Obama's reaction to failed bail-out: "Stay calm, we'll keep working and get it done." John McCain's? "It's Obama's fault"
Showing newest 49 of 63 posts from September 2008. Show older posts
Showing newest 49 of 63 posts from September 2008. Show older posts
Scary Note
McCain claims that Palin's comment about attacking Pakistan doesn't count because she only said it to a voter
Happy Note
Latest polls show Obama gaining 3 to 5% points in 5 key battleground states. Bonus: it's a Fox News sponsored poll
Nancy Pelosi's speech on the financial bail-out bill
Republicans blamed the failure of the financial rescue bill partly on remarks by the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.
Madam Speaker, when was the last time someone asked you for $700bn?
It is a number that is staggering, but tells us only the costs of the Bush administration's failed economic policies: policies built on budgetary recklessness, on an anything-goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision, and no discipline in the system.
Democrats believe in the free market, which can and does create jobs, wealth, and capital. But left to its own devices, it has created chaos.
That chaos is the dismal picture painted by Treasury Secretary [Henry)] Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman [Ben] Bernanke a week and a half ago in the Capitol. As they pointed out, we confront a crisis of historic magnitude that has the ability to do serious injury not simply to our economy but to the American people; not just to Wall Street, but to everyday Americans on Main Street.
It is our responsibility today, to help avert that catastrophic outcome. Let us be clear: This is a crisis caused on Wall Street. But it is a crisis that reaches to Main Street in every city and town of the United States.
It is a crisis that freezes credit, causes families to lose their homes, cripples small businesses, and makes it harder to find jobs. It is a crisis that never had to happen. It is now the duty of every member of this body to recognise that the failure to act responsibly, with full protections for the American taxpayer, would compound the damage already done to the financial security of millions of American families.
Over the past several days, we have worked with our Republican colleagues to fashion an alternative to the original plan of the Bush administration.
I must recognise the outstanding leadership provided by [the chairman of the House financial services committee and Democrat of Massachusetts] Barney Frank, whose enormous intellectual and strategic abilities have never before been so urgently needed, or so widely admired.
I also want to recognise [Illinois Democratic Republican] Rahm Emanuel, who combined his deep knowledge of financial institutions with his pragmatic policy experience to resolve key disagreements.
Secretary Paulson deserves credit for working day and night to help reach an agreement, and for his flexibility in negotiating changes to his original proposal.
Democrats insisted that legislation responding to this crisis must protect the American people and Main Street from the meltdown on Wall Street.
The American people did not decide to dangerously weaken our regulatory and oversight policies. They did not make unwise and risky financial deals. They did not jeopardise the economic security of the nation. And they must not pay the cost of this emergency recovery and stabilisation bill.
So we insisted that this bill contain several key provisions. This legislation must contain independent and ongoing oversight to ensure that the recovery programme is managed with full transparency and strict accountability.
The legislation must do everything possible to allow as many people to stay in their homes rather than face foreclosure.
The corporate CEOs whose companies will benefit from the public's participation in this recovery must not benefit by exorbitant salaries and golden parachute retirement bonuses.
Our message to Wall Street is this: the party is over. The era of golden parachutes for high-flying Wall Street operators is over. No longer will the US taxpayer bail out the recklessness of Wall Street. The taxpayers who bear the risk in this recovery must share in the upside as the economy recovers.
And should this programme not pay for itself, the financial institutions that benefited, not the taxpayers, must bear responsibility for making up the difference.
These were the Democratic demands to safeguard the American taxpayer, to help the economy recover, and to impose tough accountability as a central component of this recovery effort.
This legislation is not the end of congressional activity on this crisis. Over the course of the next few weeks, we will continue to hold investigative and oversight hearings to find out how the crisis developed, where mistakes were made, and how the recovery must be managed to protect the middle class and the American taxpayer.
With passage of this legislation today, we can begin the difficult job of turning our economy around, of helping those who depend on a growing economy and stable financial institutions for a secure retirement, for the education of their children, for jobs and small business credit.
Today we must act for those Americans, for Main Street, and we must act now, with the bipartisan spirit of cooperation which allowed us to fashion this legislation.
This not enough. We are also working to restore our nation's economic strength by passing a new economic recovery stimulus package, a robust, job-creating bill that will help Americans struggling with high prices, get our economy back on track and renew the American dream.
Today we will act to avert this crisis, but informed by our experience of the past eight years, with the failed economic leadership that has left us less capable of meeting the challenges of the future.
We choose a different path. In the new year, with a new Congress and a new president, we will break free with a failed past and take America in a new direction to a better future.
Scary Note
Wednesday McCain: I'm coming to Washington to save the country. Saturday night McCain: with no bailout bill passed yet, I'm going to cash in these stacks of $100 chips until 2:30 a.m.
Quick Note
The rain pouring down, his jacket off, his white dress-shirt clinging to his body, Barack Obama played to the crowd on the stage at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va., before a crowd of 10,000 to 20,000
Now that someone you want for president
Obvious Note
McCain ends a confusing and dramatic side trip to Washington that left supporters angry and critics wondering"
Democrats question McCain gambling ties
The Democratic National Committee is up with a new web video seeking to capitalize on a new report about John McCain's ties to the gambling industry.
The New York Times reported on Sunday about McCain's role and that of lobbyists close to him in shaping the growth of the $26 billion annual gambling business on Indian reservations.
The stark video, without any narration, shows McCain admitting with a smile, "Well, I am a betting man."
Then it shows on screen, "Betting on McCain? Casino Lobbyists Are," with a citation of the Times story.
"John McCain Stacked The Deck For His Favorite Lobbyists," it says on the screen, followed by photos of lobbyists Scott Reed and Wes Gullett, then the words: "And They Returned The Favor."
The video then refers to $400,000 casino campaign fund-raisers, and McCain gambling at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut at 2:30 a.m. one day after his 2000 loss in the Republican presidential primaries.
"40 Gambling Lobbyists on the Campaign," it says on screen, concluding with: "JOHN MCCAIN: Special Interest Driven Politics. JOHN MCCAIN: More of the Same Broken Politics."
In the article, the McCain campaign defended his record on Indian gaming, saying he had always looked out for the public interest.
About that late-night gambling excursion at Foxwoods, a spokesman said, "Your paper has repeatedly attempted to insinuate impropriety on the part of Senator McCain where none exists — and it reveals that your publication is desperately willing to gamble away what little credibility it still has.”
Ole Miss evokes memories of racial strife at McCain-Obama debate
The topic for the first 2008 presidential debate Friday night was slated to be foreign policy. But the setting was all about roots.
John McCain, who can trace his lineage to a Carroll County, Miss., plantation owner and Confederate cavalry officer, faced off against Barack Obama, the son of a Kenyan father, on the formerly whites-only campus of Ole Miss - the University of Mississippi in Oxford.
SCORECARD: EXPERTS EVALUATE THE DEBATE
On their way to the debate auditorium, the candidates passed by the Lyceum administration center. The building's walls still have bullet holes from the 1962 riots in which two were killed over the admission of the first African-American student, James Meredith.
Meredith, who became a controversial figure in the civil rights movement after graduating, recently told his alma mater that "Ole Miss is a step above every other major institution in America" on race. "They know more about the issue."
Meredith, now 75 and living in Jackson, was invited to the debate, but it was unclear whether he attended.
Donald Cole, who was 12 years old when Meredith was admitted, noted the irony of holding the debate at the school, where he is now assistant provost and a mathematics professor.
"There is so much symbolism," he said.
Cole was among a handful of black students at Ole Miss in 1970 who tried to break down the segregationist barriers that lingered on campus. He was expelled that year for leading a protest but later returned to complete his doctorate.
In the past, "Our university would not have welcomed the candidate [Obama] as a student here," Cole said.
"That tells of the progress that this institution has made, as well as the progress of the state and the nation," Cole told the Daily News.
For university Chancellor Robert Khayat, the mantra at Ole Miss has become "We are who we are, but we're not who we were."
Obama shoots past McCain in polls amid economic fears
Barack Obama has shot to a nine-point lead over John McCain as US voters become increasingly anxious over the turmoil on Wall Street and their own financial futures, according to a poll released today.
The Washington Post-ABC News national survey found the Democratic nominee leading his Republican rival by 52 to 43 per cent among likely voters. This represents a marked improvement in his fortunes from just two weeks ago, when Mr McCain had a two-point edge, and is the most significant lead recorded for either candidate in the bi-weekly poll.
The decline in Mr McCain’s popularity may in part be because his post-convention bounce – and in particularly conservative euphoria over Sarah Palin joining the ticket – has faded. But today’s poll also reveals growing fears about the economy in the wake of last week’s market chaos, with a majority of voters turning to Mr Obama as the candidate most able to cope with the crisis.
The financial crisis brought on the collapse of the credit market has become the No 1 issue leading up to the November 4 vote. Half of respondents said that the economy and jobs was the single most important issue that will determine their vote, a jump of 12 per cent over the past two weeks.
