fire.

Wednesday night, McCain tried to blunt a familiar line of attack when he asserted, "Sen. Obama, I am not President Bush." But Obama quickly turned that argument against his rival in a new TV spot. "True," the ad's announcer responds, "but you did vote with Bush 90 percent of the time."

One unique debate watcher was "Joe the Plumber" - Joe Wurzelbacher of Holland, Ohio, whose exchange with Obama about taxes and small businesses a few days earlier elicited dozens of references from the candidates during the debate.

"It floored me. It's not something I expected, ever," Wurzelbacher told "Good Morning America" on ABC. Though he wouldn't say for whom he was voting, Wurzelbacher said Obama had a "very socialist view" of taxes "and that's incredibly wrong."

The 90-minute debate at Hofstra University marked the beginning of a sprint to Election Day. Obama leads in the national polls and in surveys in many battleground states, an advantage built in the weeks since the nation stumbled into the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Looking to shake up the race, McCain questioned Obama's character and his policies. He linked Obama to a 1960s radical, accused him of planning tax increases that would cripple the economy and said he was dishonest about a promise to accept public campaign financing.

"You didn't tell the American people the truth," the Arizona senator said.

Obama ignored that charge and remained calm throughout the debate. He often turned the accusations against McCain, calling them examples of the petty politics harming the country.

"The important point here is, though, the American people have become so cynical about our politics, because all they see is a tit-for-tat and back-and-forth," the Illinois senator said. "And what they want is the ability to just focus on some really big challenges that we face right now."

McCain went on offense from the opening moments, accusing Obama of waging class warfare by seeking tax increases that would "spread the wealth around."

He also demanded to know the full extent of Obama's relationship with college professor William Ayers, once a Vietnam War protester and part of a group that bombed government buildings, and the Democrat's ties with ACORN, a liberal group accused of violating federal law as it seeks to register voters. McCain said the group could be on the verge of "destroying the fabric of democracy."

Obama condemned Ayers' violent activities and denied any significant ties to ACORN, mocking McCain for bringing them up.

"I think the fact that this has become such an important part of your campaign, Sen. McCain, says more about your campaign than it says about me," he said.

Obama returned each volley from McCain, at one point brushing aside McCain's claim to full political independence after the Republican said: "I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago."

Obama replied: "If I've occasionally mistaken your policies for George Bush's policies, it's because on the core economic issues that matter to the American people - on tax policy, on energy policy, on spending priorities - you have been a vigorous supporter of President Bush."

By CHRISTOPHER WILLS, Associated Press, October 16, 2008

Los Angeles - For the first time in history, an African American looks close to winning the presidency. Throughout his campaign, Sen. Barack Obama has faced a blunt question: Can he win enough white voters to win? It's a question that's as much about race as it is about electability.

A recent study out of Stanford University suggests that racial prejudice is eroding as much as 6 percentage points from Senator Obama's support. One commentator has even suggested that white racism would be the only explanation for an Obama loss this November.

But there's another facet to this story - and it could prove to be equally decisive: the reluctance of some black voters to vote for Obama.

A New York Times poll taken this past July showed that 6 percent of black respondents say that they wouldn't vote for a black candidate (presumably Obama). Just 5 percent of white respondents said the same.

What's behind this black resistance to Obama?

More than a few blacks grumble that Obama will be blamed for the financial mess, which may only get worse on his watch. If he gets blamed for it, the thinking goes, somehow it will blow back on blacks due to the infuriating racial double standard in which the failing of one is regarded as a failing for all blacks.

Then there's the age-old rap that blacks who don't support other blacks for political office or anything else are filled with self-loathing and color phobia - in reverse. This racial self-hate supposedly rears its ugly head every time a black tries to get ahead.

And there's also the persistent fear that if Obama wins, he will be in perpetual danger of being assassinated.

But none of this totally explains the trepidation and reluctance of some blacks to back Obama.

Here's the point that's often missed: Blacks aren't and never have been of one mind on anything, nor should they be. Blacks are as varied and diverse in their social and political views as any other demographic, and that includes embracing conservative social and religious positions.

This was plainly evident in the presidential battle in Ohio and Florida in 2004. Bush racked up double digit vote percentages among black voters. He did it by shrewdly appealing to the hard opposition of many blacks to abortion, gay marriage, and their support of school vouchers.

Polls have also shown that a significant number of blacks oppose welfare, back the death penalty, and support black anti-affirmative crusader Ward Connerly's state initiatives banning affirmative action programs in public hiring. To many socially conservative blacks, Obama is simply a too-liberal, tax-and-spend-Democrat for their tastes.

But while conservatives are still a very distinct minority of black voters, it doesn't mean that all blacks will instinctively back a black candidate. Nowhere was that more apparent than the 2006 midterm elections.

Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, pro football great Lynn Swann in Pennsylvania, and Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele - all Republicans - banked heavily on getting black voter support. In fact, none of the three black Republicans came anywhere close to getting a majority of the black vote. This was not an aberration.

Blacks have even backed white Democratic incumbents against black challengers in Democratic primaries. The issue for them was the real and perceived notion that the incumbent had done and would continue to do a better job in improving education, getting increased funding for job programs, and neighborhood services.

It's true that blacks have ritually given Democratic presidential candidates 80 to 90 percent of their vote since the 1960s, when Democrats embraced civil rights. But it's also true that a small percentage of black voters have backed white Republican presidential candidates even though the GOP turned a cold shoulder toward them for decades. To be sure, the small percent of blacks who say they would not vote for a black candidate reflect a number of lingering fears that need to be addressed.

It's worth remembering though that the overwhelming majority of black voters are thrilled to be supporting Obama.

When Obama needed a surge in the South Carolina primary in January, Oprah delivered. She made an impassioned pitch for Obama to mostly black audiences in South Carolina and they delivered. Thousands more turned out there than did in the 2004 Democratic primary and they gave him more than 90 percent of their vote. That type of support continued through the primaries.

But the few black who won't support Obama are proof that blacks, like anyone else, make political choices based on many factors - and color isn't always one of them.

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, The Christian Science Monitor, October 16, 2008

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. - Sen. Barack Obama is on offense, and Sen. John McCain on defense, and the next 19 days offer little chance of a change in that dynamic.

With the markets in turmoil and the real economy starting to suffer, Obama will spend the final 19 days working to connect with voters who are "voting their pocketbooks, voting their interests," said Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D-Mich.). He'll be making that case, however, on what has long been Republican turf. The Democrat heads out Friday on what aides are calling a "red state tour," taking in Virginia, Missouri, North Carolina and Florida.

"They're all states that are trending blue," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.). "Offense, offense, offense."

And Obama is weighing broadening a map that already appears big and red into four more states. A top adviser, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, said Obama is considering expanding his active campaign back into North Dakota and Georgia, from which he'd shifted resources, and into the Appalachian heartland of West Virginia and Kentucky.

"Those states are much more in play than they were a week ago," Daschle said.

Obama, who spent much of September pounding McCain with attacks on his health care plan and on his ties to President Bush, is also moving his message into safer, more comfortable turf. He'll be airing more positive and biographical advertisements in the closing days, chief strategist David Axelrod said. The campaign Wednesday launched a new ad, set in a classroom, in which Obama reminds voters of his own humble roots and talks about the importance of education and his education plans.

Meanwhile, McCain will retreat to set up defensive bulwarks, in a last-ditch strategy of red state hold 'em.

The Republican National Committee's independent expenditure arm signaled this move before the debate Wednesday, going off the air in Wisconsin and prepping ad buys in Colorado and Missouri. Seven of the eight states the committee is airing ads in were won by Bush in 2004, the exception being Pennsylvania.

The goal now for McCain is to find a formula relying almost entirely on red states, a strategy that leaves little margin for error but is his only hope, with polls showing him down double-digits in virtually every blue-state.

"If you look at the Republican-leaning states, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Missouri, you get to 260," explained McCain political director Mike DuHaime. "Then you got to put together 10 [more electoral votes]. It could be a win in Pennsylvania brings you over, it could be run the table in the Southwest, Iowa and Colorado, Minnesota by itself. There is no shortage of pathways if you hold those big Republican states."

Despite public polls showing McCain trailing by double-digits in Pennsylvania, DuHaime insisted the state was still competitive.

"Look at the Obama schedule last week," he said, noting that the Illinois senator, vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, and Hillary and Bill Clinton were all in the state.

McCain makes his second trip there this week Thursday and will then race to secure those must-win states DuHaime spoke of this weekend, making stops in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia.

But McCain aides are now acknowledging that they will be badly outspent by Obama, and that the Democrat's decision to opt out of public financing is worth the price he paid in a few days of criticism in the press.

"One thing Barack Obama has ensured is that no one will ever use the public financing system again," said McCain senior adviser Matt McDonald. "Obama has destroyed the system."

As for what McCain will say, campaign aides didn't say Bill Ayers would be dropped, but they did suggest that character attacks against Obama would not dominate the final days.

Asked if the economy would be the focus, McCain manager Rick Davis fired back: "It always has been."

"I mean, all the time that everybody has been ranting and raving about Bill Ayers, our advertising has included economics and the vast majority of our speeches have been about economics," he said. "You guys have narratives that you follow, but we don't necessarily have to buy into them."

Obama's campaign, though, seems willing to engage McCain's attacks. In the debate, Obama all but baited McCain into mentioning his relationship with Ayers, the '60s radical. He mentioned McCain's attacks before McCain brought them up and tried to link it to allegations that the Democratic community group ACORN is engaged in voter fraud. Obama's aides say they're puzzled that McCain continues to spend time and advertising money on attacks that polls suggest haven't found their mark.

"Most Americans don't have the faintest idea of what ACORN is. They think it's something that falls from a tree. 'Bill Ayers' is just a name," said Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.). "I don't see any value in it."

McCain aides also promised that voters would hear even more from "Joe the Plumber," the Ohioan who questioned Obama on his economic plans earlier this week and was made famous by McCain Wednesday night.

"He puts a face on Barack Obama's tax increases and puts a face on why Barack Obama is bad for the economy," said McDonald. "That's what we're going to drive in the couple of days ahead."

By Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin, Politico, October 16, 2008

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. - Debates should not be confused with trips to Lourdes: Few miracles are dispensed.

John McCain needed a miracle in his final debate with Barack Obama on Wednesday night, a miracle that would wipe away McCain's deficit in the polls and reenergize his flagging campaign.

He did not get one. The clouds did not part. Heavenly choirs were not heard. Instead, the American public heard angry attacks from McCain.

Sometimes McCain attacked directly, and sometimes he attacked sarcastically, but he never stopped attacking. And he never rattled Obama. Obama answered every attack and kept his cool.

How cool? Obama was so cool that after 90 minutes under blazing TV lights, an ice cube wouldn't have melted on his forehead.

McCain attacked him on everything from wanting to raise the taxes of Joe the Plumber - now the most famous plumber in America and at serious risk of becoming so wealthy his taxes will go up no matter who wins - to not traveling enough.

"I admire so much Sen. Obama's eloquence," McCain sneered. "Sen. Obama, who has never traveled south of our border." (This from a man whose running mate got her first passport last year.)

But McCain didn't just attack, he also defended, including defending those people who attend his rallies and the rallies of Sarah Palin who have shouted nasty and threatening things when Obama's name is mentioned.

"Let me say categorically that I am proud of the people who come to my rallies," McCain said. "I am not going to stand for anybody saying that the people who come to our rallies are anything other than patriotic citizens."

Obama responded to all this - what else? - coolly.

"I don't mind being attacked for the next three weeks," Obama said. "What the American people can't afford is four more years of failed economic policies."

He never got off his game plan. He never got shook up.

The biggest impact of the three presidential debates for Obama was not anything said or not said. It was impressionistic: Obama simply did not appear to be the scary "other" that McCain needs him to be. "When people suggest that I pal around with terrorists, then we are not talking about issues," Obama said smoothly.

For McCain, the biggest impact of the debates was visual: In the first debate he refused to look at Obama, in the second debate McCain appeared to careen around the stage, and in this last debate McCain would scribble furiously with his Sharpie as Obama was talking or else smirk in response to what Obama was saying.

Moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS often asked provocative questions that sometimes did not get provocative responses. When Schieffer asked each man why the country would be better off if his running mate became president rather than the other guy's running mate, Obama said Joe Biden "shares my core values." John McCain said Sarah Palin is a "reformer" and "she has united our party."

And McCain's desire to keep his party united behind him - because who else is? - was very much on his mind, dipping deep into conservative Republican talking points. McCain repeatedly accused Obama of "wanting to spread the wealth" around, which doesn't seem like all that bad an idea to people who aren't wealthy.

But there was one place McCain would not go: He did not bring up the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. It is a line McCain seems determined not to cross, even though some in his party are urging him to do so.

What McCain really needed is what he still needs: for Obama to make some huge gaffe, something that makes Obama look like the riskier choice between the two.

