Obama and McCain To Visit World Trade Center Site Together
The two presidential nominees have announced that they will make a joint visit to Ground Zero in New York this Thursday, the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. "All of us came together on 9/11 - not as Democrats or Republicans - but as Americans," they said in a joint statement. The statement later adds: "On Thursday, we will put aside politics and come together to renew that unity, to honor the memory of each and every American who died, and to grieve with the families and friends who lost loved ones."

Obama In Indiana Today
Barack Obama addressed the AARP's convention this morning via satellite, and is also campaigning today in Indiana, a usually deep-red state that has been put into contention this year. Obama has a campaign event in Terre Haute, Indiana, scheduled for 12:30 p.m. ET.

Republican Ticket In The Southwest Today
John McCain and Sarah Palin are campaigning today in the Southwest, in two state where McCain and Barack Obama are locked in a tight race. They two held a rally at 11 a.m. ET in the religious-right bastion of Colorado Springs, Colorado, and have a rally scheduled for 8 p.m. ET in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Obama Blasts McCain On Social Security At AARP
Barack Obama used the opportunity of his speech before the AARP to go after John McCain on the issue of Social Security. "Now, John McCain said that the way Social Security works is, and I quote, 'an absolute disgrace,'" Obama said, according to the prepared remarks. "Wrong. For millions of Americans, it's the very difference between a comfortable retirement and falling into poverty."

Media Outlets Call Out Palin On eBay Story
Both the Washington Post and CNN have caught on to Sarah Palin's claim that she put a state plane on eBay, and John McCain's claim that she made a profit off of it. In fact, the plane failed to sell on eBay at the state's desired price, and it was sold at a loss through a broker.

GOP Trying To Get Lieberman To Officially Switch Over
CQ reports that Senate Republicans, especially Pennsylvania moderate Arlen Specter, are trying to get Joe Lieberman to officially switch parties soon. "He's practically there," said Specter. "That would have the consequence of giving us a Republican Senate."

A day after McCain repeatedly portrayed himself as a warrior for "change" in his big convention speech, the Republican National Committee goes up on the air with a new ad likening Obama to Congressional Democrats in order to claim that he represents "more of the same."...

What you have here is a two-fer: McCain and the RNC have now appropriated not one, but two of the Obama campaign's messages. They've grabbed Obama's "change" message for McCain and are trying to tatoo the Dems' frequent "more of the same" refrain on Obama himself.

Needless to say, the ad has the "celeb" chanting and imagery, too. According to Politico, it will run in 12 battleground states.

Okay, the McCain-Walter Reed Middle School backdrop debacle is getting weirder by the second. Now the principal of the school is hammering McCain for using footage of the school during his convention speech without seeking the school's permission.

Here's the statement from Donna Tobin, the principal...

"It has been brought to the school's attention that a picture of the front of our school, Walter Reed Middle School, was used as a backdrop at the Republican National Convention. Permission to use the front of our school for the Republican National Convention was not given by our school nor is the use of our school's picture an endorsement of any political party or view."

One other interesting development: The California Democratic Party is actually holding a press conference in front of the school within minutes, where Dems will hit McCain for not knowing the difference between the school and Walter Reed Medical Center, which is believed to be the backdrop the McCain campaign really wanted.

Though multiple news organizations are asking for clarification, the McCain campaign is still refusing to comment on questions about whether it had hoped to use the medical center as a backdrop and accidentally used the school instead. Hard to blame them...

Late update: Shortly after posting this, we got an email from Los Angeles Unified School District Board Member Tamar Galatzan who represents Walter Reed as part of her district. She had her own thoughts on McCain's use of the middle school:

"Though I am flattered that Senator McCain chose to use a school from my district as backdrop to his remarks at the Republican National Convention, I wished he had checked with me first. As a strong believer in public education, I don't think the Senator is the most appropriate person to showcase one of the premier schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. He is unwilling to bring fairness and equity to No Child Left Behind and ensure that schools like Reed get the resources they need from the Federal Government. From what I've heard, that's not a priority for the McCain/Palin ticket."

Nielsen's detailed ratings on McCain's speech last night are now available, and they're eye-opening. McCain's speech was watched by half a million more than Obama's was...

More than 38.9 million people tuned in for coverage of the final night of the GOP convention. In comparison, Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the Democrats' convention drew 38.4 million viewers.

For the third night in a row, more Women (19.2 million) than men (17.9 million) tuned in to the RNC coverage. Still, McCain's speech drew significantly more men than Obama's acceptance speech (16.2 million). In contrast, Obama drew more women (19.9 million) than McCain (19.2 million).

White viewers also flocked to their TV's for McCain's speech (32.2 million vs. 27 million for Obama). But among African Americans, the reverse was true: 7.5 million African Americans watched Obama's speech last week, while just 3.1 million tuned in for McCain's speech.

And here's a fun factoid: More women watched Obama's speech (19.9 million) than watched Sarah Palin's (19.5 million) last night, which is perhaps understandable given that Obama is the top guy and Palin is in the number two slot.

Also, you have to imagine that Palin's presence on the GOP ticket helped boost McCain's female audience, which checked in at a pretty high 19.2 million.

Yesterday it was widely reported that the Democratic National Committee is going up with a new ad in Michigan hitting McCain and tying him to Bush on the economy.

Now the DNC has filed its report on the ad expenditure with the FEC, so we now know the size of the buy: It's $450,000.

Nearly half a million in one state strikes us as a pretty sizable buy -- it certainly contrasts with some of the token buys McCain has been doing to get free media -- and it suggests that the DNC is ratcheting up its financial commitment to targeting McCain as the race enters the home stretch.

John McCain might just be starting to get a convention bounce in the wake of Sarah Palin's fiery convention speech, according to today's tracking polls -- though he still trails Barack Obama for now.

Today's Rasmussen number: Obama 48%, McCain 46%, within the ±2% margin of error. Yesterday, when all the sampling predated Palin's speech, Obama was ahead 50%-45%.

Today's Gallup number: Obama 48%, McCain 44%, with a ±2% margin of error. Yesterday, Obama was up 49%-42%.

These three-day tracking polls include one day of samples from after Palin's speech, but they entirely predate McCain's address last night, which was on the lackluster side in comparison with Palin's effort. It won't be until Monday that we get polls that are completely made up of data from after the Republican convention.

Sarah Palin made her post-convention debut on the campaign trail today in Wisconsin, and left little doubt that she's going to keep playing her "pit-bull with lipstick" role with gusto.

Palin seized on Obama's interview with Fox's Bill O'Reilly last night, in which Obama said that the surge had succeeded beyond our "wildest dreams," a quote that Fox has been flacking madly as news, even though Obama has repeatedly said the surge has worked militarily. In her comments today, Palin quoted directly from the interview (as per CNN):

Senator Obama said that the surge "succeeded beyond our wildest dreams."

"I think, said Senator Obama, "that the surge has succeeded in way that nobody anticipated." I guess when you turn out to be profoundly wrong on a vital national security decision, maybe it's comforting to pretend that everyone else was wrong too.

But I remember it a little differently. It seems to me there was one leader who did predict success, who refused to call retreat and risked his own career for the sake of the surge and victory in Iraq, and ladies and gentlemen, that man is standing right next to me, Senator John McCain.

While Obama has predicteds that the surge wouldn't work militarily, and has since revised his position on that narrow point, his broader position is that the surge hasn't produced the political reconciliation it was supposed to -- precisely what he predicted and continues to say now.

It's clear that the GOP believes that they have found a possible game-changing gaffe in Obama's "wildest dreams" quote. The pit-bull in lipstick is likely to keep snarling about this one for some time.

As you know, we've been digging into the mystery of why McCain had an image of Walter Reed Middle School in the background during the first few minutes of his convention speech last night.

A bunch of you have speculated that the intention was actually to use Walter Reed Medical Center but that someone goofed and pulled the school image instead. The school is right now being deluged by media requests, we're told.

Meanwhile, here's another fun wrinkle: It turns out that the building behind McCain was also used as the backdrop for Matt Santos' announcement of his presidential candidacy on The West Wing.

Take a look:

Meanwhile, it looks as if it was footage of the school that was used in the background of McCain's speech, not a still image. More in a bit.

As many of you know, one of the odder aspects of McCain's speech last night was the image of an unidentified mansion-like building on the big screen in the background behind him.

The image first appeared behind McCain around a minute into his speech, and stayed up for four or five minutes. It then faded out and was replaced by a plain blue background with an American flag.

So what was the mansion? TPM readers dug into the mystery and discovered that it looks like the Walter Reed Middle School in North Holllywood, California. And it turns out that this is exactly what the image was.

TPM's Kate Klonick just got off the phone with an official at the school who confirmed this. "We didn't know anything about it until it showed up last night," Cathy McLaughlin, the school's office technician, told Klonick. She confirmed that multiple media outlets have been calling and that a statement would be forthcoming from the school.

