Election Central Morning Roundup
New McCain Ad: Obama Worked With A Terrorist
The McCain campaign has a new TV ad hammering Barack Obama for his past associations with Bill Ayers. Check it out:
"When convenient, he worked with terrorist Bill Ayers. When discovered, he lied," the announcer says. Much like the Web ad from yesterday, the syntax here appears to suggest that the two of them worked together on terrorism, rather than an education foundation that Obama chaired and Ayers served on.
Obama In Ohio, Biden In Missouri
Barack Obama is in Ohio today, with a 9:40 a.m. ET rally in Chillicothe, and an early afternoon rally in Columbus. Joe Biden is in Missouri, with an 12:30 p.m. ET rally in Springfield.
McCain In Wisconsin And Minnesota, Palin In Ohio And Pennsylvania
John McCain is campaigning today in Wisconsin and Minnesota, two Dem-leaning swing states where he's fallen way behind in the recent polls. McCain has an 11 a.m. ET rally in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and a 5 p.m. ET rally in Lakeville, Minnesota. Sarah Palin is touring through Ohio and Pennsylvania, which are both slipping away from the GOP ticket, with events in Cincinnati, Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
Hillary Campaigning For Dem Ticket Today In Arkansas
Hillary Clinton is holding a rally today on behalf of Barack Obama in Little Rock, Arkansas, scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. ET.
Obama: I Assumed Ayers Was Rehabilitated
In an interview with Michael Smerconish, Barack Obama said that he had begun working Bill Ayers on the Annenberg education project under innocent circumstances. "Ultimately, I ended up learning about the fact that he had engaged in this reprehensible act 40 years ago," Obama said, "but I was eight years old at the time and I assumed that he had been rehabilitated."
GOP Pollster: Obama Up In Florida And Ohio
A new pair of polls from Strategic Vision (R) gives Barack Obama the lead in both Florida and Ohio. In Florida: Obama 52%, McCain 44%, outside of the ±3% margin of error. In Ohio: Obama 48%, McCain 46%, within the ±3% margin of error.
More Polls Put Obama Up In North Carolina
Two new polls are showing Obama ahead in North Carolina, which hasn't voted Democratic since Jimmy Carter was the South's favorite son in 1976. From North Carolina-based Civitas (R): Obama 48%, McCain 43%, with a ±4.2% margin of error. From Rasmussen: Obama 49%, McCain 48%, with a ±4% margin of error.
CREW Wants Probe Of McCain's Gambling Winnings
The Committee for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is calling upon the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate John McCain's habit of gambling, and whether he has failed to reports winnings on his financial disclosure forms. "Given Sen. McCain's history of gambling on a regular basis over many years, it is nearly impossible to imagine that he never won over $200, the amount that triggers the reporting requirement," said CREW executive director Melanie Sloan.
"Given Sen. McCain's history of gambling on a regular basis over many years, it is nearly impossible to imagine that he never won over $200, the amount that triggers the reporting requirement," said CREW executive director Melanie Sloan.
If this campaign is any indication, there's a better explanation: McCain is simply a terrible gambler.
October 10, 2008 9:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well played! Thanks for that one.
October 10, 2008 9:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Unless the rules have changed, you're allowed to offset your gambling wins with your gambling losses. And since McCain's game (craps) is one where the odds are against the player, he's probably never had a year where his gambling winnings exceeded his gambling losses.
October 10, 2008 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't believe that CREW is bringing up tax reporting issues....I believe (although I could be wrong) that they're speaking of his Senate disclosure forms.
October 10, 2008 9:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think (I haven't researched it) that the way gambling income is supposed to work is that you declare your winnings, then deduct losses up to a maximum of your winnings. Based on that, I think the only ways it would be OK for gambling to not show up on his tax returns would be (a) he never ever walked away from a table while winning, or (b) he's not gambling with his money, but that it's a gambling allowance from Cindy, and should show up on her tax returns. I think casinos may even issue tax forms for anybody walking away with more than the reporting trigger of $200.
October 10, 2008 10:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
An even bigger question is whether the casinos where McShame gambled let him win, thereby getting around Senate ethics rules on gifts.
(For anyone who watched The Wire, think of the poker game with the mayor where everyone made a point of losing to him.)
Considering that the casinos were asking favors of McShame at the time, I think this is a huge potential scandal that needs to be investigated.
October 10, 2008 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Reagan for Obama -- Must See TV!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqfedYAAGEI
October 10, 2008 9:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well Done! And that will grab some older viewers. I notice that about 1 in 10 individuals over 60 (based on the R2K internals) is now confused and undecided - having moved away from mcShame, but not yet convinced by Obama. Things like this might help that group.
October 10, 2008 10:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Does it make ANY sense at all that McCain is campaigning in WI and MN? Shouldn't he be in FL or OH or VA or NC where the races are relatively close? I thought these guys were supposed to be "geniuses" at winning campaigns.