But Obama made no such gaffes Wednesday night.

"The biggest risk we could take right now is to adopt the same failed policies and same failed politics that we've seen for the last eight years," Obama said.

The race is not over. It would be wrong to write McCain off. After all, there is still almost three weeks to go. And in politics, anything can happen.

It usually doesn't, however.

By Roger Simon, Politico, October 16, 2008

There I was, standing in the press risers at Xcel Center, praying for the end of John McCain's stilted acceptance speech. An address that ate up just six printed pages but felt like an eternity. Yet something happened in the last 50 seconds. A switch seemed to flip, and the droning oratory gave way to a fiery call to "stand up and fight!" The delegates erupted in a roar of approval that sustained McCain until the end.

It was an effective message then, and it's wise for the McCain camp to resurrect it now.

The raw campaigning at McCain-Palin rallies last week unleashed an anger and ugliness that severely damaged McCain's reputation. The "fight" mantra he reprised this Monday is a much more focused and effective way to tap into the anger -- not just in the Republican Party but also in the rest of the country -- about the war, the economy and the uncertain future facing American families.

This change in tactic improves McCain's chances of moving from the senate to the White House. And yes, contrary to Marie's thinking, he still has a chance. Here's why.

1.) If McCain can maintain message discipline (a tall order), he can raise doubts about the senator from Illinois without jumping into the gutter to do it. And that could help McCain close the yawning gap in the national and battleground state polls.

2.) The peculiarities of each candidate's campaign could still come into play. McCain has a history of coming back from the political dead. He was thought to be electoral road kill when he canned his senior campaign staff last year and started clawing his way to the nomination from scratch. Now look at him. Obama, meanwhile, has a history of not being able to persuade working-class white voters to vote for him. While he won the nomination over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, he did lose nine of the last 14 primary contests to her and wasn't able to pull any of the critical electoral vote states into his column. Not Pennsylvania. Not Ohio.

3.) Three weeks (20 days to be exact) are an eternity in politics. Look at how the dynamics of the campaign have changed over the previous month. Remember my post about my two New York friends who were despairing at Obama's prospects because McCain and Palin were leading in the polls? One month later, McCain is so far behind in the polls that some folks are already writing his political obituary, including my two friends in New York.

Will any of this be enough to overcome the tidal wave Obama seems to be riding? We'll find out soon enough. But this much is certain: McCain's path to the Oval Office is getting narrower by the day.

By Jonathan Capehart, The Washington Post, October 15, 2008

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. - John McCain sought to change the course of a campaign moving decidedly in Barack Obama's direction Wednesday night in the third and final presidential debate.With less than three weeks until the Nov. 4 election, the 90-minute debate focusing on the economic crisis offered the Republican senator from Arizona what could be one of his last big chances to persuade voters to give the race another look.

Polls show Obama, the senator from Illinois, with a clear lead nationally and in several key battleground states.

McCain was keenly aware of the stakes he faced after two debates in which supporters suggested he was insufficiently forceful against Obama.

Over the weekend he promised to "whip" Obama's "you know what," and aides indicated McCain would criticize Obama on tax policy.

For months, McCain and his campaign have tried to convince voters that Obama is an inveterate tax raiser whose spending priorities on health care and other issues would mean higher taxes on people of all incomes. Obama has said he would raise taxes only on people making over $250,000 per year.

Obama strategist David Axelrod said Wednesday the Illinois senator would not offer new policy prescriptions in the debate but would try to keep the focus on his plans for improving the economy and creating jobs.

"We have always believed that as people came to know Sen. Obama - to see him, to hear him - that that would be helpful to his candidacy because he is a solid person with good ideas for how to bring about constructive change in this country," Axelrod said.

McCain traveled to Long Island Wednesday afternoon from Manhattan, where he had headlined a $10 million fundraiser for the Republican National Committee Tuesday night. Obama flew in from Ohio, where he had stayed for several days of debate preparations. Both candidates separately toured the debate hall at Hofstra University.

The nationally televised forum was to focus on the economy and domestic policy, a timely topic as voters try to assess which candidate they most trust to handle the historic meltdown of U.S. financial markets. The two candidates were to be seated together at a table with CBS News anchor Bob Schieffer, the debate moderator.

The debates, while widely watched, have been panned by many critics for adhering to rules worked out between the two campaigns that limited interchange between the candidates and quashed follow-up questions by moderators. The format has allowed both Obama and McCain to rehash campaign talking points while largely avoiding direct answers to questions.

By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press, October 15, 2008

WASHINGTON - The Secret Service is looking into a second allegation that a participant at a Republican political rally shouted "kill him," referring to Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

The Scranton Times-Tribune reported that someone in the crowd shouted "kill him" after the mention of Obama's name during a rally Tuesday for GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin in Scranton, Pa.

Last week, The Washington Post reported a similar incident during a Palin rally in Clearwater, Fla. The Secret Service investigated that allegation and found no indication that "kill him" was ever said, or if it was said, that the remark was directed at Obama.

Listening to tapes of that rally, the Secret Service heard "tell him" or "tell them," but agents never heard "kill him," Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

In both the Clearwater and the Scranton instances, the Service only learned of the alleged threats through media reports.

"We would ask that anyone overhearing threatening language bring it to the attention of the Secret Service or other law enforcement at the event immediately," Zahren said.

The Secret Service cannot prevent or police poor behavior at public events, Zahren said, but the agency draws the line at threatening language.

"We do not have the luxury of discounting such language as simply bad taste or bad behavior without further investigation," he said.

So far, the Secret Service has not found anyone else who heard "kill him" Tuesday except for the Times-Tribune reporter.

Shouts of "traitor," "terrorist," "treason," "liar," and even "off with his head" have rung from the crowd at Republican rallies.

The anti-Obama taunts and jeers are noticeably louder when McCain appears with Palin, a big draw for GOP conservatives. She accused Obama last week of "palling around with terrorists" because of his past, loose association with a 1960s radical.

By EILEEN SULLIVAN, Associated Press, October 15, 2008

WASHINGTON - Democratic Rep. John Murtha said Wednesday his home base of western Pennsylvania is racist and that could reduce Barack Obama's victory margin in the state by 4 percentage points.

The 17-term Democratic congressman told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a story posted Wednesday on its Web site: "There is no question that western Pennsylvania is a racist area."

Murtha said it has taken time for many Pennsylvania voters to come around to embracing a black presidential candidate, but that Obama should still win the state, though not in a runaway.

In a separate interview posted Wednesday on the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's Web site, Murtha said Obama has a problem with voters' racial attitudes in western Pennsylvania that could trim his winning margin on Nov. 4.

The working-class region is a key battleground in Pennsylvania. The area is struggling economically, and has a high percentage of veterans and elderly voters. Murtha's district outside Pittsburgh encompasses Johnstown and many small towns once dominated by steel and coal.

In a statement issued later Wednesday, Murtha spokesman Matt Mazonkey told The Associated Press: "It's naive to think that race or gender doesn't play a role in a voter's perception of a candidate. Mr. Murtha makes the point that while race may be an issue for some, it's evident that voters today are concerned about the issues that truly matter - issues like the economy, health care, and energy independence."

Murtha, who backed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the state's April primary, told the Post-Gazette that the older population has been "more hesitant" to support Obama. But in the past three months, he said groups he deals with regularly, such as veterans and senior citizens, have decided to back Obama.

Murtha said Republican John McCain has been stymied by the economy and the attacks on Obama's character.

"I think Obama is going to win, but I don't think it's going to be a runaway," Murtha said.

He told the Tribune-Review, however, that he sees no enthusiasm for either candidate in his district.

"The public is confused, they're despondent, they're unhappy. They want to see a change and I think the change is whatever the individual might believe it is," he said.

The most recent Quinnipiac University poll showed Obama with a double-digit lead after surveys a few weeks ago indicated the race was close. Quinnipiac pollster Clay Richards has said growing support among working-class voters in the state were behind the change.

In February, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell - another Clinton backer - told the Post-Gazette's editorial board that some whites in the state were likely to vote against Obama in the primary because of his race. Clinton easily won that contest.

By KIMBERLY HEFLING, Associated Press, October 15, 2008

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. - As the clock ticked down on the final debate and the entire presidential race, Senator John McCain canceled a campaign stop on Wednesday and hunkered down to prepare for his last scheduled encounter with Senator Barack Obama.

Mr. Obama, who had spent three days in debate camp in Ohio, declared that he was "feeling pretty good" before arriving here for a brief inspection of the stage at Hofstra University. Mr. McCain spent the day in practice sessions for the debate, which many of his advisers see as his last best chance to change the trajectory of the campaign.

In the 20 days that have passed since their first debate of the general election, Mr. Obama's political advantages have expanded. His advisers said the debate, which was expected to focus solely on domestic issues, was also important for Mr. Obama.

"It's the last chance for folks to see these candidates side by side and take the measure of them," said David Axelrod, the chief strategist for Mr. Obama. "It's going to accelerate the decision-making process for people who are still pondering their choices. As we get around the corner here to the final sprint, I think it's going to be an important one."

Even as the Obama organization began reassigning some of its Michigan campaign staff to several battleground states, following Mr. McCain's withdrawal earlier this month, Mr. Axelrod dismissed suggestions that the campaign was feeling a strong air of confidence.

"We weren't discouraged by polls when they were not favorable for us," Mr. Axelrod told reporters aboard the campaign plane from Ohio to New York. "We're not seduced by polls now. We think this is going to be a battle every day until the end."

Mr. McCain, who was sequestered at a Hilton Garden Inn in nearby Plainview, remained out of sight throughout the day on Wednesday. But evidence of debate preparations abounded in the hotel lobby, where Brett O'Donnell, his debate coach, conferred with Rob Portman, the former Ohio Congressman who has played the role of Mr. Obama.

And the campaign's spin-room troops also began to muster, with former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts arriving in the early afternoon.

For their third debate, the senators will be seated in low swivel chairs around a wooden horseshoe-shaped table, along with the moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS News. It was that change - after two debates in which the candidates stood - that advisers said was the focus of much of Mr. Obama's debate preparations.

"It's less about preparing for the substance," Mr. Axelrod said. "The candidates are sitting at a table tonight, sitting in close proximity. It sounds silly, but those are the things you've got to consider as you prepare."

Mr. Obama, who is primarily aiming to simply hold his position in the race, was not expected to offer new policy proposals or say anything he has not addressed.

"We're not in the business of reinventing ourselves from debate to debate," Mr. Axelrod said. "That's not what Obama is going to do. He's been very consistent for 20 months. He'll be very consistent tonight."

As for their Republican rival, he added: "McCain 7.0? That may happen."

Some Republicans have urged the McCain campaign to inject a memorable moment into the evening by presenting a surprise proposal or statement. One possible example could be to challenge Mr. Obama to another debate.

Mr. Axelrod, in a briefing with reporters, dismissed the prospect of another debate.

"I think we're going to take advantage of this opportunity and then we'll see," he said. "At this point, we're in the last couple weeks of the campaign. We've got a schedule. He's got a schedule. At the end of tonight, people have already gotten a sense of the differences between the two of them."




By Jeff Zeleny, The New York Times, October 15, 2008

The Republican hopes to revive his campaign and gain voters' trust in his handling of the economy with a stimulus plan aimed largely at senior citizens.

BLUE BELL, PA. -- In an effort to seize the initiative in tackling the nation's financial troubles, John McCain on Tuesday outlined a $52.5-billion package of new tax breaks that he said would stimulate the economy and ease the money problems of many Americans.

Aiming his pitch largely at senior citizens who could be crucial swing voters in states with older populations such as Pennsylvania, McCain said he would lower the tax rate on their withdrawals from retirement accounts to 10% this year and next.

The Republican presidential nominee also proposed cutting the capital gains tax in half for two years, suspending taxes on unemployment benefits for workers making less than $100,000, and ordering the Treasury Department to guarantee 100% of Americans' savings for six months to calm fears of bank failures.

"If I am elected president, I will help to create jobs for Americans in the most effective way a president can do this -- with tax cuts that are directed specifically to create jobs and to protect your life savings," he told a cheering crowd of about 1,000 in the gymnasium of a community college here in the Philadelphia suburbs.

The new slate of proposals is an addendum to the Arizona senator's already expansive tax-cutting plans and his call to use $300 billion of the $700-billion rescue package to buy up bad mortgages and reset them with more favorable terms. It is part of McCain's effort to right his campaign and regain voters' trust in his handling of the economy, an area in which more voters favor his opponent, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

The Obama campaign immediately criticized the McCain plan, saying it failed to do "anything to help jump-start job growth for America's middle class."

Obama unveiled his own $60-billion plan Monday, which included a $3,000 tax credit to companies for each full-time worker they hire, a 90-day moratorium on home foreclosures, and a temporary relaxation of rules so that families can withdraw as much as $10,000 from their retirement savings without penalty.

