Los Angeles Times Endorses Obama: First Presidential Endorsement Since 1972

Editorial

Barack Obama for president
He is the competent, confident leader who represents the aspirations of the nation.

October 19, 2008

It is inherent in the American character to aspire to greatness, so it can be disorienting when the nation stumbles or loses confidence in bedrock principles or institutions. That's where the United States is as it prepares to select a new president: We have seen the government take a stake in venerable private financial houses; we have witnessed eight years of executive branch power grabs and erosion of civil liberties; we are still recovering from a murderous attack by terrorists on our own soil and still struggling with how best to prevent a recurrence.

We need a leader who demonstrates thoughtful calm and grace under pressure, one not prone to volatile gesture or capricious pronouncement. We need a leader well-grounded in the intellectual and legal foundations of American freedom. Yet we ask that the same person also possess the spark and passion to inspire the best within us: creativity, generosity and a fierce defense of justice and liberty.

The Times without hesitation endorses Barack Obama for president.

Our nation has never before had a candidate like Obama, a man born in the 1960s, of black African and white heritage, raised and educated abroad as well as in the United States, and bringing with him a personal narrative that encompasses much of the American story but that, until now, has been reflected in little of its elected leadership. The excitement of Obama's early campaign was amplified by that newness. But as the presidential race draws to its conclusion, it is Obama's character and temperament that come to the fore. It is his steadiness. His maturity.

These are qualities American leadership has sorely lacked for close to a decade. The Constitution, more than two centuries old, now offers the world one of its more mature and certainly most stable governments, but our political culture is still struggling to shake off a brash and unseemly adolescence. In George W. Bush, the executive branch turned its back on an adult role in the nation and the world and retreated into self-absorbed unilateralism.

John McCain distinguished himself through much of the Bush presidency by speaking out against reckless and self-defeating policies. He earned The Times' respect, and our endorsement in the California Republican primary, for his denunciation of torture, his readiness to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and his willingness to buck his party on issues such as immigration reform. But the man known for his sense of honor and consistency has since announced that he wouldn't vote for his own immigration bill, and he redefined "torture" in such a disingenuous way as to nearly embrace what he once abhorred.

Indeed, the presidential campaign has rendered McCain nearly unrecognizable. His selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate was, as a short-term political tactic, brilliant. It was also irresponsible, as Palin is the most unqualified vice presidential nominee of a major party in living memory. The decision calls into question just what kind of thinking -- if that's the appropriate word -- would drive the White House in a McCain presidency. Fortunately, the public has shown more discernment, and the early enthusiasm for Palin has given way to national ridicule of her candidacy and McCain's judgment.

Obama's selection also was telling. He might have scored a steeper bump in the polls by making a more dramatic choice than the capable and experienced Joe Biden. But for all the excitement of his own candidacy, Obama has offered more competence than drama.

He is no lone rider. He is a consensus-builder, a leader. As a constitutional scholar, he has articulated a respect for the rule of law and the limited power of the executive that make him the best hope of restoring balance and process to the Justice Department. He is a Democrat, leaning further left than right, and that should be reflected in his nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court. This is a good thing; the court operates best when it is ideologically balanced. With its present alignment at seven justices named by Republicans and two by Democrats, it is due for a tug from the left.

We are not sanguine about Obama's economic policies. He speaks with populist sweep about taxing oil companies to give middle-class families rebates that of course they would welcome, but would be far too small to stimulate the economy. His ideas on taxation do not stray far from those put forward by Democrats over the last several decades. His response to the most recent, and drastic, fallout of the sub- prime mortgage meltdown has been appropriately cautious; this is uncharted territory, and Obama is not a master of economic theory or practice.

And that's fine. Obama inspires confidence not so much in his grasp of Wall Street finance but in his acknowledgment of and comfort with his lack of expertise. He will not be one to forge far-reaching economic policy without sounding out the best thinkers and practitioners, and he has many at his disposal. He has won the backing of some on Wall Street not because he's one of them but because they recognize his talent for extracting from a broad range of proposals a coherent and workable program.

On paper, McCain presents the type of economic program The Times has repeatedly backed: One that would ease the tax burden on business and other high earners most likely to invest in the economy and hire new workers. But he has been disturbingly unfocused in his response to the current financial situation, rushing to "suspend" his campaign and take action (although just what action never became clear). Having little to contribute, he instead chose to exploit the crisis.

We may one day look back on this presidential campaign in wonder. We may marvel that Obama's critics called him an elitist, as if an Ivy League education were a source of embarrassment, and belittled his eloquence, as if a gift with words were suddenly a defect. In fact, Obama is educated and eloquent, sober and exciting, steady and mature. He represents the nation as it is, and as it aspires to be.

Denver Post Endorses Obama

endorsement
Barack Obama for president
He's the right man to lead America back to prosperity

By The Denver Post

In just 16 days, a presidential campaign that has raged for almost two years will at last come to an end.

In that time, America has undergone profound changes. And for most Americans, those changes have not been for the better.

When the first, absurdly early straw polls were taken in Iowa in 2007, America was torn by a war in Iraq that seemed unwinnable. But the economy seemed reasonably sound.

That preoccupation with the war may help explain why Republicans passed over Mitt Romney's successful record of job creation in favor of war hero and foreign-policy specialist John McCain. On the Democratic side, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who wasn't even in Congress when the war began, bested Sen. Hillary Clinton in part because she voted to authorize the war.

Americans, as we now know, wanted change.

But as this race nears the finish line, America's priorities have changed, too.