There was nothing particular in that stretch of McCain's speech that would explain why this particular image was used.

So what happened? A number of TPM readers have suggested a possible explanation: The McCain team actually wanted to use imagery of Walter Reed Medical Center in the background. But someone pulled up this image instead.

We're working to find out exactly what happened. Stay tuned.

Late Update: The school raps McCain for using image without permission.

Late Late Update: The story hits CNN and MSNBC.

The the Courier of Cedar Vally reports on a speech given by Rep. Steve King of Iowa...

King, who represents western Iowa and is known for making provocative statements, made a speech here asking the Iowa GOP delegation what part of Obama's upbringing, relationships and education would be appropriate for someone who wanted to be president.

"There is no part of that that I would subject a child, a young man or woman to. I don't think that there's a nurture there that shows a thread of patriotism or a sense of appreciation of free market capitalism or the destiny of America or what has made this country great," he said.

Cue up the thundering denunciations from the McCain camp...

There are two big pieces out that offer somewhat different versions of what Democrats are planning to do about Sarah Palin.

The New York Times has a long story reporting that the Obama campaign is mapping out big plans to deploy female surrogates to target Palin in various venues, beginning with Hillary Clinton, who's being "dispatched" to Florida on Monday.

The Politico, meanwhile, has a much more sober piece reporting that the Obama camp is largely going to sit back and wait to see how the coverage of Palin plays out, avoiding direct engagement with Palin and keeping the focus on McCain.

My conversations with multiple Dems suggest that Politico is much closer to the mark. The one chief fact in the Times article bolstering its thesis is that Hillary is going to Florida on Monday, a fact which was in any case reported right here on our humble blog many hours before The Times story hit.

There's no evidence yet of any central Obama strategy to coordinate surrogate attacks on Palin. Dems outside Obama's campaign were generally pleased with Obama's approach yesterday at a press conference, where he continually kept the focus on McCain and his refusal to discuss the problems facing ordinary Americans.

One idea that's being kicked around by Dems: Because huge amounts of media coverage of Palin are inevitable, why not start pushing the idea that she's upstaging the guy who's supposed to be at the top of the ticket?

The idea here is that her speeches will energize audiences more than his will, and she'll prove a stronger fundraising draw than he will -- facts that Dems can point to in order to portray McCain as being diminished and overshadowed by his more-charismatic and energetic number-two.

We shall see.

It looks like the GOP's efforts to persuade the public that the press has been out to "destroy" Sarah Palin are a bit of a bust. Check out these numbers buried in the internals of the new ABC News poll:

Overall, do you think the news coverage of Palin has been fair or unfair?

Fair 50%

Unfair 41%

For some reason, more people think the press should actually do its best to tell them something about the person who is running for the second highest office in the land. Silly public.

Meanwhile, that 41% who say the coverage is unfair is probably a GOP baseline, though it should be noted that the McCain campaign's attacks on the media over Palin are largely about goosing the base in any case.

GOP Congressman: Calling Obama "Uppity" Wasn't Racist
Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, a Georgia Republican, released the following statement in defense of his having called Barack Obama "uppity": "I've never heard that term used in a racially derogatory sense. It is important to note that the dictionary definition of 'uppity' is 'affecting an air of inflated self-esteem --- snobbish.' That's what we meant by uppity when we used it in the mill village where I grew up."

Democratic Ticket In Pennsylvania Today
Barack Obama and Joe Biden are separately campaigning today in Pennsylvania, a big swing state that they must retain in the Dem column if they are to win the election. Obama will be talking about the economy at 10 a.m. ET in Duryea, while Biden will be Ironworkers Local Union in Philadelphia at 10:15 a.m. ET and then campaigning in Langhorne at 2 p.m. ET.

McCain And Palin In Michigan And Wisconsin
John McCain and Sarah Palin are campaigning today in Wisconsin and Michigan, courting two swing states that have voted for the Democrats by very narrow margins in the past two elections. They have a meet and greet scheduled for 12 p.m. ET in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, and a rally at 6 p.m. ET in Sterling Heights, Michigan.

Palin Cramming On Foreign Policy -- With Lieberman
The Washington Post reports that Sarah Palin is taking a crash course in foreign policy in preparation for her debate with Joe Biden. In a sign of things to come, one of her top tutors is none other than Joe Lieberman.

Poll: Palin Viewed Favorably, But As Lacking Necessary Experience
A new ABC News poll has some good news and bad news for Sarah Palin. The good news is that she has a solid 50% favorable rating in the wake of her speech Wednesday night -- but she also gets 50% saying she does not have the right experience to step in as president, compared to 66% who say Joe Biden has the right experience.

Poll: McCain Way Ahead In Alaska, Thanks To Palin
A new survey from Alaska pollster Ivan Moore shows that John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin is helping him to easily retain this state for the Republicans. McCain leads Barack Obama by a 54%-35% margin, after previous polls had shown a much closer race.

Wilson Sisters Of Heart To McCain Camp: Cease And Desist
The McCain campaign's decision to play the classic rock song "Barracuda" at their convention last night, in honor of Sarah Palin's nickname in high school, has earned them a cease and desist letter from the band Heart, who strongly object to McCain's politics. The McCain campaign has previously gotten in trouble for using songs from Jackson Browne and even Congressman John Hall, a liberal Democrat and former rock musician supporting Barack Obama.

John McCain told powerful stories about his own heroism tonight. He suffered in a way few of us can imagine.

But why do we have to accept the idea that he's also modest and reticent to discuss his own suffering? Why do we have to grant both his heroism and the superior character underlying his supposed reluctance to discuss the experiences that he just talked about in front of a TV audience of millions?

The McCain campaign and the GOP want this campaign to be about one thing: The compared character and experience of the two men running. But elections are also about another niggling detail: What each one is promising to do as president -- that is, their promised agenda and proposed policies.

McCain says he'll do some stuff. Obama says he'll do other stuff. Polls show overwhelmingly that the American people back the program that Obama is promising. Shows like the one you watched tonight are designed to make you forget this.

McCain is offering his character -- hardened by extraordinary suffering -- but is also promising to put that character in service of accomplishing...very little different than what we've had at the hands of his predecessor.

Obama, too, is offering his biography. And his experiences, while not as overtly dramatic, nonetheless do have resonance for millions and millions of Americans. We're supposed to see his experiences as less heroic than his opponent's, and that's fine -- Obama hasn't passed through the same fires McCain has -- but Obama's experiences carry weight and resonance for huge chunks of the population.

Ultimately, though, the choice isn't only between two biographies. It's also between a set of promises and aspirations. Obama is offering a series of policy changes -- pulling out of Iraq; changing America's posture towards the rest of the world; changing the way foreign policy is discussed in this country; overhauling the tax code; engaging in genuine energy reform -- that McCain isn't offering.

Obama may or may not be able to deliver on these promises. But at least he's promising to attempt them.

Shows like tonight's are meant to persuade you that the election isn't about such choices. Instead, you're supposed to imagine that the election is a choice between two stories. Between two protagonists. That's not what it's about at all.

Not a lot to say about McCain's speech -- the full text is after the jump -- but how on earth did they not avoid this:

Prediction: There will be little to no bounce out of tonight; indeed, McCain's speech will smother Palin's sizzle like a wet blanket.

Full speech after the jump.

Read more »

The cash keeps flowing in to the Obama campaign in the wake of Sarah Palin's speech, suggesting that whatever effect she's had on the GOP base has been duplicated on the Democratic side.

Obama spokesperson Tommy Vietor confirms that the campaign has now pulled in over $10 million since her speech -- a "one day record," Vietor says.

"I hope she gives a speech every day," Vietor joked.

Separately, the RNC reportedly raised $1 million after the speech.

A new SurveyUSA poll taken after Sarah Palin's big speech last night suggests that she went a long way in reassuring independent voters about her fitness as a candidate.

A solid 57% of independents give her speech an "A" grade, and 56% say she is an asset to the campaign while only 27% call her a liability. In a poll released just before her speech, when she was in the midst of the tabloid coverage of her family problems, only 43% of independents called her an asset and 44% said she was a liability.

Unfortunately, this poll doesn't tell us much about the horse race -- a respondent can say she's a solid campaigner and still intend to vote against her. But it does tell us that the worst effects of her initial press coverage could be behind her, as we all head into the final weeks of the general election.

That is actually the real life headline running on top of an Associated Press story moving right now, just before John McCain's big speech tonight.

No joke. The AP story is here.

The story itself actually doesn't say this. It's an analysis that points out, quite accurately, that the GOP is using McCain's POW past as a shield against any and all legit criticism. The story also points out that this is at odds with the constant claim that McCain is "reticent" to discuss that past.

But the AP had to slap on a McCain-fluffing headline about his "hero aura." Couldn't just have a hed that told us what the analysis actually said.

What can one say at this point?