Fifty-two per cent of those polled said they believe the economy has moved into a serious long-term decline, while 83 per cent said they are concerned about the overall direction of the economy. Nearly three-quarters worry about the shocks to the stock market, and six in 10 are apprehensive about their own family finances.
The poll found Mr Obama has a big edge as the candidate who is more in tune with the financial struggles of ordinary Americans. He leads by a massive 24 points, 57-33 per cent, in better understanding the public's economic problems.
The Illinois senator has carved out a 14-point lead over Mr McCain as the candidate most trusted to handle the economy, and leads by 13 points in perceived ability to deal with the meltdown of major financial institutions.
Tellingly, after trailing by 17 points, he has pulled even with Mr McCain in trust to handle a major crisis. And Mr Obama holds wide margins in vote preference among likely voters most concerned about the economy.
The impact of the Bush Administration's proposed Wall Street bailout plan is as yet uncertain. The poll finds the public cool over the $700 billion rescue package, which both candidates have criticised, though neither have come out in outright opposition and it is unclear how they will vote in Congress.
Both Mr Obama and Mr McCain have been busy picking through the political minefield sown by the crisis ahead of their first presidential debate on Friday. The Republican scored an own goal in linking Mr Obama to the crisis by highlighting campaign donations from employees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the twin mortgage giants that became an emblem of the lax regulation blamed for the turmoil, after it emerged that two of his close aides had been paid to lobby for the firms.
Rick Davis, Mr McCain's campaign manager, received more than $2m from the companies over five years as head of the Homeownership Alliance, an advocacy group set up by Fannie and Freddie to help beat back regulatory challenges, the New York Times revealed on Monday.
Yesterday, it emerged that the lobbying firm of the man chosen by Mr McCain to begin planning a presidential transition earned more than a $250,000 this year representing Freddie Mac.
Timmons & Co., whose founder and chairman emeritus is William Timmons Sr., been registered to lobby for Freddie Mac from 2000 and this year earned $260,000, according to congressional records. Mr Timmons, 77, is listed as a lobbyist for the company on its midyear financial-disclosure form.
Mr McCain's economic woes are underscored by a flurry of new polls suggesting that voters largely blame his Republican Party for the meltdown. Polling in battleground states also indicates that Mr Obama is beginning to pull away, while the Post/ABC poll finds him improving his standing on a host of other issues including Iraq, terrorism and international affairs - on which the two candidates are now essentially even.
Crucially, Mr Obama has pegged back his rival's lead among white voters, narrowing the gap to just five points. He has also recovered well among white female voters, where he had seen a substantial shift to Mr McCain in the wake of the Palin pick. The demographic is now split equally between the two candidates.
But the polls also indicate that less than six weeks before the election, there is still a great deal to play for. An AP-Yahoo News poll found that 18 per cent of likely voters are still up for grabs - either undecided or willing to change their minds.
The key question for Mr Obama now is whether he can hold on to his lead through the first presidential debate on Friday night. He will go head-to-head with Mr McCain on national security, knowing that on one crucial aspect of this area - readiness to be commander-in-chief - the electorate remains to be convinced.
Strange Note
Bill Clinton says Obama is the best choice for the country while praising McCain. Subby wishes there was a Confusing tag, but Strange will have to do
Possitive Note
Obama will turn Friday night's debate into a Town Hall Meeting if McCain doesn't show. Lemons into lemonade, that's change we can believe in
Quick note
Perhaps the most brilliant free-market campaign tactic ever. Michigan gas station owner replaces the station logo with an Obama sign, drops his gas prices, and sells campaign gear in-store to make up the difference
Economic woes help give Barack Obama a slight lead over John McCain in poll
Obama leads McCain, 49% to 45%, in a survey of likely voters that has a margin of error of 3 percentage points. More respondents say they think Obama is better equipped to handle domestic issues.
The crisis in the financial markets and increasing anxiety about the economy are playing to Barack Obama's political strengths, but they have not given him a substantial lead in the presidential contest, a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll shows.
Amid turmoil in the nation's financial sector that threatens to harm the broader economy, more voters said they believed Obama was better equipped to handle domestic issues, such as the economy and healthcare, than his Republican rival, John McCain.
The crisis in the financial markets and increasing anxiety about the economy are playing to Barack Obama's political strengths, but they have not given him a substantial lead in the presidential contest, a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll shows.
Amid turmoil in the nation's financial sector that threatens to harm the broader economy, more voters said they believed Obama was better equipped to handle domestic issues, such as the economy and healthcare, than his Republican rival, John McCain.
Most poll respondents said domestic issues were more important than foreign policy in deciding on a candidate. And more believed that Obama had better ideas about what to do on that front.
Only about 10% of registered voters in the poll were undecided or wavering. An additional 15% said they might change their minds. Many were looking to the upcoming presidential debates as an opportunity for the candidates to sway them.
"I need more input on how they want to guide us," Ronald Cheatham, a former truck driver in Los Angeles, said in an interview after participating in the survey.
The poll, supervised by Times Poll Director Susan Pinkus and conducted Sept. 19 to 22, was based on telephone interviews with 1,428 adults -- including 1,287 registered voters, 838 of whom were likely to cast ballots.
The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The interviews were conducted at a particularly tumultuous time for the economy and politics. In the last month, voters in large numbers have watched both parties' political conventions. Palin, until recently a little-known governor, has become an overnight celebrity.
The stock market has dived, risen and fallen again as Congress and the Bush administration try to agree on a plan to prevent the crisis among Wall Street financial institutions from spreading.
In that climate of anxiety and dissatisfaction with President Bush, the poll found many continuing signs of encouragement for Obama.
A record 79% of respondents said the country was on the "wrong track." Voters believed Obama was more likely than McCain to make substantial changes in Washington, 51% to 27%.
More than half of all registered voters -- including a plurality of Republicans -- said that domestic issues such as the economy and healthcare were most important to them in choosing a presidential candidate.
Those are issues that more voters were confident Obama could address.
On the economy, registered voters preferred Obama's ideas over McCain's, 46% to 32%. On rising gas and oil prices, they preferred Obama, 46% to 31%. They said Obama would be better at dealing with healthcare, 54% to 25%.
"McCain has been forthright in admitting that economics is not his forte," said Nathan Pollack, 31, an Obama supporter in Denver who has only once before voted for a Democrat for president.
"Obama, while he's also not an expert, is more inclined to surround himself with people who are, and listen more closely."
Still, Obama is dogged by the perception that he does not have the right experience to be president. About half of all voters had a positive impression of him, but 37% did not.
The reason most often given for those negative feelings was that voters believed he was too inexperienced and didn't know the ways of Washington.
The poll results offer other hints about why the political advantages Obama enjoys have not translated into a commanding lead over McCain.
McCain has done a better job wooing independent voters than he did last month. Among registered voters who described themselves as independent, 34% supported Obama and 49% supported McCain.
That's a big swing from August, when Obama led among independents, 46% to 35%. And it's partly because that fluid category of voters this month included a larger portion of white men without college degrees, a group Obama has had a hard time wooing.
Some of those independents were people who supported Obama's Democratic primary rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Why i am not suprised
At 8:30am Wed 9/24/2008 Obama called McCain about working together to get the emergency bailout legislation passed. John McCain responded by suspending his campaign and trying to take credit for the idea
Fact Note
Letterman rips on McCain for canceling debate, suggests Palin step in. "This isn't the way a tested hero behaves."
Quick note
McCain campaign decides it doesn't really feel like having the vice-presidential debates, either
McCain's is running scared
Sen. John McCain's surprise announcement that he would temporarily suspend his campaign to return to Washington to help broker a deal,I smell a rat is it that he is running from Obama ,Cause he know he has to face him in the upcoming debate . to save the financial industry is the latest in a series of political gambits surrounding the financial crisis on Wall Street, and is sure to reshape political calculations and voter attitudes around the volatile issue.
The move is an obvious attempt by McCain and his campaign to paint the Arizona senator as above politics, willing to put aside his campaign for the good of the country.
It comes as two new national polls -- including one conducted by the Washington Post -- show McCain slipping in the head-to-head matchup against Barack Obama due in large part to voters' inclination to trust the Illinois senator to solve the financial problems of the country.
The McCain campaign believes that their candidate is at his best when he is seen as a deal-maker, willing to reach across party lines to get things done for the good of the country. This economic crisis, they believe, provides McCain a chance to show the sort of leadership that voters value in the Arizona senator.
"John McCain's leadership, which president bush put him behind it. and experience credentials outrank Barack Obama's," said Sarah Simmons, a McCain campaign strategist, this morning. "[We are] walking through a crisis and people are looking to see how it is going to be handled."
Obama, however, refused to allow McCain to dictate the terms of the campaign's way to go Obama , the next few days during a press conference in Florida just before 5 p.m. ET.
"There are times for politics and then there are times to rise above politics and do what's right for our country," said Obama. "This is one of those times." that right Obama Mccain is running like a scared dog with his tail between his legs .
