STRONGSVILLE, Ohio - Senator John McCain devoted most of two campaign appearances on Wednesday to lusty attacks on Senator Barack Obama and gave less attention, and offered very few specifics, to the growing economic woes of American voters.

In both appearances, in this suburb of Cleveland and at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., Mr. McCain's stump speech followed the same pattern: In broad, quick strokes, he reiterated the economic proposal he raised at his debate with Mr. Obama on Tuesday night - a "homeownership resurgence plan," in which the government would buy mortgages directly from homeowners and mortgage services and replace them with what he called "manageable" mortgages.

After that, he raced through promises of jobs, tax cuts, lower prices, better health care, a spending freeze and a balanced federal budget by the end of his first term. With that done, Mr. McCain then dived into the core of his speech, a lengthy, full-throated and crowd-pleasing criticism of Mr. Obama's record, character and judgment.

"Who is the real Senator Obama?" Mr. McCain asked in an increasingly sharp tone in Ohio, as Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska stood to his side. "Is he the candidate who promises to cut middle-class taxes, or the politician who voted to raise middle-class taxes? Is he the candidate who talks about regulation or the politician who took money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and turned a blind eye as they ran our economy into a ditch?"

Mr. McCain has never been comfortable talking about the economy, and in these final weeks of his nearly two-year, second-time quest of the presidency, with polls showing him losing increasing ground to Mr. Obama, Mr. McCain and his advisers have made the calculation that negative attacks will move at least some voters. Certainly those attacks pump up crowds on the campaign trail, where it is the sharp criticism of Mr. Obama, rather than Mr. McCain's once-over comments on the economy, that draw the biggest, loudest response from the conservative and almost all-white crowds that come to see Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin.

As the crowd booed angrily at each mention of Mr. Obama's name, Mr. McCain threw himself more vigorously into his speech.

"Is he the candidate who promises change, or is he the politician who has bought into everything that is wrong with Washington?" Mr. McCain said, then concluded, nearly shouting, "We can't change the system with someone who's never fought the system."

Earlier in the day, Mr. McCain flatly told "Hannity & Colmes" on Fox News that Mr. Obama was not prepared to be president while Ms. Palin, in the same interview, said that Mr. Obama's association with the 1960s radical William Ayers and the convicted felon Antoin Rezko makes her "question his judgment" and "who he would associate himself with in the future."

On Wednesday, Cindy McCain, Mr. McCain's wife, joined in the attacks, too, and in a departure from her normally mild public remarks told the crowd at Lehigh that Mr. Obama did not understand what it meant to have a son serving in Iraq, as she has had.

"The day that Senator Obama decided to cast a vote to not fund my son while he was serving sent a cold chill through my body, let me tell you," Mrs. McCain said. "I would suggest that Senator Obama change shoes with me for just one day." Mrs. McCain was referring to a vote against troop financing that Mr. Obama cast in 2007 because the legislation did not include a timetable for withdrawal; Mr. Obama has voted for all other war-spending bills since he entered the Senate in 2005.

At the same event, the Lehigh County Republican chairman, Bill Platt, twice referred to Mr. Obama from stage as "Barack Hussein Obama." Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin had not yet arrived at the arena when Mr. Platt made his remarks, and the McCain-Palin campaign later disavowed them as "inappropriate rhetoric."

Much of Mr. McCain's addresses on the economy are delivered to voters through the prism of his attacks on Mr. Obama. On Wednesday, Mr. McCain got into a relatively lengthy discourse on how the housing crisis started, but soon enough had placed Mr. Obama in a prominent role in the narrative of bad mortgages that had been backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"This corruption was encouraged by Democrats in Congress, and abetted by Senator Obama," Mr. McCain said, adding that "as recently as September of last year he said that subprime loans had been, quote, a good idea. Well, Senator Obama, that good idea has now plunged this country into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression."

Mr. McCain also vowed to "confront the $10-trillion-dollar debt that the federal government has run up and balance the federal budget by the end of my term in office," but in a slip of the tongue in Pennsylvania he then added, "this is the agenda I have set before my fellow prisoners."

The prepared text of his remarks had called for him to say "fellow citizens."

Last night's debate, a town-hall discussion dominated by economic questions, made it clear that John McCain's effort to change the campaign's focus to the culture wars of the 1960s is not going to work. Voters want candidates to talk about problems and how to solve them, especially the enormous ones confronting us now.

And so it was that while McCain took shots at Barack Obama -- about his "cronies and his friends" at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, about his tax proposals, about his health-care plan -- he could not drag the debate into the more obscure and personal assaults on his Democratic foe that his campaign is peddling. Doing so would not have looked serious or in touch.

A few days ago, McCain lieutenant Greg Strimple told The Post that the Republican side is "looking forward to turning a page on this financial crisis." The debate and the continuing meltdown in the markets showed that just isn't going to happen.

It's clear why Strimple wishes that page would turn. America's economic upheavals have transformed the electoral landscape in Obama's favor. Ohio, which I visited on the eve of the debate, is ground zero of the McCain implosion. It's a state McCain absolutely must win, but recent polls show Obama with a clear lead.

Local Democrats sense that a contest they once feared losing has turned decisively in Obama's direction because the economy is "front and center," said Rep. Tim Ryan, a Democrat whose district includes Youngstown.

"People are listening more, they're more open to what [Obama] and his surrogates are saying, and they don't want four more years," Ryan said.

The main lesson of the debate is that McCain realizes he must get voters to listen to him, too. He has to find his way back to substance and prove he would provide, in his words, "a cool hand at the tiller." Presumably, he will leave it to his running mate, Sarah Palin, his consultants and his surrogates to peddle the mud.

Palin seems eager to do the job of exaggerating Obama's ties to Bill Ayers, the veteran of the violent Weather Underground of the Vietnam era who has become a community activist in Obama's Chicago neighborhood. On Saturday, she cast matters in the most offensive way possible, accusing Obama of "palling around with terrorists."

It was thought that McCain might continue that line of attack last night. Instead, the debate was as sober as the current circumstances call for. Neither candidate committed a large error. Both demonstrated that there are large philosophical differences between them. McCain kept reverting to talk about spending cuts and individual choice in health care, though he did propose an expensive-sounding program to buy up defaulting mortgages. Obama spoke of the costs of deregulation, the need for new programs in health care and an aggressive government response to the economic crisis.

McCain kept highlighting the conservative past with his reverent references to Ronald Reagan. But at the moment, the conservative past is on trial. It represents the era Obama unmistakably wants to end.

There was a revealing exchange about midway through the debate. When asked whether Americans other than our men and women in uniform should be asked to sacrifice for the country, McCain spoke almost entirely about cutting or freezing government programs. It was a strange answer from a man whose military career was characterized by years of punishing patriotic sacrifice.

Obama caught the idealism behind the query, criticizing President Bush's call for Americans to shop after the Sept. 11 attacks. He spoke of the need for individual energy conservation; called for expansion of service programs, including the Peace Corps; and described the hunger among young people to serve their country. McCain sounded like a legislator, Obama like a president.

A few days ago, McCain, pressing his effort to paint Obama as a strange and mysterious figure, asked: "Who is the real Barack Obama?"

Last night's debate raised a different question: Who is the real John McCain? Is he the man who used to tout himself as a problem-solver, or is he the desperate candidate who lurches from attack to attack?

The first McCain showed up last night, insisting that our "situation today cries out for bipartisanship." But is that the McCain who would govern? Is that the McCain who is authorizing all those attack ads? Is that the McCain we'll see tomorrow, and the day after?

By E. J. Dionne Jr., The Washington Post, October 8, 2008

Edge Is 6 Points In a State Looming Large for McCain

Aided by the faltering economy, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has the upper hand in the race for Ohio, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, putting Republican John McCain at a disadvantage in a state considered vital to his chances of winning the White House in November.

The state's voters, long suffering from a poor economy and newly battered by the turmoil in the financial, credit and housing markets, give Obama stronger marks on handling the economy, creating jobs and dealing with tax policy. The senator from Illinois also has a big lead as the candidate more in tune with the economic problems people are confronting, a significant benefit as more than half of all voters consider the economy and jobs the campaign's top issue.

Overall, among likely voters in the new poll, 51 percent said they would support Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), if the election were held today, while 45 percent said they would back McCain and his vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

McCain has the edge on handling the U.S. fight against terrorism and, narrowly, the Iraq war, but those issues are far less important this year. Just 9 percent of voters call them their top issues.

Still, about two in 10 voters are "movable," nearly double the proportion who were in that position two weeks before the 2004 election, suggesting the possibility of some significant shifts in the weeks ahead.

Beyond that, Obama holds a 2 to 1 advantage over McCain as the candidate more likely to bring needed change to Washington.

The new survey underscores the degree to which the economic crisis has shaken up the presidential race and the obstacles that now confront McCain in the final month of the campaign.

No Republican has ever been elected president without winning Ohio, and the state's 20 electoral votes are of paramount importance to McCain. If the senator from Arizona were to win every other state that President Bush carried four years ago, but lose Ohio, he would fall four electoral votes short of the 270 needed to win the White House. Only Florida, of other major battlegrounds the Republicans won in the past two elections, looms as large as Ohio in determining the next president.

The support for Obama comes at an opportune time for the Democrat, as Ohioans began early voting a week ago at polling places statewide. The Ohio secretary of state's office estimates that a quarter of all voters will cast their ballots as absentees or at an early voting location before Election Day, more than twice as many as did so four years ago.

There are indications from the survey that Obama also may have an early advantage in mobilizing and turning out Ohio voters over the next month. He has more enthusiastic supporters than McCain does, and has reached more voters in Ohio than his rival.

Nearly four in 10 voters said they have already been contacted by someone from the Obama campaign either by phone or in person. That is significantly higher than the number who said they have heard from the McCain campaign. It also is higher than the number who said they had been called or visited by the campaigns of Bush or Democrat John F. Kerry in mid-October four years ago.

Including e-mail and text messages this year, the Obama campaign has contacted 43 percent of all voters and the McCain campaign has been in touch with 33 percent. Both sides have reached out to the party faithful, but Obama has done somewhat better at targeting independents.

Obama's lead in Ohio stems in large part from broad support among women, young voters and those focused on the country's, and their own, finances.

Women divided 50-50 between Bush and Kerry four years ago. Now they break for Obama by a 14-point margin. Men tilt narrowly to the Republican nominee, just as they did toward Bush, according to network exit polling.

McCain holds a seven-point edge among white voters, narrower than Bush's 12 points in 2004, with the difference primarily among white women. Almost all black voters support Obama. Four years ago, 16 percent of African Americans supported Bush over Kerry.

Obama also is doing better with young and old voters than Kerry did on Election Day four years ago. Among those younger than 30, Obama has a 2 to 1 lead over McCain. Among those 30 and older, the candidates are tied. Dianne Amos, 60, an ardent McCain supporter from Logan, is engaged in some intergenerational politicking. In a follow-up interview, she said she is "e-mailing back and forth" with her grandson, an Obama supporter. "I keep trying to explain things to him," she said.

Obama is beating McCain by nearly 3 to 1 in Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, and also holds a lead in the northeast portion of the state, an area including the hard-hit industrial cities of Akron, Canton and Youngstown.

McCain's edge in the southwestern part of the state, including Cincinnati and Dayton, is as big as Bush's win was there four years ago, but the Republican nominee's numbers in the central part of the state do not measure up to the president's. Four years ago, Bush won central Ohio and the northwest part of the state around Toledo by eight percentage points. In the Post-ABC News poll, those areas split 49 percent for Obama, 45 percent for McCain.

One clear drag on McCain is the unpopularity of the president. In the most recent Post-ABC national poll, Bush's approval rating stood at 26 percent. Four years ago, both nationally and in Ohio, just over half of all voters gave him positive marks. McCain has sought to portray himself as someone who, with Palin, would reform Washington and change the way business is done in the capital. But in the new poll, more than half of all Ohio voters see McCain as someone who would continue Bush's policies, and nearly all of these voters support Obama.

"Basically, I don't like the Reaganomics of the Republican Party," said Tina Nelson, 27, of Powell, in an interview after the survey. Nelson said an Obama speech on the financial situation "really got to me. It made a lot of sense."

It is the slumping economy that has deeply scrambled voting patterns in the state. The economy was the most important issue in Ohio in 2004, but the Iraq war and terrorism together were cited by as many Ohio voters as were economic concerns, according to a pre-election ABC News poll that year.

Obama wins "economy voters" in the new poll by 62 to 34 percent, and, as noted, more voters prefer him on dealing with the economy (by a 13-point margin), jobs (14 points) and taxes (14 points). And he has an even bigger edge on understanding the financial problems people are facing: Fifty-three percent of voters see him as more in touch on this score, compared with 35 percent who side with McCain.

This advantage on empathy is one of the things that helps Obama among white voters. He has an 11-point edge among that group on this question, and more than 80 percent of those who see him as more in tune support him over McCain.

For Russell Baron, 48, from the Cleveland suburb of Brook Park, McCain cannot compete on the economy. "He's admitted that he doesn't really know much about the economy," he said. "Well, gee, that's a bad thing to say right now."

Dessie Knight, 74, of Quaker City, by contrast, questions Obama's experience on the economy, and sides with McCain on the issue. Overall in the poll, just over half of voters said Obama has enough experience to serve effectively as president.

The unemployment rate in Ohio hit 7.4 percent in August, among the highest in the nation and the highest of any battleground state other than Michigan, territory the McCain campaign effectively ceded last week by pulling out its resources.

Obama lost the Ohio Democratic primary to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) by 10 percentage points, prompting widespread concerns among Democrats that he would have a tough time winning the state.

The new data show Obama doing as well as McCain at holding on to partisans, despite any lingering disgruntlement over the Democratic nomination battle: Ninety-one percent of Democrats back Obama, while 90 percent of Republicans support McCain. But support for Obama does lag a bit among white Democratic women relative to Kerry's support in 2004. And among all Democrats who would have preferred Clinton to be atop the party's ticket, 14 percent support McCain.

Clinton holdouts do not tip the balance, however, in part because Democrats outnumber Republicans among Ohio voters, a reversal from 2004.

Many of those who described themselves as Republicans four years ago now appear to identify as independents, boosting McCain to a tie among this key voting bloc. Kerry won independents by nearly 20 points.

Another group of crucial swing voters is political moderates, and they break for Obama by 22 points, similar to Kerry's margin from 2004. McCain's choice of Palin as his No. 2 appears to be a problem for him among these voters.

Nearly four in 10 moderates in the poll said they were less apt to vote for McCain because of the Palin pick, double the proportion drawn to him as a result. By contrast, Biden attracts three times as many moderates to Obama as he pushes away.

Peggy Burkett, 52, an undecided voter from Youngstown, for one, said Biden "may tip the balance" toward Obama. But she added: "I probably won't know who I'll support until I get to the precinct on Election Day."

Another wild card in Ohio is high public doubt about the vote count on Nov. 4. Only about a third of voters are "very confident" that ballots in the state will be counted accurately, with African Americans much less likely than whites to be so confident in the tally. Voters in Cuyahoga express the highest levels of skepticism of the count, much higher than the level of concern elsewhere.

The poll was conducted by telephone Oct. 3 to 5 among a random sample of 1,010 adults in Ohio. The margin of sampling error for the full poll is plus or minus three percentage points; it is 3.5 points for the sample of 772 likely voters.

By Jon Cohen and Dan Balz, The Washington Post, October 7, 2008

NASHVILLE, Oct. 7 -- On a day when the stock market took another sharp plunge, presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama clashed repeatedly here Tuesday night over the causes of the economic meltdown that has shaken the country and offered sharply contrasting prescriptions for how to restore stability.

McCain played the role of the aggressor throughout the 90-minute debate, accusing his Democratic rival of favoring major tax and spending increases and of relying too often on big government programs to reshape the nation's health-care system. He said he would do more to shake up Washington and bring cooperation to the capital.

"I have a clear record of bipartisanship," he said. "The situation today cries out for bipartisanship. Senator Obama has never taken on his leaders of his party on a single issue."

Obama countered by accusing the Republican of favoring Bush administration policies that he said had helped put the economy in dire straits. Those policies, he charged, called for less regulation and were based on the belief that by letting markets run wild, "prosperity would rain down on all of us."

"It hasn't worked out that way," he continued. "And so now we've got to take some decisive action."

McCain used the debate to promote another approach to solving the economic crisis, saying he would have the government buy up bad mortgages and renegotiate them at the current lower housing values, thereby allowing struggling homeowners to remain in their homes. He argued that until the housing markets stabilize, the economy will continue to falter, and he sought to use the idea to demonstrate his independence from the Bush administration.

"It's my proposal, it's not Senator Obama's proposal, it's not President Bush's proposal," he said. "But I know how to get America working again, restore our economy and take care of working Americans."

The Obama campaign called the mortgage idea "old news," saying that a similar Treasury Department program is already underway as part of the economic rescue package and that Obama backed it.

Although economic issues dominated much of the debate, some of the most pointed exchanges were over foreign policy. McCain charged that Obama had been wrong on the "surge" of U.S. troops in Iraq and accused his rival of "talking loudly" by threatening to attack Pakistan. Obama accused McCain of getting his facts wrong and said it was McCain whose rhetoric was belligerent.

"This is the guy who sang, 'Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran,' who called for the annihilation of North Korea," Obama said. "That I don't think is an example of 'speaking softly.' This is the person who, after we had -- we hadn't even finished Afghanistan, where he said, 'Next up, Baghdad.' " The debate came after two weeks of focus on the economy that has shifted the electoral map in Obama's favor. McCain was under pressure Tuesday to shake up the race with a dominating performance, but the likelihood is that, as sharp as some of the exchanges were, the contest may not change significantly as a result.

Obama has opened up a lead in national polls and in some of the most important battleground states. Last week, McCain pulled out of Michigan, a state he had hoped to convert to his column. In the past few days, new polls have shown Obama leading in Ohio, which is critical to the Republican's hopes.

Even McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, had said that it was time for the gloves to come off. Over the past few days, the McCain-Palin campaign has gone after Obama's character and pointedly questioned his association with William Ayers, who was once a member of a 1960s domestic terrorist group. But while he was aggressive, McCain steered clear of those kinds of personal attacks. Instead, he laid out his differences with Obama largely on policy grounds, and repeatedly questioned whether his rival has the judgment and experience to run the country.