October 10, 2008 9:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
I found the answer to why McCain is going there and Iowa. The Giuliani team is running his ground game and directing his moves. You can't make this stuff up!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-nickolas/will-giulianis-top-staff_b_133323.html
October 10, 2008 9:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
That would explain why they have no clue which states they should be campaigning in.
October 10, 2008 9:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow. Just wow.
October 10, 2008 9:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh no, McCain's now taking help from a campaign that spent $49 million and netted precisely one delegate. Might as well pack it in now, Obama's done.
October 10, 2008 9:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes I totally forgot that this guy had worked for Giuliani. But now it all makes sense. This is why (per politico) the Nevada Republicans are calling the McCain ground game a joke. Maybe they will sink all their resources in one loser state? Let's figure out which one will be--my vote is that they have an obsession with Iowa.
October 10, 2008 9:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
If the Guiliani team is running his ground game, shouldn't he be spending all his time in Florida?
October 10, 2008 9:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
And, why is Hillary in AR?
October 10, 2008 9:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fair question. I'd rather see her in West Virginia to lock in what look like some real gains there.
October 10, 2008 9:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Republicans are conceding this campaign, and every move they make from here on is done strictly to solidify their base to enable them to wage a political guerilla war over the next four years. They're going back to the Gingrich game plan of securing local positions from the board of education level on up. Their target is Obama and the Democrats. Expect harsh propaganda with little basis in fact and lots of Leni Riefenstahl type productions to play on the web and in B.P.O.E. halls around the country for the foreseeable future.
It's going to get uglier out there and much of the ugliness will be an appeal to the baser nature of the "disenfranchised" right.
October 10, 2008 10:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Also, they are making Pat Buchanan's 1992 cultural war speech look like it was soft. They will perish in their own hellfire.
October 10, 2008 11:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Other states can speak for themselves. But I feel like he came to WI to sully and tarnish it. Indeed, I feel dirty today because of what they did here yesterday.
October 10, 2008 10:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, it makes no sense at all. Look at the poll averages at pollster.com and realclearpolitics.com and the implied strategy is clear: mccain needs to defend the Bush states if he has any chance at winning.
right now he is running a june/july campaign; you test the blue states to see if you can steal one or two, you try to attack your opponents character, you solidify your policy proposals, you get your base charged up and you try to season your vp nominee to be able to help in the fall. Of course we are 3 1/2 weeks away and all of this is 4+ months too late.
it isn't like election day was a mystery
October 10, 2008 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama is not alone in believeing that Ayers had been rehabilitated.
William C. Ibershof, the lead prosecutor for the Weatherman case, says in a LTE to the NY Times today:
This letter screams for wider dissemination.
October 10, 2008 9:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Can someone get this guy in a commercial? A spot with talking directly to the camera about Ayers and why you can't possibly pin Obama to him would be pretty effective.
October 10, 2008 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
No one cares about Ayers except the sheeple who wouldn't have given Obama a second look anyway.
The country is tanking, the markets are "cratering" and the only reason McCain is obsessed with Ayers is because he's still trying to win the Vietnam war.
PEACE
October 10, 2008 9:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's not Ayers. It's that Ayers is being used to slime Obama, and erode his favorability ratings, namely trustworthiness. So far, Obama has done a good job responding to McCain's attacks and keeping him off balance himself, but it would be dangerous to ignore this and just assume nobody cares about it. They'll need to slap McCain harder, and make his own negatives stick.
October 10, 2008 9:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
And what's this crap actually doing? Eroding MCCAIN's favorability ratings. Not to worry.
October 10, 2008 9:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe the Obama campaign will spread it around shortly before next week's debate to take the wind out of McCain's sails.
October 10, 2008 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Looking at the polls out this morning the trend away from McCain and toward Obama seems to be growing. I guess it is pretty clear that the Ayers story is stirring up the basest of the base but turning off independents.
October 10, 2008 9:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
And turning off a fair number of Republicans as well. I have a friend who is a Republican judge in Kansas. He writes that this Ayers stuff and Palin's hate language just pushed him to Obama. First time in his 54 years that he's voting for a D! McCain won't have any friends in DC after this is over.
October 10, 2008 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Same with my 91 year old dad. His comment: "I don't want to waste my vote."
October 10, 2008 10:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
I know the perfect soundtrack for these ads, "Scatterbrain" by Jeff Beck. (Although Jeff Beck might object).
October 10, 2008 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Josh...any word on what Ambinder has posted over on his blog that says McCain's economic plan may actually be illegal and the provision in TARP that says it may be illegal is something MCCAIN SAYS HE PUSHED FOR?
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/is_mccains_plan_legal_under_ta.php
Again...he is contradicting himself. Oh, that John McCain: what will he think of next that he already disagreed with previously.
October 10, 2008 9:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
McCain is literally all over the place. The most damning part of this is the fact that the very thing that would make his plan illegal is the last minute change he made that would force taxpayers to allow lending intuitions to profit from their bad actions. That's devastating, both because of the waste aspect, and because of how much erratic McCain's policy positions are when he's trying to pander and satisfy lobbyists at the same time.