The "surge" has reduced the level of violence in Iraq and President Bush has begun modest troop withdrawals. Sens. McCain and Obama differ mostly about the details and pace of future withdrawals.

But the speed and virulence of the worldwide liquidity crisis, caused by the collapse of the junk mortgage market, has stunned most Americans and has led voters, who now review their shrinking retirement funds and rising unemployment rates with alarm, to focus overwhelmingly on America's economic ills.

Given this inescapable economic agenda, The Post believes Barack Obama is better equipped to lead America back to a prosperous future.

It's time to change course.

Frankly, neither Obama nor McCain has a comprehensive plan to end the economic crisis, or to even calm our jittery nerves. But Obama's promise to surround himself with this country's top economic thinkers, such as Warren Buffet, is at least somewhat comforting.

In unsteady times, it may seem obvious to gravitate toward the veteran politician, but in this campaign, it's been the newcomer who has had the steady hand.

This fast-breaking global meltdown overwhelmed both campaigns and the final weeks of a hard-fought political contest are hardly the place for the cool, bipartisan thinking needed to get us out of this mess. Fortunately, bipartisan efforts by the Bush administration and Congress have at least bought America time to begin crafting long-term economic reforms.

Looking at McCain's and Obama's specific proposals, we unfortunately find much to dislike in both port- folios. We can live with Obama's call to raise taxes on families earning more than $250,000 a year. And, in fact, we've long thought it fiscally irresponsible to wage two wars on tax cuts.

However, we're concerned he may increase capital gains taxes at a time when the economy is starved for investment capital. Indeed, we'd favor eliminating capital gains taxes entirely if such profits are reinvested in another enterprise within one year.

We also would urge Obama to expand investment tax credits for businesses, to put profits back to work creating new jobs.

America's other most pressing long-term economic problem is health care.

Obama's plan, while not perfect, is far superior to McCain's catastrophic ideas. How does it affect the economy?

Consider this: General Motors now pays more than $1,500 for health care benefits, mostly for retired employees, on each new car sold.

America's competitors in Japan, Germany and China don't share such costs because their national health care plans are funded through broad-based taxes. Somehow, America must level the playing field.

McCain wants to eliminate the corporate tax deduction on existing health care plans, a cruel corporate surtax averaging $3,500 per employee. That tax hike would force employers to drop coverage for tens of millions of workers. The lucky workers who still had employer-paid benefits would have to pay income taxes on them — a $3,000 tax increase on a typical middle-income Colorado worker. And this massive tax increase on employers and employees alike comes from a man who asked repeatedly in the last debate: "Why raise anybody's taxes?"

Why, indeed, Sen. McCain?

We can't imagine a Democrat- controlled Congress would pass McCain's reckless health care tax. But even proposing such a scheme shows his woeful lack of understanding of America's economic underpinnings.

As to Obama, we confess we fear that a compliant Congress may be all too eager to approve his plans. That's why it's critical for him to reach across the aisle and draw the best team he can assemble to get America working again. Why not ask Romney to chair his health-care reform task force, or even serve as his economic recovery "czar"? There's precedent for such a move, since Wendell Willkie helped sell President Franklin D. Roosevelt's vital wartime lend-lease program after losing his presidential race to FDR in 1940.

What's the chance that Obama will reach out in such a bipartisan fashion? Actually, he has a long record of doing exactly that. We don't mean his brief tenure in the Senate so much as his successful run as a community organizer in Chicago.

Republicans love to mock Obama's history as a community organizer. But here was a man with no money to offer, no patronage to dispense, no way to punish his opponents. All he could do was to work with people from all walks of life, liberals and conservatives, business people and the unemployed, and bring them together in common cause for a better community. Could there really be better preparation to reunite a worried and divided America to again pursue our "more perfect union"?

If Americans were only worried about foreign affairs, McCain's stalwart service in the military and experience on the national stage would make him the more credible commander in chief. But our eyes have turned homeward and, in this hour, Obama has the eloquence and vision to bring us back together.

As novelist Christopher Buckley said in endorsing Obama, the Illinois senator "has a first-rate intellect and a first-rate temperament."

With the help and prayers of the American people, we believe those talents can also make Barack Obama a great president.

McCain is a sleaze and a liar - David Letterman is 'journalist of the year' for asking tougher questions than the rest of the media -

PLEASE send this to all your friends, co-workers, family - anyone you can. With days to go before the most important election of our lifetimes - we MUST get the truthful word out on John McCain.

zjm

Patriotic American Grandmother Sues McCain and Palin for 'Hate Speech'

Beware America: McCain Plans to Rob Medicare -

What John McCain means when he says 'Country First'

"America, we cannot turn back" -We're in it together

Obama's Stand Up Comedy at the Alfred E Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner: A MUST watch!

For some reason, the first part of Obama's remarks loop back at the 3 minute mark - just stay with it as it continues through the end - and enjoy the repeat!

zjm

Washington Post Endorses Obama: "We think he is the right man for a perilous moment. "

October 17, 2008

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stayin' Alive: Sox Force Game 6 with 2nd Biggest Postseason Comeback in History!

McCain may not be George Bush, but....

October may yet yield a surprise

by Lisa Van Dusen | October 16, 2008

The October surprise has become such a reliable element of U.S. presidential elections that the most surprising October surprise between now and the end of the month would be no surprise at all.

But with Barack Obama 14 points ahead of John McCain in some polls with less than three weeks to go until Nov. 4, with the Straight Talk Express veering like a runaway beer truck, and with few obvious traditional strategic, tactical or voodoo options left available to the Republicans, guessing what an October surprise might look like has become the new parlour game.