Several financial analysts were critical of both packages, saying they are short-sighted approaches that may soften the recent financial hardships for some Americans but do little to address the underlying weakness in the economy.

"On the campaign trail they sound good -- like they are addressing real problems -- but they create their own problems," said Roberton Williams, principal research associate at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute.

"The practical effect of both Obama's and McCain's proposals to allow people to draw down from their retirement more easily without many tax consequences is that it discourages savings and encourages spending," said investment advisor Martin Weiss, president of the Florida-based Weiss Research Inc. and editor of MoneyandMarkets.com. "The fundamental problem we have right now is that people haven't saved enough -- they've been spending too much, or they've been taking too much risk with their investments. So these kind of actions don't solve the problem."

Touting his economic plan in Pennsylvania, McCain argued that lowering the maximum tax rate on long-term capital gains from 15% to 7.5% in 2009 and 2010 would "promote buying, raise asset values, help companies, and shore up the pension plans for workers and retirees."

That idea drew praise from Pat Toomey, president of the conservative Club for Growth, who said it was "definitely pro-growth."

But Bart Narter, an analyst at the Boston-based financial consulting firm Celent, said the plan to cut capital gains taxes would benefit the wealthy at a time when boosting everyone else's spending power would stimulate the economy more.

"The rich have seen, under the eight years of Bush, their tax rates drop," he said. "Dropping them still more, that's trickle-down, and doesn't seem appropriate in this environment."

Explaining his plan to lower tax rates on 401(k) and individual retirement account withdrawals to 10%, the lowest rate, McCain said that "retirees have suffered enough and need relief."

"The surest relief is to let them keep more of their own savings," McCain said in Blue Bell as the crowd applauded and a woman yelled out, "That's right!"

His campaign estimated that the proposal -- which would apply to the first $50,000 withdrawn in each of the two years -- would give about 9 million people more flexibility with their retirement funds.

But some experts said McCain's plan might encourage Americans to take money out of the stock market at a time when companies sorely need capital.

Williams said it wasn't clear that the capital gains proposal "makes any sense at all."

"It's not likely to induce new investment today," he said, "and it is likely to have the adverse effect of pulling money out."




By Maeve Reston, Los Angeles Times, October 15, 2008

The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. is heard denouncing the U.S. in the campaign ad, created by three conservative Californians.

The amount the PAC has raised could not be verified through Federal Election Commission filings. The group is not required to file its initial disclosure until later this month.

The ad opens with a shot of Democratic candidates standing for the national anthem, their hands over their hearts. Obama, however, has his hands clasped in front of him.

It ends with the narrator intoning, "And who can forget these hateful sermons from Obama's pastor of over 20 years." Wright is heard to say, "God damn America."

Some independent groups as well as Obama and McCain have aired attack ads during the campaign. McCain himself has sought to link Obama to William Ayers, a founder of the radical Weather Underground, but he has stopped short of using Wright in ads.

"Our contention in this election year is that for a Republican to win, you have to draw a contrast," Wierzbicki said.

Russo's GOP credentials date to President Reagan. Kaloogian won his Assembly seat when Republicans briefly took control of the lower house in 1994. He served until 2000, when he was forced to quit because of term limits.

Kaloogian is an attorney who has represented the Minutemen, the anti-illegal-immigration group. He and Russo helped with the 2003 effort to recall Gov. Gray Davis.

Kaloogian, who could not be reached for comment, ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004, and in 2006 he received 5% of the vote when he ran to replace Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who was imprisoned on bribery charges.

"Has Howard resurfaced?" asked Steve Peace, a Democrat who was part of the San Diego County delegation when Kaloogian served. "Howard has always been ambitious."




By Dan Morain, Los Angeles Times, October 15, 2008

With John McCain and Barack Obama prepping for tonight's matchup, the vice presidential nominees talk about the financial crisis fueling voter concerns.

WASHINGTON -- Vice presidential candidates Sarah Palin and Joe Biden grabbed center stage on the campaign trail today, focusing on economic issues during tough-talking stops in battleground states.

While presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama weighed their strategies for tonight's final debate in Hempstead, N.Y., the running mates took to the road in states that are becoming more important as the race winds to its conclusion Nov. 4.

On a day when a leading conservative newspaper in the state endorsed McCain, Palin campaigned in New Hampshire, which helped resurrect the presidential hopes of the Republican senator during the primaries. Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware was in the second day of a swing through Ohio. Republicans carried the state in 2004, but Democrats have since made inroads.

Biden will have made six stops in two days in eastern and central Ohio. He is scheduled to spend the rest of the week in New Mexico and Nevada, both considered key states that Democrats are hoping to capture.

At a stop this morning in Athens, Ohio, Biden, who will be 66 next month, played off Palin's gibe that she was in second grade when the Democrat was first elected to the Senate. Alaska Gov. Palin, 44, often uses the line to emphasize the difference in their ages.

"Well, I'm inclined to tell her that she was in sixth grade the last time John McCain had a good idea on the economy," Biden fired back today. "John McCain does not offer anything new. And that's why I think you're seeing, which is surprising a lot of people who know John McCain well, that's why you're seeing John's campaign become so erratic and so negative."

At her first campaign stop in Dover, N.H., Palin employed the folksiness that she has used ever since McCain picked her over better-known, male politicians.

"You're a lot like the people of Alaska," she said today. "We all love good moose hunting, I know that. We both so enjoy our great lands, with clean water, fresh air and abundant wildlife and good fishing. We love being outdoors."

But on a day when the stock markets continued their gyrations, Palin stayed on message, accusing Democratic presidential candidate Obama of favoring tax increases and big spending programs.

"Here in Dover, there's home to two kinds of people: the fine people of New Hampshire, and the fine people of Massachusetts who got sick of paying all those taxes," Palin said. "That should tell you something. The rest of the country is looking at this area and saying, 'What is it that New Hampshire wants?' "

Though it has a reputation for rugged individualism and backing Republicans, New Hampshire has become increasingly Democratic in recent years. Democratic challenger Jeanne Shaheen leads incumbent John Sununu in a race for one of the state's U.S. Senate seats, and Obama has a double-digit lead over McCain, according to state polls. Obama will visit New Hampshire on Thursday.

But first Obama will meet McCain on Long Island in their last debate. The candidates will sit at a table with moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS for the debate, scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. PDT.

McCain traveled to Long Island from Manhattan, where he had attended a fundraiser Tuesday night. Obama flew in from Ohio, where he had stayed for several days of debate preparations. Both visited the debate hall at Hofstra University.

Both have offered new economic plans, but part of tonight's suspense was whether the tone would become sharper. With polls showing Obama's lead growing, Republicans have increasingly said that the Illinois senator lacks character and have attacked his limited relations with William Ayers, an education professor who was one of the founders of the Weather Underground.

Top Obama strategist David Axelrod told reporters on the plane trip from Ohio that voters would be turned off if McCain went negative during tonight's debate.

"Sen. Obama's going to talk about the future of the country. He's going to talk about our economy, how we get people back to work, how we get incomes growing again. . . . That's what the American people want to hear," Axelrod said. "I don't think they're interested in a lot of finger-pointing and back and forth and personal, gratuitous attacks."




By Johanna Neuman and Michael Muskal, Los Angeles Times, October 15, 2008

The reader mail has been pouring in suggesting an overlooked option for Clinton -- Supreme Court Justice. Of the nine Justices, five are 70 years of age or older and a sixth -- David Souter -- is 69. Assuming there is at least one opening -- and likely more -- over the next four years under an Obama presidency, Clinton would almost certainly be in the mix for an appointment.

ORIGINAL POST

Hillary Rodham Clinton started this election cycle as not only the de facto Democratic presidential nominee but also the strong frontrunner to be sworn in as the next chief executive on Jan. 20, 2009.

She ends it as neither, and yet remains one of the most intriguing -- and oft-speculated about -- figures in American politics. At least once a week (sometimes more), someone asks us what's next for Clinton.

While the New York senator has been largely silent about her future plans, she opened up -- a bit -- this morning during an interview with "Fox and Friends."

Asked by host Gretchen Carlson whether she might run for president again, Clinton said the odds were "probably close to zero." On her interest in a run for Senate Majority Leader -- a job currently held by Nevada Sen. Harry Reid -- Clinton also predicted there was "probably zero" chance she would wind up in that job, adding: "I'm not seeking any other position except for being the best senator for New York that I can be."

While some observers -- including Fix friend (and the king of Nevada politics) Jon Ralston -- have sought to paint Clinton's comments about majority leader as a sign that she is plotting a bid, all of her remarks this morning seem relatively innocuous to our eye.

The truth of the matter is that Clinton spent the last two years (and, in truth, far longer than that) preparing to run and win the presidency. With that dream deferred -- and perhaps gone forever if Barack Obama is elected in the fall -- Clinton is clearly still trying to figure out what comes next.

"Senator Clinton is focused on being the best Senator she can be and looking forward to working with President Obama from the Senate on solving the challenges we face," said spokeswoman Kathleen Strand.

At 60 -- she will be 61 on Oct. 26 -- Clinton still has a number of productive political years in front of her. And, while she has been in and around national politics for many years, she is only in her eighth year of elected office -- a relative newbie when compared to some of her colleagues.

Although Clinton clearly has a future in politics, it's more difficult to see exactly what that future will be.

Let's run through her options:

* Governor: Interim Gov. David Paterson's (D) is seeking a full term in 2010 and Clinton has ruled out a primary challenge. Paterson may well have the Democratic field to himself as state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo could also pass on the contest.

* Senate Majority Leader: This seems, to our mind, the most far-fetched of the potential next steps for Clinton. Those who argue that she could walk into the position as the top ranking Democrat in the world's greatest deliberative body don't understand the Senate all that well. Reid is well liked and well respected by his colleagues and if he (with a major assist from Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Chuck Schumer) guides Democrats to 60 seats -- or close to it -- this fall, it's hard to imagine that his position wouldn't be strengthened.

* President: If Obama comes up short in three weeks time, the conventional wisdom is that Clinton would be a near-certain candidate in 2012. But, as an Obama victory looks more and more likely with each passing day, Clinton's shot at the presidency narrow. If Obama is elected and then runs for re-election, the next open Democratic presidential primary would be in 2016 -- when Clinton would be 69 years old. Is that too old to run? Absolutely not. (John McCain is 72.) But, it remains a real question whether Clinton would want to put herself through another presidential bid at that age.

* Senate: By far the most likely path for Clinton is to seek re-election to the Senate in 2012. By all accounts she enjoys her job in the Senate and her status as first among equals due to her national presence and fundraising ability. Given those factors, It's hard to imagine Clinton facing a serious challenge in 2012 or, for that matter, 2018.

What we know for sure is that Clinton will almost certainly remain a major figure in both the Democratic Party and national politics. We eagerly await her next move.

By Chris Cillizza, The Washington Post, October 14, 2008

Ex-candidate to be in audience

NEW YORK | She's the most important political figure not on the stage Wednesday in the final presidential debate, yet Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has been mentioned just once in the first three presidential and vice-presidential debates.

That could change with increasingly desperate Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain still looking for voters and with Mrs. Clinton in attendance as Mr. McCain and his Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, face off in Hempstead, N.Y.

"If there's an opportunity to raise the Clinton name, it will be in this debate," said Morris Reid, a Democratic communications strategist and former Commerce Department official under President Clinton.

Democrats have been thrilled with Mr. Obama's performance in the first two debates, which polls showed he won.

"There's no question Senator Obama has gained substantially in the last two to three weeks," said Sen. Bob Casey, Pennsylvania Democrat, saying the debates gave Mr. Obama a chance to demonstrate leadership "in the midst of an economic crisis."

Mr. McCain's supporters say he has raised the issues he wanted to raise, but has not broken through - a must for a candidate whose campaign acknowledges he is trailing by 6 percent in national polls.

A month ago, Mrs. Clinton's blue-collar supporters were considered the key to Mr. McCain's path to victory, and he was making active, public efforts to court them. That has receded, with the Republican mentioning her just once, in the first debate, praising her efforts to work on nuclear power. Mr. Obama has not mentioned her, nor did his running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden. Jr., or Mr. McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Mr. Reid said he is surprised Mr. McCain hasn't tried to do more with Mrs. Clinton's former supporters.

"McCain's team has been off of their footing and been off of their game, because they should have played that up. If you look back at the convention they were on their game and playing that up," he said.

That included ads Republicans ran during the Democrats' convention using Mrs. Clinton's own criticisms of Mr. Obama. The ads were released, symbolically, at 3 a.m. - a takeoff on Mrs. Clinton's own famous primary-season attack ad about whom voters trusted to answer a crisis phone call to the White House.

Mr. McCain's Clinton voter strategy fizzled along with Mrs. Palin, who initially seemed to have broad appeal but after weeks of brutal press coverage now seems more limited in voters she can attract.