He added, however, that he had no plans to re-schedule Friday night's presidential debate in Oxford, Miss., as McCain had proposed in announcing the suspension of his campaign.
"It's my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who in approximately 40 days will be responsible for dealing with this mess," said Obama. "Part of the president's job is to deal with more than one thing at once."
It was not immediately clear what the fate of the debate will be if only Obama decides to show up on Friday night.
Both McCain and Obama have struggled to deal with the real-time challenges of the economic crisis since it emerged on the national political landscape last weekend. Neither man is particularly well versed in the intricate complexities of the economy and have been cautious to announce their support (or opposition) to the proposed $700 billion bailout of the financial firms being pushed by the Bush Administration.
McCain appeared to be getting the worst of the exchanges on the economy -- if recent polling is to be believed.
In a new Washington Post/ABC News survey released today, Obama led McCain 52 percent to 43 percent, an edge largely built on the increase in the number of voters who believe the Illinois senator is best positioned to handle the economic crisis. A survey also released today from Fox News/Opinion Dynamics showed Obama with a 45 percent to 39 percent lead -- a significant improvement from a poll done by the same organization earlier this month that put McCain ahead by three points.
The move was announced in a statement in New York City this afternoon in which the Arizona senator said he was pulling his campaign ads down and canceling all fundraising beginning tomorrow. Obama did not respond in kind. The announcement came just hours before President George W. Bush is preparing to address the nation at 9 p.m. ET tonight on the economic crisis.
"Tomorrow morning, I will suspend my campaign and return to Washington after speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative," McCain said. "I have spoken to Senator Obama and informed him of my decision and have asked him to join me."
McCain went on to compare the current crisis in the financial markets with the attacks of Sept. 11 and called on politicians to draw on the bipartisan spirit created during those times in order to solve the economic problems of the country today.
"Following September 11th, our national leaders came together at a time of crisis," McCain said. "We must show that kind of patriotism now. Americans across our country lament the fact that partisan divisions in Washington have prevented us from addressing our national challenges. Now is our chance to come together to prove that Washington is once again capable of leading this country."
The next 48 hours will be the equivalent of a political staring contest. Who will blink first? And, if neither candidate does, what will happen Friday night? A presidential debate with only one presidential candidate?
Obama rejects McCain's call to postpone debate
Democrat Barack Obama on Wednesday rejected opponent John McCain's call to postpone the first U.S. presidential debate to work on legislation dealing with the worst U.S. financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Obama made the statement shortly after McCain, a Republican senator from Arizona, called for Friday's debate to be postponed and said he would suspend his campaign to help work out agreement among lawmakers on a proposed $700 billion financial bailout plan.
"What I'm planning to do now is debate on Friday," Obama said from the hotel where he has been preparing for the debate.
"It's my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who in approximately 40 days will be responsible for dealing with this mess," he said. "I think that it is going to be part of the president's job to deal with more than one thing at once."
Obama said he had told congressional leaders who are trying to hammer out an agreement on the bailout plan that he was prepared to go to Washington if it would help.
"What is important is that we don't suddenly infuse Capitol Hill with presidential politics."
Obama said he called McCain early on Wednesday to suggest the two presidential candidates issue a joint statement aimed at taking a bipartisan approach to the bailout plan.
McCain called him back this afternoon and said he was interested in issuing a statement.
Obama said he was surprised that McCain made the announcement that he was suspending his campaign and wanted to postpone the debate. Obama said he thought the two men would first issue the joint statement before making any other moves.
McCain Struggles to Win on Failing Economy
Tuesday in Michigan, Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee for president, stood before the nation wanting to present himself as a soldier in a new kind of war. Speaking to reporters for the first time since Aug. 13, he seemed legitimately pained when he talked about the dire economic events of the past few weeks.
In this brief moment, McCain strained to find a new voice, one that could bolster his campaign. While agreeing in principle to the money requested by the Bush administration for its $700-billion bailout plan, he made certain to anyone listening that he would not follow the administration’s script line-for-line. McCain, in a five-point proposal, demanded greater accountability and transparency in the package, along with a demand that no top executive from a rescued company walks away with millions when the burden on the American people is so great.
For a man who’s sworn to keep us safe, McCain seems to have been presented with a new opportunity. McCain now has the chance to use the nation’s economic straits to his advantage, to take ownership of an issue that could dominate the national debate through Election Day and after. He can be the steady force of reason — a candidate who puts the public ahead of party for the greater good. The question remains, though, whether he can pull it off.
“During tough times — in national security or the economy — that sense of security becomes persuasive,” said Leslie Sanchez, former director of the Bush administration Initiative on Hispanic Education and now a CNN political commentator. “This could be an advantage to John McCain. He can show bi-partisanship and an economic prowess in a situation that very few people understand. You show leadership in many different ways. You show it by virtue of sounding the alarm, as he did, when he called for more regulation for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; and openly looking at the package Paulson’s put together with a critical eye. Take the reins. Make the decisions America needs to see.”
The economy is McCain’s supposed weak spot. He’s been pretty candid about how little he knows about it and reporters have commented on his lack of interest in the topic. His issue was foreign policy and Iraq and maybe he believed he could get through the election cycle without dealing with economic matters. But now he has to address something he’d hoped he wouldn’t have to face.
“Clearly this is a game-changing moment for both of them,” said Sara Taylor, a Republican consultant who served as the political director in the Bush White House. “The candidate that best seizes control of the economic issues and shows he understands them best will likely be the next president.”
In other words, whomever seems closest to making the public believe he gets it will win.
This is the case in any election when economic issues take center stage. In 1980, with a public drowning in inflation and national malaise, it turned to Ronald Reagan. In 1992, while George H.W. Bush marveled at the grocery store scanner, William Jefferson Clinton felt people’s pain and arrived triumphant in Washington as a new kind of Democrat.
But this is different. The collapse of our credit system, the failure of banks, is a perilous scenario. With the nation so strong for change, and 80 percent of the public saying the current administration is on the wrong track, all logic says this should be Obama’s race to lose.
But it isn’t. National polls show the two men in a dead-heat, and virtually deadlocked in battleground states like Ohio, Florida and Michigan. The American people, it seems, doesn’t know whom to trust with their future, now that the monetary foundation appears to be crumbling. As unlikely as it seems, this could be McCain’s moment.
But how can he lay claim to an issue that he himself has admitted a disinterest in?
“Americans always elect a president they believe is future-oriented,” said Sal Russo, a Republican political strategist. “They saw that in Ronald Reagan — despite his age. They saw him as an agent of change and progress; and Jimmy Carter was the status quo. What McCain has to do is talk in terms of the future. To say he’s the man most prepared to change the economy. He’s been running against the establishment his whole life. He has to play up the idea of this cantankerous maverick, willing to forge his own way. It has to be cast in those terms.
Tony Marsh, a GOP strategist, outlined a similar strategy. “What he needs to do,” Marsh said, “is to articulate a specific vision for the future. Obviously, he has to be distinct and different from Obama and what Obama’s saying — and even from what Bush is saying. If he’s able to articulate a distinct and compelling vision for the economy that assures people he understands the difficulties they face, and offers some hope for growth in the relatively near future, I think he’ll succeed.
“To some extent with this issue,” Marsh said, “McCain is in position that is neither left or right. But is where most people are. And that is not at all bad positioning for him — from a strictly political perspective.”
It might, however, be a bad spot for him from an ideological perspective.
As has been well chronicled this year, the coalition crafted by Reagan, which has served as the GOP’s pumping heart for nearly 30 years, has remained disheartened and disengaged. While the choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin might have revved up the social conservatives, it did little for the fiscal conservatives — those preaching smaller government and free markets.
McCain’s comments in the past week have done little to assuage them. By feeling people’s pain, as Clinton once did; then promising a new “Morning in America,” then presenting a vehement form of populism, McCain offered little more than confusion.
Nowhere was that more evident than last Thursday. On the stump, McCain seemed to channel his inner Teddy Roosevelt. “Mismanagement and greed became the operating standard while regulators were asleep at the switch,” McCain declared, “The primary regulator of Wall Street, the Securities and Exchange Commission kept in place trading rules that let speculators and hedge funds turn our markets into a casino. …The chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the president and has betrayed the public’s trust. If I were president today, I would fire him.”
Fallout from the right was swift. After taking McCain to task for his use of the facts, The Wall Street Journal editorial page slammed him: “In a crisis voters want steady, calm leadership, not easy, misleading answers that will do nothing to help. Mr. McCain is sounding like a candidate searching for a political foil rather than a genuine solution. He’ll never beat Mr. Obama by running as an angry populist like Al Gore, circa 2000.”
William Kristol, the Weekly Standard editor then lashed out against the $700-billion bailout in The New York Times on Monday. In his op-ed column, Kristol asked McCain to be a man of courage and stand up to the stimulus package that would forever change our economic system, could leave the government more intertwined with the economy than even John Kenneth Galbraith’s “New Industrial State.”