Will Rev. Jeremiah Wright stage a four-night Vegas comeback run the week before the election? Will the FBI, the CIA and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms announce during a live remote media availability that Osama bin Laden has been hiding out with Bill Ayers in the Roanoke, Va., Holiday Inn directly behind them?

Like the Great Pumpkin, nobody has ever been able to prove the October surprise really exists, which only enhances its enormous mythical status in the imaginations of pollsters, consultants, reporters and commentators.

The term October surprise was first used publicly during the 1980 campaign by Republican vice-presidential candidate George H.W. Bush.

The Democratic incumbent, Jimmy Carter, had been battered by the nightly national nightmare of Ted Koppel reporting on the unchanging status of American hostages being held in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Republican challenger Ronald Reagan's surrogates, including campaign director William Casey, feared an 11th-hour game-changing hostage deal. So Bush pre-emptively portrayed any pre-election release as a cynical vote-getting tactic.

SAVVY CARTER

"All I know is there's a concern, not just with us but I think generally amongst the electorate, well, this Carter's a politically tough fellow," said Bush, in all apparent seriousness. "He'll do anything to get re-elected and let's be prepared for some October surprise."

It was Casey who had first used the term privately (according to language guru and former Richard Nixon speechwriter William Safire) in 1968, when he was working for Nixon, to anticipate another October surprise that never happened -- a Vietnam peace deal by outgoing president Lyndon Johnson to help Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic candidate.

The 1980 October surprise, which is considered the granddaddy of October surprises, turned out to be a January surprise when the hostages were released 20 minutes after Reagan was inaugurated.

Allegations that Reagan's people had negotiated with the Iranians to hold a release until after the election while accusing the Democrats of doing the same thing were never proven but, if true, would make the first October surprise not only notable for its absence, but one of the most awesome examples of electoral psychological counter-projection ever.

In 2004, John Kerry was ahead in the polls on Oct. 29, when Osama bin Laden released what was basically a campaign commercial reminding voters of the 9/11 attacks and that he was still at large. Overnight, President George W. Bush opened a six-point lead heading into Election Day.

SCANNING THE SKIES

These days, the term October surprise has come to include everything, orchestrated or not, from natural disasters to a candidate's runny nose and the Republicans are scanning the skies and praying for something, anything, to land with a thud between now and Halloween.

It's hard to imagine what that might be. Maybe an un-American terrorist trifecta tape of Wright, William Ayres and bin Laden having brunch together on the Upper West Side.

The last debate: Obama outclasses McCain in every way -

McCain mocks women's health needs/Roe VS Wade in discussion over supreme court judicial philosophy -

Keith Olbermann defends Congressman John Lewis, condemns McCain for his despicable attitudes and tactics - ESSENTIAL VIEWING!

Same Obama hate, different day -

Late Night Comics on McCain and Palin

'A Resepctful Campaign' My Ass!

John McCains 'Wise Man' Speaks

'It's about you!' (Vote for Barack Obama)

'Why it Matters' (Why we are voting for Barack Obama)

'A Mother's Promise' (DNC Convention Biography Video of Barack Obama)

Newspaper Endorsements for Obama

Six more heartland newspapers have endorsed Obama - take time to read them all! zjm

Springfield News Sun (Ohio):

It's time for a change and that change cannot be delivered by the Republican candidate who has voiced no real split with the policies of the Bush years. The News-Sun Editorial Board is endorsing Sen. Barack Obama as the best hope for the nation to return to prosperity and to regain its standing in the world.

Toledo Blade (Ohio):

To be sure, the path to recovery won't be easy for the next president. There are ominous signs that the economy will continue to falter before confidence can be restored in the financial system. The leadership required to contain and reorder the economic mess created by eight years of heedless deregulation will have to be both inspired and inspiring. We believe the person best equipped by temperament and intellect to firmly grasp the reins of government and guide it safely forward in these uncertain times is Barack Obama.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania):

But this election is not just about the shortcomings of Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin and the failed legacy of a philosophy that they seek to perpetuate under the hastily erected banner of maverick. It is about the strengths of Barack Obama, whose rise to prominence is not a fluke or national infatuation but the consequence of his remarkable skills -- a keen intellect, noble intentions and the wit and grace to express them in ways that have inspired millions across the country. He has a rare gift exactly suited to the fearful times -- he knows the language of reassurance and hope.

Easton Express Times (Pennsylvania):

Obama does not win this by default. He wins The Express-Times' endorsement because of his platform, because he has demonstrated a cool head in troubled times, because he inspires confidence and because he is conducting an above-board campaign. The next president isn't going to be able to deliver on much of anything that requires new spending. He will have to be a deft, recession-fighting strategist, to avoid being this century's Herbert Hoover. He must end the Iraq war. Obama has the firmer timeline and commitment on this.

State Journal (Wisconsin):

America is at a pivotal point in its history — a difficult time that demands talented leadership to renew our nation's spirit and pull us together to meet the incredible challenges ahead. The right leader for the time is Barack Obama. The Wisconsin State Journal endorses the dynamic and youthful senator from Illinois for president. Far more than his opponent, Obama represents a new direction. He has shown he can inspire and lead people to action. And his relatively short time in corrupt, self-absorbed, terribly-failed Washington, D.C., may actually be a key strength. Obama is not stuck in the status quo of the Capitol crowd or its long-failed Congress.