A poll last month showed more than 40 percent of supporters of Mrs. Clinton weren't sold on backing Mr. Obama, though that percentage may have decreased as Mr. Obama has taken control of the race.

Still, Mrs. Clinton remains such a powerful figure that after Mr. McCain last week proposed a mortgage buyout plan in the debate his office leapt to tie it to a proposal Mrs. Clinton had made earlier - even though Mrs. Clinton's office rejected that notion, and Mr. McCain in the debate said he alone deserved credit.

The McCain campaign is keeping its debate strategy close to the vest, but spokesman Tucker Bounds said their overall campaign plan still incudes pursuing Mrs. Clinton's voters.

"In target states we're focusing a lot of activity at reaching out to Clinton supporters who may hesitate at supporting an inexperienced candidate like Barack Obama who just doesn't have a record of delivering what he's talked about on the campaign trail," Mr. Bounds said.

Fox News this week asked Mrs. Clinton whether Mr. McCain should follow her lead in taking "the gloves off" in her debates with Mr. Obama, but she said it's not clear what the Republican can do in this final showdown.

By Stephen Dinan, The Washington Times, October 15, 2008

While the two campaigns Tuesday accused one another of trying to steal or suppress votes, experts in election administration are focusing on the old standbys: Faulty machines, questionable voter lists, last-minute litigation.

The likely trouble spots, the experts say, include two familiar election reprobates: Ohio and Florida.

But there are also some new entrants, as the broad new playing field of the 2008 presidential election means more states are competitive, more citizens are participating, and the potential for Election-Day meltdowns like the notorious administrative collapse in Florida in 2000 has increased.

Many pointed, in particular, to Colorado as the possible source of a late night November 4, while others suggested that record turnout in states like Virginia and Georgia could challenge local election officials.

"There's still reason to be concerned in terms of what's going to take place in November," said Kimball Brace, whose firm, Election Data Services, advises local governments on election administration.

Brace cited everything from new machines in Cleveland and South Florida to the rise in absentee voting, many of which are counted by error-prone "optical scan" machines.

"The states that we're keeping an eye on [are] still Florida, but also Ohio, and also Colorado. Those three states are the problem ones from an election administration standpoint," he said.

The location of a Florida-2000-style Election-Day meltdown - with the attendant legal clashes, and lingering doubt - is impossible to predict. Such crises only come about in extremely tight elections, and require the confluence of that close vote with an administrative failure.

But despite eight years of federal and state efforts to create a more standardized, higher-tech national framework for election administration, most state votes will still be administered by county election boards whose competence and equipment vary wildly.

The campaigns, meanwhile, have already begun intense legal skirmishing in states like Ohio and Indiana over a new wave of early voting that began in September.

"In South Florida you've got areas that are going to be on their third separate voting technology in their third consecutive presidential election," said Doug Chapin, the editor of the non-partisan Electionline.org. "Ohio once again is in ground zero for policy changes and litigation."

Colorado, meanwhile, is still reeling from a true Election Day meltdown in 2006, a technical failure in Denver that may have swung at least one close race.

"It's squarely in both campaigns' sights," Chapin said. "They were one of the last states to finish their voter registration list. They had a very bad experience with Election Day voter centers in 2006. Lots of changes, lots."

Many states are taking pressure off their November 4 poll sites with a push for early voting, which has been embraced by both presidential campaigns.

"Mail-in voting helps to relieve a lot of the pressure," said Rich Coolidge, a spokesman for the Colorado secretary of state.

But Chapin said early voting comes with its own concerns: The error rate for optical-scan ballots transported to a central location for counting is sharply higher than those tallied on site, he said.

Florida, the state that has been synonymous with Election Day chaos since the 2000 recount, remains especially troubled despite intense local efforts to remedy its problems. A 2006 congressional election was marred by a dispute concerning more than 18,000 "undervotes" on ballots that registered votes for some offices but not for the congressional race itself. The losing campaign claimed that unusually high number of undervotes was due to a software glitch on "touch-screen" voting machines.

In preparation for the presidential election, 15 Florida counties complied with a new edict to abandon their touch-screen voting machines, and switched to optical scan machines, which leave a physical record of each voter's ballot in case of a recount. But this August in Palm Beach County, a close local primary where 3,400 ballots went uncounted - followed by a series of recounts - led officials to worry and re-test the optical scan voting machines.

"We feel pretty good about the machines," said Jennifer Krell Davis, the communications director for the Florida secretary of state, who said most had had a test-run in this year's presidential primaries.

But just in case, "All of the supervisors have been encouraged to plan as if there is definitely going to be a county-wide recount," she said.

Some observers say that the main problem may simply be delays, and depressed turnout, as voters navigate the new machines.

"To me it's the possibility of the long lines that's the issue," said Susan McManus a political science professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

In Ohio, where Democrats continue to complain that a Republican secretary of state tilted the rules toward George W. Bush in 2004, the shoe is now on the other foot. Ohio Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner's directives on early voting, voter identification, and interpreting voter registration forms have taken fire from Republicans.

"What we're worried about is the registration lists," said Terri Enns, a law professor at Ohio State University.

Ohio courts are currently considering whether Brunner is required to supply lists of questionable registrations to county election boards.

Democrats say the county boards could unfairly remove voters due to technical glitches and similar names; Republicans have charged that people who shouldn't be allowed to vote will.

The result of the wrangling may be more voters casting provisional ballots, which require laborious checking and and time-consuming counting.

"It could mean that we don't know the outcome of Election Day as soon," said Enns.

There have also been machine problems. A glitch in the touch-screen machines used during the primary has meant that Cuyahoga County spent September scrambling to test and ensure that new optical scan ballots work.

A spokesperson for Brunner didn't respond to a call seeking comment on the litigation or the preparations.

The newest state on the list of potential troublespots is shadowed by a disastrous election in Denver two years ago. Denver County responded by scrapping its machines and reverting to old-fashioned paper ballots and printed lists of voters this year, but critics are still worried about the state's capacity to manage the surge of registrations in a closely fought race.

"I'm afraid that there will be problems - so many counties are doing so many different things," said state Senator Ken Gordon, a Democrat whose narrow defeat in the 2006 race for Secretary of State is attributed by some to the chaos in Denver that year.

"We're expecting huge turnout, we have a long ballot - and this is where I think the problem will occur," he said, noting that 18 ballot measures may lead to long voting times and long lines at the polls.

While many counties will allow voters to use paper ballots if lines get long, two key counties in the Denver suburbs don't have that option, Gordon said.

"There will be glitches, but the Secretary has confidence in the state of Colorado and the county clerks who have been working diligently,"said Coolidge, the spokesman for the secretary of state, who said that the fact that 40 percent of voters had requested mail-in ballots would keep lines short on November 4.

Observers of election administration, however, say it's hard to predict where the next perfect electoral storm will land.

New Mexico, for instance, was the site of a long vote count in 2004, and is against hotly contested. Tova Wang, the vice president for research at Common Cause, cited Georgia as a state that might have trouble coping with the 2008 contest, criticizing their voter registration requirements.

A spokesman for the Georgia secreatary of state, Matt Carrothers, said his department had encouraged a massive surge in early voting, which will take pressure off the Election Day poll sites. And he said the state and counties had put in "an enormous amount of preparation" for the November 4 vote.

Wang also cited Virginia, which may be a crucial battleground this year, as a potential hot spot. Chris Ashby, a lawyer and longtime observer of Virginia elections, who supports McCain, said the "increased use of touch-screen voting machines" could lead to technical problems. But he said the state had passed a test in the high-turnout Democratic primary.

"It's impossible to make predictions," said Wang. "Probably what's going to happen is what nobody anticipates."

Another risk, said Susan McManus, the Florida professor: Even discussing potential problems could have an impact at the polls.

"What I've heard some people worry about is that too much discussion of a meltdown in Florida before it happens may keep at home the very people we're trying to bring into the system," she said.

By Avi Zenilman and Ben Smith, Politico, October 15, 2008

All of a sudden, this election is shaping up as a verdict on capitalism. The Obama campaign wanted it to be about George W. Bush. The McCain campaign wanted it to be about character. But instead, because the markets are shooting off in all directions like bullets from a dropped pistol, the stakes have suddenly been raised dramatically.

We are in the midst of the worst panic in history, it's true (because it is global). But as historian John Steele Gordon helpfully pointed on in the Wall Street Journal, panics are not unusual in American history. We've experienced them almost every 20 years since 1819. Gordon blames Thomas Jefferson, which is intriguing, but the point is that we've always emerged from these periodic paroxysms intact and our economy has continued to grow. Gordon believes more sensible banking policy would prevent future panics. But if we elect a crypto-socialist like Barack Obama and give him a bigger Democrat majority in the House and a filibuster-proof Senate, banking regulation may be the least of our troubles.

Well, you may say, "Win some, lose some. McCain isn't all that great anyway. Conservatives and Republicans will simply have to examine their consciences and come up with a winning strategy for next time." Perhaps. But there are a few problems with that sanguine approach.

In the first place, the Democrats can, with a super-majority, change the rules of the game. They can make the District of Columbia the 51st state with two new senators (guaranteed to be Democrats in perpetuity). They can reinstitute the so-called Fairness Doctrine that required radio stations to provide equal time to all political viewpoints. While the doctrine was enforced by the Federal Communications Commission, radio stations shied away from politics altogether. With the demise of the doctrine, conservative talk radio flourished. Liberal talk radio has never found much of an audience. Reviving the doctrine would kill one of the principal irritants to liberals and Democrats -- to say nothing of disemboweling the First Amendment.

To elect a super-majority of Democrats at a time of economic dislocation is to flirt with depression. Nearly all economists agree that two moves by the Hoover administration deepened and prolonged the panic of 1929 and turned it into the Great Depression. One was raising taxes and the other was imposing protectionist trade policies. Senator Obama proposes to do both of those things. Obama's smooth reassurance that only the top 5 percent of earners in America will see their taxes rise is a) almost certainly false, and b) besides the point. If the most productive members of society -- those who create the majority of jobs -- are taxed we will have fewer jobs. It's the old rule that if you tax something you get less of it. While Obama is killing jobs by taxing the productive, he proposes to "renegotiate" NAFTA and other trade deals thus putting the one bright corner of our economy, the export sector, in his crosshairs.

Obama has a million schemes to redistribute the wealth of the top 5 percent, (who by the way, already pay more than 50 percent of the taxes in our steeply progressive system). He wants to provide college for "anyone who wants to go and agrees to perform community service," and community development block grants, and childcare, and universal pre-school, and housing, and retirement and on and on. He seems determined that more people will ride in the wagon than pull it.

"Well," you may say, "if the Democrats drive the country into a deep recession, so much the worse for them. The Republicans will come back strong -- even with two senators from DC!" Perhaps. But in hard times people tend to ask for more government, not less, and this tumble started while George W. Bush was in the White House. Franklin Roosevelt continued to invoke the boogey man of Herbert Hoover long after the Depression was his own. In fact, Democrats used Hoover successfully for 40 more years!

Finally, there is a one-way ratchet in public policy. Liberal reforms are never undone. How hard have conservatives tried to eliminate the Department of Education or subsidies to public television? Would they have more success uncreating a new nationalized health care system?

An Obama/Pelosi/Reid regime -- if it were to get a filibuster-proof majority -- will certainly be able to shift the country's direction sharply to the left. The only question is -- would the shift be permanent?

By Mona Charen, Real Clear Politics, October 15, 2008

They wheeled George Wallace in backwards and then lifted him onto a seat behind his bullet-proof lectern. Confetti, thrown by little girls in straw hats, caught in his swept-back hair. Wallace waved to the crowd.

We were in Southie - South Boston - in February 1976, and Wallace was running for president. Five hundred people were packed into a small hall, and 300 more waited outside in the cold.

Wallace had been shot and paralyzed in Laurel, Md., during the presidential primary in 1972. A lot of people remember that. But not everyone remembers that he also won the Maryland primary that year, just like he won primaries in Michigan, Florida, Tennessee and North Carolina.

People also forget just how popular his segregationist message was. In 1964, when he had been governor of Alabama for less than a year, Wallace ran for president against Lyndon Johnson, a sitting president, and Wallace almost defeated him in Democratic primaries in Wisconsin, Indiana and Maryland.

Wallace's appeal became known as "white backlash." In 1968, Wallace ran for president as a third-party candidate and not only got 10 million votes, but he won Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Now, he was in Southie, where a few nights before, police and anti-busing protesters had clashed once again. Forty police officers and 20 protesters went to the hospital. Wallace was not cowed. He spoke for an hour in a strong, resonant voice.

"You will be the kings and queens of American politics!" he promised the crowd. "You! The working men and women will be the kings and queens, instead of the ultra-liberal left that has been getting everything all the time!"

(I am not depending on my memory here. I still have the yellowed, newsprint copy of my column from that night. It was one of the first columns I ever wrote.)