“Critics would charge that in opposing the bailout in standing against an apparent bipartisan consensus, McCain was being irresponsible,” Kristol wrote, “Or would this be an act of responsibility and courage?”
Kristol was hitting McCain with one of the words the Republican nominee cares about most: Courage. Those of us who’ve spent time around the man, who’ve followed him across the country, know how much words like courage and honor mean to McCain, and how hurt he feels when he thinks they’re under attack. Without the pundits behind him, McCain finds himself again a loner within his own party, something he’s grown used to over the years.
But being a maverick also allows freedom from the ideological chains of the party base. And the American public increasingly sees itself as independents, free from the traditional affiliations. It’s this void McCain could step into, confident and strong.
“He has to show himself to be a good steward of the economy,” Sanchez said, “He’s not an ideologue like Ronald Reagan. He’s someone that hits the ground and does the work. And you could speculate that whoever wins in 2008 might not be the candidate who wins in 2012. The economic issues out there are so toxic. What we need right now is someone to drive the bus, not redesign it. Everyone gets on, everyone gets off.”
McCain would probably bristle at the thought of being a bus driver — despite his affection for his “Straight Talk Express.”
But what we face right now is the great unknown. It is a landscape where America is struggling to come to terms with what has happened to the underpinnings of its economy and what it means for the future. While Obama can often represent something extraordinary, McCain is the ordinary man, whose story, whose beliefs we understand.
In times like these, Americans often look for the stability and steadiness of our fathers — men whose failings we understand, but whose authority and grasp of the world we respect and even love. McCain now has the chance to be that man — picking us up in a time of need.
But the problem with father figures is we outgrow them. Americans must ask if this daddy dearest will let us off in a place we really want to be.
Daily Note
McCain: "We will end the lobbyist control of Washington" McCain's Chief: "I stopped being a lobbyist years ago" Freddie Mac: "LOL we're still paying you $15k a month"
Poll finds 18 percent of voters persuadable
With Wall Street in turmoil and the economy hurting, whichever presidential candidate convinces a swath of persuadable voters that he gets it — and can be trusted to lead the country back to fiscal stability — could well win the White House.
A recent AP-Yahoo News poll found that 18 percent of likely voters are up for grabs — undecided or willing to change their minds — little more than five weeks before Americans choose between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain.
A large chunk of these voters say they are hurting on a personal level from the country's economic woes, and, like everyone else, they say the economy is the top issue. Most haven't decided who would best solve their problems as president; neither candidate has an advantage on handling the economy.
Simply put: Most of these voters are looking for a better life and a leader to help make it happen — and most haven't found what they seek in Obama or McCain.
"There's a person out there who could inspire change, mend the ways of the system and start fixing the economy, but I don't think these two are up to the task," said Rick Villiere, 39, of Saratoga Springs, N.Y. A married father of two children under age 3, he feels the tug of economic turmoil and says: "It's impossible to get ahead."
It's difficult simply to stay afloat, says Cristy Jackson, 29, of Hazel Green, Ala. She's on disability, her husband was laid off and they have two kids. "I don't have faith in anyone on the economy," she says, adding that neither Obama — "not experienced enough" — nor McCain — "he doesn't care about people like me who are not even middle class" — is likely to help her family.
Tough times, tough crowd.
Historically, the ruling party loses the White House when the economy is bad, and it's rare for voters to keep the same party in power for three straight terms. But the poll, conducted by Knowledge Networks, shows that Obama still hasn't sealed the deal and McCain still has a shot after eight years of President Bush.
National surveys indicate a competitive race, meaning persuadable voters could affect the outcome. Thus, both campaigns are pouring millions of dollars into advertising with precisely targeted pitches aimed at this small slice of the electorate.
Generally, these up-for-grabs voters are harder to find because they are not hard-core partisans and are less likely to report being contacted by the campaigns. That indicates that retail politics could play an important role. Still, moving them to one camp or the other is no easy task.
After the nearly two-year presidential campaign, Matt Powell, 31, of Widefield, Colo., is among those who still have yet to be won over. "Neither one has really come up with anything to make me say, 'That one right there, I want that one,'" he said. "I don't even know what I'm looking for. Just a little bit of hope."
The key to unlocking the support of persuadable voters may be this: convincing them that one candidate alone has the ability to identify, understand and fix the country's ills, especially the economy.
These voters view McCain as far more qualified than Obama, with 82 percent saying the four-term Arizona senator has the experience to be a good president compared with 37 percent for the first-term Illinois senator. However, these voters don't see either candidate as more likely to understand the problems the country faces.
Overall, many voters say they are personally struggling because of the economic woes — but persuadable voters say they are really hurting. Some 38 percent say it's "very difficult" for them to get ahead financially, and another 26 percent say it's "somewhat difficult." Conversely, 29 percent of voters who have decided for certain say "very difficult" while 33 percent say "somewhat difficult."
The economy has been voters' top concern for months, though the candidates have only put it on the front burner as the country's fiscal health took a major hit. Both Obama and McCain are increasingly sounding a populist tone in the wake of a string of financial institution failures that brought Wall Street to its knees and prompted sweeping government intervention.
Persuadable voters give McCain and Obama even marks on the economy, as well as other financial issues, including Social Security, gas prices, the budget deficit and housing prices. That underscores the opportunity each has to try to maneuver for an edge on the economy as a whole.
Among these uncommitted voters, McCain leads on Iraq, terrorism, taxes, corruption, immigration and gun rights, while Obama has an edge on health care, gay marriage, the environment, stem-cell research, racial equality and education.
The Midwest is home to more of these up-for-grabs voters. That's not surprising given that seven large states in the region are among the most hotly contested battlegrounds — Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
Among these undecided voters, Democrats are much less intensely behind Obama than Republicans are behind McCain. Obama appears to have more people on the bubble, and many of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's former backers haven't fully committed, while McCain's backers are hard-core Republicans and excited by his running mate selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
Both Obama and McCain have been aggressively competing for would-be Clinton voters through direct appeals in advertising to working-class whites and women as well as numerous visits to states that the New York senator won in the drawn-out Democratic primary.
For better or worse, the election is still more than a month away, and that's plenty of time for voters to settle on a candidate — or change their minds.
Peggy Cacia, 75, a Clinton backer in Orlando, Fla., shifted last week from tentatively supporting McCain to backing Obama.
The economy figured heavily into her decision, and she said on that issue, "I really trust the Democrats." She said she doesn't trust Obama personally on the economy but "he's better than McCain." Even so, Cacia said, "I want to see what happens" during a domestic policy debate next month to hear more about what Obama has to say on the economy.
In Rutland, Mass., Karen Wamback, 31, seemed very much a reluctant McCain supporter.
"John McCain has a lot of issues I have issues with but Barack Obama has a lot more," she said. Then, about 15 minutes later after rolling through the pros and cons of both, Wamback concluded: "I guess I'm pretty much set with McCain because he's the lesser of two evils. Then again, I might just vote in (Sesame Street's) Elmo. At least he's for the children."
The AP-Yahoo News poll of 1,740 adults was conducted Sept. 5-15 and has an overall margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points. The survey was conducted over the Internet by Knowledge Networks, which initially contacted people using traditional telephone polling methods and followed with online interviews. People chosen for the study who had no Internet access were given it for free.
Up to the minute notes
Alaskans furious they have to go through the McCain campaign to reach their governor
Race could play big role in election, poll suggests
A new study that surveyed racial attitudes suggests that racial prejudices could tip the balance in the upcoming presidential election.
If there were no racial prejudice among voters, Sen. Barack Obama would receive about 6 percentage points more support, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll, designed in partnership with Stanford University.
The results suggest that 40 percent of white Americans hold at least a partly negative view toward blacks, including more than a third of white Democrats and independents. A small percentage of voters -- 2.5 percent of those surveyed -- said they may turn away from Obama because of his race.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey also indicates that race could play a big role in November. Asked if race would be a factor in their vote, 37 percent of respondents said yes. But of that group, many are Republicans who are not likely to vote for any Democrat, and some are Democrats who may vote for Obama because of his race.
Of the 8 percent of Democrats who told CNN they plan to vote for Obama's GOP rival, Sen. John McCain, half said race was a factor.
The survey, conducted August 29-31, questioned 1,031 people and has a sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Experts point out that it's hard to quantify racial prejudice because many people who hold prejudices are not going to admit to it. Video Watch how race could affect the election That study also suggests that the number of people who may turn away from Obama because of his race could be larger than what the margin of victory was in the 2004 election.
Jeff Johnson, host of BET's "The Truth With Jeff Johnson," said, "I think there is a concern clearly about the number of people who will vote based on race.
"But I agree -- how you quantify that number, I think, is very difficult."
According to CNN's average of recent national polls, Obama holds a lead of 5 percentage points over McCain.
Johnson said one misconception is that racial prejudices are unique to conservatives or people in "Middle America."