Here's the first round of excerpts from McCain's speech tonight -- they feature as direct a reference as you could possibly want to McCain's service, and Obama's lack of it:

"I'm very proud to have introduced our next Vice President to the country. But I can't wait until I introduce her to Washington. And let me offer an advance warning to the old, big spending, do nothing, me first, country second Washington crowd: change is coming."

"The constant partisan rancor that stops us from solving these problems isn't a cause, it's a symptom. It's what happens when people go to Washington to work for themselves and not you. Again and again, I've worked with members of both parties to fix problems that need to be fixed. That's how I will govern as President. I will reach out my hand to anyone to help me get this country moving again. I have that record and the scars to prove it. Senator Obama does not."

"I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency; for its faith in the wisdom, justice and goodness of its people. I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again. I wasn't my own man anymore. I was my country's."

"I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here" seems to hint at a contrast between McCain's suffering and a pampered "celeb" lifestyle enjoyed by Obama. Maybe we're a tad paranoid at this point and that isn't what it's about at all. But given the tenor of the previous paragraph, it sure sounds like it.

Here's some comic relief while you're waiting for the Republican Convention programming tonight: Some wacky down-ticket ads.

First up is this spot from GOP Senator Elizabeth Dole, who is in a close race with Democrat Kay Hagan in recent polls. Her new ad fires back at Hagan's attacks -- by calling Hagan a yapping little dog:

"So bark away, fibber Kay," the announcer says. "That dog don't hunt."

Check out some more interesting ads after the jump.

Read more »

Here's his whole press conference responding to Palin's attacks today. Just watch:

Great line at the end: "I've been called worse on the basketball court. It's not that big of a deal."

Dismissive, contemptuous, and perpetually bemused by the new lows of buffoonery and pettiness that the GOP sinks to on a now-daily basis. Keep that tone going. Wouldn't hurt to have more surrogates out there throwing haymakers at the same time, though, would it?

A new CBS poll finds that John McCain's pick of Sarah Palin could be causing some big problems for Barack Obama, with Obama losing his whole lead that he enjoyed just a few days ago.

The numbers: Obama 42%, McCain 42%. A CBS poll from four days ago had Obama up 48%-40%. So while McCain has only gained two points, Obama has lost six points. In last week's poll Obama was ahead among women by 14 points, while he's now ahead by only five points.

On the other hand, today's Gallup and Rasmussen polls haven't shown any significant movement in the race yet, with Obama still ahead.

Sarah Palin's speech last night was a ratings hit, with an estimated 37 million viewers according to Nielsen ratings of the major broadcast and cable news networks. That's just shy of Nielsen's figure of 38 million people who watched Barack Obama's speech last week on those same outlets.

We don't know yet how may viewers will be persuaded into McCain's camp by the speech -- likely it was made up of a large number who were already for him or already against him. But no matter what, she's made a big impression on the voting public.

Here it is: The bio video of Sarah Palin that was supposed to air at the Republican convention last night before her speech.

You should watch it. The video, which was leaked (surprisingly) to Fox News, gives us a glimpse into how the Republicans were planning to sell a soft-focus version of Palin's life as a soft-peddled intro into the harsh, partisan, and undeniably successful speech that followed:

So why didn't America get to see this last night? We speculated here yesterday that Rudy, who spoke just before Palin's speech, ran long, forcing the convention planners to nix the video (and another intervening speaker) to get Palin onto the stage in time.

We went back and checked the GOP convention schedule. Rudy was supposed to start speaking at 10 P.M., followed by another speaker, followed by the video, and followed Palin's speech. All that was supposed to be wrapped up by 11 P.M.

Rudy actually started speaking at 10:01, right on time. He kept talking all the way until 10:28. Palin came out a few minutes later, and ran past 11 P.M.

Bottom line: If Rudy had clammed up and gotten off the stage, they could have run the video.

To be clear, no Republicans I spoke to are upset about the vid not running; they're thrilled with how things went. But it seems clear to us that last night would have been more successful with the video: The bio intro would have taken the edge off the speech.

Rudy!

Late Update: We were right! Jonathan Martin confirms with a top convention planner that Rudy ran much longer than expected, forcing the nixing of the vid.

A bunch of you have written to ask where Hillary is in the wake of Sarah Palin's speech, and here's an answer.

Hillary is set to campaign in Florida for Obama on Monday, a source familiar with her schedule tells me.

Though the details of the trip have yet to be worked out, and the trip's message hasn't been settled on yet, her planned campaigning suggests that the Obama team may start reaching out to Hillary more aggressively in the days ahead to counter whatever effects Palin has.

More when we learn it.

The Republican Convention has thus far shown no movement for John McCain in the national polls, according to the two major daily trackers.

Today's Rasmussen poll give Barack Obama a 50%-45% lead, outside of the ±2% margin of error and unchanged from Obama's 50%-45% lead the day before.

The Gallup poll gives Obama a 49%-42% lead, outside of their ±2% and in fact slightly better for Obama than the previous day's 49%-43% lead.

Bear in mind that neither of these three-day tracking polls include responses from after last night, which featured the fiery speeches from Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani. It should be a few more days before we get a real feel for how they've affected the race, along with John McCain's speech tonight.

Obama chief strategist David Axelrod responds to Palin's speech with a combination of fact-checking and a now-familiar high-road dismissiveness:

"She is deft at going on the attack. For someone who makes the point that she is not from Washington, she looks like she would fit in very well there," Axelrod told reporters on the campaign plane in Pittsburgh, Pa. "These attacks all felt very familiar to Americans who are used to this kind of thing from Washington."

Axelrod said her speech was riddled with distortions.

"Right down the line," he said. "She tried to attack Obama by saying he had no significant legislative accomplishments -- maybe that's what she was told -- but she should talk to Sen. Lugar, talk to Sen. Coburn, talk to people across the aisle in Illinois where he passed dozens of major laws to expand health care reform welfare, reduce taxes on working families. So I think she had an assignment and she went out and she discharged it."

Good enough? Or more needed?

In other words, what should come next? Or does it matter?

Vanity Fair tallied up the cost of Cindy McCain's outfit on her night at the GOP convention:

Oscar de la Renta dress: $3,000

Chanel J12 White Ceramic Watch: $4,500

Three-carat diamond earrings: $280,000

Four-strand pearl necklace: $11,000-$25,000

Shoes, designer unknown: $600

Total: Between $299,100 and $313,100

Vanity Fair knows about these things, so we trust 'em. Of course, when it comes to measuring elitism, what's a $300,000 outfit compared to ... whatever it is that's supposed to be elitist about the Obamas?

And besides, POW POW POW.

( Via HuffPo.)

The DNC is stepping up its attacks on John McCain as being more of the same in a pretty clever way: Their new ad in Michigan shows McCain and Bush saying essentially the exact same thing about how well the economy is going:

"It sounds like a broken record," the announcer says, "because it is."

Okay, here's something to keep an eye out for: The big news orgs playing along with Sarah Palin's bogus argument that critics of her experience are "looking down" on her for her small-town background.

From today's Washington Post write-up of the speech:

Derided by her critics as someone who comes from a town of fewer than 10,000 people, she went after Obama for his famous "bitter" comment about small-town residents, made at a San Francisco fundraiser.

Really? Critics are "deriding" her for merely being from a small town? Is that what they're doing?

I thought critics were merely pointing out that her small-town mayoralty didn't prepare her for the gig of leader of the free world. Is that "derisive" of her small-town background now?

Here's a little tidbit from the GOP convention we forgot to blog last night. From Rudy Giuliani's speech:

"Tough times require strong leadership, and this is no time for on the job training."

...and here's top McCain adviser Charlie Black on Sarah Palin last week:

"She's going to learn national security at the foot of the master for the next four years, and most doctors think that he'll be around at least that long."

To be clear, this is more than just a fun little gotcha. It's another sign of how absurd and untenable McCain's argument that our commander in chief requires national security preparedness now looks in light of his choice of Palin as back-up president.

Either the president needs decades of experience to be effective or he doesn't. Choosing Palin as Veep candidate is effectively an admission by McCain that the latter is the case -- or, worse, it means McCain put someone within reach of the presidency that he believes isn't up to the job. There's just no other way to look at it.

Tonight: McCain's Acceptance Speech
John McCain will deliver his acceptance speech to the Republican convention tonight, laying out how he can overcome Obama's current lead in the polls with a combination of his biography and the issues. Perhaps his biggest challenge will be to get more applause than Sarah Palin's red-meat speech from last night.

Democrats Campaigning In Swing States Today
Barack Obama is campaigning today in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, seeking to hold down a swing state that Dems have only won narrowly in recent elections. Joe Biden will be in Virginia Beach, talking about national security in a historically-red state that is up for grabs this time around. And Michelle Obama is in New Mexico, discussing economic issues that face military families.

Obama On O'Reilly Tonight
Fox News will be airing tonight an interview between Barack Obama and Bill O'Reilly, a sort of pre-rebuttal from the Democratic nominee against McCain's speech. This could be tricky, to have the Dem candidate going one on one against one of the biggest Republican pundits.