We'll hear more about this one. Probably in a upcoming Obama ad.
October 10, 2008 9:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Some conservatives must have jumped all over David Brooks for his remark earlier this week that Palin "is a cancer on the Republican party".
Today he reversed course and says in the NYT: "Palin is smart, politically skilled, courageous and likable."
October 10, 2008 9:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just like David. Oh so likable.
October 10, 2008 9:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Likable cancer . . . yeah, that works.
October 10, 2008 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Brooks' overlords allow him to write what he thinks about once a week, as long as he doesn't stray too far from the reservation. All other times, he dutifully and faithfully regurgitates the GOP talking points they deliver to him and does a decent job of pretending that he believes them.
October 10, 2008 9:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, he can't let that courageousness of his get worn out.
What a tool...
October 10, 2008 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
The man's sentences are so vapid. It's as if he writes them in air.
October 10, 2008 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
OT,,,,, check out this! Cook County sheriff refuses to anymore enforce eviction orders. http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-us&vid=a1ebf28f-c21a-4019-9c1a-9fb50ec30392&fg=rss
October 10, 2008 9:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
It seems the number of evictions in Chicago has doubled this year many were tenants in buildings that had been foreclosed. The tenants had been paying rent to the previous owner. Many didn't even know there was a foreclosure until the eviction notice. Several mortgage companies have a policy of clearing buildings after taking them back in a foreclosure. They evict all the tenants even those who have been paying. The Sheriff thinks the policy rains pain down on the innocent. He is morally right, but he is also legally wrong.
October 10, 2008 9:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, legally I understand he's going to be in some trouble.
Good for him, though, for doing something that will hopefully bring some attention to some of the (often) unacknowledged victims of this crisis.
October 10, 2008 9:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Did you happen to attend the debates at the Ga Natl. Fair last night?
October 10, 2008 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nope, sure didn't.
October 10, 2008 12:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wasn't sure...there was a gang bussed down from Atlanta for the Senate debate, but there was about 13 Democrats left for the 8th District one...thought you may have been one of them.
October 10, 2008 2:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Palin turns out to be a total sham (as most on sites like this knew right away), the personal attacks will not work and McCain is just going to become more and more superfluous to solving the major problems facing this great country of ours. I've said it before and I'll say it again: This is a sad and pathetic end to an otherwise unremarkable political career.
October 10, 2008 9:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think there'll be some interesting post-mortem analysis of just how important Sarah Palin is in McCain's campaign meltdown. It's a perfect hoist-by-your-own-petard tale: they brought her in hoping to charm everybody else into forgetting how disastrous things would be in charge, and then the McCain people got charmed by her and remodeled the campaign in her image: a pit bull with lipstick.
October 10, 2008 10:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's an interesting start on that post mortem: Palin's ascension shows GOP's lack of interest in governing. It looks like ambition and sloth are not mutually exclusive.
October 10, 2008 10:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't often criticize Barack's reactions to right-wing smears, but he needs to stop reacting to the Ayers stuff.
"I thought he was rehabilitated" to many people equates to "I am naive."
He should ONLY say "reprehensible" and "no connection" a thousand times over. Don't engage the issue any further than that.
October 10, 2008 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
That was my reaction as well.
October 10, 2008 9:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
How does that even make sense. At what point was it "convenient" for Obama to work with Ayers?
October 10, 2008 9:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
McCain's campaign is not being logical at all. Today he is once again in Wisconsin and later Minnesota and tomorrow he is going to Iowa where Obama has a lead.
Now they have embraced Ayers as 2008's boogie man.
October 10, 2008 9:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
i agree, very strange, but if he were to campaign in states that were up for grabs he would be in georgia, arkansas and montana...
October 10, 2008 9:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think what they're trying to do is now that they've chosen to go full hog at Ayers and the Boogieman Approach, they feel that states like Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota are places that a culture war will pay dividends (or at least force Obama to defend himself there, taking him out of Virginia and Florida).
They've got 25 days to throw Obama off his game. They have way more leaks in their dam than they can plug right now, so they're trying to poke some holes in Obama's cool any way possible.
October 10, 2008 10:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
WI, despite mcCarthy, has a long and proud tradition of civility. There may be some who felt happy about yesterday's rally footage in Waukesha, but I think the majority will shrink from tactics which leave the state sullied.
Obama yard signs are in very short supply here. And the placing of a new one is cause for general rejoicing. Yesterday, on the way back from the supermarket, one such sign was being placed on my street, with a small crowd watching. I honked as I went by. The lady placing the sign and I gave each other a thumbs up!
Change is coming. And the slime of a mcShame rally cannot dim the growing desire for change and unity here.
October 10, 2008 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
OT, but this is a must see speech. Richard Trumka on why you should vote for Obama no matter the color of his skin ... Very powerful, I actually got a little choked up.
http://www.usw.org/media_center/news_articles?id=0109
October 10, 2008 9:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
The dow went down 500 points in the 1st 5 minutes...Keep bringing up Ayers McCain, we dare you
October 10, 2008