"There are liberals also in many cases that are racist. I don't think we know yet how it's going to play out," he said.
In an interview that aired Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes," Obama said while some people might not vote for him because he is black, others might vote for him just because he is.
"Are there going to be some people who don't vote for me because I'm black? Of course. There are probably some African-Americans who are voting for me because I'm black or maybe others just inspired by the idea of breaking new ground, and so I think all that's a wash," he said.
Democrats, however, typically get close to 90 percent of the African-American vote anyway.
Salon.com's Shapiro said Democrats can work on increasing turnout among black voters but that it will be hard to make gains on the percentages they already see.
Johnson said he thinks race will matter, and the best way for Obama to balance out any negative effect is to just stay on message.
"I don't know if I believe it's going to be a wash. I think it's going to matter. This race is extremely close, and so every single demographic and every single point is going to count," he said.
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"I think he has to speak to the issues of people in Middle America, and by that, it can counterbalance some of these racial issues.
Obama vows to cut federal spending on contractors
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama moved to claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility in a roiling economy, vowing on Monday to slash federal spending on contractors by 10 percent and saving $40 billion.
Urging members of his own party to be just as fiscally tough as the most conservative Republicans, Obama said the $700 billion economic bailout plan proposed by the Bush administration and congressional leaders is forcing a renewed look at federal spending.
As president, Obama said he would create a White House team headed by a chief performance officer to monitor the efficiency of government spending.
"I am not a Democrat who believes that we can or should defend every government program just because it's there," Obama said at a rally in Green Bay. "We will fire government managers who aren't getting results, we will cut funding for programs that are wasting your money and we will use technology and lessons from the private sector to improve efficiency across every level of government."
"The only way we can do all this without leaving our children with an even larger debt is if Washington starts taking responsibility for every dime that it spends," he said.
Obama focused tightly on the economy in recent days, and he has urged Democrats and Republicans to join forces to approve a bailout of the troubled financial industry that not only saves the industry but protects taxpayers.
"We are here because an ethic of irresponsibility has swept through our government, leaving politicians with the belief they can waste billions and billions of your money on no-bid contracts for friends and contributors, slip pork projects into bills during the dead of night and spend billions on corporate tax breaks we can't afford and old programs we don't need," said Obama.
He linked the turmoil that's rocked Wall Street to federal spending he said has soared out of control, laying the blame at the feet of Republican policies he argued that rival John McCain is certain to continue.
President Bush ran for office on a platform of efficiency in government, Obama said, noting that Bush instead has presided over a mushrooming federal budget and deficits. Under Bush, spending on contractors has more than doubled, from $203 billion in 2000 to $412 billion in 2006.
"We cannot give a blank check to Washington with no oversight and accountability, when no oversight and accountability is what got us into this mess in the first place," said Obama. He warned that even as the government moves to bail out the financial sector there are signs that special interests are looking to profit.
Obama said he's spent the last two years running for president on a promise of change, and he mocked McCain's argument he can bring change to Washington.
"This whole change thing must be catching on," said Obama. "I've noticed that John McCain is trying to steal my signs. He trying to make up for 26 years in 26 hours. Who do you think has been running the government for the last eight years?"
He accused McCain of "an election-year conversion" that's brought change into his rhetoric.
"After 26 years of being part of this Washington culture, all that he has changed is his slogan for the fall campaign," said Obama.
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds quickly dismissed Obama's speech as lacking substance. "After first promising a plan to address this economic crisis, all Barack Obama delivered for hardworking Americans was political attacks and a total lack of leadership," Bounds said.
Obama warned that the election is hard fought because special interests are fighting hard to keep their place at the table.
"It won't be easy, the kind of change we're looking for is never easy," said Obama. "What we are up against is a very powerful entrenched status quo in Washington who will say anything and do anything and fight with everything they've got to keep things just the way they are."
Obama spoke to 6,000 people in an arena in a state that trends Democratic, and where Obama badly needs a win.
Jury Selection Starts In Sen. Stevens's Trial
he public corruption trial of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens begins in Washington this week, with the senior Republican facing charges that he accepted and concealed more than $250,000 in gifts from an Anchorage-based oil services company that benefited from his work as a senator.
Federal prosecutors allege that, in a nearly eight-year scheme, the 84-year-old Sen. Stevens received several gifts and favors from VECO Corp., including major home renovations, sweetheart car deals, furniture, tools and a gas grill.
Prosecutors have said that Sen. Stevens used his office to help VECO, though they stopped short of directly alleging that the senator traded political favors for gifts. Instead, the government's case centers on charges that Sen. Stevens didn't report the alleged gifts on his Senate financial disclosure forms.
Sen. Stevens has steadfastly maintained his innocence and his lawyers have criticized the government for bringing its case while he is seeking reelection to his eighth Senate term.
The senior senator, who has represented Alaska for 40 years, is in a tough political battle against Democratic challenger Mark Begich, the mayor of Anchorage.
Since the government announced its charges on July 29, Sen. Stevens has asked that the legal proceedings move as quickly as possible in an attempt to clear his name before voters go to the polls on Nov. 4.
Jury selection begins Monday. U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan is presiding over the trial, which could last three to four weeks.
Sen. Stevens made several unsuccessful pre-trial bids to have the government's case thrown out. Among other things, his lawyers argued that the prosecution intruded on Senate prerogatives, violated separation-of-powers principles and targeted Sen. Stevens for legally protected legislative acts.
The senator also lost out on a bid to have his case heard by a jury in Alaska instead of the nation's capital.
However, he did win one pre-trial victory last week: the right to look at medical records of a key government witness, Bill Allen, the former chief executive of VECO who allegedly steered gifts to the senator. Mr. Allen suffered brain injuries during a motorcycle accident in 2001. Sen. Stevens's lawyers said they want to determine whether the injuries affected Mr. Allen's ability to recall past events.
Mr. Allen has testified previously that the accident affected his speech but not his brain function.
Sen. Stevens's lead attorney is renowned defense lawyer Brendan Sullivan of Williams & Connolly LLP, who has represented several high-profile clients, including Oliver North during the Iran-Contra scandal.
The Stevens prosecution is the most visible case in a federal corruption probe that has rocked Alaska politics and implicated several state lawmakers.
Lose your house, lose your vote says McCain
It’s the ugliest attack on voting rights we’ve seen in recent history–if you live in Michigan and you’re in danger of losing your home to foreclosure, Republicans will try to take away your right to vote.
McCain’s response? Silence. Like Bush in 2000 and 2004, he’s trying to keep a safe distance from these tactics, while benefiting from them. McCain could end this with a phone call. But he won’t.
It’s voter-suppression at its worst. They’re taking advantage of folks falling on hard times and using it for political gain–kicking people while they’re down. It’s time to hold McCain publicly accountable for this strategy. For more info click here
President Bush's toast to Ghana's president Kufuor on Monday was 383 words long. Bush's Rose Garden address to the nation Thursday on the financial crisis was 263 words long
Obama mocks McCain's call to fire SEC chairman
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama promised new ideas Thursday to calm America's financial meltdown and help struggling families avoid mortgage foreclosure, saying "this is not a time for fear and it's not a time for panic."
Obama heaped criticism and sarcasm on John McCain, his Republican rival, and mocked his call to fire the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
"I think that's all fine and good but here's what I think," Obama said. "In the next 47 days you can fire the whole trickle-down, on-your-own, look-the-other way crowd in Washington who has led us down this disastrous path. Don't just get rid of one guy. Get rid of this administration. Get rid of this philosophy. Get rid of the do-nothing approach to our economic problem and put somebody in there who's going to fight for you."
He said McCain was so out of touch that the White House had to distance itself from his statement Monday that the fundamentals of the economy were sound. President Bush has used that same language but his press secretary would not repeat the line Wednesday in the face of historic financial turbulence.
John McCain caught apparently unaware who the prime minister of Spain is, to the point of thinking he's an enemy of the United States
Obama Leads McCain in New US Opinion Polls
New opinion surveys show U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has regained the lead over Republican challenger John McCain.
A new poll conducted jointly by the New York Times and CBS News shows Obama with a five point lead over McCain (48 percent to 43 percent) among registered voters.
The Illinois senator is leading among independents and young adults, while the 72-year-old McCain leads among white men and voters over the age of 65.
Support for both men are split between middle-aged (45 to 64 years old) and white women voters. But the poll found 71 percent believe McCain is prepared to serve as president, compared to 48 percent for Obama.
Meanwhile, the latest Gallup poll - September 14-16 - shows Obama with a two percent lead over McCain.
Obama and McCain are focusing their campaigns on voters' concerns about the worsening U.S. financial crisis.
McCain issued a statement Wednesday saying poor regulation and reckless management crippled AIG. He called for an investigation into whether executives in the company misled investors.
McCain originally spoke out against an AIG bailout, but on Wednesday, he said such action should be used to protect millions of Americans who hold insurance policies.
In a campaign appearance in Nevada Wednesday, Obama said this week's economic developments represent the final verdict on McCain's policies.
McCain will hold rallies Thursday in Iowa and Wisconsin with his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Obama will hold a rally of his own in New Mexico.
In a separate development, Senator Hillary Clinton, Obama's former rival for the Democratic nomination, canceled an appearance at a rally next week protesting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, after learning Palin had also been invited. A spokeswoman for Palin responded by saying the governor believes the threat of a nuclear Iran is more important than party or politics.
Also Wednesday, a top Hillary Clinton fundraiser and member of the Democratic National Committee, Lynn Forester de Rothschild, threw her support behind Republican John McCain.
Barack Obama raises millions in Beverly Hills
It was clear why Barack Obama's campaign barred television crews from a Beverly Hills mansion at twilight Tuesday as the Democratic presidential nominee mingled with movie stars on a giant terrace overlooking Los Angeles.
The cocktail reception was part of Obama's biggest night of Hollywood fundraising so far, an evening capped with a live performance by Barbra Streisand at the Regent Beverly Wilshire.
But it came fraught with risk. As if on cue, John McCain used the Illinois senator's lucrative detour from battleground states to Beverly Hills to mock Obama's professed solidarity with working people "just before he flew off to Hollywood for a fundraiser with Barbra Streisand and his celebrity friends."
"Let me tell you, my friends, there's no place I'd rather be than right here with the working men and women of Ohio," McCain told cheering supporters in Vienna, Ohio, with running mate Sarah Palin at his side.
McCain, too, raised money in Beverly Hills last month, but with a smaller cluster of stars, including actors Robert Duvall and Jon Voight.
Even before the likes of actors Jodie Foster, Will Ferrell and Leonardo DiCaprio paid tribute to Obama at the landmark Greystone Mansion -- setting for numerous films, including "Ghostbusters" and "Air Force One" -- the entertainment industry had given Obama more than $5.6 million, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
McCain's take from the industry has reached $885,000, the center said.
Tickets to Tuesday's reception and dinner at the mansion went for $28,500 apiece; about 300 people attended. Entry to the hotel event cost $2,500; about 800 were in the audience.
The campaign relied on Hollywood moguls David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg, among others, to raise money. To comply with federal donation caps, it planned to split the proceeds with the Democratic National Committee.
David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, suggested that voters would ignore McCain's attacks on the Democrats' ties to Hollywood.
"I think they've heard the whole Republican whoop-de-do before, and this time, I don't think they're going to subscribe to it, because there's so much at stake," Axelrod said.
At Greystone, a 55-room Tudor-style mansion famous for the 1929 murder of oil heir Edward Lawrence "Ned" Doheny Jr., Obama told dinner guests that he knew many were "nervous and concerned" about his chances of winning.
"I know that a lot of you, just in conversations while we were in the photo lines, had all sorts of suggestions," he said.
But the crisis on Wall Street "has suddenly focused people's attention, and it's reminded people of what's at stake. It's reminded people that this is not a game. This is not a reality show, no offense to any of you," Obama said as the crowd erupted in laughter. "This is not a sitcom.
"We always knew this was going to be hard, and this is a leap for the American people," he continued. "And we're running against somebody who has a formidable biography, a compelling biography. He's a genuine American hero, somebody who served in uniform and suffered through some things that very few of us can imagine. And so he is a worthy opponent."
Obama told the crowd that there was "enormous work to do because of the enormous resistance out there -- resistance because people have been fed cynicism for a long time."
"So when my opponent and the operation that they've put together start feeding into that cynicism and start feeding into that resentment, it's not always clear which way things are going to tip," he said.
But Obama said he was "confident about winning because I've looked at John McCain, I've looked at Sarah Palin, I've looked at their agenda, and they don't have one."
The crowd laughed.
"They don't have answers to our economic problems," he said, "and they don't have answers to our foreign policy problems."
He urged his supporters to "keep steady" in the days ahead and never forget what his candidacy is about. In case they did, he offered a reminder: The campaign "is about those who will never see the inside of a building like this and don't resent the success that's represented in this room, but just want the simple chance to be able to find a job that pays a living wage."
Lest anyone be diverted by the Hollywood spectacle Tuesday evening, Obama's campaign denied TV crews access to the mansion and hotel events -- perhaps mindful of the political damage wrought by TV images of celebrities at Democratic nominee John F. Kerry's fundraisers in 2004.
Other stars attending included comedians Chris Rock and Sarah Silverman, actors Tobey Maguire and Pierce Brosnan and director Ron Howard.
Obama's team also barred the entire press corps from hearing Streisand, who hugged Obama and walked offstage at the Regent Beverly Wilshire as the band played "Happy Days Are Here Again."
After thanking Streisand, the candidate struck a somber tone in his remarks.
"This should be a celebratory evening," he said. "We've got 48 days to go in a campaign, a campaign that started 19 months ago, at a time when a lot of folks thought we might not get here."
But, he added, "I'm not in a celebratory mood." He ticked through the series of crises that had taken place in recent days, including the hurricane on the Gulf Coast and the deadly train crash in Chatsworth.
McCain's stump speech more about Palin than self
Two things jump out from John McCain's standard campaign speech: Sarah Palin and change. Mostly Sarah Palin bringing change.
It's a new pitch for McCain, and that's something that sets him apart from rival Barack Obama. The Democratic nominee settled early on what's known in the business as his stump speech and has varied it only a little since.
McCain's choice of Palin as his running mate injected an unexpected and enormous burst of energy into his White House bid, and now he tries to tap into that dynamic in his campaign speeches. Nearly unprecedented for presidential contenders in recent history, McCain's stump speech now is often almost as much about his No. 2 as it is about him.
In fact, McCain is expected to do few rallies without Palin through the fall. With McCain's uneven delivery and stiff stance on the stage, big events and formal addresses have never been a staple of his campaigns. He prefers roundtables and town-hall settings where he is more apt to shine. For a long time, he was content to leave the glitzy auditorium-filling events and smooth speechmaking to Obama.
But now crowds are gathering by the thousands for the Republican ticket, and they're there as much to see her as him. Even if she's not there, like at solo McCain rallies Monday and Tuesday, they want to hear about her.
And do they ever.
Listen to McCain on Palin:
_He likes to say that Palin "is right on national security." McCain tells voters she understands national security because she negotiated for a natural gas pipeline to run through Alaska, because of the state's proximity to Russia's borders and because she has been, like him, a consistently strong supporter of the Iraq war.
_He takes any chance to gush about her husband, Todd, a worker on the oil fields of Alaska's North Slope, commercial salmon fisherman, world champion snowmobiler, entrepreneur, sometime gubernatorial adviser to his wife — and, oh, a Mr. Mom to their five children, too. "What a family, what a family, what a family!" McCain enthuses. (One of McCain's few rhetorical flourishes is to repeat points he especially likes three times.)
_McCain finds many ways to highlight Palin's reputation for cracking down on business-as-usual. "I can't wait to introduce her to Washington, D.C., I can't wait," he said Monday in Jacksonville, Fla. "The word is going out. The word is going out, my friends, to the old-boy network, the pork-barrelers, the earmarkers. My friends, the word is: Change is coming and change is coming. Two mavericks coming to Washington and we're going to shake it up." (One thing that absolutely has not changed about McCain's speeches is his frequent use of the folksy "my friends" before points he wants to emphasize.)
When the GOP running mates are together, the speeches by first Palin and then McCain essentially form one package. At about 15 minutes each, the combined speeches last about as long as a typical stump speech from one candidate — say, Obama.
So Palin's line that "in politics there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers, and then there are others, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change" bleeds almost seamlessly into his "change is coming" chant.
When Palin references her oldest son's deployment to serve in Iraq to argue that "as the mother of one of those troops out there, he is exactly the kind of man I want in a commander-in-chief," it reinforces McCain's old standby that he "would much rather lose a campaign than see our nation lose a war." (Palin always references McCain's quote, too, for added emphasis.)
And Palin's declaration that McCain "is the only great man in this race, the only one ready to serve us as our 44th president" is the perfect setup for the more-modest pitch from the man himself. "I have spent my life in service to this country and I have been an imperfect servant, but I have always put my country first," as McCain said last week.
The focus on Palin doesn't mean that longtime themes from McCain's campaign, such as "country first," have disappeared from his stump speech.
"The problem in Washington is that everybody in Washington is working for themselves and not working for you," goes the line.
The idea that McCain has — and will — take on members of his own party as well as Democrats has always been there. As has the notion that, just as he'll be a bipartisan scrapper, he'll reach across party lines when necessary.
The old sections have just been condensed, so that McCain spends just a few sentences each on a standard set of topics: out-of-control spending that has "got to stop"; veterans as a "company of heroes" that he will never let down; the need to produce more energy domestically and "stop sending $700 billion overseas to countries that don't like us very much"; reforming the common congressional practice of "earmarking" federal money for special projects; today's "tough times" for many families; and his pledge to "keep this nation safe" from Russian aggression, Iran's nuclear ambitions and other threats.