NYT: GOP Convention A Lot Whiter Than The Dems
The New York Times reports that 93% of the delegates to the Republican Convention are white, with five percent Hispanics and two percent blacks. By contrast, the Democratic Convention was 65% white, 23% black and 11% Hispanic.

Poll: GOP Easily Holding On To Open Missouri Seat
A new SurveyUSA poll finds that the Republicans are favored to hold on to their open House seat in Missouri, where incumbent Kenny Hulshof is running for governor. The poll has Republican Blaine Luetkemeyer with 50%, and Democrat Judy Baker at 38%, with John McCain carrying the district by a 60%-36% margin.

Reid Spokesman: He Always Stands Up In A Fight
Harry Reid spokesman Jim Manley has taken exception to a line from Sarah Palin's speech last night, in which she said Reid doesn't like John McCain because he's incapable of standing up to him. "Anyone who knows Senator Reid knows he never backs down when he's fighting for what's right and that he always stands up to John McCain when he is wrong," said Manley.

The Obama campaign's response to Sarah Palin's speech, from spokesperson Bill Burton, acknowledges its clearly successful delivery but seeks to highlight its slashing and partisan nature in hopes of taking the gloss off her a bit:

""The speech that Governor Palin gave was well delivered, but it was written by George Bush's speechwriter and sounds exactly like the same divisive, partisan attacks we've heard from George Bush for the last eight years. If Governor Palin and John McCain want to define 'change' as voting with George Bush 90% of the time, that's their choice, but we don't think the American people are ready to take a 10% chance on change."

The speech was harsh and negative but we highly doubt that it'll be received this way, and this suggests one reason she was chosen. McCain needed someone who could go on the attack while simultaneously striking an every-mom pose that might galvanize Republican women and perhaps appeal to aging white female Hillary voters while reinforcing McCain's efforts to cast himself as far more culturally in touch with ordinary Americans than Obama is.

With that in mind, this line from her speech seems worth dwelling on:

"I love those hockey moms. You know, they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick."

McCain now has his pit bull -- with lipstick.

One thing that remains to be seen: Whether her strong personality, her obviously effective advocacy on McCain's behalf, and her clear attack-dog skills will do anything to allay concerns about whether she's qualified to be back-up commander-in-chief.

As we noted earlier, Sarah Palin is pushing back on critics of her lack of experience by casting them as disdainful of her small-town experience, and predictably, she's using Obama's "bitter" remarks to press the case:

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening.

We tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.

There's little doubt that Palin's speech, particularly her undeniably skill-full ability to play a tough, brash, ambitious executive and a small-town every-mom at the same time, will get very good press reviews.

Wow. Rudy, who was clearly enjoying his speech as much as he enjoyed his trips to his command-center love nest, ran so long that the GOP convention planners were forced to skip over the planned video introducing Sarah Palin.

As soon as Rudy left the stage, Palin came out to speak -- even though the schedule clearly said there would be a video tribute first.

Rudy!

This was a nightmarish image we'd anticipated, and it happened: The GOP convention crowd, which is made up of people who have spent much of their adult lives in the grip of profound Hillary hatred, suddenly were able to reach deep inside themselves and find the magnanimity to cheer for her.

The moment came, as expected, with the evocation of Hillary's criticism of Obama during the primary. Rudy Giuliani, the speaker, said:

Tough times require strong leadership, and this is no time for on the job training.

It's about who can answer that crisis call at 3:00 in the morning -- yes, Hillary!

The crowd roared for what seemed like a solid half-minute.

A few quick highlights from the speeches given by Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee:

* Romney, clearly still in the grip of the idea that Palin could still be dumped and make way for him to step into the Veep slot, rolled out a well-trafficked GOP fib, saying that Dems never mentioned radical Jihad during the convention. In fact, Obama referred to terrorism and Osama at least five times during his speech alone.

* Romney, former guv of Massachusetts, bashed eastern elites.

* Romney claimed that we need change from the "liberal" Washington where Bush has been president for eight years and the GOP ran Congress until two years ago.

* Huckabee, in a crowd-pleaser, said Sarah Palin got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla than Joe Biden did for president. This gag strikes us as ill-advised, because it draws attention to the fact that Palin got all of 616 votes in her quest for a mayoralty that GOPers are touting as proof of her preparedness to be commander-in-chief.

* Huckabee falsely suggested Abraham Lincoln founded GOP.

All this, and Rudy hasn't even spoken yet!

Here's some new polling from CBS News that drives home how high the stakes are for Sarah Palin's speech tonight:

Even after Sen. John McCain named her as his running mate on Friday, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin remained an unknown quantity to most Americans. Sixty-six percent had no opinion of her in a CBS News poll conducted over the weekend. In polling completed on Monday and Tuesday, sixty percent still had no opinion about her.

But of those who did have opinions, 26 percent of the most recently polled were favorable, while only 13 percent were not favorable.

So she's still a blank slate for many, and she'll be painting in the picture tonight. There's been a fusillade of revelations about Palin, but they've come fast and furious and clearly haven't sunken in yet. Dems should probably brace themselves for glowing coverage of Palin's speech tonight, along the lines of, "she did precisely what she had to do!!!"

This will be partly the result of the ref-gaming the McCain campaign has been doing today, and partly due to the constant media temptation to write dramatic twists and turns into the overriding political narrative. Either way, our bet is that it will translate into good short-term numbers for her.

Some advance excerpts of Sarah Palin's big speech are now available, and they offer a glimpse of how she'll parry criticism of her lack of experience.

Palin plans to suggest that critics who have said her mayoralty of Wasilla hasn't prepared her for the presidency are snobby about small-town America. Here's the key excerpt:

I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town. I was just your average hockey mom, and signed up for the PTA because I wanted to make my kids' public education better. When I ran for city council, I didn't need focus groups and voter profiles because I knew those voters, and knew their families, too.

Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown. And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities.

Dems "look down" on Palin's small-town experience -- that's a good one. At least we know where this is headed. Suppose it's hardly surprising, really.

Palin will also keep up the McCain campaign's assault on the media with this crowd-pleaser:

But here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion -- I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country.

More excerpts after the jump.

Read more »

A new polling analysis from Gallup suggests that John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin may have helped him solidify his support among Republican women -- but it may have also alienated other voters and made the whole thing a wash for now.

Gallup's polling finds that McCain support among Republican women has increased from 85% to 90% in the last few days since Palin's selection. But on the other hand, his numbers have gone down among other groups: He's fallen by four points among independent men and three points with indy women, and is down by five points with Democratic men and two points with Dem women. So Palin hasn't really helped him so far.

"Instead, the data suggest that McCain has in essence fought a rear-guard action of sorts among white women of his own GOP base," the analysis finds, "building their support to a degree even as he was losing support among independents and Democrats of both genders."

Sighting: A McCain ad that doesn't call Obama a "celeb"!

The McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee go up with a joint new economic spot in Michigan and Ohio that ties Obama to Congressional Dems and hits both for opposing offshore drilling. Here's the version running in Michigan:

The spot opens with a litany of bad economic news -- closed factories, job losses, soaring gas prices -- suggesting an effort to parry efforts by Obama and the Dems to paint McCain as out of touch with current economic realities. The spot appears to suggest that the only thing keeping our economy in the toilet is Democratic opposition to drilling.

The version running in Ohio is here.

A new set of polls has good news for Barack Obama in four key battleground states:

• In Iowa, which voted narrowly for George W. Bush in 2004, a new CNN poll has Obama ahead of John McCain by a 55%-40% margin.

• In Minnesota, which went narrowly to Kerry, CNN has Obama up 53%-41%.

• In Ohio, where President Bush's narrow 2004 win sealed his overall victory, the CNN poll gives Obama a 47%-45% edge, within the ±3.5% margin of error.

• In North Carolina, which hasn't voted Dem since 1976, a Democracy Corps (D) poll gives John McCain a narrow advantage of 47%-44% -- and gives Democratic Senate challenger Kay Hagan a 50%-45% lead over GOP Senator Elizabeth Dole.

If Obama's leads in Iowa and Ohio were to hold through November, it would be impossible for John McCain to win unless he could pick up some Kerry states.

The AFL-CIO is readying a major anti-McCain blitz timed to McCain's big convention night tomorrow, unleashing 10,000 volunteers that will deliver fliers hitting McCain to some 200,000 households in five battleground states during the convention's final festivities.

Here's a look at the flyer, which hasn't been released yet and boasts a heavy emphasis on kitchen-table and trade issues (click on the image to enlarge):

The flyer seeks to directly counter-program McCain's message tomorrow, which (aside from POW-POW-POWing) will seek to paint him as a reformer with a career of independence from the GOP and a history of bucking George W. Bush.

To that end, it hits McCain on a triumvirate of economic issues: Health care, NAFTA, and Social Security. It emphasizes McCain's 26 years in Washington, the multitude of lobbyists working on or raising cash for his campaign, and the likelihood that McCain will continue Bush's economic policies.