Muskegon Chronicle (Michigan):

Barack Obama will protect our country and its Constitution, which have suffered at the hands of the current administration, and he has chosen an excellent running mate in Delaware's veteran U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, who is ready to step in to serve if need be in the tradition of Harry Truman and Gerald R. Ford. Obama and Biden have both exhibited coolness, competence and confidence at every turn, reassuring the citizens of our great country that the promised change to come will be for the better. Their measured answers and well-thought-out responses to the difficult issues confronting the United States strike us as conveying the right tone and proper course for the four years ahead.

Congressman John Lewis speaks the truth to John McCain, Sarah Palin, the Republican Party, and the citizens of the United States

John Lewis, Rep. (D-Ga.)

As one who was a victim of violence and hate during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, I am deeply disturbed by the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign. What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. 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.

During another period, in the not too distant past, there was a governor of the state of Alabama named George Wallace who also became a presidential candidate. 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, Alabama.

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. They are playing a very dangerous game that disregards the value of the political process and cheapens our entire democracy. We can do better. The American people deserve better.

McCain-Palin Playing the Culture Card

by Lisa Van Dusen | Sun Media

There's a great scene in an episode of 30 Rock from last season in which Alec Baldwin's lovable-demagogue network VP, Jack Donaghy, stands in the middle of an NBC executive dining room full of Republicans and introduces his Democratic congresswoman girlfriend, played by The Sopranos' Edie Falco.

"She wants to tax us all to death and make it legal for a man to marry his own dog," Donaghy tells the hushed executives. "But I think what we have is special."

Instead of a backlash, the revelation prompts a series of AA-style confessions from conservative diners who stand up one by one and state their own violations of America's culture war rules.

"I gave to NPR last year!"

"My children go to public school!"

"I'm gay!"

"I'm black!"

Falco's character responds with, "In 1984, I voted for Ronald Reagan!"

The scene is an absolute gas because it's so far-fetched it would never happen in real life, at least not in today's America.

In the broadest terms, the culture war divisions are right vs. left, south vs. north, west vs. east, red state vs. blue state, rural vs. urban, pro-life vs. pro-choice, white vs. non-white. In extreme culture-war caricature terms, one side finds the other overly intellectual, elitist, bleeding of heart, tax-loving, appeasing, unpatriotic, Godless and too enamored of foreign objects, especially italicized French words.

The other side finds the first side narrow-minded, dogmatic, blindly patriotic, overspending, intolerant, anti-diplomatic, irrational, xenophobic and bewilderingly enamoured with firearms and country music.

REAL DIVISIONS

Any pollster will tell you that behind those cliches are real divisions and when the spreads narrow and the issues, catchphrases and code get played for votes, elections can be won or lost on them, which is what makes culture wars so tactically attractive.

When Sarah Palin was named John McCain's running mate on Aug. 29, and especially after she made her speech to a Republican Convention where the lines were already being drawn, it seemed McCain was declaring, in big red, white and blue neon lights, "This Means Culture War."

Four days after her speech, on Sept. 7, the government seized control of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. By Sept. 15, Wall Street woke up to find Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch gone and went to bed with waking nightmares of the biggest single-day plummet since 9/11.

What was arguably the only kind of disaster that could blow a culture war off the table in a country where money trumps just about everything else was already getting more serious by the hour until the Congressional bailout mess crystallized both the size of the problem and the candidates' approaches. Now, the issue outweighs every other voter concern.

But because Palin has proven to be a drag on the McCain ticket in national polls and her appeal is limited to a base that already understands the culture war lexicon, she has been tasked with what may be the most personalized culture war offensive in memory, the targeting of Obama as mysterious, foreign, unknowable, unpatriotic, friendly with terrorists and dangerous.

THE REAL OBAMA

When McCain, who apparently just found out about Barack Obama's disqualifying unknowability, says, "Who is the real Barack Obama?" he's telling people who still feel uneasy about Obama because of his race that it's OK to be suspicious: It's not about what we know but what we don't know.

These allegations, conveniently unprovable and therefore impossible to disprove, are meant not to broaden the base but as a customized appeal to a specific kind of base voter and to any Independents whose responsiveness to that kind of talk outweighs everything else, even the economy.

With battleground states slipping one by one into the Obama column on the strength of voters whose economic concerns do outweigh everything else, the Republican strategy now focuses on saving the states Bush won in 2004 and on taking Pennsylvania, whose 21 electoral votes could push the winner over the 270 college votes needed.

Pennsylvania, where Joe Biden's Scranton roots and nearby Delaware base help the ticket, is also where Obama lost a brutal six-week primary fight to Hillary Clinton last spring, partly because it was small-town Pennsylvanians he was talking about in that off-the-record quote about what bitter people cling to.

With that sort of ammunition lying around, McCain and Palin would have to be running an entirely different sort of campaign to not resort to some old-fashioned culture warmongering.

2 good men; Obama right leader for today : Dayton (Ohio) Daily News Endorses Obama

By Dayton Daily News | Sunday, October 12, 2008

In this unhappy passage, the nation faces a happy choice: a brilliant young man offering a new generation of leadership — and a remarkable turning point in the nation's history — opposes an accomplished veteran who has punched all the right tickets in his rise toward the presidency.

Both are thoughtful, modern people alert to the real problems of the world and the nation. Neither should be chosen because the other is frightening.

Sen. John McCain has earned the now-overworked term "maverick." He has bucked his party far more often than most. And yet the record is more complex.

He was most dramatically independent after his run for the presidency in 2000 when he lost to George W. Bush in a bitter fight. He simply went to war with President Bush, opposing his signature tax reduction, disagreeing on environmental issues, opposing his energy initiative and more.

Sen. McCain seemed to be in the process of leaving the Republican Party. Democrats saw him as a possible member of their ticket.