McCain is a lot heavier on empathy than solutions, though. He spends nearly all his time defining problems, and very little time giving detail on how he would fix them.
He also doesn't dwell terribly much on his opponent, making only glancing references to Obama's record on earmarks, Iraq, trade deals and taxes.
The one thing that is not in doubt is McCain's enthusiasm — for Palin.
His lines about himself can come across as rote, but never the ones about her. "What a great, great and exciting experience it has been for me, just in the last week or so, to introduce to the United States of America, Governor Sarah Palin," he gushed Monday. And even though Palin wasn't there, the audience's hearty applause showed it was one of the lines they liked best, too.
Crowd anticipates Biden to talk on economy in Flat Rock
Forrest Miller of Flat Rock arrived two hours early for a Joe Biden speech at the football field at Flat Rock High School. He is anxious to hear the Democratic vice presidential candidate speak about the economy.
I figured there was going to be a lot of people here, and I wanted to get a seat,” Miller said. “They’d better change pretty quick. I was born in a Depression, and it ain’t good.”
Biden is expected to speak at 5 p.m. Visitors started arriving about 2:30 p.m.
“It’s never too early to get them involved in a process like democracy,” said Vikki Gardner of Dexter, who brought her two children, ages 4 and 1, to the event.
Barbara Theaker of Brownstown is an Obama campaign volunteer, who is scheduled to introduce Biden.
“I thought I’d be terrified, but I’m so pumped,” she said.
She wouldn’t give away her introduction but said it will mention the economic distress that has hit Downriver.
Earlier today, Joe Biden unleashed a campaign broadside in St. Clair Shores, calling Republican presidential rival John McCain a coddler of the rich and perpetrator of dirty campaign tactics that McCain once denounced.
Biden, speaking to several hundred supporters at South Lake High School, said he and Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama have better understanding of the concerns and hardships of the middle class than Republicans, and McCain’s record in the Senate belies his promise of change.
In a half-hour speech that mixed economic populism with sharp barbs, Biden sought to tighten a link between McCain and President George W. Bush, whose unpopularity Democrats have tried to exploit.
"As everyone knows, the sequel is always worse than the original," the U.S. senator from Delaware said. “If we forget history we’re doomed to repeat it, with four more years just like the last eight or worse.”
He added, "There is simply no daylight, at least none that I can see, between John McCain and George Bush. On every major challenge we face, from the economy to health care to education to Iraq, you can barely tell them apart."
Biden said McCain has adopted "low blow a day" campaign tactics that Biden said were perfected by Karl Rove, Bush's one-time campaign architect and used against McCain in the 2000 GOP presidential primary.
Critics have complained that McCain’s campaign has distorted Obama’s political record in TV commercials.
"Those tactics may be good at squeaking by in an election, but they are very bad if you want to lead one nation, indivisible," Biden said.
It was Biden’s second campaign appearance in Michigan since he was nominated as Obama’s running mate in late August. He was scheduled to speak later Monday at an auto plant and a rally in Flat Rock. In his first visit, to Battle Creek with Obama on Labor Day weekend, Biden’s remarks were brief.
With polls showing the race tightening and McCain enjoying momentum, Biden delivered a full-scale attack on McCain as an insensitive Washington insider who has no real interest in government helping the middle class. It was a counter to McCain’s campaign theme that he and GOP running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin are better suited to bring change to Washington.
Biden said McCain had abandoned his convictions as a GOP maverick to mollify the right wing of his party.
“Whatever happened to the guy who once denounced tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans in a time of war, as ‘immoral’? Biden asked. “When someone running for election changes his views to satisfy the base of the party, that’s not change, that’s just more of what’s been going on in Washington for the last 28 years.”
Citing worsening economic news with the collapse of major Wall Street banking firms, Biden said Republicans have been deaf to the day-to-day concerns of working people.
“This campaign is a campaign about change, but it’s more than that,” he said. “It’s not just about jobs, it’s about dignity. It’s not just about a paycheck, it’s about pride. It’s not just about opportunity, it’s about respect.”
Biden mentioned Palin only in passing. He cited her remark that the only thing U.S. senators do is vote, as opposed to governors who carry out executive duties.
Biden said it’s fortunate that many of McCain’s votes on issues of health care, education and energy did not become law.
He said while he admires McCain’s compelling story of bravery as a prisoner of war, McCain embodies the growth of privilege in Washington for the wealthy and well-connected.
“We don’t need a good soldier, we need a wise leader,” Biden said, to whoops and cheers in the school gymnasium.
Derk Brown, 54, of St. Clair Shores, walked to the rally and said afterward “it was a good speech,” but wished Biden talked more about what he and Obama would do to help working families and less about McCain.
Merlin Patton, 75, also of St. Clair Shores, said she’s a die-hard Democrat who agreed with everything Biden said. She said she’s seen few times in her lifetime as economically trying as now.
Referring to Palin’s hunting skills, Patton said, “We might have to bring the meat she kills up in Alaska to feed us until we get some money.”
CAMPAIGN '08 Barack Obama raises the funding roof
His haul of $66 million in August bests John McCain and puts the Democrat well ahead of the record for total fundraising
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama raised a record $66 million in August, his highest monthly figure and almost $20 million more than Republican rival John McCain.
Obama's total since entering the race in early 2007 is now more than $450 million -- a figure that confirms his standing as the most successful fundraiser in U.S. political history.
Obama has surpassed President Bush as history's most prolific political fundraiser. Bush raised $270 million for his reelection campaign four years ago, and $95 million in 2000, for a total of $365 million.
Additionally, the Democratic National Committee and other committees established by the DNC and the candidate raised $17.3 million in August.
The Obama campaign also said $10 million came in during the days after Aug. 29, when McCain selected Sarah Palin as his vice presidential nominee.
The Republican National Committee took in $23 million in August. With McCain's $47 million, the two sides will have entered the final two months with combined bank accounts of about the same size.
Anthony Corrado, a campaign finance expert at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, predicted that Obama, McCain and their political parties would spend $220 million to $240 million each between now and Nov. 4.
"They have built an infrastructure like we've never seen," Corrado said of the Obama campaign, pointing to the $20 million Obama has poured into a Latino voter registration drive and field operations in the battleground states.
Obama's latest receipts counter talk that his fundraising had tailed off. Corrado said such talk reflected a lack understanding of how Obama had built his fundraising operation.
Obama relies on high-end donors to give the maximum $2,300 directly to his campaign account, but has more than 2 million donors overall, many of whom give small amounts regularly over the Internet.
Obama has several large-dollar fundraisers in the coming days, including one Tuesday at Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills. Donors are expected to give $28,500 to the Democratic National Committee.
Barbra Streisand will headline a separate event at the Regency Wilshire in Beverly Hills that same evening.
Additionally, former President Clinton has promised to campaign for Obama and is sure to raise millions more.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton campaigned for Obama on Sunday in the key battleground state of Ohio, urging supporters in Elyria and Akron to work as hard for Obama and Joe Biden as they had for her, the Associated Press reported. She revised her Democratic convention admonition to: "No way, no how, no McCain and no Palin!"
Meanwhile, organized labor and others launched multimillion-dollar ad campaigns in battleground states.
The two-million member Service Employees International Union announced Sunday that it was spending $2.1 million on pro-Obama advertising.
The union already has spent $21 million on the presidential campaign, including $9.7 million since June, when Obama locked up the nomination, Federal Election Commission disclosures show.
The latest ad is airing in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Mexico, Wisconsin and Iowa. It depicts a mother discussing the strain placed on her family by the tough economic times.
The announcer then says: "John McCain said, 'I know a lot less about economics . . . I still need to be educated.' . . . No wonder he said we're better off than we were eight years ago."
Also Sunday, the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund announced it would run the first ad to specifically target Palin. The ad, to run in Ohio, focuses on her support for aerial hunting of wolves and shows gruesome footage of a hunt and a mortally wounded wolf.
Sarah Palin not only condones the aerial hunting of wolves and bears, she actively promotes it," the organization said in a statement. "She has even gone so far as to propose a bounty of $150 for every severed left foreleg of a wolf the hunters can produce."
McCain's campaign did not respond to a request for comment about the ad and Palin's stand on wolf hunting.
Independent groups have spent $52 million on the presidential race since last year.
A new nonprofit group, the American Issues Project, spent $2.8 million last month on ads attacking Obama over his relationship with former Weather Underground activist William Ayers.
The group is preparing a new round of ads attacking Obama. The National Rifle Assn. has spent $230,000 to defeat Obama.
On Sunday, McCain campaigned under overcast skies in New Hampshire, where he and his wife, Cindy, visited the state's largest motor speedway before the Sylvania 300 NASCAR race.
McCain dropped in on racing crews in the company of racing legend Richard Petty and Red Sox pitching ace Curt Schilling, and helped welcome the drivers at the starting line.
McCain later told a local television station that he was a huge NASCAR fan, though he did not stay for the race. (McCain headed back to the airport Sunday afternoon to fly to Jacksonville, Fla., for a campaign rally this morning.)
McCain, who has been under increasing fire for misleading advertising attacking Obama, did not talk about the campaign at the racetrack.
But elsewhere, he drew criticism from an unexpected source.
Former Bush strategist Karl Rove told "Fox News Sunday" that he believed some of McCain's ads had "gone one step too far in sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100% truth test."
After campaigning in the key battleground of Florida today and Tuesday, McCain plans to meet up with Palin for a rally Tuesday afternoon in Youngstown, Ohio.
Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have a really 'great conversation
Well, in the end that turned out to be really pretty easy to get ex-President Clinton to make specific plans to go out on the presidential trail and campaign for the rookie Illinois senator.
That's Sen. Barack Obama, the fellow who said such nasty things about Clinton's wife during the hard-fought primary season, (not that she didn't reciprocate), who stole her rightful White House inheritance with his hurried ambitions and better-organized campaign, whose people haven't really done all that much to help Hillary retire her large campaign debt and whose supporters tattooed the word "racist" indelibly into the infallible memory of the ex-ArkansasEx-president Bill Clinton and Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama meet for lunch Thursday in Harlem and have a really good conversation, aides said governor who still fondly regards himself as the country's first black president, despite his Jesse Jackson insinuations down in South Carolina.
All Obama had to do to get Clinton's cooperation was:
* Have the image of his joyous Denver stadium celebration snuffed within nine hours by the sudden emergence of a stunning female Republican vice presidential pick after Obama pointedly passed over the obvious female VP candidate in his party for a veteran male Washington insider as his co-agent of change.
* Not enjoy much if any poll bounce from the Denver festivities.
* Watch the Republicans turn Hurricane Gustav into a plus by burying George W. Bush's convention appearance and stressing national service.
* Witness an electric speech by this nonplussed nobody from....
...Alaska who not only energized her party but ignited a nonstop curiousity among millions that drove way better TV ratings for the GOP than the Democrats.
* Confront a 21-day, 20-point swing among white women away from himself toward the old guy with his tough-talking running mate in the businesslike skirt and top, rimless glasses with the large family.
* Start hearing worried grumbles and handwringing among party members around the country about toughness and "here we go again" turning a summertime Democratic lead into a November loss.
* As the new titular head of the Democratic party, walk on his knees up to Clinton's Harlem office building to have lunch. The ex-president knows how badly he's needed right now.
As The Ticket reported Thursday, meeting reporters beforehand, Clinton predicted Obama would win "pretty handily," which not only sets the bar higher for Obama but contradicts the senator's own prediction of a close contest.
Clinton also promised to do anything he's asked to help. Isn't this about the ninth time he's said that and now we're down to eight weeks and in a couple more Clinton will head to Florida, which makes it almost October.
Here's the actual official verbatim statement issued Thursday by the two men. You can just picture the negotiations over each phrase.
Clinton and Obama are such really good friends they wouldn't put their names on the statement, just an awkward title about aides:
"Joint statement from spokesmen to former President Bill Clinton and Senator Barack Obama
“President Clinton and Senator Obama had a great conversation in Harlem today. They discussed the campaign briefly, but mostly talked about how the world has changed since September 11, 2001.
"Sen. Obama praised the work of the Clinton Foundation around the world and President Clinton applauded Sen. Obama's historic campaign which has inspired millions around the country.
"They also spoke about what the next President can do to help make the economy work for all Americans, as it did under President Clinton, and ensure safety and prosperity far beyond the coming the election. President Clinton said he looks forward to campaigning for Senator Obama later this month.”
Well, that all sounds like a delightful lunch, doesn't it? And it's so totally likely with 50-whatever days left before a national election, that these two consummate politicians would skip over that subject almost totally to reminisce about the last seven years. How 'bout those BoSox, eh?
Things went so well at the Clinton-Obama summit, in fact, that the two men didn't feel the need to shake hands in public. No one saw that anyway.
That's a good sign for the rest of the campaign, don't you think?
Judge warned Palin's family on disparaging
Sarah Palin's family was ordered by a judge three years ago not to disparage her sister's ex-husband, the Alaska state trooper at the center of an investigation into whether the governor abused her power trying to get him fired.
A custody investigator concluded that Molly McCann, Palin's sister, had disparaged Mike Wooten in front of their children, Judge John Suddock said during an October 2005 hearing. The judge warned her and her relatives not to disparage Wooten in front of the kids.
"Disparaging is not to be tolerated - it's a form of child abuse," Suddock said, according to notes on the hearing included in the divorce file.
The Alaska Legislature is investigating whether Palin, the Republican candidate for vice president, fired former Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan because he would not dismiss Wooten, a probe known as "Troopergate." Monegan has said he believes Wooten's continued employment was the reason for his dismissal, but Palin has denied that was the reason.
McCain decries earmarks Palin uses
Republican John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, equated lawmakers' requests for funding for special projects with corruption on Wednesday, even though Palin has requested nearly $200 million in so-called earmarks this year.
McCain blamed earmarks for high food and gasoline prices and the trouble many homeowners face in making mortgage payments. He pledged again to veto any bill that contains such funding.
"I got an old ink pen, my friends, and the first pork barrel-laden earmark, big-spending bill that comes across my desk, I will veto it. You will know their names. I will make them famous, and we'll stop this corruption," McCain said during a rally at a park in suburban Washington, D.C.
Palin has sought $197 million worth of earmarks for 2009, down about 25 percent from the $256 million she sought in the 2008 budget year. As mayor of tiny Wasilla, Alaska, she hired a lobbyist to seek federal money for special projects. Wasilla obtained 14 earmarks, totaling $27 million, between 2000 and 2003, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama hasn't asked for any earmarks this year. The Illinois senator sought $311 million in such funding last year. McCain, an Arizona senator, doesn't seek earmarks for his state.
Rangel admits mistakes, $5,000 bill to Uncle Sam
The head of the House tax-writing committee admitted Wednesday that he owes about $5,000 to the Internal Revenue Service for failing to report income on his returns.
But Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., asked colleagues to let the ethics committee investigate and urged Republicans to stop trying to have him removed from his post.
As House Ways and Means Committee chairman, Rangel has a powerful say over tax law changes. By his own admission, he has no excuse for not reporting years worth of rental income on a beach vacation property he owns in the Dominican Republic.
"Mistakes. We all make 'em. We all have to say we're sorry, but we all don't have to attack each other," Rangel said.
House debate over the matter turned personal when he said GOP leader John Boehner, did not really have his heart in it when he and other top Republicans called for Rangel to be removed as chairman.
Boehner, R-Ohio, then rose to deny that claim.
"My intent here is not to claw at my friend from New York. My intent here is to have justice and to have all of us live by the rules of the House. I'm sorry that I had to do it but I have a job to do on behalf of my colleagues," Boehner said.
The exchange capped a day on which Rangel admitted embarrassing mistakes in his personal finances but insisted they were innocent errors of omission, rather than acts of deliberate deception or greed. Those errors, he said, would be corrected in amended filings to both the IRS and the Congress.
"I really don't believe that making mistakes means that you have to give up your career," the lawmaker, who has spent nearly 38 years in Congress, said in a lengthy talk with reporters.
Rangel's total back-tax bill will likely be something approaching $10,000, after factoring in state and local levies, his lawyer said.
The 78-year-old Rangel maintained that over the course of two decades, he simply did not know the details of his mortgage on the beach property, how much rent he received from it or that the rent should have been reported. He blamed the confusion in part on language and cultural barriers with the operators of the resort.
Rangel did say that Democratic and Republican lawmakers had stayed as guests at the beach house; he declined to name them.
"As chairman of the Ways & Means Committee, I am held to a higher standard of propriety," Rangel said. Asked if he had lived up to that standard, he replied: "Of course not."
Republicans are trying to use Rangel's mistakes to show that Democrats cannot claim higher moral ground on issues of ethics and corruption. The spokesman for the House Republican campaign committee, Ken Spain, said Rangel should "go on a permanent vacation and trade his powerful committee chair in for his favorite lounge chair on the beach."
The ethics panel is examining Rangel's unusual deal for the beach villa, as well as three rent-stabilized apartments he uses in his Harlem district, and a series of letters he wrote seeking support for a New York education center named after him.
Rangel purchased the beach house in 1988 for a price of $82,750, with a down payment of $28,900 and a mortgage of $53,850. Over the next 15 years, he did not make any payments directly for the mortgage, but the managers of the resort property used rental income from the property to gradually pay down the mortgage. During all but two years of the mortgage, Rangel paid no interest on it.
His lawyers estimate he failed to report some $75,000 in rental income over a 20-year span, but that only posed a tax problem for the congressman when he sold a residence in New York City four years ago and his tax liabilities briefly changed.
The ethics committee is also set to examine how Rangel came to rent three rent-controlled units in his Harlem district, as well as his use of official congressional stationery to try to attract potential donors to a college center named after him.
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