Wallace spoke out against busing, about media "propaganda" and ended with an ominous joke. I think it was a joke, anyway.

"There were two men in a bar," Wallace said. "Big guy and a little guy. The big guy hits the little guy with one big hand and says, 'That's karate. I got it from Korea.'

"Then the big guy picks up the little guy and throws him all around. He says to the little guy, 'That's judo. I got it from Japan.'

"So the little guy leaves the bar. He comes back 10 minutes later and the big guy is on the floor out cold.

"The little guy turns to the bartender. 'That was a tire iron,' he says. 'I got it from Sears, Roebuck.' "

The crowd roared.

After his speech, Wallace took some questions from reporters.

"My strategy?" Wallace said. "I put down the hay where the goats can get it." And then he laughed.

The name of George Wallace, who died in 1998, was invoked a few days ago by Rep. John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia and a civil rights leader. Lewis likened the rhetoric of Wallace to the rhetoric of John McCain and Sarah Palin.

"Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse," Lewis said. "George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Ala. As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all."

It was a shocking statement. (And it was meant to shock.) McCain was stunned. In August, at a public forum, McCain had named Lewis as one of the "wisest" people he knew and a person he would "rely on heavily" during his administration.

McCain issued a very tough statement in reply to Lewis' remarks, saying the comments were "beyond the pale" and that Lewis had made a "brazen and baseless attack" on McCain's character and the character of his supporters. McCain then called on Barack Obama to "repudiate these outrageous and divisive comments," even though Obama had not made them.

Obama obliged - in part. Bill Burton, spokesman for Obama, said: "Sen. Obama does not believe that John McCain or his policy criticism is in any way comparable to George Wallace or his segregationist policies. But John Lewis was right to condemn some of the hateful rhetoric that John McCain himself personally rebuked just last night, as well as the baseless and profoundly irresponsible charges from his own running mate that the Democratic nominee for president of the United States 'pals around with terrorists.' "

That latter reference was to '60s radical William Ayers, a line of attack the McCain campaign has been pursuing with vigor recently. What McCain has not been pursuing, to the consternation of some of his supporters, is an attack on Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

On the face of it, attacking Obama on Wright makes more sense than attacking him on Ayers. Obama was much closer to Wright and Wright's statements are much more recent than Ayers' actions.

But McCain is resisting. So far. He wants to get out of this presidential race without being accused of racism.

And that was the point of John Lewis' very strong statement. Lewis was issuing a warning to McCain.

He was saying: Don't go there. Don't even think about going there. Don't lay down the hay where the goats can get it.




By Roger Simon, Politico, October 15, 2008

TOLEDO, Ohio - Republican John McCain is looking to turnaround his fortunes in the final presidential debate with Democrat Barack Obama, a forum focused on pocketbook issues and domestic policy Wednesday night.

Both candidates released proposals this week designed to boost the economy as financial institutions wobble and voters feel the pinch of a faltering economy. The debate is at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., with the candidates seated at a table with moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS.

With the economic crisis fueling public unease, Obama has built leads nationally and in key states as the turmoil has returned the nation's focus to the policies of the unpopular President Bush. The burden now is on McCain to try to reverse his slide.

To that end, the Arizona senator took a new approach this week, positioning himself as a fighter for the American middle class and easing off his most direct attacks on Obama, an Illinois senator. McCain also took pains to separate himself from Bush.

"We cannot spend the next four years as we have spent much of the last eight: waiting for our luck to change. ... As president I intend to act, quickly and decisively," McCain said Tuesday in battleground Pennsylvania.

He announced a $52.5 billion economic plan Tuesday that calls for halving the tax rate on capital gains and reducing the tax on withdrawals from retirement accounts, among other measures. A day earlier, Obama unveiled a $60 billion proposal that includes an extension of unemployment benefits, a 90-day freeze on home foreclosures, penalty-free withdrawals from retirement funds and a $3,000 tax credit for each new job.

Both candidates call for doing away with the tax on unemployment benefits.

McCain has suggested that he is likely to bring up Obama's links to William Ayers, a radical during the Vietnam War era. Ayers was a member of the violent Weather Underground group but later became a university professor in Chicago and an expert on education. He and Obama both worked with some of the same charity foundations in Chicago, and Ayers hosted a reception for Obama when he first ran for the Illinois state Senate.

"We're always prepared for him to be hyperaggressive in his attacks," Obama campaign aide Robert Gibbs said of McCain. "I just think that doesn't work in an environment where so many people are concerned about the issues in front of them, not scare tactics they don't see as helping to pay the bills."

He said Obama will try to project an aura of calm leadership during the debate, which Gibbs said he achieved in two previous debates with McCain.

Obama's campaign also has taken some shots at McCain, increasingly labeling him "erratic" and "lurching" for solutions to the economic crisis. The words suggest unsteadiness by the four-term senator, who is 72.

Polls conducted after the earlier debates found that more people thought Obama had won both.

Meanwhile, McCain has had trouble finding support among swing voters. A recent Associated Press-GfK Poll showed independents about evenly divided between the two candidates, which is problematic for McCain because registered Democrats decisively outnumber registered Republicans this year.

By CHRISTOPHER WILLS, Associated Press, October 15, 2008

Sen. John McCain stepped into a ballroom at the Grand Hyatt in New York last night for what was likely to be his last fundraiser of the 2008 presidential campaign.

But while the event, which was expected to net $8 million to $10 million for the Republican National Committee, will provide a much-needed infusion for the GOP nominee, it will do little to whittle down the massive financial advantage that Sen. Barack Obama is using to dominate the electoral landscape.

Exactly how much money the Democrat has raised will not be clear until next week, when the two campaigns are required to report their September fundraising totals to the Federal Election Commission, although some strategists are openly speculating that he could approach $100 million for the month. That would shatter a record Obama set in August, when he brought in $67 million.

As the first presidential candidate to run a general-election campaign entirely with private donations, Obama is building a significant fundraising advantage and is now using that imbalance to swamp McCain on the airwaves and in building turnout operations coast to coast.

Voters in large swaths of Florida will see Obama television commercials dozens of times before catching sight of a McCain ad. A drive across Virginia will wend past 51 Obama field offices, compared with 19 for McCain. "It's given them resources to compete in multiple battlegrounds in all dimensions -- on the ground, through the mail, with media, everything," Chris Kofinis, a Democratic political strategist, said of Obama's fundraising success. "I think people will look back and say this was one of the most pivotal decisions in his campaign."

Since accepting $84 million in public funds, McCain has been barred from raising money for his own campaign. He has sought to keep pace with Obama's effort by holding RNC fundraisers like last night's event in New York. The party committee raised $66 million in September and has begun to expand its presence on television with ads featuring blistering attacks on Obama.

At the same time, the RNC is leading an effort to challenge the legality of millions of dollars in "un-itemized" donations that Obama has collected. Under FEC rules, his campaign does not have to document the names of donors who give less than $200.

The RNC is keeping a growing list of phony donors and unexplained credit card charges that it believes point to more than a simple inability by the Obama team to keep track of all the money flowing in. Steve and Rachel Larman, a Missouri couple who vote Republican, told local reporters that they found a $2,300 charge for a donation to the Obama campaign on their credit card statement that they could not explain. Patricia Phillips, a Virginia Republican, had a similar experience, she said, when she opened her MasterCard statement last month to discover a $5 charge from the Obama campaign. "I thought, 'Oh, my! This is not from me,' " she said.

Other donations have arrived under such obviously bogus names as Edrty Eddty and Es Esh.

Experts called it a common problem on an uncommon scale -- while there have always been donors who, for a host of reasons, tried to circumvent federal election rules and give campaign contributions without providing their real names, they are more frequent with Obama because of the volume of donations his campaign is processing.

"I'm sure they have a system in place to screen out improper donations," said Scott Thomas, a former FEC chairman. "Their problem is they have such a massive donor base and so many of these coming in that it's hard to keep up."

Obama campaign aides said they have followed a policy of sending immediate refunds to people who contact the campaign to say that they have been charged for a contribution they did not make. "While no organization is protected from Internet fraud, we have taken every available step to root out improper contributions, updating our systems when necessary," said Ben LaBolt, a campaign spokesman.

So far, the complaints have not prompted FEC action. And Obama's controversial decision to forgo public funding and instead raise money on his own is paying huge dividends.

The most noticeable evidence of his spending advantage has been on the airwaves, where, in some states, Obama been running seven or eight times as many commercials as McCain. Evan Tracey, an analyst with the Campaign Media Analysis Group, called the disparity stunning.

"McCain's in a shouting match with a guy holding a bullhorn," Tracey said.

Obama booked nearly $4 million in ads in Virginia last week, compared with $487,149 spent there by McCain. He held a similar spending edge in almost every battleground state, Tracey said, enabling him to respond to negative ads by McCain while keeping a regular cycle of positive ads running as well.

Obama has so much money available that he is continuing to push into advertising venues rarely, if ever, visited by political candidates. He has plans for a prime-time infomercial -- the first of its type since Ross Perot used the format 16 years ago. And Advertising Age reported yesterday that an Obama "in-game advertisement" appeared in the EA video game Burnout Paradise. The racing game features a Barack Obama billboard announcing that early voting has begun and references VoteForChange.com, a site paid for by the Obama campaign.

Republican political strategists have acknowledged the Obama advantage, but they argue that if a financial edge is all it takes to win an election, McCain would not be the nominee. (He was massively outspent by former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani during the primaries.)

The biggest difficulty for McCain, said Republican political consultant Kevin Madden, is that he has been forced to play defense in states -- such as North Carolina and Indiana -- where he should not be spending money at all at this point.

"The campaign with the money can pin the other campaign down in places where they don't want to be," Madden said.

One result of Obama's decision to opt out of the public financing system is that his campaign accounts will not automatically be subject to an audit after the election, as is standard with campaigns financed from the U.S. Treasury.

Last week, RNC lawyers filed an FEC complaint that they hope will prompt an investigation and audit. The complaint said the RNC believes that the Obama campaign "has accepted prohibited foreign national contributions and knowingly done so through its failure to reasonably investigate contributions originating abroad."

Obama aides dispute this, saying they have bent over backward trying to root out illegal contributions. But that task, they said, has been made difficult by the sheer volume of contributions, many in increments of $5 and $10.

The campaign has taken a number of steps to intercept illegal contributions, whether they are from people using fake names or from donors who are not U.S. citizens, Obama aides said. The campaign has initiated procedures to flag questionable contributions and follow up with donors to determine whether those contributions are lawful or should be refunded.

"Every campaign faces the challenge of screening and reviewing its contributions," LaBolt said. "And we have been aggressive about taking every available step to make sure our contributions are appropriate, updating our systems when necessary."

By Matthew Mosk, The Washington Post, October 15, 2008

With so much attention focused on the hot Illinois guy's lead in the presidential polls and tomorrow night's final debate on that glacial moraine called Long Island, Sen. Hillary Clinton slipped one by most of us this morning.

In two TV interviews, both taped yesterday and both billed today as "Exclusive" (it's TV, what can we say?), she talked about her political future. Here's what we learned:

There is "zero" chance of her accepting a Supreme Court seat, she told Fox News. "I have no interest in that."

Ah, but what about another White House run someday? Gotta be tempting. To come so close this time. What are the chances of that? "Probably close to zero."

What??!! A Clinton not angling for the White House? What's it been, like 20 years? Wait, how old is Chelsea? (28)

"There's an old saying," Clinton added. "Bloom where you're planted."

Must be a new old saying 'cause it sure wasn't operative for the 18 months before Sen. Clinton surrendered to Barack Obama last June after investing, what, $13.1 million of her family's easily-earned cash and many times that amount in other people's money in her unsuccessful presidential campaign.

"I'm not seeking any other position than to be the best senator from New York that I can be," she also said.

To be honest, while you're out there so often on the campaign trail living up to your promise to work for the Democratic nominee's election, whoever it might be, is probably not the best time to announce you're pondering a presidential campaign in 2012 if this freshman senator blows it in the last three weeks, or waiting until 2016 if he doesn't.

But "probably close to zero" probably leaves about as close to zero wiggle room as is possible in a modern politician's vocabulary archived on the Internet.

But what about Senate majority leader, a job that Nevada's grumpy Harry Reid holds and has said he intends to keep holding because, to be very honest, there's not much to do back home? And it's so sandy there.

"Oh," Clinton replied, "probably zero."

She said instead she's really looking forward to being a senator during an Obama administration.

Yeh, and then she offered the Fox News reporter a chance to buy the Brooklyn Bridge.

By Andrew Malcolm, Los Angeles Times, October 14, 2008

Are we witnessing the reemergence of the far right as a power in American politics? Has John McCain, inadvertently perhaps, become the midwife of a new movement built around fear, xenophobia, racism and anger?