Tuesday's debate, held at Belmont University, was framed in a town hall format. The questions came from an audience of undecided and loosely aligned voters from the Nashville area, as well as from Internet submissions, with moderator Tom Brokaw of NBC News offering follow-ups.

McCain's announcement that he would direct the Treasury Department to buy failing mortgages was part of an aggressive push to give him a boost on an issue -- the economy -- with which he has struggled.

The plan, he said, would turn such mortgages over to the government, replacing them with "manageable, fixed-rate mortgages" for homeowners to reduce the chances of default. His advisers circulated talking points to Republican surrogates telling them to describe it as a "bold initiative" and to call it the "McCain Resurgence Plan."

But McCain did not fully explain how he would finance the $300 billion program, other than to say that it could dip into the money recently passed in the $700 billion economic rescue package.

Nor did he explain how it would square with his promise to freeze all government spending. McCain seemed to be proposing two opposing ideas at once: paring back on the budget, through cutting defense programs and earmarks, while at the same time adding an expensive program.

At another point in the debate, McCain was asked whether the United States should sponsor research and development programs to find new sources of energy. He said it should, then changed the subject to return to a core issue of his career: pork-barrel spending. Referring to his rival across the stage as "that one," McCain cited an energy bill, sponsored by Bush, that Obama had supported.

"There was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies. And it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney. You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one," McCain said, gesturing toward his rival. "You know who voted against it? Me."

Audience member Lindsey Trella asked both candidates whether they view health care as a commodity.

Obama described the need for a "moral commitment" to providing health care and sharply criticized McCain for offering a $5,000 health-care tax credit without also explaining that he would impose new taxes on benefits. "So what one hand giveth, the other hand taketh away," he said. Citing other parts of McCain's plan, he added, "And that is fundamentally the wrong way to go."

McCain countered that Obama's plan would impose government intervention. "What is at -- at stake here in this health-care issue is the fundamental difference between myself and Senator Obama." He continued: "As you noticed, he starts talking about government. He's talked -- said government will do this and government will do that and then government will, and he'll impose mandates. If you're a small-business person, and you don't insure your employees, Senator Obama will fine you, will fine you. That's remarkable."

Obama said his plan would exempt small businesses and would provide a credit to companies for their employees' premiums.

Foreign policy occupied the last third of the debate, with the candidates clashing repeatedly on Pakistan and on their overall approaches to the use of U.S. military forces. McCain sharply criticized Obama's opposition to the troop surge in Iraq and his response to Russian aggression in Georgia, as he sought to sow doubts about his challenger's capacity to handle the commander-in-chief functions.

"In his short career, he does not understand our national security challenges," McCain said. "We don't have time for on-the-job training."

Obama bristled at the statement and McCain's suggestion, as he put it, that "I don't understand" elements of foreign policy. The Democrat used his response to reframe his critique of the Iraq war as a diversion from vital U.S. security interests.

"It's true, there are some things I don't understand," Obama said sarcastically. "I don't understand how we ended up invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 while Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda are setting up base camps and safe havens to train terrorists to attack us. That was Senator McCain's judgment, and it was the wrong judgment."

The two men had an extensive joust over the worsening situation on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, where violence has flared in recent months; they sparred over Obama's pledge to send troops after Osama bin Laden and into al-Qaeda havens in Pakistan if necessary.

"If we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act, and we will take them out," Obama said.

McCain used that answer as an opportunity to question his rival's judgment, quoting President Theodore Roosevelt, whom he described as his hero, in saying that the United States should speak softly and carry a big stick. "When you announce that you're going to launch an attack into another country, it's pretty obvious that you have the effect that it had in Pakistan," he said. "It turns public opinion against us."

Obama protested McCain's criticism, saying, "Nobody called for the invasion of Pakistan" -- before trying to turn the tables on the Republican over what he characterized as his own bellicose rhetoric and record.

Later in the debate, McCain seemed to try to take the edge off the harsh portrait being painted by Obama, emphasizing the importance of nonmilitary tools in responding to Russia's aggression in Georgia. "Russians must understand that these kinds of actions and activities are not acceptable," he said, stressing that he would mount economic and diplomatic efforts to pressure Russia to change its behavior. "It will not be a reignition of the Cold War," he added, "but Russia is a challenge."

By Dan Balz, Anne E. Kornblut and Michael Abramowitz, The Washington Post, October 8, 2008

NASHVILLE -- It was a late night for John McCain's campaign -- a post-debate repast of karaoke until the wee hours of the rain-soaked morning. They sang neither in celebration nor to drown their sorrows. Tuesday's debate did not fundamentally alter the race.

Instant polls judged Barack Obama the winner. The post-debate chatter on the cable channels tended to favor Obama. Even reliably conservative voices on CNN -- Alex Castellanos, Leslie Sanchez and William Bennett -- found it hard to award the evening to McCain. When the polls are heading in one direction, conventional wisdom follows.

Which is why McCain needs the numbers to move, even a bit, the other way. He's like the stock markets. Lack of confidence breeds retreat. He needs an injection of fresh political confidence in his presidential candidacy.

Mark Salter, the candidate's alter ego and confidant, was in the lobby of McCain's hotel Wednesday, neither grim nor giddy but still shaking out cobwebs. "We've been dead before," he said.

He would know, having weathered McCain's long, wild ride through the primaries and now the general election. But is there a plan? "We can't die again," he said.

Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke couldn't have said it better. Try something and see if it works. If that isn't sufficient, try more. McCain's answer in the debate was a $300 billion plan to stabilize the housing market by buying up and renegotiating bad mortgages.

The overnight focus groups conducted by McCain's campaign offered a little comfort, particularly compared with those by news organizations. The voters assembled by the campaign, said one senior official, did not see an Obama victory. Nor did they apparently see a McCain triumph, he said. These voters thought both candidates did well and now it's on to the next round.

Mike DuHaime, McCain political director, said internal campaign polling does not make the electoral map look as bad as some public polls suggest. For example: Asked why, if he had given up on Michigan, McCain had not given up on Iowa, a state that looks strong for Obama in public polls, DuHamie said because their own polling has Obama's lead in low single digits.

He said the upper Midwest battlegrounds -- Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota -- seem to be moving as a block. They looked bad before the Republican convention, but as of now, he believes there's no reason for McCain to give up on them. The Democrats believe otherwise. They see all three states firming up, although Wisconsin remains the most competitive.

Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, told reporters after the debate that he still likes his candidate's situation. Better, he said, to be defending red states than having to convert blue states to win. He has lots of them to defend right now -- Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico and North Carolina.

DuHaime also said there is positive evidence that McCain is catching up to Obama in the battle to mobilize voters. The past two weeks, he said, McCain's campaign has contacted more voters, by phone or door-to-door, than the vaunted Bush machine did in comparable weeks four years ago. One week, he said, the increase was 40 percent over last year.

Part of that is the Palin effect. The selection of Sarah Palin brought a surge of new volunteers into the McCain campaign. Once processed into the system, they are now helping to expand the reach of McCain's phone banks and street-level canvassing.

They are helping to produce mountains of data -- the results of every call are entered into a database overnight for officials at the Republican National Committee and the McCain campaign to parse. When combined with other data, the McCain team can see how their candidate is improving or slipping among different categories of voters, sliced every which way through microtargeting analysis.

What to do? Scott Reed, who ran Bob Dole's campaign 12 years ago and knows what happens when a candidate falls behind, said McCain should offer a more comprehensive economic plan that deals with the current crisis -- and "stay focused on Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin." Florida, he added, "is a must win."

Tad Devine, who was at the center of the past two losing Democratic campaigns, argued that McCain now is in worse shape than either Al Gore or John F. Kerry at this time in their campaigns.

Devine offered a clinical strategy that he said is McCain's best hope: forget the Kerry states (including New Hampshire), as well as Iowa and New Mexico and put everything into Ohio and Florida.

"To do that, he must attack Obama, with ads that work in those places, down to the individual markets," he wrote in a message. "So in the panhandle in Florida, they should attack on culture/values. In the middle of the state, on taxes. In the south (not Miami -- too expensive) on economy, that Obama will hurt small business. This should be a market by market strategy, not a national strategy. Same in Ohio. He needs to get those two back, and the only way to do it is with negative ads in base markets, and economic ads in swing markets."

John Weaver, who once was McCain's chief strategist, said McCain needs global movement. "There are too many problematic states for the campaign to try to play prevent defense in any one, which doesn't usually work even when you're ahead," he wrote. "The campaign must close the gap dramatically and quickly on dealing with the economy in a way that connects with and gives hope to a broad range of Americans -- and not just focus on Obama's deficiencies. This is the only way -- in a big election -- to close the polling gap and change the narrative. These coming days are the last opportunity Senator McCain has to show the American people the inspirational, empathetic leader we know him to be."

Tuesday's debate did not really answer the question many Americans are asking. Are either of these candidates truly up to tackling the problems the next president will inherit?

Both have struggled with economic issues throughout their campaigns and it showed again Tuesday night. For the second consecutive debate, neither fully stepped up to the moment of a country in an economic crisis, with voters deeply anxious about their jobs, mortgages, retirement savings and health care.

Neither found a way to explain where we are as cogently and clearly as the next president will be asked to do. Both played the blame game over who was more complicit in allowing the problems to develop; both talked about ways to prevent the next crisis when resolving the current crisis is the nation's real priority.

Obama was calm at a time when calm is valuable. But he was focused on winning the debate and the election. That's smart politics but in a month he could be the president-elect, and then the whole mess will be on his shoulders. Does he have the passion and the sense of urgency to restore confidence as Franklin D. Roosevelt did when he assumed the presidency in 1933?

McCain was better in this debate than the first -- more engaged with his rival and engaged with those asking the questions. He offered his mortgage plan to show he gets the problems people are feeling, but he did so in a way that left lots of questions. He didn't drive the biggest new piece of his message. And, while he insisted he knows how to solve the problems facing the economy, he provided no evidence.

But where Obama has used the first two debates effectively is to persuade voters that he is as capable as McCain when it comes to taking over the presidency.

McCain's strategy is grounded in the need to disqualify his opponent. Without that, the underlying structure of the race favors the Democrat. But after two debates, in head-to-head competition, Obama has not come off as the callow youth to McCain's steady hand. Even a draw hurts McCain.

McCain made a good case for himself and was about as pointed as a candidate can be in a town hall setting in taking on his opponent. But nothing in the first two debates has contributed to disqualifying Obama -- and certainly the public reaction confirms that.

The final debate on Oct. 15 could be the best of the three -- just the two candidates at a table with CBS's Bob Schieffer as moderator. The topic will be all domestic issues and it will be an opportunity to bore in on both candidates in ways the first two debates have not allowed.

In the meantime, McCain will need to gather fresh momentum, somehow. But the narrative has turned sharply against him and his every move is questioned. If he gets tough, it's described as desperation. If he deals only with the economy, it plays to the Democrats' natural advantage. And he'll need a sterling performance in the final debate.

But inside the McCain campaign there is resolve, which comes from the candidate himself. Whatever difficult days lie ahead, they believe they have seen worse. McCain put it best in his closing statement Tuesday:

"I know what it's like in dark times," he said. "I know what it's like to have to fight to keep one's hope going through difficult times. I know what it's like to rely on others for support and courage and love in tough times. I know what it's like to have your comrades reach out to you and your neighbors and your fellow citizens and pick you up and put you back in the fight."

By Dan Balz, The Washington Post, October 8, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) - After a lackluster debate, John McCain now has less than four weeks to turn the race for the White House around, as observers began to wonder aloud whether the Republican who once dubbed himself the comeback kid can win.

One day after McCain faced off in the second of three debates against Barack Obama, political observers said the exchange failed to up-end the front-runner status of his Democratic rival, as the contest ticks down to the November 4 vote.

"Despite John McCain's best efforts, the Arizona senator didn't knock Mr Obama from his cool evasion or even do much to rebut the Democrat's talking points," the conservative Wall Street Journal wrote the morning after the debate.

"This isn't enough to change the dynamics of the race."

Snap polls by US television networks awarded the debate -- the second of a trio of presidential clashes -- to Obama.

Democrats now are optimistic that -- with two of three rhetorical contests over and both won by Obama according to opinion polls -- the Illinois senator is an increasingly good bet to clinch the November 4 election.

"The race is over," crowed Howard Wolfson, a former spokesman for Senator Hillary Clinton, one of several Democratic rivals vanquished by Obama en route to the sealing the nomination.

Longtime Washington pundit Roger Simon pronounced neither McCain nor Obama the winner, saying that, from his vantage point, both failed in "delivering a knockout punch."

"The trouble for John McCain, however, is that he needed one," wrote Simon, a writer for The Politico daily newspaper.

The day after Tuesday's outing, Obama continued to sound an upbeat note on the stump in the midwestern state of Indiana, promising Americans "better days ahead" despite plummeting global stock markets , rising job losses and dark clouds of economic gloom.

In an interview with ABC News, Obama bemoaned the "irrational despair" afflicting tumbling stock markets, and said President Georg W. Bush was too weak to mend the crisis.

"I do think that the administration is hampered by the fact that people don't have a lot of confidence in the president," he said, and by extension threw doubt on a McCain administration that promises more of the same economic policy.

Obama's running mate Joe Biden accused his Republican rivals of "injecting fear and loathing" into the campaign, including stoking rumors that Obama has terrorist ties.

Speaking on CBS television, Senator Biden dismissed as "malarkey" Republican allegations of unsavory ties between Obama and William Ayers, former leader of "The Weathermen," a domestic terror group. He was reacting to Palin's comments last week that Obama had been "pallin" around with terrorists."

McCain, at a rally along with running mate Sarah Palin in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, reined in his aggressive campaign, admonishing a local Republican activist's repeated reference to "Barack Hussein Obama" -- a deliberate invocation of a given name the Democrat shares with late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

"We do not condone this inappropriate rhetoric, which distract from the real questions of judgement, character and experience that voters will base their decisions on," said McCain spokesman Paul Lindsay.

Meanwhile, despite the generally civil exchanges of Tuesday's encounter, observers continued to remark upon the markedly nasty tone between the two candidates.

The New York Times excoriated McCain and Governor Palin of Alaska for the tone of the Arizona senator's campaign.

"Ninety minutes of forced cordiality did not erase the dismal ugliness of his campaign in recent weeks, nor did it leave us with much hope that he would not just return to the same dismal ugliness on Wednesday," it lamented.

"We certainly expected better from Mr McCain, who once showed withering contempt for win-at-any-cost politics," it said.

A CNN national poll after the debate found that 54 percent of those asked thought Obama won and 30 percent said McCain was victorious.

A CBS survey also gave the debate to Obama -- 40 percent to 26 percent.

Gallup's daily tracking poll Tuesday reflected the high stakes for McCain, giving Obama a nine point lead nationally, while the Democratic nominee is also widening his edge in key battleground states.

By Alain Jean-Robert, AFP, October 9, 2008

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - John McCain and Barack Obama campaigned Wednesday through four battleground states, exchanging bitter words over the economy as each nominee tried to position himself as the better fiscal steward.

Just as they did the night before at their second presidential debate, the candidates remained focused on pocketbook issues, with McCain seeking distance from President Bush by pushing a plan to buy up bad mortgages, and with Obama hammering his rival as a successor to the incumbent Republican administration.

First in Pennsylvania, then in Ohio and Wisconsin, McCain repeated his argument from Tuesday's debate that Obama lacks the record to back up his promises to change Washington. McCain offered more details of a plan, which he first mentioned at the debate, ordering the federal government to spend $300 billion to rescue homeowners - an idea that Obama opposed Wednesday as a burden on taxpayers.

"We must go to the heart of the problem, and right now that problem is a housing crisis," McCain said in Bethlehem, Pa. "The United States government will purchase mortgages directly from homeowners and mortgage services, and replace them with manageable mortgages. The dream of owning a home should not be crushed under the weight of a bad mortgage. The moment requires that government act - and as president I intend to act, quickly and decisively."

At an afternoon rally here, Obama repeated his refrain from the debate, criticizing McCain for saying that health care was a responsibility and not a right, and framing the Republican's health care plan as an empty promise. Obama also reminded supporters of a McCain's adviser's remark last week about the need for the GOP nominee to shift attention away from the economy or risk losing the election.

"Well I've got news for John McCain," Obama said. "This isn't about losing a campaign - this is about Americans who are losing their jobs, Americans who are losing their homes, Americans who are losing their life savings. I can take four more weeks of John McCain's attacks, but American people can't take four more years of John McCain's George Bush policies."

The back-and-forth reflected the tense dynamic of the race.

Trailing in the polls with less than four weeks until Election Day, McCain aimed to seize voters' attention with a pledge to rescue homeowners, and spoke in Pennsylvania to a crowd that responded with shouts of "Nobama" and "liar." Coming off a second debate that seemed to do little to erode his lead, Obama hit back at McCain on health care and the economy, but also struck a sunny disposition under rain clouds in Indiana, saying "I'm here today to tell you that there are better days ahead."

The most pointed and personal remark Wednesday came from an unexpected source - Cindy McCain, who also showed her disregard for Obama a day earlier when she said Obama was waging "the dirtiest campaign in American history."

"The day that Sen. Obama cast a vote to not to fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body let me tell you," she said in introducing the GOP ticket in Pennsylvania. "I would suggest Sen. Obama change shoes with me for just one day. I suggest he take a day and go watch our men and women deploying."

The McCains have both largely avoided discussing the military service of their two sons during the campaign. Jimmy McCain, the younger of the pair, is a Marine who has already served a tour in Iraq. His brother, Jack, is at the Naval Academy.

At the same rally, Bill Platt, the Lehigh County Republican chairman who warmed up the crowd of 8,500, referred to Obama twice as "Barack Hussein Obama." The McCain campaign later issued a statement saying it does not condone "this inappropriate rhetoric which distracts from the real questions of judgment, character, and experience that voters will base their decisions on this November."

McCain's mortgage plan, introduced at Tuesday's debate, provided a fresh dividing line between the presidential nominees.

The McCain plan, which the campaign says carries a price tag of $300 billion, would have the government buy mortgages directly from distressed homeowners. Senior adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said the federal government would retire the existing loan, then have the Federal Housing Administration issue a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage "at a manageable interest rate" and backed by the government.

The plan would not require new legislation but rather rely on existing powers, some just recently passed by Congress, he said.