The flyer will be delivered to households in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota (the site of the GOP convention), AFL-CIO spokesperson Steve Smith confirms. Volunteers will start hitting union households with the flier in the late afternoon tomorrow and continue into the night.

Late Update: The volunteers will actually be dropping the fliers in 24 states, with a special emphasis on the five battlegrounds listed above.

Meg Whitman, McCain's national campaign co-chair and former CEO of e-Bay, veered off message today in an interview with Fox News, describing the media vetting of Palin as "completely fair" and saying that there hasn't really been any sexism to speak of in the coverage.

Take a look:

"I actually think it's completely fair for the media to vet Sarah Palin," Whitman said, adding that it was "the right thing to do" for the media to dig into the background of someone who is "running for the highest office in the land."

Asked directly whether there had been any media sexism, she replied: "I wouldn't say there really has."

Someone should tell this to McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt, who actually complained today that the press was "on a mission to destroy" Palin.

The Obama campaign has been promising to hit McCain hard over campaign manager Rick Davis' unfortunate claim that the campaign "is not about issues," and Obama himself made good on this promise today on the trail in Ohio.

"I mean think about it," Obama told the crowd, as per CNN. "John McCain's campaign manager said this election is not going to be about the issues, it's going to be about personalities. That's a quote. He said it's not going to be about -- it's not going to be about issues it's going to be about personalities."

Obama also used Davis' words to pivot to an attack on the GOP convention last night. "Which probably explains why last night, when they were speaking, all these speakers came up -- you did not hear a single word about the economy," He said. "Now, think about it. Not once did people mention the hardships that folks are going through. Not once did they mention what are we going to do about keeping jobs here in Ohio."

To be fair, Davis didn't really say that the campaign is going to be about "personalities"; rather, he said it would be "about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."

So Davis hopes, anyway.

Rarely do you see the GOP strategy of making the election all about Obama's character as starkly expressed, so expect Obama to keep hammering away at this one.

In advance of Sarah Palin's big speech tonight, the McCain campaign goes up with a negative attack ad hitting Obama and contrasting him negatively with her:

The GOP didn't appear to mind the risk of trampling on Palin's positive message tonight with this aggressively negative spot.

The ad, which will run in "key states," attempts to belittle Obama by comparing him with the GOP Veep choice, casting her as the true reformer of the two. And as TPM's Eric Kleefeld just noted, the ad puts the lines praising Palin in the voice of a woman, and the lines attacking Obama in the voice of a man.

Full script after the jump.

Late Update: First Read fact-checks the ad and finds "misleading assertions."

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The Repubs really do need to get their message straight about the allegedly vicious and destructive media assault -- otherwise known as "journalism" -- on Sarah Palin.

As you've heard already, McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt wailed and beat his breast about the coverage of Palin in an interview in this morning's Washington Post.

Schmidt, one of the most hard-boiled operatives out there, a man who lived through the Clinton impeachment circus, a fellow who worked for Bush in 2004 and encouraged the media's savaging of John Kerry, actually accused the press of being "on a mission to destroy" Palin, adding that his campaign feels "under siege."

But now former GOP House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is sounding a decidedly different message: The coverage is actually good for Palin!

"The media has done more for John McCain in the last two days than he's done for himself in the last year and a half," DeLay said.

"Trashing her is waking up the sleeping giant, and the sleeping giant is Republican women," he claimed.

DeLay, of course, hints here at the cynicism at the core of Schmidt's crocodile tears about the media and about the alleged sexism GOPers have been claiming is behind coverage of Palin. Beyond being an obvious bid to stir up the base, it's an effort to corral female support by building up the emotional payoff of tonight's speech and spinning it into a narrative of trial-by-sexism followed by triumph.

Here's something you practically never see: A retiring member of Congress endorse and campaign for the nominee of the opposite party. But that is exactly what's happening in the open deep-red House district of GOP Rep. Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland -- and it could help put this big pick-up opportunity within the reach of the Dems.

Gilchrest, a moderate Republican who turned against the Iraq War, was defeated for renomination this past February by right-wing GOPer Andy Harris. So now he's turned around and cut this ad for Democratic nominee Frank Kratovil:

"I love this place we call home," Gilchrest says. "It's more important to me than partisanship."

One question: Is Gilchrest's hometown a place called Revenge?

Yesterday was President Bush's big night at the GOP convention, but you wouldn't have known it if you were, you know, there.

We just checked all the full texts of the speeches from last night's festivities that are on the GOP convention's official Web page. The word "Bush" appears exactly zero times. The word "president" doesn't appear anywhere in connection with Bush.

Oh, and one other funny thing: The GOP's page of speeches, which included the orations of a bunch of unknowns, didn't even bother including the speeches given by the president or Laura.

Reverend Jeremiah Wright said this:

And they will not only attack you if you try to point out what's going on in white America, U.S. of K.K.K.A.

...and this:

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people," he said in a 2003 sermon. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

And Joe Vogler, the founder of the Alaskan Independence Party, said this:

"The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government. And I won't be buried under their damn flag. I'll be buried in Dawson. And when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home."

Why isn't Vogler's quote just as controversial? Wright called America the "U.S. of K.K.K.A." Vogler professed his "hatred for the American government." Wright said "God damn America." Vogler referred to our "damn flag."

You can argue that the parallels aren't perfect. Sarah Palin supposedly wasn't a member of the AIP. But she courted the group repeatedly over the years, and her husband was a member for around seven years. You could argue that the AIP isn't really a fringe party in Alaska. But Wright's church isn't really fringe on the south side of Chicago, either. And Vogler said what he said.

Just to reiterate: The Republican vice presidential candidate repeatedly courted -- and her husband belonged to -- a secessionist group founded by someone who professed hatred for the American government and cursed the flag.

Tonight: Palin's Big Speech
Sarah Palin will be delivering her acceptance speech as the Republican vice-presidential nominee tonight, a second chance to make a good impression on the voting public after a very tumultuous last few days.

Obama In Ohio Today
Barack Obama is campaigning today in the big swing state of Ohio, where polls have shown a close race, with stops in New Philadelphia and Dillonvale.

McCain Arriving In Minnesota Today
John McCain is scheduled to arrive in the Twin Cities today at 12:45 p.m. ET.

WaPo: Palin Was Only Interviewed By Campaign This Past Wednesday
The Washington Post reports that Sarah Palin was only interviewed by John McCain's vetting team this past Wednesday, the day before John McCain asked her to be his running mate. It's hard to believe that the full ramifications of picking Palin were properly deliberated by the campaign.

Reid "Disappointed" With Lieberman
Harry Reid's spokesman told CNN that Reid is "very disappointed" with Joe Lieberman's speech last night at the Republican Convention. "As the American people have made very clear, the last thing this country needs is another four years of the same old failed Bush-McCain policies of the past."

Obama To Appear On O'Reilly
Barack Obama will reportedly be going where not too many prominent Dems like to venture: The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News. Obama will be sitting down with O'Reilly for an interview set to air tomorrow night, in an attempt to counter John McCain's speech at the Republican Convention.

Poll: Dem Has Narrow Edge For Heather Wilson's House Seat
A new SurveyUSA poll shows the Democratic nominee narrowly ahead in the race for an open House seat of New Mexico's GOP Rep. Heather Wilson. Democratic Albuquerque City Councilor Martin Heinrich has 51%, while Republican Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White has 46%, in a campaign that will probably be close all the way to Election Day.

Michael Moore To Lieberman: Stop Talking About Me!
Michael Moore has responded in a blog post to Joe Lieberman's mentioning of him during last night's Republican convention speech. "What is it with you and your Republican friends always bringing me up?" Moore writes. "Can't you stop thinking about me? It's starting to sound like a fetish! Stop it!"

A curious line from Fred Thompson's speech:

We need a President, and Vice President, who will take the federal bureaucracy by the scruff of the neck and give it a good shaking. And my friends we need a President who doesn't think that the protection of the unborn or a newly born baby is above his pay grade.

Obama doesn't believe in the protection of newly born babies? Seems like big news...

We think this is a reference to this from Obama:

Asked at what point a baby gets "human rights," Obama, who strongly supports abortion rights, said: "... whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity ... is above my pay grade."

Just a hop, skip and a jump from there to supporting infanticide, of course.

Breaking: Lieberman fibbed!

Tonight at the convention, Joe Lieberman will attack Obama -- even though he expressly promised not to do this last month.

In early August, Lieberman said this about his pending appearance at the GOP convention:

I assure you this, Tom: I'm not gonna to go to that convention -- the Republican convention -- and spend my time attacking Barack Obama. I'm gonna go there really talking about why I support John McCain and why I hope a lot of other independents and Democrats will do that.