McCain has clearly become uneasy with some of the forces that have gathered around him. He has begun to insist, against the sometimes loud protests from his crowds, that Barack Obama is, among other things, a "decent person."

Yet McCain's own campaign is playing with powerful extremist themes to denigrate Obama. When his running mate, Sarah Palin, first brought up Obama's association with 1960s radical Bill Ayers, who has become a centerpiece of McCain's attacks, she accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists." What other "terrorists" was she thinking about?

Since Obama was a child when Ayers was part of the Weather Underground, and since even Republicans have served on boards with Ayers, this is classic guilt by association.

Ayers has been dragged into this campaign because there is a deep frustration on the right with Obama's enthusiasm for shutting down the culture wars of the 1960s.

Precisely because Obama is not a baby boomer, he carries none of that generation's scars. Most Americans (including most boomers) are weary of living in the past and reprising the 1960s every four years.

Yet culture war politics is relatively mild compared with the far-right appeals that are emerging this year. It is as if McCain's loyalists overshot the '60s and went back to the '50s or even the '30s.

What we are witnessing is the mainstreaming of the far right, a phenomenon that began to take shape with some of the earliest attacks on Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

False claims that Obama is Muslim, that he trained to overthrow the government and that he was educated in Wahhabi schools are a standard part of the political discussion. These fake stories come from voices on the ultra right that have dabbled in other forms of conspiracy, including classic anti-Semitism. McCain and his campaign do not pick up the most extreme charges. They just fan the flames by suggesting that voters don't really know who Obama is, hinting at a sinister back story without filling in the details.

McCain cannot be blamed for all of the crazies who see in Obama a chance to earn fame and fortune by concocting lies about him. And yes, we should defend the speech rights even of those whose views we find abhorrent.

But the angry McCain-Palin crowds, and particularly those who threaten violence or shout racist epithets, should be a wake-up call to McCain. The dark hints about Obama that McCain's campaign is dropping dovetail too nicely with the nasty trash floating around the Internet and the airwaves.

We are in the midst of what could become the worst economic downturn in decades. The last thing we need is a campaign that strengthens fanaticism, tarnishes the authority of the next president and whips up the worst kinds of prejudice. This works both ways: Obama should not be delegitimized if he wins, and McCain should not want to win in a way that would undermine his own capacity to lead.

When Christopher Buckley, a novelist and former speechwriter for George H.W. Bush, announced last week that he would vote for Obama (his first vote ever for a Democrat), he referred to words once spoken to him by his late father. "You know," the conservative hero William F. Buckley Jr. said, "I've spent my entire lifetime separating the right from the kooks."

McCain has an obligation, to his own legacy and the country he has served, to separate himself and his campaign from the kooks. Extremism in defense of liberty may be no vice, but extremism in pursuit of the presidency is as dysfunctional as it is degrading.

By E.J. Dionne Jr., The Washington Post, October 15, 2008

He's fighting to win, but his campaign and other Republicans can't agree on the best tactics to use against Barack Obama.

Neither Ensign nor Winston ruled out a McCain victory. But their unusually open criticism reflected a nervousness that is growing within party ranks as McCain seemingly shifts strategies on almost a daily basis.

He spent several days last week criticizing Obama's relationship with Ayers (though he never brought up the matter in last Tuesday night's debate). McCain then abruptly halted the criticism and even defended his Democratic rival when some of his own supporters responded with slurs.

Campaigning Monday in Virginia and North Carolina, states Republicans once took for granted, McCain made no mention of Ayers at his rallies and largely avoided the character questions he had raised previously. Instead, he returned to the promise of change -- a major theme of last month's successful GOP convention -- and distanced himself not so subtly from the Bush administration.

"We cannot spend the next four years as we have spent much of the last eight," McCain told a boisterous crowd of about 12,000 supporters in Virginia Beach. "The hour is late. Our troubles are getting worse. Our enemies watch. We have to act immediately. We have to change direction now."

McCain acknowledged his difficult position. Surveys show Obama holding a solid lead in national polls and ahead in enough states to easily capture the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House, assuming nothing changes before Nov. 4. McCain, who has staged repeated comebacks in the presidential race, embraced the familiar role of underdog, saying he came from a long line of scrappers.

"Sen. Obama is measuring the drapes and planning with Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi and Sen. [Harry] Reid to raise taxes, increase spending, take away your right to vote by secret ballot in labor elections and concede defeat in Iraq," McCain said, offering his slant on the Illinois senator's positions. "But you know what they forgot? They forgot to let you decide. My friends, we've got them just where we want them."

Many Republicans, however, seem less sanguine. "I don't want to be the first Republican out there to say it's a disaster, but it's a . . . disaster," said a GOP strategist in a key state both sides are targeting. He did not want to be identified criticizing the party's nominee. "I don't see the issue that's going to turn this race around, unless there's a scandal, a terrorist act -- almost an act of God."

Others were more optimistic. "Frankly, he's running a better campaign in this environment under difficult circumstances than we have any right to expect," said Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who heads the GOP's congressional campaign committee. Cole suggested that there was plenty of time for McCain to turn the race around: "I think it's a mistake for our members to disconnect from McCain."

But even as they held out hope for a reversal of fortunes, Republicans differed over how best to make it happen, reflecting a dissonance within party ranks.

Todd Harris, a spokesman for McCain's 2000 presidential run, said there was nothing wrong with McCain talking about Ayers -- who took part in a domestic bombing campaign as co-founder of the Weather Underground -- and Wright, so long as he kept his main focus on the economy. "I think that the Ayers stuff is important in that it's illustrative of who Obama is," said Harris, adding that Wright's incendiary comments about race and other matters make him a legitimate topic.

But Don Sipple, a GOP strategist sitting out the campaign, said the attacks on Obama for his ties to Ayers had been "trite and petty" and had diminished McCain. "Instead of the statesman he seemed at one time, he's seeming like a desperate politician who's throwing out stuff that is so irrelevant to the American people at this stage," Sipple said.

Even when he pivots to the economy, McCain has seemed less than sure-footed, veering between a laissez-faire approach and a call for more government intervention.

On Sunday, one of McCain's closest advisors, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said McCain was considering a "very comprehensive" plan that might include cutting the tax rates for capital gains and dividends to help "jump-start" the economy. But within hours, the campaign backed away from that.

After Obama delivered a speech on the economy Monday, McCain aides said the Arizona senator would lay out his own set of economic proposals Tuesday.

Pressed for details, McCain's chief economic advisor, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said McCain would "both sketch out a vision that has been in the process of being fully depicted since the beginning of the campaign and also [offer] new specific measures."

McCain was no more enlightening when asked about his plan on CNN. "I'll let you know tomorrow," he said.




By Mark Z. Barabak and Maeve Reston, Los Angeles Times, October 14, 2008

As election day nears, Barack Obama leads John McCain 50% to 41%. Only 10% say the country is on the right track. Still, the Democrat has not broken the race open.

With fear about the economy driving voters his way, Barack Obama has broadened his lead over John McCain and strengthened his hold on key groups both candidates are courting, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.

Three weeks before election day, Obama leads McCain 50% to 41% among voters likely to cast ballots on Nov. 4. In September, the Illinois Democrat had a narrower 49%-45% lead.

In the weeks between the two polls, the nation's economy teetered toward collapse, and the poll demonstrated the shattering effect of that upheaval on the nation's voters. Only 10% now feel the country is heading in the right direction -- the lowest figure since the poll began asking the question in 1991. Eighty-four percent said the country is on the wrong track.

Nearly 7 in 10 cited the economy as the most important issue for the presidential candidates to solve -- the figure was 4 in 10 in September -- and Obama was the clear beneficiary. Voters saw him as more trustworthy than McCain on the economy and better able to handle a financial crisis.

Obama improved sharply over the last month among independent voters, a much-desired bloc. McCain carried them by a 15-point margin in September; in this poll, Obama led among that group by five points. Men, too, moved toward Obama, with the traditionally Republican-leaning group now in his camp. He also maintained his lead among female voters.

"He's got more in mind of what the country needs right now, and I just think he would be a better leader than McCain," said Betty May, a resident of Ironton in hard-fought southern Ohio. May, a Democrat, spoke in a follow-up interview.

For McCain, there were slight improvements over the last month among older voters and white working-class voters, and he has maintained an edge over Obama on Iraq and foreign affairs. But his overall level of support declined, in part because his dramatic decision to vault a little-known Alaska governor onto the ticket appears to have backfired.

More than a quarter of voters said they were less likely to vote for McCain because Sarah Palin was his running mate, somewhat more than the 22% who said she made them more likely to vote for McCain. In September, however, Palin drew more voters in than she put off.

Almost half of voters said she was not qualified to be president, while 43% said she was. In contrast, 76% said Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden was qualified. Palin is the least popular of the four campaign principals, with 43% of voters expressing a "positive" impression of her.

But she has accomplished one of the ticket's goals -- engaging a Republican base that is decidedly less enthusiastic, overall, than the Democratic one. A third of conservatives, and nearly half of Republicans, said they were more likely to vote for McCain with Palin as his running mate.

Even though the election has been remarkably volatile -- and polls are not predictions -- the survey demonstrated the predicament in which McCain finds himself as election day nears: Much of his recent efforts have been aimed at trying to shift the focus from the economy to questions he has raised about Obama's character. But the nation's financial difficulties are swamping all other issues. And tactics that McCain might employ to fuel Republican enthusiasm, such as the Palin selection, have served to alienate other key groups.

McCain also remains tethered to an unpopular president. Obama has repeatedly pressed the argument that the Republican's first term would resemble George W. Bush's third. Americans generally agreed -- 52% said McCain would continue Bush's policies, to 42% who said he would not.

Still, Obama has not broken the race open, largely because of voters like independent Walter Eggers of Perry, Mich., near Lansing. The retired auto worker said he would vote for McCain because he distrusted Obama's economic policies and his background. "It's either being shot in the head or shot in the foot," he said of the choice.

But more than anything, he is enraged about the Wall Street and mortgage company titans who, to his mind, have left everyday Americans to pay off excesses as they worry over their own futures.

"Evidently, I've been a fool for playing by the rules all my life," he said. "Because the people who cheat, lie and steal have been living high on the hog, and now I have to pay for it."

From Oct. 10 to 13, the Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll interviewed 1,543 adults, including 1,446 registered voters, of them 1,030 deemed likely to vote. The margin of sampling error for the poll, conducted under the direction of Susan Pinkus, was three percentage points in either direction.




By Cathleen Decker, Los Angeles Times, October 14, 2008

Economy Remains Top Voter Concern

Barack Obama widened his lead considerably over John McCain in four key battleground states during the past three weeks, providing further evidence that the economic crisis has greatly enhanced the Democrat's advantage with just 21 days left before Election Day.

Obama holds double-digit margins over McCain in Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin and carries a nine-point advantage over his Republican rival in Colorado, according to polling conducted by Quinnipiac University for washingtonpost.com and the Wall Street Journal.

Obama's ascendancy in these key states mirrors his growing lead in national polling. The latest Washington Post/ABC News survey put Obama at 53 percent to McCain's 43 percent, while the daily Gallup tracking poll showed Obama holding a similar lead of 51 percent to 41 percent on Monday.

The latest polling confirms that the financial crisis and stock market crash that has gripped Wall Street and Washington over the past month has increased the importance of economic matters to voters -- particularly in the industrial Midwest -- and accrued almost exclusively to Obama's benefit.

In Michigan, more than six in ten voters said the economy was the "single most important issue" in deciding their vote. Among likely voters, Obama increased his lead over McCain from a four-point edge in a late September Quinnipiac poll to a whopping 16-point lead in the most recent survey.

Obama's 54 percent to 38 percent lead in Michigan helps to explain why McCain decided to pull down his ads and pull out the majority of his campaign staff from the Wolverine State last week -- choosing to fight, instead, in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Maine.

The data was similar in Wisconsin and Minnesota where Obama gained 10 points and nine points, respectively, in his margin over McCain since the September Quinnipiac poll; the Illinois senator led McCain in Wisconsin 54 percent to 37 percent, and held a 51 percent to 40 percent edge in Minnesota.

In both states, 58 percent of the sample cited the economy as the leading issue affecting their vote -- nearly six times as many as named any other issue. The Wisconsin number represents a significant shift from the seven-point advantage the Quinnipiac poll showed for Obama in the Badger State in the third week of September. It also stands in contrast to other recent poll data, including a CNN/Time poll done earlier this month, that showed Obama leading 51 percent to 46 percent.

The surveys also indicate that Obama is significantly more trusted on economic issues than McCain. In Wisconsin, 53 percent said Obama "better understands the economy" while just 32 percent chose McCain. The numbers were not much better in Michigan (52 percent Obama/35 percent McCain), Minnesota (49/34) or Colorado (51/39).

A majority of voters in each state said McCain had not shown "effective leadership" in dealing with the financial meltdown. Throughout the past several weeks, McCain has condemned financial executives on Wall Street, offered a few proposed remedies for the crisis, and briefly suspended his campaign to return to Washington to take part in White House talks over a $700 billion rescue plan.

McCain also is being badly hamstrung by a national political environment tipped heavily against his party. Just one in four voters in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin approve of the job President Bush is doing -- a number reflected in the Post/ABC News national poll where just 23 percent of voters voiced approval for Bush's performance.

For all of the media focus on the presidential debates -- the third and last of which will be held tomorrow at Hofstra University in New York -- the encounters seem to have had little effect in persuading voters.

In each of the four states, between 71 percent and 75 percent of voters said they watched the second presidential debate in Nashville, Tenn., last Tuesday night. And yet, in each of the four states more than eight in ten voters said the debate did not change their vote.

Nearly half of the voters in each state thought Obama had done a better job in the Nashville debate while less than one in five voters said McCain had won the debate.

The Republican problems in these four battleground states weren't limited to the top of the ticket.

In Colorado's open seat Senate race, Democratic Rep. Mark Udall holds a commanding 54 percent to 40 percent lead over former Republican Rep. Bob Schaffer. In Minnesota, Sen. Norm Coleman (R) has slipped into a dead heat with his Democratic opponent Al Franken; Franken stands at 38 percent to 36 percent for Coleman and 18 percent for independent candidate Dean Barkley.

The polls were conducted from Oct. 8-12. The sample sizes were: 1,019 likely voters in Minnesota, 1,201 likely voters in Wisconsin, 1,088 likely voters in Colorado and 1,043 likely voters in Michigan. Each has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

By Chris Cillizza, The Washington Post, October 14, 2008

The Democrat had more than $77 million in the bank on Aug. 31, records show, and is on pace to raise at least $100 million more by election day.

Barack Obama's recent surge in the presidential race has been credited to a rise in voters' concerns about their money. It helps that Obama himself has a lot of money.

Spurning federal funds -- and the spending restrictions that go with them -- the Democratic nominee has racked up an enormous cash advantage that he is using to dominate the television airwaves.

Obama's financial edge results from his decision to become the first candidate to forgo public funding since the federal system was adopted in 1976 after the Watergate scandal. McCain accepted $84.1 million from Washington, and that is all he can spend. But the Illinois senator rejected the taxpayer money, betting he could raise a lot more. And he has.

Obama had more than $77 million in the bank on Aug. 31, the close of the last reporting period, and is on a pace to raise at least $100 million more by election day. That would mean a cash advantage over McCain of better than 2 to 1.

In a sign of his flush finances, Obama plans a half-hour prime-time broadcast on CBS and NBC on Oct. 29, the first time in years that a presidential candidate has made such a substantial investment in national TV. Ross Perot, a billionaire who bankrolled much of his own campaign, drew an audience of 26 million to his 1992 simulcast on ABC and CBS.

Obama's money advantage adds to the already tough climb McCain faces in the final three weeks of the race. Polls have shown momentum shifting strongly in the Democrat's direction as the economic crisis has come to dominate the campaign. McCain has another chance -- perhaps his last, best one -- to reverse the direction of the race when the two men meet in their third and final debate Wednesday in New York.

At the start of the presidential campaign, common wisdom was that a candidate would need to raise $100 million to compete seriously in the early primaries. Obama, with his Internet-fueled fundraising machine, easily shattered that mark on the way to upsetting Democratic rival New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In all, Obama has raised $454 million through August; he will easily top $500 million by election day. McCain collected $210 million in coming from behind to win the GOP nomination.

Early last year, Obama indicated a willingness to accept federal funding and abide by spending restrictions for the fall campaign. As late as spring, an Obama spokesman said the Democrat would "aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election."

But there was no such effort and Obama announced in June that he would opt out of public funding. Obama took a risk that his image as a reformer would suffer. McCain criticized the move and his aides have periodically raised the issue. But it has never gained much political traction.

Garry South, who managed the 2002 reelection bid of former California Gov. Gray Davis, is not surprised. Davis collected a then-record $78 million and was attacked throughout the campaign for his prodigious fundraising.

"Voters don't care," South said. "They're cynical and jaded about political money in any respect and every respect. And for one politician to say, 'I'm holier than thou,' to another politician never works."

Most of the money Obama raised is being spent on TV ads, the most expensive part of a campaign and one of the most crucial.

From Sept. 28 through Oct. 4, Obama outspent McCain by more than 3 to 1 on TV ads in Florida and Virginia, 2 to 1 in New Hampshire and Missouri and 3 to 2 in Nevada, according to data compiled by the Wisconsin Advertising Project, which independently monitors spending on campaign commercials.

The study found that Obama spent just less than $17.5 million on TV ads that week, compared with just less than $11 million by McCain and the Republican National Committee. The RNC, which can raise and spend unlimited sums, has been supplementing McCain's TV ad budget in several states. The committee raised a record $66 million in September.

But the advertising disparity is even larger than those figures indicate. If the Republican Party pays for half the cost of a McCain ad, then half the content is required to be general in nature, promoting, say, the GOP or its members of Congress. So, even in those states where McCain has equivalent dollars, "we don't have equivalent time," said one Republican ad maker who did not want to be identified discussing the challenges facing the party's nominee.

Obama has also benefited more than McCain has from spending by supporters who are advertising on the candidates' behalf.

Since Labor Day, the traditional start of the fall campaign, independent groups have spent nearly $15.8 million to support Obama, or oppose McCain, more than double the $5.4 million spent on behalf of McCain, according to Federal Election Commission records.

The largest amount of pro-Obama spending has come from organized labor, led by the Service Employees International Union, which has spent $7.7 million since Labor Day. Other unions have pushed organized labor's pro-Obama expenditures to more than $10 million, all of it in battleground states including Ohio, Wisconsin and Missouri.

Other than the Republican Party -- which has spent almost $10 million since Sept. 1 -- the biggest group promoting McCain has been the National Rifle Assn., which has spent $3.2 million to help elect the Arizona senator.




By Mark Z. Barabak and Dan Morain, Los Angeles Times, October 13, 2008

On the eve of the final 2008 presidential debate, the Democratic ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden holds an eight-point lead among 1,446 registered voters and a nine-point lead among 1,030 likely voters, according to a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg News poll.

Still no majority for anyone though.

It's 49-41 over John McCain-Sarah Palin among registered voters and 50-41 among likely voters.

The economy by far is the dominant factor on voters' minds, but if there was an international crisis, they'd trust McCain more. Gov. Palin's support-distaste is almost a wash.

Past debates have generally proven to be game-changers only when one side makes a huge gaffe, like Gerald Ford over Poland, although Walter Mondale later said he knew he'd lost in 1984 when Pres. Ronald Reagan made his famous remark about not holding his opponent's youth against him.

McCain's other hope to change the momentum is for ...

... some kind of foreign policy challenge to knock the public debate subject off the economy and onto foreign policy experience.

The new poll results also show voters' positions hardening, like cement, with 89% of both registered and likely voters "certain" of their vote, along with 96% of Republicans and 95% of Democrats.

When third-party candidates such as Bob Barr and Ralph Nader are added to the polling mix, the results change little. It's 47-39 Obama over McCain among registered voters and 48-39 among likely voters, with Nader capturing a non-decisive 3% of vote and Barr only 1%.

As we've seen all campaign, the Democrat holds an enthusiasm advantage among his party's supporters with 92% of Democrats enthusiastic about Obama and 68% very enthusiastic vs. 72% of Republicans enthusiastic over their standard bearer and 35% very enthusiastic.

Asked about their congressional party voting inclinations at this time, registered voters went 45-39 Democrat.

No surprise here: On the dominant issue it's 69% economy across the board with the No. 2 issue, the Iraq war, far behind at 27% for Democrats and 18% for Republicans. Healthcare, No. 3, is 19% among Democrats and 4% among GOP voters.

On positive feelings toward the top candidates, it's a little closer: Obama gets 53% of registered voters vs McCain's 47%.

And even closer on negative feelings, 34% for Obama and 39% McCain.

Among registered voters, they're about evenly divided in positive-negative feelings over Gov. Palin, 43-42.

But, interestingly, despite all the explosive publicity and negative counterattacks on her, the governor's impact on voting preferences is almost even; 27% say they're less likely to vote for McCain with her and 22% more likely.

Does Obama have the right experience to become president? Narrowly, registered voters now say yes, 49-42.

McCain is way ahead in that category among registered voters; 80% say yes and only 14% say no.

Twenty-three percent of respondents still feel they do not know enough about Obama, while only 15% say that about McCain.

Registered voters feel McCain has the best chance of achieving success in Iraq (49-38), while Obama gets the nod on the economy (48-36). McCain wins (48-39) in handling an international crisis while Obama "cares more about people like you" (47-31).

Obama's attack that McCain would be a continuation of President Bush's policies seems to be sticking, 52% now agree vs. 42% disagree.

Eight percent of registered voters say Obama's race gives them reservations about voting for him. Ninety percent say it's not an issue.

By Andrew Malcolm, Los Angeles Times, October 14, 2008

The trio appeal to blue-collar voters who didn't support Barack Obama in the primary, warning of more hardship for the middle class if John McCain is elected.

If Sunday's event was intended to build support for Obama and Biden in a key constituency, it sometimes threatened to turn into a celebration of the Clintons.

Sen. Clinton, an Illinois native who spent summers at a family home at Pennsylvania's Lake Winola, and President Clinton were greeted with resounding cheers.

The Clintons will campaign in key battleground states in the three weeks before election day. After a brief speech, President Clinton left for a campaign event in Virginia.

Sen. Clinton said she had been "crisscrossing the country" to campaign for Obama and Biden.

"This election is too important to sit on the sidelines," she said. "I haven't spent 35 years fighting in the trenches . . . to see another Republican in the White House squander the promise to our nation."





By John L. Micek, Allentown Morning Call, October 13, 2008

An L.A. Times/Bloomberg survey finds that nearly three-quarters of Americans say the lack of regulation is partly responsible for the current financial and housing crisis.

The findings underscore deep concern in the nation's economy.

Nine out of 10 polled said the economy was doing badly. More than three-quarters said the country was facing a crisis, and more than half were worried the downturn would threaten their household's financial security.

Questions about what role government should play in preventing the crisis have moved to the forefront three weeks before Americans pick their new president and as the details of a $700-billion federal rescue plan to shore up the nation's financial system begin to unfold.

At least 70% of respondents in each of a wide range of demographic categories blame the absence of more regulation for the nation's economic troubles.

When asked to choose which of six economic issues was most important for Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama to address in their campaigns, bolstering regulation was most frequently cited -- roughly twice as often as taxes, housing foreclosures and unemployment.

Overall, 45% of respondents said there was too little regulation in business; 27% said there was too much.

This was not always the case.

L.A. Times polls conducted in 1991 and 1981 -- both times of economic unease -- found that only 29% and 18%, respectively, thought there was too little regulation of business and industry.

But the scope of the recent turmoil and decades of deregulation in Washington has likely contributed to reversing those attitudes.

"People are now seeing what happens when nothing is done," said Times Poll Director Susan Pinkus.

The survey of 1,543 adults was taken between Friday and Monday, Oct. 10 through 13, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Among those who called for new regulations were 58% of Democrats and 24% of Republicans, along with 48% of those who live in households earning $100,000 or more a year and 48% of those with household incomes of $40,000 or less a year.

Asked if the government should provide assistance to homeowners facing foreclosure, 61% said they were in favor and 27% opposed such a measure. Only three months ago, a Times/Bloomberg poll found 55% supported government assistance and 36% opposed it.

"This never should have happened," said Rita Lopez, 73, a retiree in Denver. "A little more regulation and this wouldn't have been such a big thing."

The financial maelstrom could have been prevented, Lopez said, with a little common sense on the part of home buyers and lawmakers.

Lopez, who grew up one of six children in rural Nebraska, said she learned early in life to live within her means. She and her husband have started buying necessities like toilet paper in bulk to save money. She's even resisted buying her favorite margarine at the grocery store after its price rose 50 cents.

Now Lopez's daughter is trying to sell her home in Denver, but she's finding the task difficult in a depressed real estate market. The dour economic outlook has raised anxiety in the Lopez family, as it has for many American households.

The 90% of Americans who said the economy was doing badly was the highest such figure since the Times Poll started asking the question in 1997. The previous high was 82%, registered in June.

The all-time low came in a January 1999 poll in which only 8% of people thought the economy was doing badly and 89% thought it was doing well. Then the technology bubble burst and approximately half of Americans began souring on the economy over the following years, polls showed.

While many more Americans appear to be willing to entrust the government with greater regulatory power, the poll found mixed support for the $700-billion relief package.

Asked if Congress did the right thing in passing the legislation, 44% said yes and 37% said no. The opinion was different depending on wealth. Fifty-seven percent of respondents with household incomes of $100,000 or more a year favored the bill. By comparison, 43% of those with household incomes of $40,000 or less annually who supported the package.

Only 5% of Americans were very confident the bill would stabilize the market and keep the economy from getting worse. Thirty-nine percent were somewhat confident, 29% were not too confident and 19% were not confident at all.

"I think taking $700 billion to help the economy is not a bad idea," said Craig Cohen, 55, an insurance salesman from Encino. "I just think the money is going to the wrong place. A lot should go to more local banks so they have money to offer credit.

"It shouldn't go to bailing out CEOs and places like AIG where they take a nice little vacation on us and get expensive massages," Cohen said. "I wish I could do that."




By David Pierson, Los Angeles Times, October 14, 2008

WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton puts the chances of her running for president again at near zero - slightly higher than the chances she gives for becoming Senate majority leader or a Supreme Court justice.

In an interview aired Tuesday on "Fox & Friends" on the Fox News Channel, Clinton, D-N.Y., was asked the chances, on a scale of 1 to 10, that she would be the next majority leader in the Senate.

"Oh, probably zero," she said. "I'm not seeking any other position than to be the best senator from New York that I can be."

Being nominated to the Supreme Court?

"Zero," Clinton said. "I have no interest in doing that."

Running for president again?

"Probably close to zero," she said. "There's an old saying: Bloom where you're planted."

The former first lady, who was elected to the Senate in 2000 and re-elected in 2006, said she looked forward to working as a senator with a Barack Obama administration.

The Associated Press, October 14, 2008

ST. CLAIRSVILLE, Ohio - Senator Barack Obama lost the Ohio Democratic primary by 10 percentage points and the West Virginia primary by a whopping 40 points last spring - a sign, to some Democrats and political analysts, that many whites in the Rust Belt would not vote for a black man for president.

Yet here was Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, on Sunday, taking a bus tour along the Ohio-West Virginia border - a white, economically depressed region where the Republican ticket, it turns out, is now struggling to prevail. And on a weekend when racial issues flared once more in the presidential campaign, race was also on the minds of many voters here, who said they were wary of a black president even if he might be better for them economically.

"What you hear around here is, would you rather have a black friend in the White House, or a white enemy?" said John Schuster, a Republican from Wheeling, W.Va., who joined several thousand people here for a twilight rally led by Ms. Palin.

"Most guys I know are for McCain, and a lot of it's because of race," Mr. Schuster continued. "Obama doesn't have the right friends - that Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers the terrorist. The thing is, Obama may be better for jobs. But a lot of us don't trust him."

The candidacy of Mr. Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, once seemed to promise a new national conversation about race, an open dialogue about historical animosities and prejudices and the ways in which Americans have and have not moved beyond them. Yet for the most part, race has remained submerged as an issue, and the Obama campaign never dealt with it directly or in a full-throated way.

Instead, race has erupted as an issue mostly in ways that seem to confirm how deep the divide remains for some voters - those expressing mistrust over Mr. Obama's ties to his controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., or those describing Mr. Obama as "uppity" or "elitist." While Mr. Obama's advisers say they do not think race will be a factor in the election, the actual extent of the racial divide is likely to become clear only on Nov. 4.

"Obama has been running as a post-racial candidate from the start, and he has been doing it very well," said Douglas Brinkley, the presidential historian, "but the fact of the matter is that some voters - we can't know yet how many - will not get past his race. And I very much believe that the McCain-Palin ticket is tapping into that."

On Saturday, Representative John Lewis, the Georgia Democrat and civil rights leader, went as far as invoking George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama, to accuse Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee, of fomenting racial hatred. For Mr. Lewis and many other Democrats, the recent heckling of Mr. Obama at Republican rallies - where he has been called Arab, Muslim, traitor, terrorist, friend of terrorists, Barack Hussein Obama - amounts to code words that reflect latent or overt racism inspired by the first presidential nomination of an African-American by a major party.

Mr. Lewis's remarks outraged some of Mr. McCain's supporters and other Republicans. Race is indisputably a backdrop against which this campaign has unfolded, they agree, but that does not mean opposing Mr. Obama or using harsh words is racist.

Put another way, simply because Mr. Obama is black does not mean that the expression "not one of us," as he has been called at Republican rallies, is an appeal to the worst instincts of voters.

"At first I was open to Obama because I thought we needed new thinking about jobs and the economy," said Burton Reed, a Republican at the rally here. "But the more I heard about him, the more worried I became. He says he's Christian, but I hear he's Muslim. And he just doesn't sound pro-U.S.A. I kind of question his devotion to this country."

One factor for Mr. Reed and several other Republicans and independents interviewed along the bus route on Sunday was Mr. Obama's long association and friendship with Mr. Wright. Others said they simply had a hard time relating to Mr. Obama's background or accepting his political positions, which are widely seen as liberal.

"The bottom line is, he isn't one of us, and I'm scared to death of him," said Lloyd Wood, a Republican and farmer in this rural town in southeast Ohio who came to the local Wal-Mart on Sunday for a campaign visit by Ms. Palin, Mr. McCain's running mate.

"Guns, abortion, homosexuality, religion, protecting Israel, taxes," Mr. Wood continued. "I feel like he is totally different from where I stand, and I worry what he would do to this country. And listen, I've voted for black Republicans before - voted for one for governor last time - but Obama is just this very privileged kind."

Other voters said that they were torn between Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain, and that the issue for them was the economy.

"Obama seems creative and has a lot of good ideas, but McCain's experience is very appealing," said Matt Miller, a Republican who was at a farm stand in Marietta, Ohio, when Ms. Palin dropped by.

Asked about race, Mr. Miller said: "I think the country is ready for a black president, but a lot of people around here may not be. I just hope that whoever we elect, we all have faith that the person will do the best he can."

Ms. Palin, who drew sharp criticism from Democrats last week for saying that Mr. Obama had a history of "palling around with terrorists," refrained from personal attacks on Sunday and hammered Mr. Obama on issues like taxes and late-term abortion.

At one point, Ms. Palin said "we know who the bad guys are," and a man in the crowd here screamed "Obama!" It was unclear if Ms. Palin heard him; she did not address his remark.

By Patrick Healy, The New York Times, October 12, 2008

WILMINGTON, N.C. - Senator John McCain jettisoned much of his campaign's angry tone on Monday as he declared that his race for the presidency was not yet over and that he had the experience and fighting spirit to lead the nation from crisis.

In a departure from the sharp personal attacks against Senator Barack Obama in recent weeks, Mr. McCain adopted the more positive message of the old "happy warrior," his image during the primaries. Although he painted a pessimistic picture of the American economy - indeed, of the entire American way of life - he said the calamitous situation could be made right by the forceful leadership he was prepared to provide.

"I've been fighting for this country since I was 17 years old, and I have the scars to prove it," Mr. McCain told a rally of more than 10,000 people in Virginia Beach and then again here, at a smaller gathering at Cape Fear Community College. "If you elect me president, I will fight to take America in a new direction from my first day in office until my last."

In recent days Mr. McCain has faced withering criticism from Republicans for running what they call an intensely negative and incoherent campaign that offers no rationale for his candidacy and may well damage the party for years to come. The speech appeared to be intended as an antidote, and aides suggested that Mr. McCain would stick with this new message through the final three weeks of the campaign. He is also likely to adopt the tone in the critical final debate with Mr. Obama on Wednesday night.

Still, aides held out the possibility that Mr. McCain would change tactics yet again if warranted by events. Even on Monday, in an interview with CNN, Mr. McCain continued to criticize Mr. Obama for his association with the 1960s radical William Ayers, whom he called "an unrepentant terrorist." Mr. McCain said Mr. Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dorhn, both founders of the Weather Underground, "want to still destroy America."

The speech, written by Mark Salter, the co-author of Mr. McCain's books and the candidate's adviser of two decades, had dark, Salteresque metaphors - "I know what fear feels like, it's a thief in the night who robs your strength" - and noted that the campaign was six points behind. Mr. McCain said that "the national media has written us off" and that "Mr. Obama is measuring the drapes."

In one particularly bleak passage, Mr. McCain said: "Financial markets are collapsing. Credit is drying up. Your savings are in danger, and your retirement is at risk. Jobs are disappearing. The cost of health care, your children's college, gasoline and groceries are rising all the time with no end in sight, while your most important asset - your home - is losing value every day."

But the address, delivered on a day when the Dow Jones average jumped 936 points, recalled the old McCain brand of the experienced fighter whom, he said, voters should trust in a foxhole.

"The next president won't have time to get used to the office," Mr. McCain said, with his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, at his side at the Virginia appearance. "He won't have the luxury of studying up on the issues before he acts. He will have to act immediately. And to do that, he will need experience, courage, judgment and a bold plan of action to take this country in a new direction."

Then he added, in a knock at President Bush, "We cannot spend the next four years as we have spent much of the last eight: waiting for our luck to change."

Mr. McCain's advisers, who are facing polls that show Mr. Obama gaining momentum and Mr. McCain's negative attacks of recent weeks as largely counterproductive, said he would deliver a new speech on the economy on Tuesday, a day after Mr. Obama released several new proposals for dealing with the economic crisis. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Mr. McCain's chief economic adviser, told reporters the speech would contain "specific new measures," although it was unclear how extensive those measures would be.

Over all, the McCain campaign has sent out confused signals in recent days as top advisers have presented conflicting versions of when Mr. McCain would deliver his economic speech and what he would say. A Republican close to the campaign said Saturday that donors had been told Mr. McCain would deliver a major economic address on Monday, but a top adviser said later on Saturday that no speech had been written and that the campaign did not know what Mr. McCain was doing Saturday night, let alone Monday.

On Sunday morning, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a confidant of Mr. McCain, said on the CBS News program "Face the Nation" that Mr. McCain was weighing proposals to cut taxes on investors' capital gains and dividends, even though Mr. McCain's existing economic plan already calls for such cuts. Mr. McCain's advisers later said they did not know why Mr. Graham had said what he did.

Even in the face of the dismal polls, most of Mr. McCain's campaign staff continues to hold out hope, however distant, that Mr. McCain or events will somehow turn the situation around. But more often the mood is anxious, angry or subdued, interspersed with occasional moments of escape. Last Tuesday after the presidential debate in Nashville, Mr. Salter and Steve Schmidt, who is managing Mr. McCain's campaign, were at a karaoke bar until the small hours of the morning as Mr. Salter sang his way through a range of Bob Dylan songs.

By Elisabeth Bumiller, The New York Times, October 13, 2008

PHILADELPHIA - Senator John McCain is to unveil $52.5 billion in new economic proposals on Tuesday aimed at easing financial distress on the nation's seniors, workers and the unemployed, Mr. McCain's chief economic adviser said.

The adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said Mr. McCain would propose that people 59 years and older who withdraw money from IRAs or 401k retirement plans in 2009 and 2010 pay a tax rate of 10 per cent on the money rather than their higher normal tax rates. The plan would cost $36 billion, based on McCain campaign internal estimates, Mr. Holtz-Eakin said.

In addition, Mr. McCain is to propose three other new measures: a 50 per cent reduction in the capital gains tax on stock profits, from the current 15 per cent to 7.5 per cent, for a period of two years, at an estimated cost of $10 billion; an acceleration in the tax write-off for stock losses, allowing Americans to deduct $15,000 in losses a year for the tax years 2008 and 2009 (current rules allow deductions for up to $3,000 in losses), and a suspension on the tax on unemployment insurance benefits in 2008 and 2009.

"These are all targeted at people who have been hurt by the recent financial crisis-s eniors, savers, workers, people who are trying to get to college," Mr. Holtz-Eakin said.

Mr. McCain's proposals come a day after his rival, Senator Barack Obama, announced his own economic plan and as polls show Mr. McCain continuing to lose ground to Mr. Obama nationally and in critical battleground states.

The proposals also come a day after Mr. McCain unveiled a new campaign speech that focuses more on what he would do as president and less on his recent sharp personal attacks on Mr. Obama, a strategy that polls show may have been counter-productive.

Mr. McCain is to reiterate in his economic speech on Tuesday his plan for the Treasury Department to buy troubled mortgages at face value and give qualified homeowners instead government-guaranteed, low-interest mortgages based on their residences' reduced value. Mr. McCain at first said lenders would pay the difference, but the next day the McCain campaign said taxpayers would. The proposal has continued to draw criticism from the right and the left.

Mr. McCain is to introduce his new proposals in a speech in Blue Bell, Pa., on Tuesday morning, and is to hold a fundraiser with his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, in Manhattan in the evening.

Mr. Holtz-Eakin disputed talk of disarray in the McCain campaign and said that despite reports that Mr. McCain was to announce his new economic policies on Monday and then pulled back in the midst of campaign confusion, the plan had always been for Mr. McCain to unveil the proposals on Tuesday.

By Elisabeth Bumiller, The New York Times, October 14, 2008