But he changed after 2004. He joined the Republican team on taxes. He gradually moved to the right on immigration. He told the conservative wing of the party what it wanted to hear on Supreme Court appointments, even though the appointment of hard-line conservatives is likely to doom the campaign-finance reform law that epitomized his work in his maverick days.

(The McCain-Feingold law created spending limits on national parties and imposed rules about the financing of non-candidate ads that run during a campaign. Opponents see it as an infringement on free speech.)

McCain's campaign disappointing

Sen. McCain's campaign has been as disappointing as his move toward party orthodoxy. More than his opponent, he has run a relentless stream of commercials that have been discredited by nonpartisan fact-checkers. (Last week, all his ads were negative.)

He has articulated no vision for the country other than to suggest that it should believe in him as an individual, as a war hero of independent judgment.

His selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate was stunning. She is shockingly lacking in presidential qualifications. Some of Sen. McCain's most enthusiastic supporters have been forced to admit this. Her defenders say her resume compares well with Sen. Obama's, but it does not.

Alaska is tiny in population and atypical in its issues. And she'd been governor for only a year and a half when she was tapped. At any rate, as some interviews have shown, she's no Barack Obama.

Sen. McCain presents her as a fellow "maverick." Nonsense. The important sense in which he's been a maverick has been his willingness to flout conservative orthodoxy. But she's an orthodox conservative and then some, opposing abortion even in cases of rape and incest, and, for example, long denying man-made global warming.

Was Sen. McCain, in selecting her, making a cynical effort to get the hard-core conservatives excited? Or was he just wrong about how unready she is? It hardly matters. He royally blew the most important decision he has ever had to make in politics.

The selection undercuts Sen. McCain's effort to sell himself as the one who is most ready for the presidency. So does another momentous decision.

He was one of the most gung-ho advocates of the Iraq war. He confirmed in the first presidential debate (right at the end) that he sees Iraq as the great cause of our time. It is no such thing.

Given that there were no weapons of mass destruction, given that there were no important ties between Saddam Hussein and the perpetrators of 9/11, given that al-Qaida is resurgent today, Iraq is a tragically costly diversion from a sound foreign policy, which, of course, must focus on the terrorist threat where it really exists.

That Sen. McCain was right — while Barack Obama was wrong — about the "surge" in American forces in Iraq last year is beyond dispute. Too little, though, and too late.

Sen. Obama's opposition to the war goes a long way toward making the case that experience isn't necessarily the magic ingredient in making a national leader. Nevertheless, many millions of Americans have been appropriately skeptical that somebody who only came to the U.S. Senate after the 2004 election, and hasn't been a governor, is the best pick for president.

They must be comforted, though, by Sen. Obama's cool, even masterful performance in the campaign. Nobody could have expected any more. He has made his supporters proud, as Sen. McCain has made his supporters wonder.

When Sen. McCain pretended to suspend his campaign, to help Washington through the bailout crisis, it looked like a clever move by a veteran warrior. But the new guy deflated it gracefully and easily, noting that he and Sen. McCain ought to be able to do two things at once, if the second was as important as a presidential debate.

Added to their vice-presidential decisions, and to the ability of the younger man to stand next to the veteran in debates and demonstrate every bit as much command of issues, the bailout incident was a suggestion of readiness.

Barack Obama has been in the public spotlight for four years (since his memorable debut speech at his party's 2004 convention). He has withstood relentless, withering attacks. The more attacks he survives, the more comfortable people seem with the idea of him as a leader.

With any candidate, there are doubts

On the issues, he is in the liberal mainstream of the Democratic Party. He worries less about the taxes of the people at the top of the economic system than those in the middle. He unambiguously embraces decent health care as a "right." He would like to put more public resources into education and efforts to extend the American dream to those still dreaming.

He favors more regulation of Wall Street. He sees diplomacy as underused by the current president. He wants — perhaps unrealistically — to shape trade treaties so that they work better for American workers.

Any alert citizen must be skeptical that Sen. Obama can accomplish all he wants, must know that he has not answered all the reasonable questions about his plans, must wonder about the trade-offs. But such doubts are there about all candidates.

For some people, the liberal tag makes Sen. Obama a nonstarter. But he built his early appeal around the promise to get beyond the liberal-conservative wars, to show a level of respect for the views of others that helps build a new kind of politics. It is his most ambitious promise.

Meanwhile, the Republican Party is asking the American people to ignore their discontent with President George W. Bush and give the party another chance. But if a party can retain the presidency after failing in it — just by putting up somebody different — then accountability is undercut. Failure should exact a political price. If it doesn't, failure becomes harder to deter.

The nation's moment of choice arrives even as some sort of new era has arrived in the realm of the economy. The problems the nation is obsessed with at this moment are not problems that John McCain has any particular experience with. Neither does Barack Obama.

But in a time of change, Sen. Obama is the more promising leader. With his agile mind, often pitch-perfect judgment and preternatural calm and self-confidence, he seems built for the job of sorting through this thing, if anybody can.

The nation faces a choice that looks more and more like a choice between the future and the past. It has never been one to shrink from the future.

St. Louis Dispatch Endorses Obama

Nine Days before the Feb. 5 presidential primaries in Missouri and Illinois, this editorial page endorsed Barack Obama and John McCain in their respective races.

We did so enthusiastically. We wrote that either Mr. Obama’s message of hope or Mr. McCain’s independence and integrity offered America “the chance to turn the page on 28 years of contentious, greed-driven politics and move into a new era of possibility.”

Over the past nine months, Mr. Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, has emerged as the only truly transformative candidate in the race. In the crucible that is a presidential campaign, his intellect, his temperament and equanimity under pressure consistently have been impressive. He has surrounded himself with smart, capable advisers who have helped him refine thorough, nuanced policy positions.

In a word, Mr. Obama has been presidential.

Meanwhile, Mr. McCain, the senior senator from Arizona, became the incredible shrinking man. He shrank from his principled stands in favor of a humane immigration policy. He shrank from his universal condemnation of torture and his condemnation of the politics of smear.

He even shrank from his own campaign slogan, “County First,” by selecting the least qualified running mate since the Swedenborgian shipbuilder Arthur Sewall ran as William Jennings Bryan’s No. 2 in 1896.

In making political endorsements, this editorial page is guided first by the principles espoused by Joseph Pulitzer in The Post-Dispatch Platform printed daily at the top of this page. Then we consider questions of character, life experience and intellect, as well as specific policy and issue positions. Each member of the editorial board weighs in.

On all counts, the consensus was clear: Barack Obama of Illinois should be the next president of the United States.

We didn’t know nine months ago that before Election Day, America would face its greatest economic challenge since the Great Depression. The crisis on Wall Street is devastating, but it has offered voters a useful preview of how the two presidential candidates would respond to a crisis.

Very early on, Mr. Obama reached out to his impressive corps of economic advisers and developed a comprehensive set of recommendations for addressing the problems. He set them forth calmly and explained them carefully.

Mr. McCain, a longtime critic of government regulation, was late to recognize the threat. The chief economic adviser of his campaign initially was former Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, who had been one of the architects of banking deregulation. When the credit markets imploded, Mr. McCain lurched from one ineffectual grandstand play to another. He squandered the one clear advantage he had over Mr. Obama: experience.

Mr. McCain first was elected to Congress in 1982 when Mr. Obama was in his senior year at Columbia University. Yet the younger man’s intellectual curiosity and capacity — and, yes, also the skills he developed as a community organizer and his instincts as a political conciliator — more than compensate for his lack of more traditional Washington experience.

A presidency is defined less by what happens in the Oval Office than by what is done by the more than 3,000 men and women the president appoints to government office. Only 600 of them are subject to Senate approval. The rest serve at the pleasure of the president.

We have little doubt that Mr. Obama’s appointees would bring a level of competence, compassion and intellectual achievement to the executive branch that hasn’t been seen since the New Frontier. He has energized a new generation of Americans who would put the concept of service back in “public service.”

Consider that while Mr. McCain selected as his running mate Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, a callow and shrill partisan, Mr. Obama selected Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware. Mr. Biden’s 35-year Senate career has given him encyclopedic expertise on legislative and judicial issues, as well as foreign affairs.

The idea that 3,000 bright, dedicated and accomplished Americans would be joining the Obama administration to serve the public — as opposed to padding their resumés or shilling for the corporate interests they’re sworn to oversee — is reassuring. That they would be serving a president who actually would listen to them is staggering.

And the fact that Mr. Obama can explain his thoughts and policies in language that can instruct and inspire is exciting. Eloquence isn’t everything in a president, but it is not nothing, either.

Experience aside, the 25-year difference in the ages of Mr. McCain, 72, and Mr. Obama, 47, is important largely because Mr. Obama’s election would represent a generational shift. He would be the first chief executive in more than six decades whose worldview was not formed, at least in part, by the Cold War or Vietnam.

He sees the complicated world as it is today, not as a binary division between us and them, but as a kaleidoscope of shifting alliances and interests. As he often notes, he is the son of a Kenyan father and a mother from Kansas, an internationalist who yet acknowledges that America is the only nation in the world in which someone of his distinctly modest background could rise as far as his talent, intellect and hard work would take him.

Given the damage that has been done to America’s moral standing in the world in the last eight years — by a preemptory war, a unilateralist foreign policy and by policies that have treated both the Geneva Conventions and our own Bill of Rights as optional — Mr. Obama’s election would help America reclaim the moral high ground.

It also must be said that Mr. Obama is right on the issues. He was right on the war in Iraq. He is right that all Americans deserve access to health care and right in his pragmatic approach to meeting that goal. He is right on tax policy, infrastructure investment, energy policy and environmental issues. He is right on American ideals.

He was right when he said in his remarkable speech in March in Philadelphia that “In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand: that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.”

John McCain has served his country well, but in the end, he may have wanted the presidency a little too much, so much that he has sacrificed some of the principles that made him a heroic figure in war and in peace. In every way possible, he has earned the right to retire.

Finally, only at this late point do we note that Barack Obama is an African-American. Because of who he is and how he has run his campaign, that fact has become almost incidental to most Americans. Instead, his countrymen are weighing his talents, his values and his beliefs, judging him not by the color of his skin, but the content of his character.

That says something profound and good — about him as a candidate and about us as a nation.

McCain's attacks fuel dangerous hatred

By Frank Schaeffer | October 10, 2008

John McCain: If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as "not one of us," I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence.

At a Sarah Palin rally, someone called out, "Kill him!" At one of your rallies, someone called out, "Terrorist!" Neither was answered or denounced by you or your running mate, as the crowd laughed and cheered. At your campaign event Wednesday in Bethlehem, Pa., the crowd was seething with hatred for the Democratic nominee - an attitude encouraged in speeches there by you, your running mate, your wife and the local Republican chairman.

Shame!

John McCain: In 2000, as a lifelong Republican, I worked to get you elected instead of George W. Bush. In return, you wrote an endorsement of one of my books about military service. You seemed to be a man who put principle ahead of mere political gain. You have changed. You have a choice: Go down in history as a decent senator and an honorable military man with many successes, or go down in history as the latest abettor of right-wing extremist hate.

John McCain, you are no fool, and you understand the depths of hatred that surround the issue of race in this country. You also know that, post-9/11, to call someone a friend of a terrorist is a very serious matter. You also know we are a bitterly divided country on many other issues. You know that, sadly, in America, violence is always just a moment away. You know that there are plenty of crazy people out there.

Stop! Think! Your rallies are beginning to look, sound, feel and smell like lynch mobs.

John McCain, you're walking a perilous line. If you do not stand up for all that is good in America and declare that Senator Obama is a patriot, fit for office, and denounce your hate-filled supporters when they scream out "Terrorist" or "Kill him," history will hold you responsible for all that follows.

John McCain and Sarah Palin, you are playing with fire, and you know it. You are unleashing the monster of American hatred and prejudice, to the peril of all of us. You are doing this in wartime. You are doing this as our economy collapses. You are doing this in a country with a history of assassinations.

Change the atmosphere of your campaign. Talk about the issues at hand. Make your case. But stop stirring up the lunatic fringe of haters, or risk suffering the judgment of history and the loathing of the American people - forever.

We will hold you responsible.

Frank Schaeffer is the author of "Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back.

After stoking the flames of hate, McCain pulls back and proclaims Obama to be a 'decent' man - you don't have to be scared (of him as) President."

Ethics investigation finds Palin abused power

msnbc.com news services | updated 1:18 a.m. ET, Sat., Oct. 11, 2008

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Sarah Palin unlawfully abused her power as governor by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper, the chief investigator of an Alaska legislative panel concluded Friday. The politically charged inquiry imperiled her reputation as a reformer on John McCain's Republican ticket.

Who is Barack Obama?

Important election 08 thoughts from a Vermonter - recovering rebublican, senior citizen, friend, father, and grandfather

At the risk of shredding my creds as an independent, moderate, and newly senior, citizen, I offer for your reading pleasure a snippet from Mike Taibbi's column on Sarah Palin in the October 2nd issue of Rolling Stone Magazine. (Yeah, I know, to some it's a liberal/left leaning glossy that panders to hormone afflicted adolescents like me. So, get some guts and read the article. I don't necessarily accept everything in it but I feel like I learned something.)

The column is preceded by a cartoon caricature of Presidential candidate John McCain holding a leashed pit bull with the face of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. In his other hand, Senator McCain is holding a tube of lipstick (you know,"the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull",etc.) By the way, the caricatures in RS are the best. I quote from the column:

"Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she's a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more that that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power. Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she's the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV--and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be (expletive deleted) by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation."

Why this commentary? Because I am pissed beyond comprehension that any political organization would arrogantly and negligently subject US to the possibility of a President Palin. (Whatever happened to putting the country first?) Because I am concerned that too many members of the media ("she's rallying the base"???--what's that about?), and too many of us, are failing to express appropriate outrage over this orchestrated ascendancy of one so obviously unqualified to be a heartbeat away from the leadership of the free world. Many would seem to disagree, so be worried. She is consistently drawing 15,000 to 20,000 people to her rallies--check them out to see if you are learning anything. (You can fool most of the people most of the time?)

We all need to take the mask off this young lady and take a good hard look at who she is, what she really represents. You have to ask yourself: if Sarah Palin was Samuel Palin, would anybody even talk to or about him? More importantly, if Sarah becomes President Palin, what would she do? And, that is the really scary part. At a time when we need to come together nationally and internationally, we get a pit bull instead of a problem solver. Regardless of your political persuasion (I am a recovering Republican in search of that party's lost principles and values--you know, the ones that I am told existed when Honest Abe was President) this is madness. We should expect more from our elected representatives and more from ourselves. Because of who is manipulating her and because of her obvious willingness to embrace the attention as well as the manipulation, and because the manipulators and the manipulatee have a plan for her to eventually be President Palin, she represents the most frightening political personality of my lifetime, which includes Barry Goldwater, may he rest in peace.

Read the article. If you see anything in the article that is untrue, let me know. Really. Unlike Ms. Palin, I like to read, I like to learn, and I welcome opposing viewpoints.

Dad/Chip

Obama/McCain Debate #2

Stunted Campaign

While most American political writers and commentators continue to, hour after hour, like a trailer for a 'Lifetime movie of the week' feed the frenzy around the McCain/Palin sleazy tactics with hushed, voiced over questions of "will it work with white voters in Pennsylvania?"...Lisa Van Dusen offers a straight-forward, no-nonsense portrait of what is actually happening: Not working, won't work - American voters are tired of the BS, and are making up their minds based on the true nature of the issues and candidates - zjm


McCain's tricks fail to impress American voters

By LISA VANDUSEN | 9, October, 2008

You would think, given the age difference, the Washington experience gap and the cultural, face-on-the-dollar-bill factor, that John McCain would be the more "presidential" presidential candidate. But between McCain's visible discomfort with his fate and Barack Obama's increasing comfort level with his, the veteran is the one looking more and more like the guy in the way.

If post-debate polling Tuesday night hadn't backed that up, McCain wouldn't have released an ad yesterday morning saying Obama is "not presidential."

For a candidate who now has his own one-woman goon squad skimming off most of the toxic dirty work of his campaign, McCain still comes off like he's seething with seethiness, as Sarah Palin herself might say.

Part of McCain's churlishness is just who he is and what he's famous for; it's the downside of the maverick persona that has served him so well. The particularly ornery McCain voters saw Tuesday night was likely also a product of the fact that his poll numbers are slipping in a way that, based on the state-by-state numbers, seems all-but irretrievable barring a major October surprise.

Some of it may also be frustration at the fact that his own running mate is outdrawing him by tens of thousands of supporters and rubberneckers in a way that is showing up McCain's lack of charisma while doing nothing to stop the national slide.

Palin's role change

Palin's mandate has changed since it became clear to the Svengalis who called her down from Alaska to boost the galvanic skin response levels in the Republican base that she may not be as transferable to a national context as they thought.

That reality hit at the same time as the much larger disaster of the U.S. economic meltdown was fast becoming a catastrophe for the global economy and Americans were deciding that Obama seemed more competent to deal with the disaster than McCain, whose response was, "When the going gets tough, the tough chew the scenery."

It seems the McCain campaign decided the best option left was to limit or at least postpone the kind of unstoppable slide that sees battleground states start falling like dominoes and daily stories from tour reporters about the different tones and pitches of death rattles.

Palin's value in the past week has been not so much as a standard bearer for the rich Republican policy legacy of the Bush years -- that's not really an option -- but in portraying Obama as a shadowy unknown quantity (after nearly two years of hourly campaign coverage) who hates America so much that he "pals around with terrorists."

But something funny is happening out there in the great swath of public opinion between the Obama supporters and the Republican base. The independents and swing voters don't seem to be buying the stunt-a-week approach of the McCain campaign anymore.

People will only fall for so many tactics -- campaign suspensions, gimmicky VP picks, nutty terrorist talk -- before their suspension of disbelief is exhausted.

With polls now showing 15- and 20-point leads for Obama on compassion, handling the economy and handling the financial crisis, there aren't too many definitions of "presidential" left for McCain to latch onto.

And with the political eternity of a month left to go and an electorate that's all scammed out, an October surprise would have to be an October cataclysm for people to not roll just their eyes and go back to the real news.

Quote of the day goes to McCain - 'a prisoner of his own mind'

"You and I together will confront the ten trillion dollar debt that the federal government has run up and balance the federal budget by the end of my term in office," McCain began, making his way to pork barrel spending. "Across this country this is the agenda I have set before my fellow prisoners and the same standards of clarity and candor must now be applied to my opponent."

New Gallup Poll

Obama campaigns in Indiana - "Better days are ahead!"

Obama Wins Big in Debate #2

FOX News focus group: Obama

CNN focus group: Obama

CNN Poll:

Who won the debate?
Obama: 54%
McCain: 30%

CBS Poll: Uncommitted Voters Say Obama Won Debate

Who won the debate?
Obama: 39%
McCain: 27%

CBS News and Knowledge Networks have, once again, conducted a nationally representative poll of uncommitted voters to get their immediate reaction to tonight's presidential debate.

And this new poll has good news for the Democratic ticket: Just as in the first presidential debate and the vice presidential face off, more uncommitted voters say the Democratic candidate won the debate.

9 percent of the uncommitted voters surveyed identified Barack Obama as tonight's winner; 27 percent said John McCain won, while 35 percent saw the debate as a draw.

After the debate, 68 percent of uncommitted voters said that they think Obama will make the right decisions on the economy, compared to 54 percent who said that before the debate. Fewer thought McCain would do so – 49 percent after the debate, and 41 percent before.

Before the debate, 60 percent thought Obama understands voters’ needs and problems; that rose to 80 percent after the debate. For McCain, 35 percent felt he understands voters’ needs before the debate, and 46 percent thought so afterwards.

Before the debate, 42 percent thought Obama was prepared for the job of president. That percentage rose to 57 percent after the debate. For McCain, 80 percent felt he was prepared for the job before the debate, and 84 percent thought so afterwards.

We will have a full report on the poll later on. Uncommitted voters are those who don't yet know who they will vote for, or who have chosen a candidate but may still change their minds.

TIME: Mark Halperin’s grades:
Obama: B+
McCain: B

NBC (Shrum) 9:43 PM: "I think he won a win tonight, Barack Obama. Because I think the big headline of this debate is that people across the country more and more comfortable with the idea of President Obama. He projects a sense of calmness and strength that kind of grace under pressure that people prize in a president."

MSNBC (Fineman) 11:10 PM: "Another good moment for Obama was when Obama basically took control of the foreign policy debate toward the end there."

FOX News (Luntz)10:43 PM: “We seem to be getting winners out of this. Obama did better overall."

CNN (Hillary Rosen): I am fixated on the dial line at the bottom of the screen on CNN. Women are responding very enthusiastically to Obama. And women have been the larger part of the undecided vote in the battleground states. They like his specificity on tax cuts, the budget, education and energy. And now the environment has just sent both men and women to the top line. McCain only gets to the top line with either men or women when he is positive. Each time he criticizes Obama, the line flattens.

Washington Post (Eugene Robinson): I think most viewers will decide that Obama won the debate, if only because he seemed more presidential and he represents a party other than George W. Bush’s. These encounters, I believe, are fundamentally unkind to John McCain.

Talking Points Memo: “Clear, even decisive win for Obama tonight.” The debate's relatively low-key tone, combined with a series of exchanges that Obama won by at minimum a marginal amount, translate into a clear, even decisive win for Obama tonight. There's no point in mincing words: Time is running out for McCain. As multiple observers have pointed out, McCain needed to jar the electorate into seeing this race in a new way. It isn't even clear if McCain even tried to do this tonight -- there was no moment where he appeared to make an aggressive bid to take down Obama or grab the initiative.

Debate #2: Obama on Presidential Leadership - 'Speaking Softly'

State of the race with Chuck Todd, just hours before presidential debate #2