Tonight, according to prepared remarks, Lieberman will say:

When others wanted to retreat in defeat from the field of battle, when Barack Obama was voting to cut off funding for our troops on the ground, John McCain had the courage to stand against the tide of public opinion and support the surge and because of that, today, our troops are at last beginning to come home, not in failure, but in honor!"

Late Update: I forgot to mention the best part: Lieberman, according to the advance text, will describe himself as a "Democrat" tonight, and of course, the willingness of a few media stragglers to grant this claim a shred of credibility is the sole reason he's speaking tonight.

Fred Thompson's speech tonight at the Republican Convention will pitch John McCain as the steady leader ready to guide America -- and he'll take some none-too-subtle hits against Obama as a show-boater.

"When he travels abroad, he prefers quietly speaking to the troops amidst the heat and hardship of their daily lives," Thompson will say, according to pre-released excerpts -- a possible reference to the GOP's false accusation that Obama has canceled visits with troops because he couldn't get any publicity out of it, and that he'd rather speak to big crowds in Europe.

"And the same character that marked John McCain's military career has also marked his political career," Thompson will say. "This man, John McCain, is not intimidated by what the polls say or by what is politically safe or popular."

Tonight's the big night for Joe Lieberman: His address to the Republican convention, where the former Democrat will sing the praises of John McCain and brutally go after the party that nominated him for vice president only eight years ago. So just how much has he changed?

In a noble act of self-sacrifice, I watched many hours worth of Lieberman tapes from his presidential campaign in 2003 and 2004. On issue after issue, he strongly embraced positions that are 180 degrees opposite of McCain, who he's supporting with such ardor.

So here's our clip video of the former loyal Democrat and Bush-basher Joe Lieberman. Check it out:

The founder of the Alaska Independence Party -- a group that has been courted over the years by Sarah Palin, and one her husband was a member of for roughly seven years -- once professed his "hatred for the American government" and cursed the American flag as a "damn flag."

The AIP founder, Joe Vogler, made the comments in 1991, in an interview that's now housed at the Oral History Program in the Rasmuson Library at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

"The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government," Vogler said in the interview, in which he talked extensively about his desire for Alaskan secession, the key goal of the AIP.

"And I won't be buried under their damn flag," Vogler continued in the interview, which also touched on his disappointment with the American judicial system. "I'll be buried in Dawson. And when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home."

At another point, Volger advocated renouncing allegiance to the United States. In the course of denouncing Federal regulation over land, he said:

"And then you get mad. And you say, the hell with them. And you renounce allegiance, and you pledge your efforts, your effects, your honor, your life to Alaska."

You can listen to audio of the relevant section of the Volger interview here. Bill Schneider, curator of oral history at the library, verified the authenticity of the interview and the quote to me a few moments ago.

Palin has courted the group over the years.

Three years after the controversial interview, in 1994, Palin attended the group's annual convention, according to witnesses who spoke to ABC News' Jake Tapper. The McCain campaign is disputing her presence there, but Tapper found two people to attest to it.

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It looks like the McCain camp is now actively taking steps to punish media outlets that give them bad coverage.

Wolf Blitzer just reported that the campaign has cancelled a scheduled interview with Larry King due to an unfriendly segment last night on CNN -- the segment we flagged last night where the network's Campbell Brown grilled McCain spokesperson Tucker bounds over Sarah Palin's lack of foreign policy experience.

Here's last night's segment:

Blitzer said the McCain campaign complained that Campbell Brown's grilling of Tucker Bounds over Sarah Palin's lack of foreign policy experience was "over the line."

Sarah Palin clearly doesn't have a problem mixing politics and religion.

The Huffington Post has unearthed a video of Palin speaking to her former church, the Wasilla Assembly of God, a few months ago. Palin shows the degree to which her politics has been shaped by religion -- and also how it's worked the other way around, too:

• Asking congregants to pray for the successful organization of a proposed natural gas pipeline.

• Saying of her work as governor: "But really, all of that stuff doesn't do any good if the people of Alaska's heart isn't right with God."

• And on Iraq: "Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending them out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan."

In this light, it suddenly seems a lot more believable that as mayor Palin tried to get a librarian fired for not removing books with foul language.

I'm reminded of a religious saying of my own ancestors: Oy vey!

Late Update: It should be noted that a statement from the church says Palin ceased to be a member there in 2002, though she does maintain a friendship with them.

We reported here on Friday that the McCain camp and the Republicans were broadening their ad buy map to include Virginia and North Carolina, a sign that GOPers are worried about traditionally red territory and are being forced to fight on a wider electoral map than they'd hoped to.

Well, here's the Republican National Committee's new spot, which win run in 14 states, including red North Carolina and Virginia, both states where Obama is up on the air:

The ad -- another twist on the "celeb" theme -- states: "Take away the crowds, the chant -- all that's left are costly words." And it seeks to link Obama to Congressional Dems, whose approval rating in some polls is -- ahem -- even lower than Dick Cheney's.

It's the latest installment in the GOP's effort to convince people that enthusiasm for Obama has nothing whatsoever to do with his actual leadership qualities, policy positions or promised agenda as president. But the mere fact that it's airing in Virginia North Carolina constitutes an admission of weakness.

Separately, I'm told that McCain, too, is spending heavily on advertising in Virginia.

Those who are fans of the "McSame" strategy will be thrilled by this new Obama ad attacking McCain that's hitting the airwaves today, just in time for Bush's address to the convention via satellite tonight.

The spot flashes "The Same" across the screen in huge white letters, and runs through a litany of areas where Bush and McCain are "the same" -- Iraq, the economy, etc.

The ad will air on national cable and in battleground states.

Just to put all these claims about Sarah Palin's experience as Mayor of Wasilla into perspective, it turns out that in 1996 she won the mayoralty by 200 votes -- and given the size of Wasilla, it turns out that this constituted a landslide victory.

From the Anchorage Daily News in 1996, just after the election (via Nexis)...

Palin's victory was seen as a major upset. Stein has been mayor since 1987 and was seeking his fourth term. He lost by more than 200 votes, with a final tally of 616-413.

A "major upset" of 616-413. That would actually be kind of cute, if her experience as mayor of Wasilla wasn't genuinely being touted by GOPers as one sign of her preparedness to be back-up commander-in-chief.

Relatedly, today, Barack Obama himself took up the argument about the size of Wasilla, pointing out that Wasilla has approximately 50 employees, while his own campaign has 50 times as many, or roughly 2,500.

It turns out the gender card isn't just for liberal feminists -- Republicans can play it, too.

McCain surrogates and other prominent Republican commentators are now expressly selling Palin's candidacy on the basis of her gender, and going so far as to rebut critics by accusing them of sexism.

Some of these are fairly mundane, like Laura Bush saying she's always wanted to vote for a Republican woman. And some of them are just bizarre, like Congresswoman Michele Bachmann accusing James Carville -- a prominent former Hillary Clinton supporter -- of insulting women when he says that Palin isn't qualified.

Check out our roundup, after the jump.

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A prominent Republican writer says it's legit to bring up McCain's age -- and makes the interesting argument that the choice of Sarah Palin as Veep candidate should make us put McCain's age front and center as an issue.

Check out this absolutely brutal piece on Palin by former Bush speechwriter and American Enterprise Institute resident fellow David Frum that was posted on AEI's site today:

Ms. Palin's experience in government makes Barack Obama look like George C. Marshall. She served two terms on the city council of Wasilla, Alaska, population 9,000. She served two terms as mayor. In November, 2006, she was elected governor of the state, a job she has held for a little more than 18 months. She has zero foreign policy experience, and no record on national security issues.

All this would matter less, but for this fact: The day that John McCain announced his selection of Sarah Palin was his birthday. His 72nd birthday. Seventy-two is not as old as it used to be, but Mr. McCain had a bout with melanoma seven years ago, and his experience in prison camp has uncertain implications for his future health.

If anything were to happen to a President McCain, the destiny of the free world would be placed in the hands of a woman who until recently was a small-town mayor.

Obviously, the fact that a prominent conservative writer is giving voice to this argument should make it a bit tougher for Republicans to yell about the "age card" when Dems point out that the choice of Palin puts McCain's age on the table.

Ron Fournier, send in the cavalry!

On a day when The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and McClatchy all weighed in with tough pieces on the weak vetting of Sarah Palin, the Associated Press rides to the rescue with a piece reporting that Palin was in fact thoroughly vetted after all.

The AP's source for this revelation? Why, the guy who was in charge of the vetting for McCain, lawyer Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr. You'll be surprised to hear that he says he did a very thorough job.

The AP piece also has this curious passage, in which the lawyer says Palin had disclosed Bristol's pregnancy to him...

Culvahouse then conducted a nearly three-hour interview. He said the first thing Palin volunteered was that her daughter was pregnant, and she also quickly disclosed her husband's two-decade-old DUI arrest.