A landmark housing bill that Bush signed into law in late July gave the Federal Housing Administration the authority to refinance up to $300 billion worth of mortgages. McCain's plan combines that power with the authority of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to purchase loans, Holtz-Eakin said.

Moreover, the massive $700 billion financial markets bailout package just passed by Congress also grants the Treasury Department to directly purchase mortgages, but Holtz-Eakin said he isn't sure whether any of the $700 billion should be used for McCain's initiative.

Details provided to reporters Wednesday made one thing clear: Taxpayers would directly pick up the tab for the difference in cost between a homeowner's old, too-expensive mortgage and the cheaper one provided by the government.

Members of Congress, led by House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) specifically avoided that element when they passed the landmark housing bill, which became law July 31 and took effect Oct. 1.

The McCain campaign claims that the initiative would help keep struggling homeowners in their houses, lower mortgage rates to just above 5 percent and stabilize housing prices. That, in turn, would stabilize the value of the now-toxic mortgage-backed securities and other housing-related derivatives "that have been plaguing the valuation of balance sheets in the financial sector," Holtz-Eakin said.

The Obama campaign, in a statement issued Wednesday afternoon, said the plan was "even more costly and out-of-touch than we ever imagined."

"John McCain wants the government to massively overpay for mortgages in a plan that would guarantee taxpayers lose money, and put them at risk of losing even more if home values don't recover," said Obama economic adviser Jason Furman. "The biggest beneficiaries of this plan will be the same financial institutions that got us into this mess, some of whom even committed fraud."

By Amie Parnes and Carrie Budoff Brown, Politico, October 9, 2008

INDIANAPOLIS - Democrat Barack Obama's campaign criticized John McCain's mortgage bailout plan Wednesday, saying it would cause the government to lose money by paying too much for bad loans.

McCain's proposal to spend $300 billion in federal funds to buy distressed mortgages was a highlight of Tuesday's presidential debate, and it seemed to catch Obama off guard. At first, Obama's campaign said he had made similar proposals and there was nothing new in McCain's remarks.

But after McCain aides offered more details Wednesday, Obama's campaign shifted gears.

The plan would cause the government "to massively overpay for mortgages in a plan that would guarantee taxpayers lose money, and put them at risk of losing even more if home values don't recover," Obama economic adviser Jason Furman said in a statement. "The biggest beneficiaries of this plan will be the same financial institutions that got us into this mess, some of whom even committed fraud."

McCain's proposal would devote nearly half the $700 billion from the recent financial rescue package to buying troubled mortgages directly, rather than indirectly aiding the nation's financial markets. The government would buy distressed home loans at their face value, said campaign spokesman Brian Rogers. Then it would pay the difference between a mortgage's original value and its renegotiated, lower value.

McCain adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin said Obama's objections suggested he would rather "support a bailout of Wall Street than rescue Main Street America."

Speaking to several thousand people in Indianapolis on Wednesday, Obama criticized McCain's health care and economic positions, but did not mention the new mortgage proposal.

Obama urged people not to panic over the faltering economy, saying "there are better days ahead" - especially if he is elected president. He acknowledged public anxiety over the financial crisis in starker terms than usual.

"We meet at a moment of great uncertainty for America," he said. "But this isn't a time for fear or panic. This is a time for resolve and leadership. I know that we can steer ourselves out of this crisis."

Obama ridiculed McCain for recently saying "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." But in his 35-minute speech on a muddy harness-racing track, he made a similar argument.

"America still has the most talented, most productive workers of any country on Earth," Obama said. "We're still the home to innovation and technology, colleges and universities that are the envy of the world. Some of the biggest ideas in history have come from our small businesses and our research facilities."

Obama repeated his claims that McCain's proposals would cause many people to lose their employer-provided health insurance because the Republican would tax those benefits. He said the $5,000 tax credit that McCain promises would not be enough for them to buy private insurance, a claim McCain disputes.

"The American people can't take four more years of John McCain's George Bush policies," Obama said to loud cheers.

In an interview Wednesday with ABC's "World News," Obama said the nation is suffering from "irrational despair. You know, trust is broken down in our financial institutions. Banks are afraid to lend to each other."

At the rally, Obama praised the Federal Reserve and other leading central banks for cutting interest rates Wednesday. "I support that action," he said. "This is a global problem and it needs to be solved through a global effort."

He again vowed that only those making more than $250,000 a year would see higher taxes under his administration, and 95 percent of Americans would receive tax cuts. He promised to spend $15 billion a year "in renewable sources of energy to create 5 million new, green jobs over the next decade."

Obama read his speech from a teleprompter, his habit in recent weeks. He strayed from the prepared text, however, to mention GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor who has led her ticket's attacks on Obama.

McCain "and Gov. Palin are out there saying all kinds of stuff," Obama said.

Indiana is normally a solidly Republican state at the presidential level, but polls here suggest a close race.

By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press, October 9, 2008

WASHINGTON - Ordering the government to buy up bad mortgages to cut homeowners' monthly payments might sound good, but experts are skeptical. They say the plan John McCain is promoting is unlikely to solve the housing crisis that's pushing the economy toward recession.

One big problem: The vast majority of the toxic home loans that are clogging financial markets and freezing up credit have been sliced, diced and repackaged into complex investments that the government would be hard-pressed to unravel and buy.

Even if the government did gain access to the mortgages, it would have to pay far more than they would ever be worth, housing specialists said Wednesday. That would effectively bail out banks and lenders with taxpayer money to a greater degree than Congress and the Bush administration are already doing through the $700 billion financial industry rescue enacted last week.

"The mortgages that are causing this credit freeze are generally mortgages that aren't available for purchase," said Alan M. White, Valparaiso University specialist in consumer law.

"It's not quite as easy as the McCain campaign thinks it is," said Andrew Jakabovics of the Center for American Progress.

Republican McCain is pushing his American Homeownership Resurgence Plan as he works to burnish his credentials on the economy, an issue that has helped Democratic rival Barack Obama pull ahead in the presidential race as the national financial crisis has worsened.

With foreclosures on the rise - particularly in election battleground states like Indiana, Florida, Michigan and Ohio - and many Americans seething about the huge rescue package for financial institutions, McCain argues his plan would provide direct help to struggling homeowners.

He declared in Tuesday night's debate that he would order his Treasury secretary to buy up bad mortgages and let struggling homeowners refinance into more affordable loans - a power the government already has under the new financial industry bailout law.

Under McCain's plan, the government would spend $300 billion to purchase distressed loans and provide new, fixed-rate mortgages. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the Arizona senator's economic adviser, said the plan would help stabilize the plunging values of mortgage-backed securities that are at the heart of the crisis in the financial markets.

To do so, the government would pay the full face-value of the distressed mortgages, Holtz-Eakin said.

Under that scenario, the government could buy a $200,000 subprime mortgage on a home now worth just $100,000, give the homeowner a 30-year, $90,000 loan with a 5 percent interest rate, and essentially eat the $110,000 difference.

"It's the only way to do it in a timely fashion," Holtz-Eakin said.

Obama's campaign said right after the debate that he had made similar proposals to McCain's and there was nothing new in the Republican's remarks. But as McCain aides offered more details on Wednesday, the Obama camp changed its tune.

The plan would cause the government "to massively overpay for mortgages in a plan that would guarantee taxpayers lose money and put them at risk of losing even more if home values don't recover," said Obama economic adviser Jason Furman. "The biggest beneficiaries of this plan will be the same financial institutions that got us into this mess, some of whom even committed fraud."

Indeed, analysts on the right and left said the plan would let banks and investors who bet heavily on the risky mortgages walk away with a handsome payout courtesy of U.S. taxpayers.

"You run into the question of whether or not then you are bailing out bad lending decisions," said David C. John of the conservative Heritage Foundation.

The housing rescue enacted in July allows the government to insure up to $300 billion in new, fixed-rate loans to let homeowners at risk of foreclosure trade in their mortgages for ones they can better afford - but only if their banks agree to take a loss on the original loan.

"What they were trying to do was to spread the pain of the reduction to the lender," John said. "If you pay off 100 cents on the dollar on these loans, then that pain goes to the taxpayer."

McCain's proposal is similar in some ways to a plan that has been advocated by the liberal Center for American Progress starting last December, but its ideological precursor is the Depression-era Home Owners' Loan Corporation, which traded bonds for defaulted mortgages with lenders and investors at a discount and reworked the loan terms to help borrowers.

The problem, say economists and housing analysts, is that times have changed considerably since the 1930s, and many mortgages are now bound up in the labyrinthine investments that have brought financial institutions to their knees.

Legal contracts with investors - known as pooling and servicing agreements - limit the ability to alter loans or take them out of the pool.

"You can't just go to Countrywide and say, 'Please sell us 100 mortgages out of your securitized pool,'" White said. The contract "specifically tells them they can't do that."

Deutsche Bank estimates that more than 80 percent of the $1.8 trillion in outstanding troubled loans - those made to "subprime" borrowers with weak credit and "Alt-A" borrowers who didn't document their incomes or provide large down payments - are tied up in mortgage-backed securities.

The remaining 20 percent, about $318 billion according to Deutsche Bank, are "whole loans," easier to modify because they don't have multiple investors.

The bailout package already directs the Treasury secretary to renegotiate whole mortgages it acquires from troubled financial companies, and to use its leverage to rework loans that are part of larger investment pools.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Wednesday that under the new program and the earlier housing rescue "we're going to be working to avoid foreclosures."

Helping homeowners whose mortgages are pooled into larger investments is tougher.

"The problem is these things are not transparent. It's not at all clear who holds which pieces and where they've gone," Jakabovics said.

His organization has proposed changing the law to encourage mortgage holders to allow refinances like those envisioned under McCain's plan, including by denying tax-advantaged status to investments that block such changes.

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press, October 8, 2008

WASHINGTON - With the deepening U.S. economic crisis rippling around the globe, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain seem to agree the question facing anxious voters is: Who do you trust?

"All we heard from Sen. McCain was more of the same Bush economics that led us into this mess," Obama said in Indianapolis the day after their second debate. "He thinks we won't notice" downsides of his health care proposals, but "we're not going to be hoodwinked. We're not going to be bamboozled."

In Bethlehem, Pa., McCain shot back: "I don't need lessons about telling the truth to American people." And, McCain said, if he ever did, he "probably wouldn't seek advice from a Chicago politician." On taxes, health care and subprime mortgages, McCain said Obama "won't tell you" his real record.

Each also rolled out new TV commercials suggesting his rival was not telling the truth, and both campaigns launched other character attacks.

With the election in four weeks and the final debate in one, Obama leads in key states but has yet to sew up the race; the 47-year-old, first-term Illinois senator is still working to dispel skepticism that he has what it takes to be president. As time runs short, McCain is searching for a way to marshal support as the spreading economic woes cut against many Republicans after President Bush's eight years in the White House.

In Tuesday night's debate, both Obama and McCain railed against Washington and Wall Street and belittled special interests and lobbyists; each cast himself as the only candidate who will fight for everyday Americans. Also, Obama argued that McCain would perpetuate the policies of the unpopular Bush, while McCain cast Obama as a risky liberal who backs more government spending.

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve and five other central banks on both sides of the Atlantic implemented a coordinated emergency interest rate cut but the move supplied only a short-lived bounce to world markets.

In separate statements as the day began, Obama and McCain applauded the Fed's action. Each planted himself at the side of restive Americans watching the economic upheaval drain their retirement accounts and hinder their ability to get loans.

"I am committed to protecting the American worker in this crisis," McCain said. He promoted his plan, announced at the debate, that would direct the Treasury Department to buy up bad home mortgages by using nearly half the $700 billion from the recent bailout package.

The Republican also said he would balance the federal budget by the end of his term, although the Bush administration predicts the deficit and a recession would complicate that task.

Initially, Obama sought to reclaim a piece of McCain's mortgage proposal. He previously had said the government should consider doing just that, and on Wednesday said the Treasury Department officials "should use the authority they already have to purchase troubled assets, including mortgages." He also renewed his call for a second economic stimulus package for the middle class, saying: "More urgent and vigorous action is necessary to stem this crisis."

But later, after McCain released more details of his plan, Obama's campaign said McCain's plan would end up rewarding troubled mortgage companies with even more taxpayer dollars and assailed it as "even more costly and out-of-touch" than ever imagined. In a shot aimed at raising doubts about McCain's temperament, they called his plan "erratic policy-making at its worst."

McCain's aides also assailed Obama's character anew, e-mailing more news releases highlighting the Democrat's association with former 1960s radical William Ayers, now a college professor in Chicago. It fed into McCain's pitch that voters can't trust Obama.

Obama pointedly questioned McCain's ability on the economy, saying in an interview with ABC's "World News" that McCain "ended up lurching from place to place on this issue" and that's "not the kind of leadership that we're going to need if we're going to be able to guide the economy out of this perilous position."

Polls consistently show Obama winning on the question of who would best handle the economy; McCain has struggled to strike the right tone on the crisis.

But an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll last month also showed that more people view McCain as honest and ethical.

McCain may be trying to capitalize on this edge.

He unveiled a commercial Wednesday that asked "Who is Barack Obama," called him "the most liberal" senator and mocked him for complaining that the Republicans are lying about his record. "Mr. Obama, we all know the truth," it said. "Not presidential."

Obama, in turn, announced a TV spot that said: "Here's the truth" to McCain's heath care plan. "Instead of fixing health care, he wants to tax it."

Judging by history, McCain's government mortgage buying plan may not change the trajectory of the campaign.

"When times are really bad, voters are looking to put the other team in power and kick the current guys out," said Thomas Mann, a scholar at the Brookings Institution think tank. "They're not evaluating specific proposals for the economy. They're looking for reassurance and evaluating whether the candidate of the other party looks trustworthy."

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press, October 9, 2008

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama said Wednesday that Republicans are highlighting his association with a former 1960s radical in an effort to "score cheap political points" in the final weeks before the election.

During campaign stops last weekend, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin criticized Obama's ties to William Ayers, a founder of the violent Weather Underground group blamed for several acts of domestic terrorism during the Vietnam War era, when Obama was a child.

Palin first accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists," then recalibrated her criticism to say the lack of clarity about the Ayers-Obama relationship was a legitimate campaign issue because it speaks to Obama's truthfulness and judgment.

Obama told ABC News in an interview Wednesday that he has said many times that Ayers "engaged in some despicable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old" and that he was an education professor at the University of Illinois when they met 10 or 15 years ago.

Obama said Ayers served with him on a school reform board and that they have discussed school reform issues. Ayers also hosted a small, meet-the-candidate event for Obama in 1995, when he first ran for public office. Obama senior adviser David Axelrod has said Obama was unaware of Ayers' radical background at the time.

"The notion that somehow he has been involved in my campaign, that he is an adviser of mine, that he — I've palled around with a terrorist, all these statements are made simply to try to score cheap political points. And, you know, the idea that the McCain campaign would want to make this the centerpiece of the discussion in the closing weeks of a campaign where we are facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and we're in the middle of two wars, I think makes very little sense not just to me but to the American people," Obama said in the interview.

"Look, I can handle these attacks for the remaining four weeks," he said, "but it's certainly not serving our democracy right now."

By WILL LESTER, Associated Press, October 9, 2008

WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday called on the Treasury Department to allocate $150 billion of the recently approved $700 billion economic rescue package to struggling small businesses, colleges, students and municipalities.

In a letter to President George W. Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Clinton said that while the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program will help alleviate the economic crisis eventually, it may be too late for those that need immediate access to more credit.

Clinton proposed establishing an "Emergency Stabilization Fund" that would create temporary lines of credit for small businesses, make funding available to colleges and universities to lessen the tuition burden, increase student loan availability and help stabilize local and state bonds.

"It is a matter of necessity and a matter of fairness: We are helping to keep large Wall Street firms stay afloat with lines of credit. We should do the same for small Main Street businesses as well," Clinton said in the letter.

Clinton's letter came one day after New York Sen. Charles Schumer called on the Treasury to extend the bailout to ensure credit doesn't dry up for student loans. Schumer sent a letter to Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke Monday asking that they "pay special attention to the student loan market."

By JULIANN VACHON, Newsday, October 7, 2008

ALBANY - Gov. David A. Paterson stepped into the brewing debate over rewriting New York City's term limits law, saying on Tuesday that he would prefer any changes that are made be permanent.

"I have no problem with whatever decision they make," Mr. Paterson said at a press conference outside the State Capitol, where he appeared with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to honor fallen firefighters. "But my only concern is the good-government concern - that whatever decision is made that it be one that will set a policy that is consistent and would apply equally in the future."

Mr. Paterson and Mrs. Clinton both voiced their objections to term limits in general.

"I think elections provide term limits," Senator Clinton said. "You either continue to serve, or your service ceases. So I come to this debate with that predilection."

She quickly added that she did not have an opinion about whether Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg should seek a third term. "This is going be worked out in the city," she said.

Mr. Paterson and Mrs. Clinton's comments came as the discussion over how - and even whether - to amend the city's term limits law became more muddled. Mayor Bloomberg spent part of Tuesday trying to downplay an apparent rift between himself and Ronald S. Lauder, the billionaire cosmetics heir who led the fight to institute term limits in the city in the early 1990s. Meanwhile, the Working Families Party began an offensive against the term limit changes, while two different bills to alter term limits - one of them calling for a public referendum - were introduced in the City Council.

By Jeremy W. Peters, The New York Times, October 7, 2008

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said today that voters would be remiss if they voted for the McCain-Palin ticket because they like having a woman on the ticket.

She said she's held more than 40 events for the Obama campaign to spread his message of change.

"I make the case as strongly as I can that our country must have new leadership," she said after attending a firefighters' memorial event in Albany.

"The McCain-Palin ticket does not offer that. They offer more of the same failed policies," she said. "So I think that there are people who are excited by the fact that the Republicans have a woman on the ticket. I think that's a legitimate reason to be excited.

"The Democrats did it in 1984, Republicans got around to doing it in 2008. And there's reason for people to see that as a real milestone.

"But that's not a reason to vote for the McCain-Palin ticket. You have to ask yourself, who is going to be better for you and your family? And in New York it's not even close. We will have such a better future if we have Democratic leadership back in the White House."

Clinton was in town to also endorse Democratic congressional candidate Paul Tonko in the 21st District race and to attend an announcement of plans by Advanced Micro Devices Inc. to build a new facility in the Albany area - which includes $1.2 billion in government aid.

Politics on the Hudson, October 7, 2008

Neither candidate was selling morning in America. At times it seemed more like a competition to see who could paint the gloaming in the least unsettling hues.

Tuesday night's presidential debate was remarkable for the dourness of its mood, for the frequently subdued demeanors of the candidates even as they tore into each other, which they did with somewhat less vigor and venom than expected, given how little time remains until Election Day, given how nasty the campaign had recently turned.

The debate - No. 2 of 3, and the only one to be conducted in a town-hall style - came on a day when the stock market closed nearly 1,700 points lower than it had in the hours before their first debate. And even back then, Senator Barack Obama was already talking of the country’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Now the situation looks gloomier still, with markets in other continents tumbling - with a world of hurt at hand. And the sort of can-do, feel-good, rah-rah exuberance that candidates sometimes bring to debates was in conspicuously short supply.

"I'm going to ask the American people to understand that there are some programs we're going to have to eliminate," Senator John McCain said at one point, and he said it not as a defiant assertion of waste but as a rueful acceptance of reality.

Moments later Mr. Obama said, of rising oil prices and limited oil supplies, "There is going to be the need for each and every one of us to start thinking about how we use energy."

There were echoes - almost - of Jimmy Carter in that sentence. When was the last time a candidate vying for the highest office in the land summoned a memory of him rather than Ronald Reagan?

To be sure, there were also the usual, classic, timeless paeans to American resourcefulness and optimism, along with the inevitable Reagan reference - by Mr. McCain.

Mr. Obama noted that President John F. Kennedy promised the moon - and the country indeed got there.

Mr. McCain said: "We can attack energy and health care at the same time. We're not rifle shots here. We're Americans!" It was the oratorical equivalent of Gov. Sarah Palin's flag pin during the last debate, easily twice as big and twinkly as that of Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr.

And there were a few moments during the long first hour - and a few more during the quick last half hour - when the exchanges were more spirited and tense. Mr. McCain's apparent irritation spiked as he exhibited condescension toward his younger rival.

"By the way, my friends, I know you grow a little weary of this back and forth," Mr. McCain said, as he seized one of many occasions to characterize Mr. Obama as a relentless spender.

"There was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies," he continued. "And it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney. You know who voted for it - you might never know?"

"That one," he added acerbically, and pointed toward Mr. Obama as if accusing him of a crime. Mr. McCain did not, tellingly, look at him.

"You know who voted against it?" Mr. McCain concluded. "Me."

In the last half hour, Mr. McCain - who has been falling ever farther behind Mr. Obama in national polls and many swing-state polls - grew even more combative, his jaw clenching ever tighter, his words squeezed out.

And when the debate was over, Mr. McCain hustled away, while Mr. Obama lingered, chatting with the audience and signing autographs.

But during the first hour of the debate, candidates' voices communicated anger less often than mere frustration. The decibel level was sometimes whispery and the gestures usually muted. There were no exaggerated huffs, no big laughs, no long sighs.

And many of the attacks, counterattacks and lightning rods of recent days never made it onto the red-carpeted stage.

Ms. Palin? Absent. So was any mention of William C. Ayers, the former Weather Underground leader whom the McCain campaign has tried to link closely to Mr. Obama.

And the Keating Five scandal, the subject of a recent Obama campaign Internet video, took the night off as well.

It was as if the candidates had decided that the nation's anxiety was too profound for Americans to be subjected to anything too ugly, anything that might make them even more uneasy.

Or, rather, that such a spectacle would not serve the candidate deemed to be the principal agent of it. They were not striving for passionate. Somber and steady seemed to be the goals.

That is not to say they did not play on voters' fears, each candidate casting the other as someone too risky for a juncture with issues so urgent and stakes so high.

Mr. McCain yet again suggested that Mr. Obama simply would not be able to find his way through this dangerous world.

Mr. Obama countered: "Now, Senator McCain suggests that somehow, you know, I'm green behind the ears and, you know, I'm just spouting off and he's somber and responsible."

"Thank you very much," interjected Mr. McCain, the one who worked harder Tuesday night at such folksy notes - like calling questioners and even Tom Brokaw by their first names; roaming so far and wide across the stage it seemed he would end up in the Nashville suburbs; and saying "my friends" so often it sounded less cordial than compulsive.

Mr. Obama then continued: "Senator McCain, this is the guy who sang, 'Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran,' who called for the annihilation of North Korea."

Despite some odd verbal hiccups during that exchange, Mr. Obama spoke more fluidly than Mr. McCain, and so calmly that the town-hall format was a largely wasted opportunity. Mr. Obama did not use it to communicate any of the spontaneity he has been accused of lacking.

Mr. McCain, for his part, used the paper in front of him to write so many notes to himself, in such a focused fashion, that he could have passed for a student in a penmanship class.

But his message was that he was teacher, the veteran, the one who knew the score and could show the way. He insisted as well that he alone had a record of bipartisanship - that Mr. Obama was too liberal to reach across party lines.

Although he never mentioned Ms. Palin, Mr. McCain mentioned Senator Joseph I. Lieberman at least four times. It was a way of summoning an independent - formerly a Democrat - to his side and saying "maverick" without actually saying it, as Ms. Palin had done perhaps several times too many during her debate.

But for almost every Lieberman reference, Mr. Obama made two to Bush. And he was not allying himself with the president. He was hanging him around Mr. McCain's neck.

By Frank Bruni, The New York Times, October 8, 2008

Senators John McCain and Barack Obama debated for 90 minutes on Tuesday night before a nation in economic crisis, each promising anxious Americans that he had the better plan and vision to lead the country through what both men said was the most dire financial situation since the Great Depression.

The gravity of the moment and the somber setting - a town-hall-style meeting in front of 80 selected voters who, when not asking questions, watched in silence, not applauding or laughing - produced an often stifled encounter, largely absent of dramatic confrontations or the personal exchanges that dominated the campaign over the past several days. There was no indication that the debate did anything to change the course of a campaign that appeared to be moving in Mr. Obama's direction.

Mr. McCain chose not to use the evening - the second of three scheduled debates - to attack Mr. Obama's background or character. But in a moment that caught the attention of people in both parties, he appeared agitated in criticizing Mr. Obama for a Senate vote he cast, referring to his opponent only as "that one."

Mr. Obama placed the blame for the financial crisis on deregulation and the lack of fiscal discipline under President Bush, whom he repeatedly linked to Mr. McCain. Mr. McCain, at every opportunity, presented his opponent as an advocate of spending and higher taxes, while presenting himself as pragmatic, willing to reach across the aisle and sometimes at odds with Mr. Bush.

Mr. McCain sought to break through by highlighting a proposal under which the Treasury Department would buy up homeowners' mortgages that had gone bad, and in effect refinance them at prices they could afford. Arriving in Nashville for the debate, Mr. McCain was under pressure to alter the dynamic of the race, with polls giving Mr. Obama an advantage nationally and in most battleground states and just four weeks left until Election Day. There were no obvious dramatic breakthrough moments by Mr. McCain; indeed, although the two men pummeled back and forth, it was Mr. Obama who more consistently drew sharp contrasts between the voting records and campaign promises of the two.

Mr. McCain kept his distance from the types of attacks on Mr. Obama's background and character launched in recent days by his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin. Not only did he not mention Bill Ayers, the 1960s radical that the McCain campaign - and Ms. Palin in particular - has sought to link to Mr. Obama, he did not mention Ms. Palin once.

Instead, standing in what he has long described as his favorite campaign setting - a town hall meeting, albeit one set up under extraordinary strict restrictions that limited any interaction between candidates and voter - he seemed more the McCain of an earlier campaign, repeatedly presenting himself as the agent who could end partisan division in Washington. Again and again, he criticized Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, invoking the names of such Democratic senators as Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold, as well as his friend, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who ran for vice president as a Democrat in 2000 but this year, as an independent, has endorsed Mr. McCain.

"I have a clear record of bipartisanship," he said "The situation today cries out for bipartisanship. Senator Obama has never taken on his leaders of his party on a single issue. And we need to reform."

In a moment that suggested Mr. McCain's impatience with his opponent, he described the differences between the two candidates on energy policy.

"By the way, my friends, I know you grow a little weary of this back and forth: there was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate, loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies, and it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney he said. "You who voted for it? You might never know."

He cast his arm at Mr. Obama. "That one," he said. "You know who voted against it? Me."

Mr. Obama appeared well-prepared to parry Mr. McCain's criticisms, matching him statistic for statistic as they argued over domestic and foreign policy.

"Senator McCain and I actually agree on something," Mr. Obama said "He said a while back that the big problem with energy is that for the last 30 years politicians in Washington haven't done anything. What McCain mention is he's been there 26 of them and during that time he voted 23 times against alternative fuels."

At another point, Mr. McCain criticized Mr. Obama for saying he would speak, without preconditions, to the leaders of countries like Pakistan, quoting Teddy Roosevelt - at first incorrectly - explaining the way he would deal with leaders of foes.

"You know, my hero is a guy named Teddy Roosevelt," he said. "Teddy Roosevelt used to say walk softly - talk softly, but carry a big stick. Senator Obama likes to talk loudly."

Mr. Obama raised his hand to respond as the moderator, Tom Brokaw of NBC News struggled to hold the two men to the restrictive rules they had agreed.

Mr. McCain again seemed particularly comfortable when the questioning turned to foreign policy, suggesting that his opponent was inexperienced and lacked judgment in issues like how to deal with Pakistan. Four times, Mr. McCain invoked Gen. David H. Petraeus, who now oversees the military command for both Iraq and Afghanistan and was an early proponent of sending more troops to Iraq.

As he did a number of times during the evening, Mr. Obama sought to counter the line of argument Mr. McCain had also stressed during their first debate, that Mr. Obama was unschooled in matters of national security.

"Senator McCain suggests that somehow, you know, I'm green behind the ears and, you know, I'm just spouting off, and he's somber and responsible," he said. "Senator McCain, this is the guy who sang, 'Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran,' who called for the annihilation of North Korea. That I don't think is an example of 'speaking softly.' "

Throughout the evening, when Mr. McCain spoke, Mr. Obama stood at the side of the stage, or seated on a chair, arms folded, gazing at his rival. When Mr. Obama spoke, Mr. McCain took notes, often looked the other way, or scribbled on a pad.

The debate occurred on a day when the stock market dropped more than 500 points. And if there was a single question overlying the debate, it was how tough Mr. McCain would be in his attacks against Mr. Obama, at a time when his campaign had promised a new round of attacks, and Ms. Palin had urged her running mates to take his gloves off, as she put it.

That said, it was never going to be easy, speaking before an audience of 80 voters, to offer the kind of attacks on Mr. Obama that Ms. Palin has been delivering to screaming partisan crowds for the last several days. The audience at the debate again and again conveyed in their questions an anxiety about the economy and the direction of the nation.

Even Mr. McCain's use of humor - a central part of his appeal in his own town hall meetings - did not seem that effective. At one point he joked about how health care plans probably should not pay for hair transplants, a remark that did not seem to draw more than a titter.

At another point, both men declined to say whether they thought the economy would get worse before it got better.

Mr. McCain repeatedly portrayed Mr. Obama as liberal and a big spender who would raise taxes, producing a series of by now familiar back-and-forths about each other's tax cuts plans and spending records.

"This is the most liberal, big spending record in the United States Senate," he said, adding at another point: "He wants to raise taxes. My friends, the last president to raise taxes during tough economic times was Herbert Hoover."

Mr. McCain sought to blame Mr. Obama for the crisis in the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac housing agencies, saying that Mr. Obama "and his cronies" had failed to speak out when the organizations began making the risky loans that he argued were at the heart of the financial crisis.

"Fannie and Freddie were the catalyst, the match that started this forest fire," he said. "There were some who stood up against it. There were others who took a hike."

Mr. Obama nodded disapprovingly. "Now, I've got to correct a little bit of Senator McCain's history, not surprisingly," he said "Let's, first of all, understand that the biggest problem in this whole process was the deregulation of the financial system.

"Senator McCain, as recently as March, bragged about the fact that he is a deregulator."

The debate provided the most intimate encounter the two candidates have shared in the course of the campaign. On nearly every question, both men left their stools, with microphones in hand, and walked across the red-carpeted stage to speak directly to the audience.

At one point, Mr. Obama said to a questioner, "Oliver, let me tell you what's in the rescue package for you." To the same man, Mr. McCain said: "Well, thank you, Oliver. That's an excellent question."

Mr. McCain had originally proposed that the two men engage in a series of town hall meetings across the country over the summer. Mr. Obama at first signaled interest in that, but, after what appeared to be a fitful round of negotiations, that effort fell apart amid clear indications that Mr. Obama did not share the same passion for the event

Mr. McCain made mention of that the moment he took the stage. "Senator Obama, it's good to be with you at a town hall meeting," he said. Mr. Obama let that pass.

By Adam Nagourney, The New York Times, October 7, 2008

Barack Obama

Substance: Crisply specific on his economic platform, and personal and expository on the importance of the financial bailout to regular Americans. The Democratic nominee was manifestly familiar with the intricacies of the federal government, including the budget. But he still is not touting any signature policies in a manner that would burn them into the national consciousness or clarify his game plan once in office.

Grade: B+

Style: Neither nervous nor tentative in speech or manner. He was comfortable walking the stage and interacting with the questioners, although as always, led with his head not his heart. Less grim than in the first debate, he was still perhaps too antiseptic for some tastes, without generating passion or big moments.

Grade: B+

Offense: For most of the evening, he firmly jabbed at McCain on some of his recent statements, but without much impact. He hit harder by citing some of McCain's foreign policy miscues, including his famous singing of "Bomb, bomb Iran" - drawing a strained, rattled reply from his rival. Rigorously familiar with McCain's policy proposals and past statements, particularly on health care, he used that arsenal in his arguments. Seeded answers with mentions of "George Bush" whenever he could, which his campaign considers an automatic, all-purpose trump card.

Grade: B+

Defense: Unruffled when McCain went after him, smiling softly while he waited to respond. And respond he did - following his clear rule to answer every charge McCain leveled at him (even when debate rules forbade a response). When faced with any attack, he kept to a pattern: showed little anger, spent minimal time batting away charges, clarified his position, and then went on the offense or talked positively about his own views.

Grade: B+

Overall: Played it typically cautious and safe, and thus avoided major blunders, knowing if he commits no errors for the next thirty days, he will be the next President of the United States. The Illinois Senator used a coolly determined offense to keep McCain from building up a full head of steam when on the attack. Comfortably indicated a thorough grasp of his policies and agenda. It was not a dominating performance, but good enough. Two debates down and one to go for the prohibitive favorite.

Overall grade: B+

John McCain

Substance: Delved only occasionally into specifics when describing his agenda, focusing on spending and tax cuts. He had a bit of trouble elucidating his health care and energy policies, and did little to close the gap with Obama on who voters trust to deal with the economy.

Grade: B-

Style: Clearly more confident talking to voters in his cherished town hall format than standing behind a podium. Authentically displayed feel-your-pain concern over the economy, in a smoother manner than usual. But while he held the audience's attention with his answers and theatrics, he distractingly and conspicuously scribbled notes when Obama had the floor. His errant reference to Obama as "that one" probably jarred some viewers. Bottom line: with his rival in the lead, the Republican nominee was forced into aggression and antagonism, but often flirted with the desperate and negative.

Grade: B

Offense: Took some risks by hitting Obama for being liberal and on a range of other alleged offenses, but kept his tone appropriate for the format, and avoided purely personal attacks. Occasionally stumbling over some of his sharper rehearsed lines, he muted their effectiveness. Didn't once fluster Obama, though he did lay down the foundation he needs to try to mount a comeback by sowing doubts about the Democrat. Pulled off his primary task more deftly than even his aides could have hoped.

Grade: B+

Defense: Mostly ignored Obama's swipes, maintained his composure, and rarely looked annoyed. Still, though he kept his focus cleanly on the issues, he oddly made little attempt to separate himself from President Bush when Obama linked the two. Did not engage Obama on a point-by-point rebuttal of detailed accusations.

Grade: B

Overall: As promised, he was comfortable in a town hall environment, directing his attention to the individual questioner and the crowd. The Arizona senator was by turns aggressive, sensitive, conservative and conversational. Successfully presented a negative case against Obama with an upbeat, optimistic smile - but was unable to paint a truly damning portrait of an Obama presidency, especially on the economy. He exhibited a few physical and verbal tics that made him look his age, including a heavy reliance on his "my friends" crutch, and seemed nervously well aware of the high stakes. Without a solid win, he did not make up as much ground as he needed to, but lives to fight on.

Overall

grade: B

By MARK HALPERIN, Time, October 8, 2008

Obama Continues To Face Skepticism From Blue-Collar Voters

AURORA, Colo. -- For all the volatility in the national polls, on the ground in a critical swing state like this, the divisions in the 2008 presidential race often seem as immovable as the Rocky Mountains.

A powerful demand for change rooted in dissatisfaction with the country's direction is providing a narrow but palpable edge to Democratic nominee Barack Obama. But doubts among blue-collar white families and other culturally conservative voters about Obama's values, agenda and above all his experience are allowing Republican John McCain to stay within reach.

Those messages emerged clearly from two days of interviews I conducted after the first presidential debate with voters in Denver and its hotly contested suburbs -- including this largely blue-collar community just southeast of the city.

Obama's opportunity revolves around voters like Jordan Bylsma, a computer technician from Parker who considers himself mostly conservative but is leaning toward the Democrat this year. "I don't like the Bush administration, and McCain seems to have been very close to the Bush administration," he said while sitting with his family in a park in Englewood, a largely blue-collar suburb south of Denver. "I'm not buying all of [Obama's] stuff about change, but there does need to be something different."

McCain is being kept within range by voters like Carl K., an entrepreneur from Thornton, who has voted for presidential candidates from both parties but backed George W. Bush in 2004. Although Carl, who chose not to give his last name, is disappointed in the president, he's firmly supporting McCain because he considers him far better prepared than Obama. "I think we need someone with more of a world foundation, who's been around and experienced life," Carl said. "I think McCain understands a little more of how the world operates."

Colorado is a good place to measure attitudes toward the presidential contenders because each campaign considers the state one of the handful likely to tip a close election. Since 1964, Democratic presidential nominees have carried the state only once -- in 1992, when Ross Perot's strong third-party showing allowed Bill Clinton to squeeze by with only 40 percent of the vote. But in recent years, Democrats have surged here -- winning the governorship, both chambers of the state legislature, a majority of the Congressional seats and capturing a U.S. Senate seat.

While young professionals largely thought Obama was smart enough to learn the ropes as president and commander in chief, blue-collar men were incredulous at the notion that Obama could fill those roles without more experience.
I had spent two days interviewing voters in the Denver suburbs before, over the July 4 weekend. Opinions on both sides seemed fluid and unformed at that point; for many of those I met, the race was still a distant abstraction, like a back-to-school homework assignment during the height of summer.

In the more recent round of interviews, it was clear that many voters had filled in their composition book. But the intervening months had done more to harden than to rearrange the basic divisions evident in July. In largely blue-collar communities like Aurora and Englewood, my interviews found a strong preference for McCain, especially among white working-class men. Obama did best among young people, minorities and white voters who worked in white-collar professions. He also has some openings among blue-collar white women, who tended to concentrate less on experience and national security than on their unease over the economy.

Obama's appeal for better-educated and affluent whites who might ordinarily tilt toward the GOP on economic grounds was evident when I watched the first presidential debate on Sept. 26 with a group of undecided or loosely committed voters in a downtown Denver apartment. These voters were young and well-educated but also predominantly involved in finance and banking, which made them very sensitive to Republican arguments that Obama would raise their taxes. Of the eight people in the room, only two had voted for Democrat John Kerry in 2004; two others had voted for Bush. The rest had either not voted or supported third-party candidates.

Most of those in the group had arrived at the apartment leaning at least slightly toward Obama, and by the debate's end, the tilt in his direction was even more pronounced.

The debate showcased many of the attributes about Obama most attractive to these young professionals. They found him knowledgeable, articulate and -- in the word that came up most often -- fluent in his responses. He displayed the same command of concepts and ideas that they must show in their own work. By contrast, many of them found McCain programmed and prickly. "McCain is grouchy and he repeats himself, whereas Obama I feel more is trying to have a conversation with me," said Elinor Swanson, a manager at a medical advisory company.

Brendan Burke, the marketing manager at a local private equity firm, voted for Bush in 2004 and, like many of these young people, tends to be dubious of Democratic proposals to expand government or raise taxes. "I genuinely like both candidates and I respect them," Burke said. But today, Burke said, he's likely to support Obama. "McCain traditionally has been the rogue of the Republican Party, but now that he has been embraced by the party machine he seems to have lost that edge," Burke said.

Justin Baccary, who works in real estate finance, has shifted even more emphatically into Obama's camp. In 2000, Baccary volunteered in George W. Bush's first presidential campaign. And, like Burke, he says he began this year with much respect for McCain. But Baccary says he has been deeply disillusioned by Bush's performance. And more recently Baccary has lost faith in McCain because he views him as too erratic and volatile on big issues, a commonly expressed complaint in the group. "I can't believe the things he's been saying," Baccary said.

Bonnie Swanson, a retired doctor, was older than the others in the room. But, like many others there, she was drawn toward Obama because she viewed him as a more nuanced and flexible thinker. During the debate, she said, she recoiled from McCain "because he was constantly saying [to Obama] 'you don't understand' and was constantly dumbing down the issues.... It was good and evil, no shades." Around the room, McCain's insistence that Obama was "naive" or "didn't understand" complex issues prompted complaints. And Baccary spoke for many in the group when he said McCain had undercut his arguments about experience by selecting as his running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

The terrain was much tougher for Obama the next day when I talked with about three dozen predominantly white working-class voters in Aurora and Englewood. In these communities, Obama continued to face an almost impenetrable wall of skepticism from blue-collar men -- just as he did in my interviews this past summer. By far, the biggest hurdle for Obama was a widespread sense that he lacks the experience to serve as president during such a tumultuous time.

"I am a Democrat and I am leaning toward McCain," said Mike Murray, a hospital maintenance engineer from Colorado Springs. Murray has only contempt for President Bush and worries that in voting for McCain he'll get "four more years of the Bush administration." Yet Murray is strongly leaning toward the Republican nominee. "It's the experience, the background," he said. "I don't think Obama has been around long enough to be a leader at this time."

Jason Montgomery, a truck driver and former Army demolitions expert from Aurora, is even more firmly committed to McCain. Like Murray, Montgomery is unhappy about the country's direction and worries that McCain will follow too closely in Bush's path. But Montgomery is dead set against Obama. "If Obama gets elected, he is going to destroy our military," Montgomery said passionately. "And the fact that he's supposed to be the commander in chief -- he's never served in the military, he doesn't know what it takes."

That last point was a common theme among blue-collar men. While the young professionals in Burke's apartment largely thought Obama was smart enough to learn the ropes as president and commander in chief, these men were almost uniformly incredulous at the notion that Obama could fill those roles without more experience. "He does not have enough time spent on the job," said Carl K., in a telling comment.

To the extent Obama did have any openings in these communities, it was mostly among women and younger men. Both Kevin W. and Scott N., two cable television technicians from Aurora in their early twenties who chose not to give their last names, did not vote in 2004. But each is planning to back Obama next month based on nothing more complicated than an elemental desire for change. "All these things have happened under Bush," said Scott. "Why not put somebody in there who is different?" Alison Buhr, a retired receptionist from Aurora who twice backed Bush, is much older than the cable technicians but shares that impulse. "I don't want Republicans in there, and Obama is the best alternative," she said.

On balance these interviews suggested that Obama is attracting enough former Bush supporters and enough new voters to carry him within reach of taking Colorado; most recent polls provide the Democrat an edge. But lingering doubts about the Democrat may be even more entrenched in Republican-leaning rural parts of the state. The outcome will likely rest on conflicted voters like James Moessner, a retired truck driver in Aurora, who worries that Obama is too green and McCain too much like Bush. "McCain was in the service, so he knows the deal," Moessner said. "But he goes along with Bush and I can't go along with Bush." Moessner remains deeply undecided, "between a rock and a hard spot," as he put it.

In the tense struggle for Colorado's critical nine Electoral College votes, Obama has an advantage that may help sway voters like Moessner: an enormous field operation fueled by a huge and passionate volunteer base. I spent some time late on a Saturday afternoon with volunteers canvassing for Obama around a neighborhood in Englewood. On streets with weathered old houses, small hardscrabble yards and signs that warn "No Solicitors" or "Beware of Dog," Dan Lair, a University of Denver professor who leads the local volunteer team, received mostly chilly receptions from the same sort of blue-collar voters I had talked to all day. The friendliest response he found during an hour of canvassing was from a young lawyer who had recently moved into the neighborhood.

Yet the canvass, one of hundreds the Obama campaign is operating around the state, runs seven days a week. Step by step, it is accumulating tangible results. Anne Filipic, the Obama campaign's general election director in the state, points to figures showing that since January, the number of Coloradans under 30 who are registered to vote has soared by 40 percent. After the Obama campaign's spirited voter registration effort, those young people now significantly outnumber seniors as a share of registered voters. Likewise, Democrats have cut the Republican lead among registered voters from 181,000 in August 2004 to just under 74,000 as of last August. On the weekend before the first debate, the Obama campaign calculates that volunteers knocked on 107,000 doors in Colorado. "I don't think there is a question that we are going to expand the electorate," Filipic says.

One sign Filipic isn't just boasting came from Vicki Befort, another volunteer who teaches at Arapahoe Community College. When I met her, Befort had just returned from a day canvassing outside a Mexican supermarket in Denver. The weekend before, she had been there with another white woman to set up a voter registration table outside the market. Since neither of the women spoke Spanish, and few of the shoppers spoke English, the two quickly realized there was little point in remaining.

During the week, the two women posted a notice in one of the campaign's online message groups asking for Spanish-speaking volunteers to join them on another trip to the market. Four people responded, and on this beautiful fall Saturday, they stationed themselves at a table outside for six hours. This time, Befort proudly returned with registration forms from three dozen new voters, another trickle in the current that Obama supporters hope will carry him to the White House.

By Ronald Brownstein, National Journal, Oct. 7, 2008

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama made strides toward easing voters' concerns about his candidacy in Tuesday night's debate. John McCain, despite raising pointed questions about his rival's readiness, didn't create the game-changing moment he'll need between now and Election Day.

There are still four weeks to go, but time is running out on McCain.

Poised and confident, Obama directly confronted his greatest hurdle - and did it by turning the tables on McCain during a foreign policy question.

"Now Senator McCain suggests that somehow, you know, I'm green behind the ears and I'm just spouting off, and he's somber and responsible," Obama said as McCain laughed and said: "Thank you very much."

Obama then bluntly challenged McCain's steadiness: "This is a guy who sang bomb, bomb, bomb Iran, who called for the annihilation of North Korea - that I don't think is an example of speaking softly."

Needing a big moment - he trails in key state polling - McCain tried to stage one by saying he would order the Treasury Department to enact a sweeping $300 billion program to shield homeowners from mortgage foreclosure. The drama was lost in part because he didn't provide details, leaving those to his aides to deliver in a news release.

Said McCain: "It's my proposal. It's not Sen. Obama's proposal."

True, though Obama said last month that such a plan should be considered.

Later, McCain seemed unwilling to utter Obama's name, referring to him as "That one" while debating a vote on an energy bill.

The debate boiled down to two questions: Could Obama close the sale? Could McCain change the game? The answer to both is no, but Obama may have helped himself the most - if only because he came into the debate ahead and with a political landscape dramatically in the Democrats' favor.

The candidates debated on a day in which stocks plunged anew and a Gallup Poll showed that just 9 percent of Americans think the country is headed in the right direction, the lowest level ever recorded in the 29 years the question has been asked. Nearly 7 in 10 voters say the economy is their biggest issue.

With that bleak backdrop, Obama and McCain each sought to show he alone would change Washington. In the only town hall of the debate series, both candidates tried to show empathy with the dismayed public. And they tried to go negative without being overly obvious about it.

Neither mentioned the issues that have been fodder for attacks in recent days, Obama's association with 1960s-era radical William Ayers and McCain's involvement in the 1980s Keating Five savings and loan scandal.

"This is a final verdict on the failed economic policies of the last eight years, strongly promoted by President Bush and supported by Senator McCain," Obama said of the economic crisis, the first of several times when the Democrat linked McCain to the unpopular president.

But, trying to connect with his audience, Obama also said: "You're not interested in hearing politicians pointing fingers."

McCain, in turn, repeatedly called Obama a "tax-and-spend" liberal and raised questions about the first-term Illinois senator's qualifications to serve, saying: "We don't have time for on the job training, my friend."

And, he said: "Nailing down Senator Obama's various tax proposals is like nailing Jell-O to the wall. There has been five or six of them and if you wait long enough, there will probably be another one."

Even with the political environment tailor made for a Democratic victory, Obama has had trouble convincing skeptics who have difficulty imagining the 47-year-old freshman senator, vying to be the first black president, in the White House. A recent AP-Yahoo News poll showed that doubts about Obama's competency loomed even larger than the color of his skin.

Thus, Obama looked to use the debate as an opportunity to try to reassure voters, connect with them - and solidify his advantage. He was out of his scripted comfort zone in the town-hall style confrontation, though he avoided a major misstep that could have set him back.

Facing dwindling options in a strikingly poor environment for Republicans, McCain sought to shift the dynamics of the race in his favor in large part by stoking voters' concerns about Obama, raising questions about how well the public knows him and questioning his experience to serve.

But he wasn't nearly as pointed as he and running mate Sarah Palin had been in recent days.

In talking about the mortgage crisis, McCain referred to "Senator Obama and his cronies and his friends in Washington" who supported "risky loans." He also referred to Obama's "secret that you don't know" and claimed that it was that he would increase taxes on 50 percent of small business revenue.

In the end, Obama didn't seal the deal and McCain didn't have a game-changing moment.

They'll have another chance in eight days.

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press, October 8, 2008

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Barack Obama and John McCain clashed repeatedly over the causes and cures for the worst economic crisis in 80 years Tuesday night in a debate in which Republican McCain called for sweeping action by the government to directly shield many homeowners from mortgage foreclosure.

"It's my proposal. It's not Sen. Obama's proposal, it's not President Bush's proposal," McCain said in the debate that he hoped could revive his fortunes in a presidential race trending toward his rival.

In one pointed confrontation on foreign policy, Obama bluntly challenged McCain's steadiness. "This is a guy who sang bomb, bomb, bomb Iran, who called for the annihilation of North Korea - that I don't think is an example of speaking softly."

That came after McCain accused him of foolishly threatening to invade Pakistan and said, "I'm not going to telegraph my punches, which is what Sen. Obama did."

The debate was the second of three between the two major party rivals, and the only one to feature a format in which voters seated a few feet away posed questions to the candidates.

They were polite, but the strain of the campaign showed. At one point, McCain referred to Obama as "that one," rather than speaking his name.

"It's good to be with you at a town hall meeting," McCain also jabbed at his rival, who has spurned the Republican's calls for numerous such joint appearances across the fall campaign.

They debated on a stage at Belmont University four weeks before Election Day in a race that has lately favored Obama, both in national polls and in surveys in pivotal battleground states.

Not surprisingly, many of the questions dealt with an economy in trouble.

Obama said the current crisis was the "final verdict on the failed economic policies of the last eight years" that President Bush pursued and were "supported by Sen. McCain."

He contended that Bush, McCain and others had favored deregulation of the financial industry, predicting that would "let markets run wild and prosperity would rain down on all of us. It didn't happen."

McCain's pledge to have the government help individual homeowners avoid foreclosure went beyond the details of the bailout that recently cleared Congress. The legislation allows but does not require Treasury to purchase mortgages directly. Obama has said previously that idea should be studied, and his campaign contended McCain's proposal was not a new one.

McCain's campaign issued a written statement that said the $300 billion cost of his initiative would be paid out of the $700 billion approved late last week.

"I would order the secretary of the Treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the new value of those homes, at the diminished value of those homes, and let people be able to make those payments and stay in their homes," he said.

"Is it expensive? Yes. But we all know, my friends, until we stabilize home values in America, we're never going to start turning around and creating jobs and fixing our economy, and we've got to give some trust and confidence back to America."

McCain also said it was important to reform the giant benefit programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

"My friends, we are not going to be able to provide the same benefit for present-day workers that present-day retirees have today," he said, although he did not elaborate.

The two men also competed to demonstrate their qualifications as reformers at a time voters are clamoring for change.

McCain accused Obama of being the Senate's second-highest recipient of donations from individuals at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two now-disgraced mortgage industry giants.

"There were some of us who stood up against it," McCain said of the lead-up to the financial crisis. "There were others who took a hike."

Obama shot back that McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, has a stake in a Washington lobbying firm that received thousands of dollars a month from Freddie Mac until recently.

Pivoting quickly to show his concern with members of the audience listening from a few feet away, he said, "You're not interested in politicians pointing fingers. What you're interested in is trying to figure out, how is this going to impact you."

But that didn't stop the two men from criticizing one another repeatedly as the topics turned to energy, spending, taxes and health care.

Obama said McCain was going to require taxes on the health benefits workers receive from their employers at the same time his plan would wipe out the ability of states to enforce their own regulations to require tests such as mammograms.

McCain countered that under his rival's plan "Sen. Obama will fine you" if parents fail to obtain coverage for their children but had yet to say what the fine would be. "Perhaps we will find that out tonight," he said.

Obama quickly followed up, saying that McCain "voted against the expansion" of the children's health care program the government runs.

The two men prefer dramatically different approaches to easing the problem of millions of uninsured Americans. McCain favors a $5,000 tax credit that he says would allow families to find and afford health care on their own.

Obama wants to build on the current system, in which millions receive coverage through the workplace, with government funding to help uninsured families obtain coverage.

Obama also said that American International Group Inc., which was bailed out by the government, should give the Treasury $440,000 to cover the costs of a company retreat at a posh California resort less than a week after the federal intervention. "Those executives should be fired," he said, referring to the participants in the retreat.

The debate also veered into foreign policy, and the disputes were as intense as on the economy and domestic matters.

McCain said his rival "was wrong about Iraq and the surge. He was wrong about Russia when they committed aggression against Georgia. And in his short career he does not understand our national security challenges. We don't have time for on the job training."

Obama countered with a trace of sarcasm that he didn't understand some things - like how the United States could face the challenge in does in Afghanistan after spending years and hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq.

The audience was selected by Gallup, the polling organization, and was split three ways among voters leaning toward McCain, those leaning toward Obama and those undecided.

Tom Brokaw of NBC, the moderator, screened their questions and also chose others that had been submitted online.

By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press, October 8, 2008

ASHEVILLE, N.C. - For the third weekend in a row, Barack Obama campaigned in North Carolina as part of the most vigorous Democratic effort since at least 1992 to win this reliably Republican state.

At a surprise stop Saturday night at a North Carolina Democratic Party dinner and again a rally here Sunday in the state's conservative western edge, Obama sounded a confident note:

"Despite the pundits, despite the prognosticators, despite the cynicism," Obama said at the dinner, "we are right here in the hunt in North Carolina. We can win at the top of the ballot in North Carolina. And we win at the bottom of the ballot in North Carolina. We can win in the eastern part of the state and in the western part. We can elect a new Democratic governor here in North Carolina and we can elect a new U.S. senator here in North Carolina."

To the dismay of North Carolina Republicans, Obama may not be overstating matters.

Aides to John McCain consider North Carolina a must-win state and expressed optimism last week about their chances here, but there are signs of concern: Vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin this week will make the Republican ticket's first visit to the state since June, and the first public appearance since a McCain speech at Wake Forest University during the primaries in May.

"They're having to defend their turf - Republicans - in a way that they haven't had to since 1992," said Ferrel Guillory, director of the Program on Southern Politics, Media and Public Life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "And so, even if Obama doesn't win the electoral votes here, McCain can't take the state for granted."

The turmoil on Wall Street and the economic downturn have helped turn North Carolina into more fertile ground for Obama, who took his first lead over John McCain in the Real Clear Politics average of state polls a week ago. As a national leader in the banking industry, the state suffered more bad news last week as it faces the loss of thousands of high-paying bank jobs - and a blow to its state pride - when Charlotte-based Wachovia Corp. put itself up for sale last week.

Similar to its flood-the-zone strategy in Virginia, which is experiencing its first competitive presidential race in decades, the Obama campaign has been aggressive in its pursuit of North Carolina.

Obama chose this city in the Blue Ridge Mountains to prepare for Tuesday's presidential debate with the state's 15 electoral votes in mind. It's his fifth visit since clinching the Democratic nomination in June, while vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden has made two stops and Michelle Obama traveled to Charlotte and Greensboro last month, and returns again Tuesday.

Obama is also dominating the airwaves, running about three TV ads for every one from McCain, according to North Carolina political experts.

The prospect of North Carolina as a battleground has put the McCain campaign in a bind, stirring a debate on how much time and resources it should devote to a state that has voted for Republican presidential nominees since 1976.

"Obama has basically gotten a free ride," said a North Carolina Republican strategist who asked to remain anonymous so that he could talk candidly about the race. "He is killing McCain on the air, even running two-minute ads and new radio ads. Meanwhile, most of what we have seen from McCain has come from national cable buys. That is not a recipe for success in a state that no one thought we'd be talking about this late."

McCain has not visited the state since June, when he met privately with evangelists Billy and Franklin Graham. There are no immediate plans for McCain to return to North Carolina, according to Brent Woodcox, a spokesman for the state Republican Party.

"Certainly we would love to see the senator in the state," he said. "But with 30 days left, the campagn has to make the decision on where to go."

Palin's trip Tuesday to East Carolina University in Greenville for a rally shows the campaign, which has also increased its ad buys in recent weeks, is beginning to make a stronger push in the unexpectedly competitive state.

McCain advisers said they expect North Carolina, similar to other GOP states where Obama is competitive, will go with the Republican nominee at the end of the day because the Democrat is out of step with voters.

"One of the strategic decisions our campaign has made is to let Mr. Obama spend his resources in there to the point that we got closer to the election," McCain senior advisor Greg Strimple said. "These are states with conservative voting constituencies where you have the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate running on the top of the ticket. ... I believe he is going to have a hard time winning votes and I think it will be money he has spent in vain."

Obama chief strategist David Axelrod countered, "I am happy to have them wallow in their self confidence."

Woodcox acknowledges that the race is competitive, but said that the GOP retains the edge because it knows how to win statewide races there.

"The events nationally have an effect on how the race plays in North Carolina and there has been a lot of up and down since the convention, gaining momentum and losing," Woodcox said. "We may still see two or three up-and-down, game-changing moments. I still think we can feel confident because of our past experiences."

But the Obama campaign, which political observers say is waging the most organized Democratic bid here since Bill Clinton's 1992 effort - when he fell just 20,000 votes short of victory, out of two-and-a-half-million cast - is drawing its confidence from a mix of factors.

Obama already built a statewide political network during the North Carolina Democratic primary, which he won by 14 percentage points despite a serious effort from Hillary Rodham Clinton.

North Carolina voter rolls gained more than 600,000 new registrants this year, with almost half choosing the Democratic Party and one third registered as independent. Of the state's 6 million voters, 45 percent are Democratic, 32 percent are Republican and 22 percent are independent.

A surge in population over the last 20 years in the metropolitan areas has reshaped the electorate, as well.

"They don't necessarily fit the old pattern, or at least the old pattern isn't imbedded in their head," Guillory said. "And so there are a lot of persuadable voters out there, and that's why this state has been more competitive. It isn't the old South, or the more rural part of the state that has become more competitive. It's these surging metropolitan areas that make this state more competitive."

As the momentum has shifted in Obama's direction over the last two weeks, state political experts are just beginning to consider the real possibility of North Carolina as decisive on Election Day.

"Someone asked me the other day, 'Do you really think at the end of the day that North Carolina voters will vote for an African American?' I've got to tell you, I think the worse the economy gets, the less race matters," said Morgan Jackson, a North Carolina Democratic political consultant. "The economy changes the dynamics so much that people don't care what race, or creed, or gender you are. If the economy is in such decay, they're going to want somebody who can make a change."

By Carrie Budoff Brown, Richard T. Cullen, Politico, October 6, 2008

Very soon after she was picked to be McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin was attacked by Obama campaign spokesmen and a Democratic member of Congress for once being seen wearing a Pat Buchanan button. She had an answer and the campaign offered it. Yet now we are asked to believe that it's somehow inappropriate to inquire why Barack Obama's political career began in the home of an admitted and unrepentant domestic terrorist of the radical left? "Who is Barack Obama?" is not an irrelevant question given the job Obama is seeking, and it's a question he has sought mightily to avoid answering. The veil of secrecy he has thrown over his past (journalists have been denied access to his state legislative office records, documents about state earmarks he distributed in Illinois, a list of his legal clients, his state bar application, billing records related to Tony Rezko, medical records, academic records - all of which are the sort of documents candidates routinely make public) forces the question all the more.

The Obama campaign's response to the question appears to be to raise John McCain's connection to the Keating Five scandal. It is by no means out of bounds to raise the issue. McCain received campaign funds from Keating, his wife's company had been involved in investment ventures with him, and he once met with federal regulators about Keating's bank - though the Senate Ethics Committee found that unlike three other senators involved in the scandal, "Senator McCain's actions were not improper." The committee said only that he had exercised bad judgment by being involved with Keating at all and not seeing what others were doing. In fact, Bob Bennett, who was the Democratic lawyer selected by the committee to investigate the Keating Five, says in his book that he recommended that McCain's name be dropped from the investigation because there was no evidence against him but, for political reasons (the other Senators were all Democrats), McCain's name was left on the list.

McCain's response to that scandal should certainly be compared with Obama's Ayers explanations. McCain has spoken and written about every detail of the Keating mess, has expressed open contrition for allowing himself to be drawn into it even tangentially, and devoted years of his career to combating corruption as a result. He even badly overreacted and pushed for vastly excessive regulation of campaign financing. He has said (in a book in which he details his and others' actions in the matter) that merely the appearance of impropriety involved makes his involvement with Keating "the worst mistake of my life."

Had Obama done and said something similar regarding the sort of radicalism Ayers represents, he would now have an answer to offer. Instead, he has worked with Ayers, supported his causes, and denied any significance to the links between them. That, too, makes this a legitimate question about a man who would be president.




By Yuval Levin, National Review, October 6, 2008

RICHMOND, Va. - The wife of Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel plans to endorse Democrat Barack Obama.

Lilibet Hagel has scheduled a 10 a.m. news conference in Alexandria, Va., on Tuesday with Susan Eisenhower, the daughter of Republican President Eisenhower.

Hagel, R-Neb., has made no endorsement. Lilibet Hagel said in an Associated Press interview that her decision was independent of her husband. She said she didn't know whether he would make an endorsement or whom he would support.

"You'd have to ask him," Lilibet Hagel said.

She said it will be her first endorsement of a Democrat and that perilous world conditions were a factor.

"The fact is we're in two wars, two of the longest we've ever been in. We've run up a third of our nation's debt in just the past eight years. We're in the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression," she said.

The Hagels know John and Cindy McCain, and she said her endorsement was not meant to slam them.

"This isn't anti-McCain. This is pro-Obama. I'm just convinced he's the right person," she said.

The Hagels vote in Nebraska, but they have lived in Washington's Virginia suburbs since Hagel won his first Senate term in 1996.

A moderate Republican and veteran wounded in combat in the Vietnam War, Hagel has been a fierce and credible critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policies. During the summer, he accompanied Obama and Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island to Iraq and Afghanistan. He was briefly the object of speculation as a possible surprise Obama running mate selection.

Hagel has decided not to seek a third Senate term.

By BOB LEWIS, Associated Press, October 7, 2008

WASHINGTON - Running short on time, John McCain has the most riding on the second presidential debate, though Barack Obama will be out of his scripted comfort zone in the town hall-style confrontation. It could be ugly if Monday's tussling is any indication.

Tuesday night's debate comes exactly four weeks before Election Day with a lot going on both inside and outside the campaign: Polling shows Obama approaching the 270 Electoral College votes needed for victory, Wall Street is tumbling even further and both candidates are escalating character attacks.

Their target audience in the debate: the roughly 10 percent of the electorate who are undecided and an additional quarter who say they might still change their minds before Nov. 4.

The debate, at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., is supposed to be divided equally between the economy and foreign policy, but given the global financial turmoil, economic questions may well dominate. As markets were plunging in Europe and Asia as well as the U.S. on Monday, the candidates were going after each other.

In Florida, GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin raised Obama's ties to 1960s-era radical William Ayers and to the Democrat's former pastor, the incendiary Rev. Jeremiah Wright. In New Mexico, McCain, himself asked, "Who is the real Sen. Obama," referred to him critically as a "Chicago politician" and argued that the Democrat says one thing and does another.

Obama, in turn, asserted in North Carolina that McCain was engaging "in the usual political shenanigans and smear tactics" to distract from economic issues, even as his own aides in Chicago assailed the Republican nominee for "an angry tirade" and went after him for his role in the 1980s Keating Five savings and loan scandal.

McCain, a four-term Arizona senator, is trailing in polls and facing dwindling options to thwart Democrat Obama in an enormously troublesome political landscape for Republicans. Obama, the first-term Illinois senator, wants to solidify his lead and avoid any major debate misstep that could set him back in his quest to become the country's first black president.

Each hunkered down with top aides over the weekend to prepare, McCain at his vacation compound near Sedona, Ariz., Obama in the western mountains of newly competitive North Carolina.

In the 90-minute debate, NBC newsman Tom Brokaw will facilitate questions from the audience as tens of millions of viewers tune in from across the country.

"Generally, the stakes in this are higher for McCain," said Phil Musser, a former executive director of the Republican Governors Association. "It's probably one of the last and most important opportunities for him to lay out an economic vision that resonates with middle America in a format that lends itself to doing just that."

But Republicans and Democrats alike say even a strong McCain performance may not be enough.

"McCain can win the debate, but the trajectory of this election would not be fundamentally altered unless Obama also made a pretty dramatic and serious mistake," said Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist in Vice President Al Gore's 2000 campaign.

McCain is most comfortable during the give-and-take of question-and-answer events that were a hallmark of his 2000 campaign, and his 2008 primary effort. But his consistency largely depends on his mood. When he's on his game, McCain is witty and charming, filled with ready one-liners and stories from his past. When he's off, McCain can come across cranky, surly and prone to gaffes.

Obama typically is much more at ease giving speeches from behind a lectern, though he has taken impromptu questions from audiences and has grown much more adept at the back-and-forth of voter-question sessions throughout the campaign. The debate provides the professorial Obama with an opportunity to show some emotion and seal the deal with voters still struggling to see him as president.

Criticism of each other is certain.

McCain "might as well take the gloves off," Palin said Monday, signaling that the GOP nominee may well question Obama's character, record and policies as part of a stepped-up effort to make Obama an unacceptable option for voters. It's also likely Obama will go after McCain anew on the Republican's 90 percent support for President Bush, and possibly on his character as well.

Neither, however, can afford to swing so hard that he turns off voters, and the audience-participation format makes it a bit more difficult to fully engage.

Ahead of the debate, an Associated Press analysis based on polling, advertising and interviews with strategists on both sides indicated that Obama was on the cusp of the 270 votes needed to triumph in the state-by-state Electoral College vote count.

He has 21 states with 264 votes in his column or leaning his way, including Iowa and New Mexico. Bush won both four years ago, but even Republicans concede they are likely to fall to the Democrats this year. Also tilting toward Obama: Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all states where Democrat John Kerry was victorious in 2004 and where McCain is competing hard.

That leaves McCain with 23 states with 185 votes in his column or leaning toward him, including three longtime Republican-held states that Obama is trying to swipe: Indiana, Missouri, and Montana.

Just six states, with 89 votes, still appear to be toss-ups - Colorado, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia - and all are states Bush secured four years ago, underscoring McCain's challenge.

McCain also is trying to win a single electoral vote in one of Maine's congressional districts, while Obama is doing the same in Nebraska.

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press, October 7, 2008

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - As a state senator, Democrat Barack Obama awarded $75,000 in government grants to a Chicago social service organization led by a rabbi who is also his wife's cousin, records show.

In 1999, Obama arranged for $50,000 for adult literacy and counseling services offered on Chicago's South Side by a group called Blue Gargoyle. A $25,000 grant for the group's youth services followed the next year.

The group's executive director when the grants were awarded was Capers Funnye, a South Side rabbi and Michelle Obama's first cousin once removed.

Funnye (pronounced fun-NAY) said Monday there was nothing improper about the way Blue Gargoyle obtained the grants. Obama did not encourage him to apply for the money, he said, and Funnye denied using family connections to pressure Obama to approve the application.

Obama's presidential campaign said the grants supported valuable services.

"State Sen. Obama joined other legislators in securing funding for a well-established social services agency in his district that provided job training, employment counseling, and alternative education programs to approximately 1,200 Chicago residents each year," campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said.

Funnye noted that Blue Gargoyle got similar grants from another state legislator who had no family ties to the group.

"There was nothing funny, nothing below board," Funnye said. "Everything was done according to whatever guidelines the state of Illinois had in place."

But guidelines were practically nonexistent.

At the time, Illinois legislators were handing out hundreds of millions of dollars in grants. The money was part of a deal that legislative leaders cut with the governor to approve a major public-works program.

Each legislator could award money to favored groups and projects with basically no oversight. The grants were known as "member initiatives" and were similar to the congressional "earmarks" often criticized in Obama's presidential campaign against Republican John McCain.

Obama awarded about $6 million for everything from literacy programs and park improvements to drill team uniforms and jazz appreciation events.

Founded in 1968, Blue Gargoyle provides job training and placement, tutoring, counseling and an alternative high school for dropouts. It's name refers to gargoyles on buildings at the University of Chicago, where the founders started their charitable work, Funnye said.

Funnye said he was executive director from late 1997 until summer 2002. Obama would have been familiar with the organization's work even before his wife's cousin took over, he added.

By CHRISTOPHER WILLS, Associated Press, October 7, 2008

ASHEVILLE, N.C. - The two men who supposedly exemplified a different kind of politics are engaged in an increasingly bitter campaign as character attacks are emerging to compete with issues like the troubled economy.

With the election four weeks away, chances dimmed that Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama could reclaim the often lofty images they cultivated early in their presidential bids as their campaigns focused new attention Monday on decades-old events involving a former radical from Chicago and a convicted thrift owner from Arizona.

McCain's campaign added another figure when his running mate, Sarah Palin, said there should be more discussion of Obama's incendiary former pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

Obama and McCain faced cameras Monday with harsh words for each other. Obama, taking a break from debate prep in Asheville, N.C., accused McCain's campaign of "smear tactics."

In Albuquerque, N.M., McCain delivered an unusually scathing broadside. He accused Obama of lying about McCain's efforts to regulate the home loan industry. And he suggested Obama is a mysterious figure who cannot be trusted.

"Who is the real Barack Obama?" McCain said to a cheering crowd. "Ask such questions and all you get in response is another barrage of angry insults."

Some analysts called the change in tone disappointing but predictable. Presidential candidates who are losing on policy issues often turn to character, they said.

As McCain's poll standings fell along with the economy, his campaign began the new character criticisms and used Palin to spearhead the push. Obama's campaign didn't wait long to respond.

Brookings Institution political scientist Thomas E. Mann said he had felt for months that McCain "would eventually have to try to undermine Obama as an acceptable choice for president and commander in chief." Key issues, he said, including "an economy in turmoil, an unpopular war and a politically discredited president are working powerfully against McCain and the Republican Party in general."

Obama, meanwhile, has learned the lessons of Michael Dukakis and John Kerry. Those Democrats lost presidential elections after hesitating to counter hard-hitting and factually dubious attacks on their character and judgment. The shorthand terms for those attacks - "Willie Horton" and "Swiftboating" - have become a call-to-arms for Democratic activists who vow always to return fire with fire.

"We don't throw the first punch, but we'll throw the last," Obama said Monday on Tom Joyner's syndicated radio show.

Several Democrats said on Sunday talk shows that Obama's campaign would revisit McCain's long-ago involvement in the thrift scandal if the personal attacks on him continued. Within hours, the Obama campaign released a memo and Web video doing just that.

Obama and McCain have hit each other at personal levels before. But the vitriol increased dramatically Saturday, when Palin repeatedly raised Obama's relationship with former 1960s radical Bill Ayers.

Obama, she said, was "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

Ayers helped found the violent Weather Underground group, whose members were blamed for several bombings when Obama was 8. Obama has denounced Ayers' radical views and activities.

The two men live near each other in Chicago, and once worked on the same charity board. Ayers hosted a small, meet-the-candidate event for Obama in 1995, at the start of his political career, but multiple news accounts have said they are not close. The campaign called Palin's remarks outrageous and grossly exaggerated.

A 13-minute Web video Obama's campaign released Monday revisits McCain's ties to Charles Keating, a former friend, campaign contributor and savings and loan owner who was convicted of securities fraud in 1991.

As a senator, McCain participated in two meetings with banking regulators on Keating's behalf. He became one of the "Keating Five" senators investigated by the Senate ethics committee. The panel cited McCain for a lesser role than others, but criticized his "poor judgment."

McCain has since called his involvement with Keating "the worst mistake of my life."

McCain and Obama say they are dredging up Ayers and Keating because the episodes shed light on each other's current judgment - and because the other campaign is on the attack, though a McCain aide said the GOP campaign wanted to change the subject from the failing economy.

A few months ago, both candidates promised something better.

Obama, extolling a new brand of politics, told an Iowa audience in January: "We can't afford the same old partisan food fight. We can't afford a politics that's all about tearing opponents down instead of lifting the country up."

McCain, shaken by a vicious whisper campaign in South Carolina that helped George W. Bush beat him there during the 2000 Republican primaries, has often vowed to be a straight-shooting candidate who puts honor ahead of winning. When Republicans attacked fellow retired Navy officer Kerry in the 2004 "Swiftboat" episode, McCain called the ads "dishonest and dishonorable."

Earlier in this campaign when the North Carolina Republican Party said Obama's relationship with Rev. Wright made him "too extreme," McCain asked it to stop and said: "There's no place for that kind of campaigning, and the American people don't want it."

The new tone may depress many, but a top independent pollster in the battleground state of Pennsylvania said it's unlikely to change many minds.

"The economy is so dominant and the change focus so great, I just don't think voters are going to buy into it," said Terry Madonna, a political scientist at Franklin and Marshall College.

By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press, October 7, 2008

"I am using every tool that I have to help Democrats win," Clinton told USA TODAY. She was between fundraising events in Texas and California that brought in another $1.5 million for Obama and congressional candidates on Friday and Saturday.

Later this month, Clinton will headline Obama fundraisers in Chicago, Philadelphia and Little Rock along with 11 events to raise money for Democratic congressional candidates and state parties.

She is stepping up efforts to get more Democratic women elected to the Senate. On Friday, she issued an e-mail fundraising appeal for Louisiana incumbent Mary Landrieu and challengers Kay Hagan, who is locked in a tight battle against Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina, and former New Hampshire governor Jeanne Shaheen, who is engaged in a repeat of her close 2002 race with GOP Sen. John Sununu.

The former first lady said in the interview late Friday that her goal is straightforward: "We have a lot to repair in America, and I believe that Democratic leadership is essential to fixing the damage that we are going to inherit."

Clinton, who came closer to claiming a major party's presidential nomination than any woman before her, declined to discuss whether another White House race was in her future.

"I'm looking forward to going to the White House someday and standing there when President Obama signs a bill guaranteeing quality, affordable health care for every American," she said, citing an issue that was a signature of her campaign.

Democratic strategist Tad Devine said Clinton's stature will grow in the Senate no matter the outcome on Election Day because she garnered about 18 million votes in her presidential bid.

Clinton stands to become "the most important woman in American politics" if Democrats win on Nov. 4, he said.

Helping to raise the money to aid Obama and increase Democratic majorities in Congress only enhances that standing, Devine added, because "delivering resources to campaigns is probably the single-most important and difficult thing you can do in politics."

Clinton has hit 40 campaign events for Obama in battleground states from New Hampshire to Nevada in the past two months.

Her husband campaigned in Florida last week. "Both Bill and I are doing all we can to reach the people who are not already convinced," Clinton said.

The Clintons' efforts come amid lingering signs of unrest among her still-loyal supporters. One top Clinton fundraiser, investment executive Lynn Forester de Rothschild, announced last month she was supporting Republican nominee John McCain. She called Obama and other top Democrats in Congress "too far to the left."

Clinton rejected the idea of further defections from her camp. "The vast majority of people who voted for me will vote for Sen. Obama," she said. "They understand that ... we desperately need a Democratic administration to take the reins of the economy and turn it around."

Alexander Heckler, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer who raised more than $100,000 for Clinton, said talk of dissension between the Clinton and Obama fundraising camps is overrated.

He said he contributed $2,300 to Obama at a Sept. 19 fundraiser in Miami and has committed to raising at least $250,000 for the Illinois senator at Clinton's urging.

"We are all very united," he said.

Clinton still owed about $9 million to her campaign vendors at the end of August, despite Obama's appeal to his top fundraisers to help retire the debt. She vowed to work to repay the vendors, but insisted her priority is her party.

"With a month to go until Election Day," she said, "our energies have to be focused on persuading people to support Democrats."

By Fredreka Schouten, USA TODAY, October 5, 2008

Michigan.

With all the attention last week focused on the vice presidential debate, it was easy to overlook what may have been the biggest story of the week: John McCain's withdrawal from the key state of Michigan. The fact that the news broke literaly on the day of the Biden-Palin debate was obviously not a coincidence, but an effort to bury, or at least put some dirt, on top of the story. Even so, it got atention, deservedly so. In the long run, it may count for more than the debate that was supposed to overshadow it.

It is, of course, true that Michigan has gone Democratic in the last four elections. But it's been close, especially in the last two. What's more, Michigan was not an Obama stronghold. Hillary won it handlily in the contest that wasn't; McCain himself won it in 2000, even as Bush was steaming toward the nomination.

Michigan is full of the sort of lunch bucket white Democrats who started off this summer with more questions than affection for Barack Obama. It is the home, historically and ideologically, of the so-called Reagan Democrats. It represents precisely the sort of sate that a victorious McCain would have liked to win, or at least force Obama to spend money to beat him there. Now, Michigan voters are likely to see about as much campaign activity as we do here in California, which is a sign of Obama's growing strength and McCain's weakening position.

Conceding Michigan may well make sense for McCain given the most recent polls, showing him falling further and further behind, and the reality that presidential politics, particularly when things are looking down, is a zero sum game in which a shrinking pie must be divided with ever greater precision. There are places where McCain is closer; states where he has a better chance of winning than Michigan. And a contest in Michigan means spending less in Ohio and Florida, and the remaining "battleground" states.

But make no mistake. Leaving a battleground state is a sign of weakness. Weakness in presidential politics begets more weakness. It hurts fundraising. It undermines confidence in the campaign. It ups the pressure on the candidate to take risks which are called that because they usually carry at least as big a downside potential as an upside risk.

Of course, the obvious reason that Michigan turned on McCain is that the economy devloved into a crisis, and it's hard to argue that the party that's been in charge for the last eight years and would claim credit for peace and prosperity is not to blame when it has produced neither. It is particularly hard when what has been the mantra of the Republican party for the past two plus decades - smaller government, less regulation, more freedom for free markets - is so closely tied to everything that's gone wrong. Who let what Palin called those "predator" lenders out of their cages, free from any restraints? And, more to the point, how do you argue that the answer on which Republicans have built their past successes, is the solution when it so clearly seems to be part of the problem instead?

Indeed, what was most striking about Thursday's vice presidential debate was not that Palin didn't totally embarrass herself (she would have to be an idiot to do that after being locked up in debate prep for a week, not to mention having been forced to confront what letting Palin be Palin looked like night after night on the CBS News) or that Joe Biden managed to avoid patronizing either his opponent or the moderator (how much do you think that was drilled into his head), but how flat Palin's repeated efforts to invoke solid-gold Reagan gems fell in 2008.

It's too easy to say that Palin is no Ronald Reagan. Sure, Reagan delivered his lines better; he was an actor, after all, not to mention a two term governor of California, which is certainly better preparation for the national stage than two years in Juneau. But I don't think Reagan himself could make smaller government and freer markets sell amid the collapse of the unregulated, too free banking system that Americans are grudgingly being forced to bailout.

The experiment with less government has produced more government than Reagan ever dreamt of; the bail out bill is definitely not one for the Gipper. It wasn't so much that Palin's efforts to channel Ronald Reagan were forced or rehearsed; it's that what came out sounded painfully stale, and as much as she claimed to "get it," what she said suggested just the opposite.

Republicans need a new approach, a new set of talking points, new rules of engagement, to address the mess that deregulation and less government has produced in real life, and Sarah Palin - and her partner, John McCain - have yet to articulate that approach.

In explaining her disastrous performace with Katie Couric, Governor Palin said she found Couric - or at least her questions - "annoying." Who was Couric to ask the Vice Presidential nominee to name a Supreme Court opinion other than Roe (she couldn't), or to list what newspapers she read (not even the Washington Times or the Wall Street Journal), to inquire about why Russia's proximity to Alaska gave her foreign policy experience, much less to ask her opinion on the bailout package. As Palin told FOX News, "It's like, man, no matter what you say, you are going to get clobbered. If you choose to answer a question, you are going to get clobbered on the answer. If you choose to try to pivot and go to another subject that you believe that Americans want to hear about, you get clobbered for that, too."

The reason Sarah Palin got clobbered was not because her answers were "wrong" but because she didn't have them, and her inability to answer such straightforward questions raises serious questions about her competence for high office. What she wanted to do was just attack Barack Obama: "I wanted to talk about his proposal to increase government spending by another trillion dollars. Some of his comments that he's made about the war, that I think may, in my world, disqualify someone from consideration as the next commander in chief. Some of the comments that he has made about Afghanistan -- what we are doing there, supposedly just air raiding villages and killing civilians. That's reckless. I want to talk about things like that. So I guess I have to apologize for being a bit annoyed, but that's also an indication of being outside the Washington elite, outside of the media elite also."

This is not about the "media elite." It is about minimum standards for high office. What Sarah Palin needs to apologize for is not her annoyance, but her ignorance, not for embarrassing herself with Couric, which she did, but for embarrassing all of the women who looked to her as a symbol of the competence and qualifications women can bring to high office. If she did not always answer the questions that were asked on Thursday night, at least her avoidance was not as obvious as it was with Couric. The Republicans may have been complaining about moderator Gwen Ifill on the eve of the debate, but in its aftermath, they should be thanking her for going easy on the candidate who ignored her questions.

But at the end of the day, if Palin cannot win this election for McCain - and that was certainly his hope when he picked her - she will also not be responsible for their defeat, which is where they are headed now. Michigan isn't her fault; she didn't create the mess that is forcing Michigan voters, some of them reluctantly, to conclude that they cannot vote Republican this times Reagan Democrats are still Democrats when Reagan's answers, no matter how enthusiastically or genuinely they are invoked, no longer ring true.

By Susan Estrich, Real Clear Politics, October 05, 2008

As Obama supporters push to win the dead-even battleground state, they are talking directly about race, betting that the best way to put neighbors at ease is to open up.

WHITEWOOD, VA. -- The isolated towns of Virginia's Appalachian coal region are home to strong labor unions and Democratic political machines that date back generations. Yet voters here who eagerly pushed Democrats into the Senate and the governor's office are resisting Barack Obama.

Some Americans say Obama's race and uncommon background make them uncomfortable -- here those people include Democratic precinct chairmen and get-out-the-vote workers. Many Americans receive e-mails falsely calling Obama a Muslim -- here a local newspaper columnist has joked in print that Obama would have the White House painted black and would put Islamic symbols on the U.S. flag.

The presidential campaign, in the almost all-white counties of southwestern Virginia, has produced an outcome that few people expected: a frank discussion of race. Voters sometimes sound as if they are reasoning with themselves and working through their own complex views as they talk through the choice they face this November.

"I've never been prejudiced in my life," said Sharon Fleming, 69, the wife of a retired coal miner, who spends hours at the union hall calling voters on behalf of Obama. "My niece married a black, and I don't have a problem with it. Now, I wouldn't want a mixed marriage for my daughter, but I'm voting for Obama."

Obama beat Hillary Rodham Clinton convincingly in the Virginia Democratic primary, but his supporters have known they face a challenge in this part of the state, just as Obama has faced challenges elsewhere among white voters from rural and working-class households.

He took 64% of the primary vote statewide but just 9% here in coal-rich Buchanan County, for instance, and 12% in neighboring Dickenson County. Though he is now the Democratic nominee, many voters are cool to him -- even some of the party's own leaders and precinct captains.

"I haven't found in my precinct one out of five that will vote for Obama," said Tommy Street, the party's vice chairman in Buchanan (pronounced buck-AN-in) County.

Street, 78, counts himself among the doubters, citing Obama's alliance with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). He has always voted Democratic, he said, but this year plans to leave the presidential ballot blank.

Some here blame Obama's troubles on his mixed-race background (his mother was a white Kansan, his father a black Kenyan). Others say his journey from Hawaii and Indonesia to Harvard and big-city Chicago politics makes him an oddity.

The challenge facing Obama was on display at a recent Democratic Party dinner at Twin Valley High School in Buchanan County, deep in the mountains, about a two-hour drive from Bristol, the nearest city.

Looking out at about 70 local Democrats as they ate turkey, ham and mashed potatoes from school cafeteria trays, Phil Puckett, a local state senator who backed Clinton in the primary, said he knew that nearly everyone present had voted for Clinton and that many were not necessarily excited about Obama. But he pleaded with them not to believe everything they were hearing about the Illinois senator, and to seize the chance to boot the GOP from the White House.

"Don't miss this opportunity because someone says to you, 'I'm not voting for him because he's Muslim,' " said Puckett. "If there's a word of truth in my body, this guy is a Christian who believes in Jesus Christ."

Ben and Beth Bailey sat in the back and clapped politely, but they remained unpersuaded. They said they were likely to break from their tradition of voting Democratic and might well not vote at all.

Obama "just doesn't seem like he's from America," said Beth Bailey, 25. Ben Bailey, 32, noted that Obama's middle name is Hussein, "and we know what that means."

Beth's father, Josh Viers, is the party's Whitewood precinct chairman, responsible for working the polls and urging Democrats to vote the party line. He came around to backing Obama only recently, and reluctantly.

"Am I racial? Am I prejudiced? No, I'm not," said Viers. Still, he is frustrated that his job is to persuade other Democrats to back a black man.

"Somebody in Buchanan County or in the United States can look at him and say, 'He's not my color,' " said Viers. "Why put yourself in that position? We had a shot four years ago, and the people listened to lies, rumors, negative ads and got us beat. Bush got him a second term, and look what it got us."

Viers said he will do his best to help Obama on election day. But local Democratic leaders said they could not rely on all of their precinct chairs to follow suit.

That is why party officials are relieved that they can rely on another local organization: the United Mine Workers of America.

The union portrays him as a friend of the coal industry, and argues that Obama is culturally in step with local workers. Union literature tells them that the Democratic nominee supports gun rights, and the literature attacks McCain for opposing legislation that would make union organizing easier.

"Barack Obama Won't Take Away Your Gun," says one flier. "But John McCain Will Take Away Your Union."

A new 18-minute video that the union is distributing in coal states features Roberts, the union president, talking directly about race as he addresses white workers, many them clad in jeans or denim overalls.

"I could just ignore the fact that Barack Obama is African American," says Roberts, "but I'm not."

Roberts challenges the notion that a believing Christian could base a voting decision on a candidate's ethnicity.

"We go to church, sing our songs, pray, come out and talk about, 'I can't be for an African American, because of the color of his skin,' " Roberts says in the video. His voice rising, he then scolds the crowd: "Can't do that if you believe in the Bible."

Republicans say that they also are aggressively courting coal miners and other union voters in southwest Virginia, but that race is not part of their conversation.

Instead, said McCain spokeswoman Gail Gitcho, voters in the region are being told that Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, are not true friends of the coal industry. That has been the theme of campaign ads that have seized on a recent Biden gaffe in Ohio, when he appeared to oppose the construction of any new coal-fired power plants.

"We certainly don't believe that race has any part in the political discourse," Gitcho said.

But here in Buchanan County, it is unavoidable.

A local newspaper columnist, in a spoof of Obama's platform, wrote in one recent piece that the Democrat would hire the rapper Ludacris to paint the White House black (a reference to a pro-Obama song by Ludacris), and divert more foreign aid to Africa so "the Obama family there can skim enough to allow them to free their goats and live the American Dream." He joked that Obama would replace the 50 stars on the U.S. flag "with a star and crescent logo," an Islamic symbol, and that his policy on drugs would be to "raise taxes to pay for Obama's inner-city political base."

The columnist, Bobby May, is also treasurer of the Buchanan County Republican Party and was listed in a July news release as the county's representative on McCain's Virginia leadership team, though he said his column reflected his views alone, and he denied it was racist.

History suggests that a black candidate could win support here. In 1989, L. Douglas Wilder carried Buchanan and other nearby counties as he became the country's first black elected governor since Reconstruction. Many here recall that Wilder kicked off his campaign in the region and aggressively courted whites.

Obama is expected to do well in Virginia's urban areas and the suburbs of Washington, D.C. But to win the state, strategists say, he needs to improve his performance in the southwest counties. For that to happen, volunteers such as Ruby Hale have to strike the right tone with their neighbors.

On some nights, Hale, a retired jewelry store owner, shows up at her Pentecostal church in tiny Rowe with her Toyota truck stacked full of Obama signs and bumper stickers.

"I'll tell them, 'You can't judge a man this way,' that he couldn't help who his father was, and he didn't name himself -- that I am convinced he is a Christian."

Then she tells the potential voter to think it over for a few days. And the conversation often begins again.




By Peter Wallsten, Los Angeles Times, October 5, 2008

With 30 days until Nov. 4, Karl Rove projects that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) would get at least 273 electoral votes - three more than are needed to win - if the presidential election were held today.

But Rove warns that this race is "susceptible to rapid changes," so no definite prediction is possible.

The remarkable forecast from the architect of the last two nationwide political victories underscores the straits that have rapidly enveloped Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) as the banking and credit crisis spread.

Rove writes on Rove.com: "39 new state polls released in the first three days of October have given Barack Obama his first lead over the magic number of 270 since mid-July. Minnesota (10 EV) and New Hampshire (4 EV) both moved from toss-up to Obama, giving him 273 electoral votes to McCain's 163, with 102 votes remaining as a toss-up.

"If the election were held today, Obama would win every state John Kerry won in 2004, while adding New Mexico (5 EV), Iowa (7 EV), and Colorado (9 EV) to his coalition. Remember, though, that these state polls are a lagging indicator and most do not include any surveying done after the vice-presidential debate on Thursday night."

Rove cautioned on "Fox News Sunday": "Remember, the campaign ebbs and flows. What we're seeing here is a result of the focus of the American people, voters, on the economic problems that have dominated the news the last several weeks. What's happened then is a shift to Obama.

"Just remember, 17 days ago in the electoral college, McCain led 227 to 216. Fifteen days ago, on the eve of the news on the bailout, he led 216-215. This race is susceptible to rapid changes and we're likely to see, in the remaining four weeks, more changes."

On "Meet the Press" on Sunday, NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd said Obama is still one state away from solidifying the 270 electoral votes he needs to win the White House. Colorado, Virginia or Florida would put it away for Obama if the election were held today, Todd said.

"Even if it's Nevada [making the total] 269, it sends it to the House, where Democrats have an advantage," Todd said. "As it stands today, John McCain would have to run the table. Now, good news for him: They're all states that voted Republican four years ago.

"However, he's behind right now a little bit in Ohio. There's a dispute of who's ahead or who's behind in Florida but it feel as if Obama's a little bit ahead in Florida. Obama's a little bit ahead in Colorado. And it's a dead even race in Virginia. Dead even in Nevada. And even Missouri, which we almost put in tossup this week, is getting very close, where McCain just has a very narrow lead."

Todd said a landslide could be 364 electoral votes - "the high-water mark." In 1980, Ronald Reagan got 489. In 1988, George H.W. Bush got 426. "The McCain folks now have to hold everything ... to keep this thing competitive," Todd said.

Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist who was the architect of McCain's 2000 campaign said on "Meet the Press": "It's McCain's barn that's on fire. ... Thirty days out, I think McCain can win. But the fact is, [if the] election were held today, he'd lose. And I think he's on a losing path.

"I think the McCain campaign has to look in the mirror now and decide, do we need to change up the strategy? They've been running the grinding campaign on Obama. There's a lot of good things to attack Obama about - people have a lot of doubts about Obama. But they've got to fix McCain. McCain has to connect with voters on the economy. He's got to get ticket-splitters. Get out of base Republican issues and get people who are worried about the economy and health care over. Or in this anti-Republican environment, this trend line is very, very bad."

Appearing with Murphy, Democratic consultant Paul Begala, who helped mastermind Bill Clinton's 1992 win, said he had talked to the Obama high command. "They're flooding the zone," Begala said. "They're going into places where Democrats used to never dare go. Indiana! I cannot believe we're sitting here 30 days before an election, talking about Indiana, a potential tossup state. Or North Carolina and Virginia.

"Barack Obama would be the first non-Southerner from my party to carry a Southern state since JFK - before I was born, before Barack was born. This is an incredible map."

By Mike Allen, Politico, October 5, 2008

WASHINGTON - Even with the $700 billion bailout, the financial crisis and fragile economy promise to loom large over the opening days of the next administration.

Dealing with the housing and credit problems that President Bush says will take "some time" to clean up could threaten the economic policies advanced by Democratic Barack Obama and Republican John McCain.

Obama acknowledges "the next president will have to scale back his agenda and some of his proposals." Yet neither camp is eager to say precisely what changes might have to be made - promises broken or delayed.

Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, was questioned about that in Thursday's vice presidential debate. He could list only a few: cutting wasteful spending and "we might have to slow down a commitment we made to double foreign assistance."

His GOP counterpart, Sarah Palin, was asked if there was any campaign promise she would have to take off the table because of the financial crisis. "There is not," she said.

Newly elected presidents have a good track record in winning approval of major tax bills and other legislation in their first year in office.

The next president probably will lay out an ambitious agenda, possibly soon after the election and amid great constraints: the financial crisis and a rising budget deficit projected by the Congressional Budget Office to reach a record $438 billion next year - and that's before figuring in the bailout's first-year cost.

Central to the nominees' tax proposals is that an array of Bush tax cuts are due to expire in 2010.

McCain would keep tax rates low for everybody, including higher-income people. For companies, he would slash them from the current 35 percent to 25 percent, arguing it is the best way to jolt the economy and create jobs.

Obama, who says his program would most help the squeezed middle class, would retain Bush tax cuts for families making less than $250,000 a year and individuals making less than $200,000. He would do away with them for people above those levels.

The Illinois senator also has proposed raising the top marginal income-tax rate, now 35 percent, to 39.6 percent, and raising the current 33 percent rate to 36 percent. The money raised from tax increases on the wealthy would be redirected by Obama to tax relief for lower-income people.

McCain has proposed increasing the dependent exemption, but not the personal exemption for the taxpayer and spouse, from $3,500 now to $7,000 by 2016.

Both have proposed making marriage penalty relief permanent.

Under Obama's approach, the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers, those making roughly $600,000 or more, would see their taxes go up on average by $93,709 in 2009, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, because Obama would begin putting in place the changes before the scheduled expiration of the Bush cuts.

For McCain, those same wealthy taxpayers would see an average reduction of $48,860, reflecting in part additional cuts he is proposing.

By contrast, the bottom 20 percent of taxpayers, with taxable income of roughly $19,000 per year or less, would see their taxes cut by an average of $567 under Obama's program and $21 under McCain's plan, the tax center estimates.

For the 20 percent of taxpayers in the middle, making roughly between $37,600 and $66,400, the tax break would be $1,118 under the Obama plan and $325 under the McCain plan in 2009, according to the center's analysis.

Obama would raise the top rate on capital gains and dividend income, now 15 percent, to 20 percent for families making over $250,000. McCain would keep both at 15 percent.

Obama has proposed excluding people age 65 and older from federal income tax liability if they earn $50,000 or less, along with creating a new tax credit of up to $1,000 for lower- and middle-income families ($500 for individuals) to offset federal payroll taxes.

McCain wants a 15 percent federal estate tax rate and a $5 million exemption. Obama has suggested a 45 percent federal estate tax rate and a $3.5 million exemption amount.

Obama offers expanded renewable energy and conservation tax incentives and a repeal of tax incentives for oil and gas companies. He supports energy rebates for individuals to help offset the home-heating costs.

McCain has proposed an end to ethanol subsidies and discussed a federal gas tax holiday.

Both campaigns recognize the importance of moving quickly in the beginning of a new presidency.

"I think it will be challenging to deal with the urgencies of the financial crisis and the winding down of the Iraq war, while also moving forward with major long-term agenda items like health care and climate change," said Gene Sperling, a former top economic adviser to President Clinton who is now helping Obama.

"I think that the cost of doing nothing on health care and climate change is so high that there is no case for putting off long-term action because you're in a short-term financial crisis," Sperling said.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a top McCain economic adviser, said McCain is standing by his tax-cut proposals for now.

"Historically, we never have sustained successful deficit reduction without strong economic growth. So he's put that first," Holtz-Eakin said. Furthermore, "John McCain is running on a platform that does not include massive increases in spending," he said.

McCain also has indicated he is considering putting a complete cap and freeze on discretionary, nonmilitary and nonveterans' spending.

Of course, economic policy will be set not just by the new president but by the new Congress. Congress is in Democratic hands now, and Democrats are expected to increase their numbers in the November elections.

That could make it hard, if McCain is elected, for him to get his tax-cut proposals enacted.

"The reality of it is taxes will probably rise" no matter who is elected, said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Economy.com and an occasional McCain adviser. "It makes it a lot more difficult to cut taxes when you have big budget deficits."

Zandi thinks that the early days of the next presidency will be dominated by a lingering financial crisis and the need for "more government intervention, more legislation directly supporting housing and mortgage markets" beyond the $700 billion bailout.

On health care, Obama would have mandatory coverage for children, but no mandate for adults. He would aim for universal coverage by requiring employers to share costs of insuring workers and by offering coverage similar to that in plan for federal employees. He says the approach would cost up to $65 billion a year after unspecified savings from making the system more efficient.

McCain would have no mandate for universal coverage. He has proposed taxing for the first time employer-provided health benefits. But he also has proposed an offsetting refundable tax credit of $5,000 for families and $2,500 for individuals designed to make health insurance more affordable.

On global warming, Obama has proposed a 10-year, $150 billion program to produce "climate friendly" energy supplies. He would pay for it with a carbon auction requiring businesses to bid competitively for the right to pollute and aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.

McCain broke with Bush and led a Senate effort to cap greenhouse gas emissions. He favors a plan that would see greenhouse gas emissions fall by 66 percent by 2050.

Both Obama and McCain sponsored earlier legislation that would set mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions and increase federal fuel economy requirements beyond 35 miles per gallon.

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press, October 5, 2008

ASHEVILLE, N.C. - Barack Obama's allies warn that John McCain's attacks on the Democrat's character will lead to the political equivalent of mutual assured destruction: fire your big weapon at your own peril.

Several Obama surrogates said his supporters may start reminding voters of McCain's ties to Charles Keating, a convicted savings and loan owner whose actions two decades ago triggered a Senate ethics investigation that involved McCain as one of the "Keating Five."

The warnings of massive retaliation came as McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, took on the role of attacker and said that Obama sees America as so imperfect "that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country." She was referring to an early Obama supporter, 1960s radical Bill Ayers,, a founder of the Weather Underground whose members were blamed for several bombings when Obama was a child.

Obama has denounced Ayer's radical views and activities. But he's not above questioning McCain's character with loaded words.

On Sunday Obama unveiled a TV ad on the economy that paints McCain was "erratic in a crisis." Some see that as a reminder of McCain's age, 72.

Democrats were well-synchronized Sunday, using the word "erratic" and Keating's name in nearly-matching sentences across the talk show circuit.

"This is going to be a month, I think, of character assassination," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., an Obama supporter, said on CBS's "Face The Nation."

Indeed, McCain adviser Greg Strimple predicted "a very aggressive last 30 days" of the campaign.

"We are looking forward to turning a page on this financial crisis and getting back to discussing Mr. Obama's aggressively liberal record and how he will be too risky for Americans," he said in a recent conference call with reporters.

Obama, too, alluded to harsher tactics in a speech Sunday to thousands of people in Asheville, N.C.

McCain and his aides, Obama said, "are gambling that he can distract you with smears rather than talk to you about substance. They'd rather try to tear our campaign down than lift this country up. It's what you do when you're out of touch, out of ideas, and running out of time."

Noting the nation's serious economic problems, Obama said: "Yet instead of addressing these crises, Senator McCain's campaign has announced that they plan to turn the page on the discussion about our economy and spend the final weeks of this campaign launching Swiftboat-style attacks on me."

Obama has denounced Ayers' radical views and activities. However, Ayers hosted a small gathering for Obama in 1995, early in his political career. Obama and Ayers live in the same Chicago neighborhood and served on a charity board together, but there is no evidence they have palled around.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel, a Chicago Democrat and Obama supporter, warned against McCain's strategy.

"If we are going to go down this road, you know, Barack Obama was eight years old, somehow responsible for Bill Ayers," he said. "At 58, John McCain was associating with Charles Keating."

"If we really want to talk who is associating with who, we will," Emanuel said. "The American people will lose in that transaction."

Just months into his Senate career, in the late 1980s, McCain made what he has called "the worst mistake of my life." He participated in two meetings with banking regulators on behalf of Keating, a friend, campaign contributor and S&L financier who was later convicted of securities fraud.

The Senate ethics committee investigated five senators' relationships with Keating. It cited McCain for a lesser role than the others, but faulted his "poor judgment."

In the new Obama ad, an announcer says: "Our financial system in turmoil. And John McCain? Erratic in a crisis. Out of touch on the economy."

The ad, slated to start running Monday on national cable, alludes to McCain's response to the nation's financial crisis. He briefly suspended his campaign, called for a White House summit meeting that ended chaotically, and showed varying degrees of support for the massive rescue bill Congress passed Friday.

Republicans say McCain's actions showed leadership.

"In the midst of it all, I think you saw Sen. McCain, unlike Sen. Obama, come off the campaign trail, because that's John McCain in the middle of a crisis," said Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, an independent-Democrat who backs McCain.

By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press, October 5, 2008

BURLINGAME, Calif. - Sarah Palin defended her claim that Barack Obama "pals around with terrorists," saying the Democratic presidential nominee's association with a 1960s radical is an issue that is "fair to talk about."

Obama has denounced the radical views and actions of Bill Ayers, a founder of the violent Weather Underground group during the Vietnam era. On Sunday, Obama dismissed the criticism from the McCain campaign, leveled by Palin, as "smears" meant to distract voters from real problems such as the troubled economy.

Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate, launched the attack Saturday and repeated it Sunday, signaling a new strategy by John McCain's presidential campaign to go after Obama's character.

"The comments are about an association that has been known but hasn't been talked about," Palin said as she boarded her plane in Long Beach, Calif. "I think it's fair to talk about where Barack Obama kicked off his political career, in the guy's living room."

Later, at a fundraiser, Palin elaborated on her attack, claiming one of Obama's advisers had described Obama and Ayers as "friendly."

"In fact, Obama held one of his first meetings hoping to kick off his political career in Bill Ayers' living room," she told the crowd, which had just raised $2.5 million for the Republican party's McCain-Palin Victory 2008 fund.

At issue is Obama's association with Ayers. Both have served on the same Chicago charity and live near each other in Chicago. Ayers also held a meet-the-candidate event at his home for Obama when Obama first ran for office in the mid-1990s, the event cited by Palin.

In February, Obama strategist David Axelrod told the Politico Web site: "Bill Ayers lives in his neighborhood. Their kids attend the same school. They're certainly friendly, they know each other, as anyone whose kids go to school together."

But while Ayers and Obama are acquainted, the charge that they "pal around" is a stretch of any reading of the public record. And it's simply wrong to suggest that they were associated while Ayers was committing terrorist acts. Obama was 8 years old at the time the Weather Underground claimed credit for numerous bombings and was blamed for a pipe bomb that killed a San Francisco policeman.

At a rally in North Carolina, Obama countered that McCain and his campaign "are gambling that he can distract you with smears rather than talk to you about substance." The Democrat described the criticism as "Swiftboat-style attacks on me," a reference to the unsubstantiated allegations about 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry's decorated military record in Vietnam.

During her stop in California, Palin was asked about an Associated Press analysis that said her charge about Ayers was unsubstantiated, a point made by other news organizations, and the criticism carried a "racially tinged subtext that McCain may come to regret."

"The Associated Press is wrong," Palin said, before arguing that the issue had not been adequately discussed.

In fact, Obama was questioned about Ayers during a prime-time Democratic debate against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton prior to April's Pennsylvania primary.

Palin, recharged after last week's debate against Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, is animating the party's conservative wing with harsh attacks against Obama. She's courting high-dollar donors for campaign cash. And she is looking to wrestle away women and independent voters from the Democrats.

"The heels are on, the gloves are off," she declares, a threat delivered with a smile.

With that message, the campaign is sending her on a whirlwind tour of political trouble spots.

On Sunday, she was headed for a rally in Omaha, Neb., a defensive move in one of the two states in the nation that can split their electoral votes. Her visit illustrated the depth of worry within the McCain camp. Since 1964, all five of the state's electoral votes have gone to the Republican presidential candidate.

On Monday, she begins a two-day, event-packed tour of Florida that stretches from Naples in the South to Pensacola in the panhandle. North Carolina and Pennsylvania are next.

After a hold-your-ground debate performance last week, Palin is back to where she was after her show-stopping speech at the Republican convention a month ago - the top draw in the McCain-Palin ticket.

About 10,000 people came to her rally Saturday in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson. She raised $2 million in one California fundraiser for the McCain-Palin Victory 2008 fund. She's getting the star treatment from the likes of Grammy winner Vikki Carr and actor Robert Duvall.

She's still the carefully handled national politics greenhorn. Reporters traveling on her plane are kept at a distance. At fundraising events she doesn't take questions in public from donors, as McCain does. Contributors greet her privately before she allows the press in for her stump speech.

She brushes off some of her criticism as if it were lint on her jacket.

"People say that I speak too simply, or don't have quite the - I don't have my thesaurus in my back pocket all along through my speeches," she told donors in Englewood, Col. "Well, I don't have time for that."

On Sunday she told donors she had been asked why she had done so poorly in interviews with CBS News anchor Katie Couric. "You know what I should have said?" she joked. "It's job security for Tina Fey" - the woman who impersonates her on "Saturday Night Live."

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press, October 5, 2008

WASHINGTON - By claiming that Democrat Barack Obama is "palling around with terrorists" and doesn't see the U.S. like other Americans, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin targeted key goals for a faltering campaign.

And though she may have scored a political hit each time, her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret.

First, Palin's attack shows that her energetic debate with rival Joe Biden may be just the beginning, not the end, of a sharpened role in the battle to win the presidency.

"Our opponent ... is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country," Palin told a group of donors in Englewood, Colo. A deliberate attempt to smear Obama, McCain's ticket-mate echoed the line at three separate events Saturday.

"This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America," she said. "We see America as a force of good in this world. We see an America of exceptionalism."

Obama isn't above attacking McCain's character with loaded words, releasing an ad on Sunday that calls the Arizona Republican "erratic" - a hard-to miss suggestion that McCain's age, 72, might be an issue.

"Our financial system in turmoil," an announcer says in Obama's new ad. "And John McCain? Erratic in a crisis. Out of touch on the economy."

A harsh and plainly partisan judgment, certainly, but not on the level of suggesting that a fellow senator is un-American and even a friend of terrorists.

In her character attack, Palin questions Obama's association with William Ayers, a member of the Vietnam-era Weather Underground. Her reference was exaggerated at best if not outright false. No evidence shows they were "pals" or even close when they worked on community boards years ago and Ayers hosted a political event for Obama early in his career.

Obama, who was a child when the Weathermen were planting bombs, has denounced Ayers' radical views and actions.

With her criticism, Palin is taking on the running mate's traditional role of attacker, said Rich Galen, a Republican strategist.

"There appears to be a newfound sense of confidence in Sarah Palin as a candidate, given her performance the other night," Galen said. "I think that they are comfortable enough with her now that she's got the standing with the electorate to take off after Obama."

Second, Palin's incendiary charge draws media and voter attention away from the worsening economy. It also comes after McCain supported a pork-laden Wall Street bailout plan in spite of conservative anger and his own misgivings.

"It's a giant changing of the subject," said Jenny Backus, a Democratic strategist. "The problem is the messenger. If you want to start throwing fire bombs, you don't send out the fluffy bunny to do it. I think people don't take Sarah Palin seriously."

The larger purpose behind Palin's broadside is to reintroduce the question of Obama's associations. Millions of voters, many of them open to being swayed to one side or the other, are starting to pay attention to an election a month away.

For the McCain campaign, that makes Obama's ties to Ayers as well as convicted felon Antoin "Tony" Rezko and the controversial minister Jeremiah Wright ripe for renewed criticism. And Palin brings a fresh voice to the argument.

Effective character attacks have come earlier in campaigns. In June 1988, Republican George H.W. Bush criticized Democrat Michael Dukakis over the furlough granted to Willie Horton, a convicted murderer who then raped a woman and stabbed her companion. Related TV ads followed in September and October.

The Vietnam-era Swift Boat veterans who attacked Democrat John Kerry's war record started in the spring of 2004 and gained traction in late summer.

"The four weeks that are left are an eternity. There's plenty of time in the campaign," said Republican strategist Joe Gaylord. "I think it is a legitimate strategy to talk about Obama and to talk about his background and who he pals around with."

Palin's words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee "palling around" with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn't see their America?

In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers' day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate.

Whether intended or not by the McCain campaign, portraying Obama as "not like us" is another potential appeal to racism. It suggests that the Hawaiian-born Christian is, at heart, un-American.

The fact is that when racism creeps into the discussion, it serves a purpose for McCain. As the fallout from Wright's sermons showed earlier this year, forcing Obama to abandon issues to talk about race leads to unresolved arguments about America's promise to treat all people equally.

John McCain occasionally says he looks back on decisions with regret. He has apologized for opposing a holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr. He has apologized for refusing to call for the removal of a Confederate flag from South Carolina's Capitol.

When the 2008 campaign is over will McCain say he regrets appeals such as Palin's?




By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press, October 5, 2008