Of course, yesterday, McCain advisers refused to say whether McCain had known of the pregnancy before picking Palin as Veep. So, if it's true that Palin disclosed it to McCain's chief vetter, one of the following must also be true:

1) McCain did know about the pregnancy before he picked Palin, but McCain aides for some reason declined to disclose this yesterday.

2) McCain's chief vetter did learn of the pregnancy before McCain picked Palin, but no one told McCain about it.

3) McCain's chief vetter isn't telling the truth.

Take your pick.

This one is noteworthy, because it's a first stab at directly taking on McCain's war service in a sustained way by arguing that his POW experience has rendered him temperamentally unfit to be president.

Take a look at the latest film from Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films -- it stars fellow POW Phillip Butler arguing that he knows from bitter experience that a POW past is not what you want in the leader of the free world:

The film has accents -- stylistically, at least -- of the Swift Boat Vets' ads against John Kerry. In it, Butler rather bluntly suggests that McCain's POW past has rendered him mentally too unstable for the White House.

"I think I can say with authority that the prisoner of war experience is not a good prerequisite for president of the United States," Butler says. "The data show that the prisoner of war group are dying at an earlier age and that we suffer lots of residual things that non-POW group doesn't have to deal with. And it's imperative that we have someone who is healthy and can stand the rigors of that job."

Butler, who wrote a few months ago about living across the hall from McCain at the Naval Academy in the late 1950s, also directly attacks McCain's temperament. "He would blow up and go off like a Roman candle at any possible time," Butler says.

"The world is such a dangerous place and he has shown himself already to be bellicose," Butler adds. "John McCain is not somebody that I would like to see with his finger near the red button."

"John McCain's temperament makes it clear that he's not cut out to be president of the United States," he concludes.

It's strong and risky stuff -- and presumably not a message the Obama campaign wants its allies out there articulating.

It's starting to look like John McCain's historic selection of Sarah Palin hasn't done him any favors in the polls.

Here's this morning's Rasmussen tracking poll: Obama 51%, McCain 45%, outside of the ±2% margin of error. Obama was up 49%-46% yesterday, suggesting that Palin's scandals may have helped him to double his lead in just one day of sampling.

And the new Hotline/Diageo poll has Obama up 48%-39%, compared to a 44%-40% lead from just one week ago.

Late Update: Three more polls all show Obama leading by a substantial margin. The daily Gallup tracking poll has Obama up 50%-42% -- the first time ever that he's reached the 50% threshold in their poll. The USA Today/Gallup poll has Obama up 50%-43%, and ARG has Obama up 49%-43%.

There is also yesterday's CBS poll, which gave Obama a 48%-40% lead.

Republican Convention Reconvening Today, Minus Rudy
The Republican National Convention will be meeting again today, with prime-time programming set to go ahead after yesterday's cancellation from Hurricane Gustav. But there have been some major changes: Rudy Giuliani has been bumped from the schedule completely, and will be replaced tonight by Fred Thompson and Joe Lieberman.

Both Presidential Candidates Off The Trail
Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain have any public events scheduled for today.

Biden In Florida Today
Joe Biden is campaigning today in Florida, with stops in Deerfield Beach and West Palm Beach. Biden's relative age and experience could go a long way in convincing voters here that Barack Obama is a safe choice for president.

McCain Adviser Touts Palin's Virtues In Wall St. Journal
McCain Adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer has penned an entertaining column in The Wall St. Journal today, arguing that Sarah Palin has the real experience necessary to be on the national ticket and that women have a chance to break the glass ceiling. For one thing, Pfotenhauer says Palin is "chief executive of the nation's largest state," which is only true by geographic size -- Alaska is one of the smallest states by population, and Palin has been chief executive of it for a very short period.

Intrade Taking Bets On Palin Pulling An Eagleton
Intrade.com is now offering a contract on the proposition that Sarah Palin will have to withdraw her vice-presidential candidacy before this election is over. As of this writing, the price is 18.0 and climbing.

Palin's Town Secured Massive Earmarks
The Washington Post profiles Sarah Palin's history of earmarks, finding that her town of Wasilla secured about $27 million worth of earmarks during her years as mayor -- quite impressive for a town of less than 8,000 people. It's a reality that goes heavily against her professed opposition to big spending from her big speech on Friday.

Poll: GOP Way Ahead In Open House Seat
A new SurveyUSA poll shows the GOP heavily favored to hold on to their open House seat in Alabama, which Dems have been making a major play for. The numbers: Republican state Rep. Jay Love 56%, versus Dem Montgomery Bobby Bright's 39%.

On the same day that the Republicans were forced to dramatically cut back their convention activities, the Palin Meltdown unfolded with extraordinary speed. It's worth pondering the totality of what happened today, in a mere half day...

* The news that Palin once backed the Bridge to Nowhere went national.

* It emerged that Palin has links to the bizarro Alaska Independence Party, which harbors the goal of seceding from the union that McCain and Palin seek to lead.

* The news broke that as governor, Palin relied on an earmark system she now opposes. Taken along with the Bridge to Nowhere stuff, this threatens to undercut her reformist image, something that was key to her selection as McCain's Veep candidate.

* The news broke that Palin's 17-year-old daughter became pregnant out of wedlock at a time when the conservative base had finally started rallying behind McCain's candidacy.

* Barely moments after McCain advisers put out word that McCain had known of Bristol Palin's pregnancy, the Anchorage Daily News revealed that Palin's own spokesperson hadn't known about it only two days ago.

* A senior McCain adviser at the Republican convention was forced into the rather embarrassing position of arguing that McCain had known about the pregnancy "last week" -- without saying what day last week he knew about it.

* It came out that Republican lawyers are up in Alaska vetting Palin -- now, more than 72 hours after it was announced that she'd been picked.

* Palin lawyered up in relation to the trooper-gate probe in Alaska -- a move that ensures far more serious attention to the story from the major news orgs.

What else will come out today? After all, there are still six hours left until September 2nd...

McCain's top policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, was asked today if the McCain campaign knew about Bristol Palin's pregnancy before Sarah Palin was offered the Veep slot, and he offered the following non-answer:

Asked if the campaign knew about the pregnancy at the time of Palin's selection, Holtz-Eakin said, "As I said, what I think we ought to do is recognize that the governor was completely vetted by the campaign. Senator McCain has complete confidence in her as a running mate and as a future vice president of the United States, and the particulars of the family life of the Palins is really something that's best left to them."

The issue, again, isn't Bristol or her pregnancy. It's what the McCain team knew about this woman before agreeing, for its own political purposes, to put her within reach of controlling the most powerful military in human history.

Here's a poll that has found a decided post-convention bounce for Obama: The new CBS News survey, which contains a slew of good numbers for the Illinois Senator.

* It finds that Obama's lead has jumped to eight points, 48%-40%, up from three points before the convention, which 71 percent of Americans say they watched.

* Obama has taken a six-point lead among independents, 43%-37%, up from a 12-point deficit.

* Obama's lead among women has jumped to 14 points, 50%-36%, and a leap in enthusiasm among his supporters.

* Though there has been no change in the number who say he's prepared for the job, fewer say he isn't prepared -- a key McCain attack line.

* And here's a key number: Fifty-eight percent say Obama is "tough enough," a jump of 10 points since early August, suggesting that Obama's speech, which was dense with specific and pointed attacks on McCain, may have worked in that it displayed a willingness to take the fight to his opponent in a more serious and sustained way that many voters had previously seen.

Full poll here.

The McCain campaign announces that he's raised a whopping $47 million in August -- the first time that he's racked up Obama-like fundraising totals.

The secret to McCain's success? Sarah Palin, who apparently generated some $10 million in donations since the announcement that she'd been picked, suggesting that social conservatives are now reassured by her candidacy.

McCain's huge haul -- roughly double his pull in past months -- also strongly suggests that GOP donors have grown much more bullish on his chances in the past few weeks, probably because of the stepped-up aggressiveness of McCain's attacks on Obama and the persistent tightness of the race in polls.

Is it really possible that the McCain campaign is refusing to say whether McCain knew about Bristol's pregnancy before picking Sarah Palin as his running mate?

Apparently so:

Reporters at the Republican national convention hammered McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt about the Palin pregnancy during a press conference. All Schmidt would say is Palin and McCain had discussed the pregnancy and considered it to be a private matter.

He wouldn't say if they talked about it before McCain picked Palin as his vice presidential nominee.

Say what? So what did McCain know about this woman before putting her within reach of controlling the most powerful military in human history?

Amusingly, McCain adviser Schmidt is saying that McCain knew about the pregnancy "last week," which also includes Saturday and all day Friday after the announcement, of course.

Late Update: MSNBC's reporters on-scene with Schmidt add this:

Top McCain campaign official Steve Schmidt told a scrum of reporters in St. Paul that McCain was aware of Bristol Palin's pregnancy "last week," though he would not say specifically which day last week.

And the descent into self-parody and farce continues apace...

Obama smacks back at the anonymous McCain aide's suggestion of ties between Obama and the rumors that Trig Palin is actually the son of Sarah Palin's daughter:

Asked about the insinuation from the McCain campaign that the liberal bloggers trafficking in rumors about Palin write for websites that mention Obama, the senator said, "I'm offended by that."

The Democratic presidential nominee said, "There is no evidence at all that any of this involved us."...

"Our people were not involved in any way in this and they will not be. And if I ever thought that it was somebody in my campaign that was involved in something like that, they'd be fired."

Of course, the McCain campaign never even had to make this absurd allegation on the record, because Reuters so generously let an anonymous McCain aide do it.

This paragraph in the Reuters story about Bristol Palin's pregnancy seems pretty close to indefensible:

"The despicable rumors that have been spread by liberal blogs, some even with Barack Obama's name in them, is a real anchor around the Democratic ticket, pulling them down in the mud in a way that certainly juxtaposes themselves against their 'campaign of change,'" a senior aide said.

Is it really kosher for Reuters to let an anonymous McCain aide get away with tying Obama to the rumors? Doesn't seem all that professional, does it?

The Anchorage Daily News, in its write-up of the announcement that 17-year-old Bristol Palin is pregnant, reveals that Sarah Palin's spokesperson didn't know about this two days ago:

The Daily News had asked Palin's press secretary, Bill McAllister, over the weekend to address rumors that Bristol was pregnant.

"I don't know. I have no evidence that Bristol's pregnant," he said on Saturday.

The McCain campaign says they knew about the pregnancy, but this suggests the possibility that they didn't -- and raises further questions about how thoroughly McCain vetted, and how much he knew, and knows, about the person he selected as his back-up commander-in-chief.

Stranger and stranger:

The 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is pregnant, Palin said on Monday in an announcement intended to knock down rumors by liberal bloggers that Palin faked her own pregnancy to cover up for her child.

Bristol Palin, one of Alaska Gov. Palin's five children with her husband, Todd, is about five months pregnant and is going to keep the child and marry the father, the Palins said in a statement released by the campaign of Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

Bristol Palin made the decision on her own to keep the baby, McCain aides said.

There's also this:

Senior McCain campaign officials said McCain knew of the daughter's pregnancy when he selected Palin last week as his vice presidential running mate, deciding that it did not disqualify the 44-year-old governor in any way.

McCain knew! Who says Palin wasn't thoroughly vetted?

Late Update: Here's the statement from the Palins:

"We have been blessed with five wonderful children who we love with all our heart and mean everything to us. Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.

"Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family. We ask the media to respect our daughter and Levi's privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates."

This seems worth digging into a bit. The Alaska Independence Party, which was formed with the goal of seceding from the union and establishing Alaska as an independent state, says that Palin addressed their 2008 convention.

The AIP has posted video of what it claims is her address on its Web site.

It's hard to gauge how fringe the group is. Its Website features this quote from one of its founders:

"The problem with you John Birchers' is that you are too damn liberal!"

-- Joseph Vogler, Founder Alaskan Independence Party

...and here's AIP's list of goals:

Until we as Alaskans receive our Ultimate Goal, the AIP will continue to strive to make Alaska a better place to live with less government interference in our everyday lives.

The Alaskan Independence Party's goal is the vote we were entitled to in 1958, one choice from among the following four alternatives:

1) Remain a Territory.

2) Become a separate and Independent Nation.

3) Accept Commonwealth status.

4) Become a State.

The party says its not a fringe party anymore, but this "Ultimate Goal" stuff seems pretty kooky. And it is still describing this as a goal: "Become a separate and independent nation."

This seems worth learning more about. More here.

Some interesting numbers in the new CNN poll:

* There was no convention bounce for Obama in this survey, which was taken Friday through Sunday; it found that the race remains dead even, with the Obama-Biden ticket at 49% versus 48% for McCain-Palin.

* And yet...Barack Obama's convention acceptance speech was a success: Sixty-four percent rated it excellent or good, higher than recent speeches. And a majority -- 51 percent -- said the convention made them more likely to pick him.

* Palin's numbers are mixed: Fifty-two percent say the Palin pick is excellent or pretty good; 46 percent rate it as fair or poor.

* But barely more than a third -- 36 percent -- of women view Sarah Palin favorably.

* And fifty percent say she's unqualified for the presidency, versus 45 percent who say she's prepared.

We'll bring you the internals when they're available.

Republican Convention Starting Today, But Prime-Time Cancelled
The Republican Convention is officially beginning today in St. Paul, but it has been seriously scaled back out of respect to Hurricane Gustav's imminent landfall in the Gulf Coast. The convention will only convene for about two hours to handle the formalities of bringing the gathering to order, and the whole prime-time speaking lineup has been cancelled.

Dem Ticket In Michigan And Wisconsin
Barack Obama is working hard on Labor Day, with his Rust Belt tour taking him through two swing states. Obama has a Detroit rally scheduled to being at 11 a.m. ET, a 1 p.m. barbecue in Monroe, Michigan, and finally a rally in Milwaukee set for 7 p.m. ET.

Cindy McCain Meeting With Louisiana GOPers This Morning
Cindy McCain and other McCain family members are scheduled to attend a 10 a.m. ET breakfast with Louisiana delegates at the Republican Convention, where they will likely discuss Hurricane Gustav and disaster preparation.

Howard Wolfson: I Now Heart Obama
Former Hillary Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson has a new column in today's Washington Post, saying that Barack Obama's acceptance speech has converted him into an enthusiastic supporter: "In person, my attention undivided, I saw something of what so many others had seen for so long."

NYT: Hillary Could Be Dems' Best Weapon Against Palin
The New York Times reports that Hillary Clinton could see an increased role on the trail in courting women voters for Barack Obama, in light of the McCain campaign's play for them in selecting Sarah Palin. Senior Clinton adviser Ann Lewis said some women voters may be giving McCain a second look now, but Hillary could reach them: "These voters see Hillary as someone who fought and rose to challenges with persistence, and who spoke in real ways to their lives."

USA Today: Yes, Palin Backed Bridge To Nowhere
The mainstream media is catching on to Sarah Palin's double-talk on federal earmarks and the infamous Bridge to Nowhere, with USA Today laying out her past support of it as well as other costly Alaska earmarks. On top of her support for the bridge, her town of Wasilla was also one of only six incorporated municipalities in Alaska to hire a federal lobbyist specifically for the purposes of obtaining earmarks.

CNN Poll: Presidential Race Remains A Dead Heat
A new CNN poll suggests that John McCain's gambit of announcing his running mate the day after the Dem Convention successfully blunted any post-convention bounce for Barack Obama: Obama 49%, McCain 48%, with a ±3% margin of error. The poll also shows that 50% of respondents say Sarah Palin is unqualified to assume the presidency in an emergency, against 45% who say she is in fact prepared.

Palin's Mother-In-Law Is Undecided
Sarah Palin's mother-in-law told the New York Daily News that she isn't sure who she'll vote for this November. "I'm not sure what she brings to the ticket other than she's a woman and a conservative," said Faye Palin. "Well, she's a better speaker than McCain."

Bush Now Unlikely To Be At GOP Convention
President Bush will probably not be attending the Republican convention anymore, a last-minute schedule change on account of the imminent landfall of Hurricane Gustav in the Gulf Coast. It's still possible that he could give a speech to the convention, though it would be via satellite rather than in person.

Dem Ticket In Ohio And Michigan
The Obamas and Bidens are continuing their Rust Belt bus tour today, visiting the swing states of Ohio and Michigan. First up is a discussion on the economy in Toledo, followed by a late-afternoon rally in Battle Creek.

GOP Ticket In Missouri Today
John McCain and Sarah Palin are campaigning today in O'Fallon, Missouri, a large suburb of St. Louis, for a rally scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. ET.

McCain Also Visiting Gulf Coast's Hurricane Preparations
John McCain is also set to visit Jackson, Mississippi, today in order to view the Gulf Coast's preparations for Hurricane Gustav. The hurricane is expected to hit the Gulf Coast during the Republican Convention.

Palin Booed After Praising Hillary At Campaign Event
Sarah Palin's name-dropping of Hillary Clinton, an obvious ploy to win disaffected women who supported Hillary in the primaries, didn't go over so well last night at an event in Pennsylvania. When Palin tried the line out, the right-wing crowd very loudly booed -- not the sort of visual likely to make it into a McCain ad.

Ferraro Praises Palin, Won't Say Who She's Voting For
In an interview with NPR yesterday, Geraldine Ferraro praised Sarah Palin's selection as John McCain's running mate, and defended Palin against the accusation that she's not qualified to hold high office. When asked who she was voting for, Ferraro played coy: "When I go into the booth I will make my decision."

Biden Pitches Obama To Working-Class Scranton In New Ad
The Obama campaign has released this TV ad for the Northeastern Pennsylvania media market, featuring Joe Biden talking about his working-class upbringing in Scranton. Biden then says how Obama is very much the same, having been raised in humble beginnings by his single mother and grandparents: