IM2Fast4U2's Blog

Well, here's a run down on how the House voted on the bailout......

 

 

FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 681(Democrats in roman; Republicans in italic; Independents underlined)

      H R 1424      YEA-AND-NAY      3-Oct-2008      1:22 PM
      QUESTION:  On Motion to Concur in Senate Amendments
      BILL TITLE: Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008

Yeas Nays PRES NV Democratic 172 63     Republican 91 108     Independent         TOTALS 263 171    

---- YEAS    263 ---

Abercrombie
Ackerman
Alexander
Allen
Andrews
Arcuri
Baca
Bachus
Baird
Baldwin
Barrett (SC)
Bean
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Biggert
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blunt
Boehner
Bonner
Bono Mack
Boozman
Boren
Boswell
Boucher
Boustany
Boyd (FL)
Brady (PA)
Brady (TX)
Braley (IA)
Brown (SC)
Brown, Corrine
Buchanan
Calvert
Camp (MI)
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Cantor
Capps
Capuano
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carson
Castle
Clarke
Cleaver
Clyburn
Coble
Cohen
Cole (OK)
Conaway
Cooper
Costa
Cramer
Crenshaw
Crowley
Cubin
Cuellar
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
Davis, Tom
DeGette
DeLauro
Dent
Dicks
Dingell
Donnelly
Doyle
Dreier
Edwards (MD)
Edwards (TX)
Ehlers
Ellison
Ellsworth
Emanuel
Emerson
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Everett
Fallin
Farr
Fattah
Ferguson
Fossella
Foster
Frank (MA)
Frelinghuysen
Gerlach
Giffords
Gilchrest
Gonzalez
Gordon
Granger
Green, Al
Gutierrez
Hall (NY)
Hare
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Herger
Higgins
Hinojosa
Hirono
Hobson
Hoekstra
Holt
Honda
Hooley
Hoyer
Inglis (SC)
Israel
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Johnson, E. B.
Kanjorski
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind
King (NY)
Kirk
Klein (FL)
Kline (MN)
Knollenberg
Kuhl (NY)
LaHood
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (GA)
Lewis (KY)
Loebsack
Lofgren, Zoe
Lowey
Lungren, Daniel E.
Mahoney (FL)
Maloney (NY)
Markey
Marshall
Matsui
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum (MN)
McCrery
McGovern
McHugh
McKeon
McNerney
McNulty
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Melancon
Miller (NC)
Miller, Gary
Miller, George
Mitchell
Mollohan
Moore (KS)
Moore (WI)
Moran (VA)
Murphy (CT)
Murphy, Patrick
Murtha
Myrick
Nadler
Neal (MA)
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Pelosi
Perlmutter
Peterson (PA)
Pickering
Pomeroy
Porter
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Radanovich
Rahall
Ramstad
Rangel
Regula
Reyes
Reynolds
Richardson
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Ros-Lehtinen
Ross
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Ryan (WI)
Sarbanes
Saxton
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schmidt
Schwartz
Scott (GA)
Sessions
Sestak
Shadegg
Shays
Shuster
Simpson
Sires
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Solis
Souder
Space
Speier
Spratt
Sullivan
Sutton
Tancredo
Tanner
Tauscher
Terry
Thompson (CA)
Thornberry
Tiberi
Tierney
Towns
Tsongas
Upton
Van Hollen
Velázquez
Walden (OR)
Walsh (NY)
Wamp
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Welch (VT)
Weldon (FL)
Weller
Wexler
Wilson (NM)
Wilson (OH)
Wilson (SC)
Wolf
Woolsey
Wu
Yarmuth

---- NAYS    171 ---

Aderholt
Akin
Altmire
Bachmann
Barrow
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Becerra
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Blumenauer
Boyda (KS)
Broun (GA)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Burgess
Burton (IN)
Butterfield
Buyer
Capito
Carney
Carter
Castor
Cazayoux
Chabot
Chandler
Childers
Clay
Conyers
Costello
Courtney
Culberson
Davis (KY)
Davis, David
Davis, Lincoln
Deal (GA)
DeFazio
Delahunt
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Doggett
Doolittle
Drake
Duncan
English (PA)
Feeney
Filner
Flake
Forbes
Fortenberry
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gillibrand
Gingrey
Gohmert
Goode
Goodlatte
Graves
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Hall (TX)
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Heller
Hensarling
Herseth Sandlin
Hill
Hinchey
Hodes
Holden
Hulshof
Hunter
Inslee
Issa
Jefferson
Johnson (GA)
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Jordan
Kagen
Kaptur
Keller
King (IA)
Kingston
Kucinich
Lamborn
Lampson
Latham
LaTourette
Latta
Linder
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Lucas
Lynch
Mack
Manzullo
Marchant
Matheson
McCarthy (CA)
McCaul (TX)
McCotter
McDermott
McHenry
McIntyre
McMorris Rodgers
Mica
Michaud
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Moran (KS)
Murphy, Tim
Musgrave
Napolitano
Neugebauer
Nunes
Paul
Payne
Pearce
Pence
Peterson (MN)
Petri
Pitts
Platts
Poe
Price (GA)
Rehberg
Reichert
Renzi
Rodriguez
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Roskam
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Royce
Salazar
Sali
Sánchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Scalise
Scott (VA)
Sensenbrenner
Serrano
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Shimkus
Shuler
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Stark
Stearns
Stupak
Taylor
Thompson (MS)
Tiahrt
Turner
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Visclosky
Walberg
Walz (MN)
Westmoreland
Whitfield (KY)
Wittman (VA)
Young (AK)
Young (FL)

---

Of all the things that seem unfair about auto insurance, this is perhaps the worst: Infrequent drivers who log less than 5,000 miles a year, are charged roughly the same as long-distance commuters who cover 30,000 miles a year.

High-tech advances may end this inequity soon, but the cure could be worse than the disease – if it’s not carefully regulated. Occasional drivers will soon have a chance to lower their insurance rates, but only if they agree to extensive electronic tracking of their driving habits.

New gadgets installed in cars will be able to tell insurers how many miles drivers have logged, what times of the day they drive, and even how frequently they abruptly stop and start. Other incarnations of the technology involve GPS devices that can even tell insurers precisely where drivers have traveled, and if they obeyed local speed limits.

So-called "pay as you drive" auto insurance pricing has been in the works since 1988, when California state legislators passed sweeping insurance reform that required insurers to weigh actual miles driven when setting rates. Years of industry appeals and technological hurdles postponed the pay as you drive provisions of the law, but the stage was set in 2006 when the California Department of Insurance gave firms two years to submit proposals for compliance with the 1988 law. The deadline passed in July.

In the meantime, insurers around the country began asking consumers to volunteer mileage information, offering small discounts to occasional drivers. But the self-reporting system has obvious limitations, so the industry began exploring electronic mileage monitoring systems.

Now, Progressive Casualty Insurance Co. is poised to offer the first nationwide Pay As You Drive insurance plan, called MyRate. The program is already available in seven U.S. states – Alabama, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Michigan, New Jersey and Oregon.

Customers who sign up for MyRate get an immediate 5 to 10 percent discount and the promise of up to 25 percent reduction in exchange for installing a small electronic device under the hood of their car. There’s no guarantee of additional savings: In some markets, Progressive says it could raise rates up to 9 percent for drivers who log too many miles or engage in other risky behavior.

The device connects with the car's diagnostic computer through the OBD II port included in all cars since 1996. In earlier test versions, consumers had to download data from the gadget every six months and send it to Progressive, but now the device comes with an attached cell phone that "phones home" every day, said Richard Hutchinson, MyRate program manager.

(The Progressive gadget connects to the same auto computer that’s used by the ScanGauge device to help drivers optimize gas mileage. It was featured on MSNBC earlier this year)

Progressive’s electronic mileage tracking system -- formerly called TripSense -- has been under development since 1998. It does not include a GPS device and Progressive does not have access to location information, Hutchinson said. Auto insurance rates are impacted by only three criteria -- miles driven, time of day and abrupt stops and starts.

For example, drivers on the road from midnight to 5 a.m. -- the most dangerous time -- get dinged. Rush hour driving is considered moderately risky, while other times are the least risky, Hutchinson said. Having access to that information allows Progressive to more accurately price its risk, the company claims. But early feedback from consumers gave the firm a clear message that it must balance the need for more data and consumers’ privacy concerns, Hutchinson said.

"Their biggest concern is, ‘Do you know where my whereabouts? And so we've stayed away from the GPS," he said.

California-based Consumer Watchdog wants to make sure GPS or location-based information doesn't creep into any insurers' plans. It has lobbied the California Department of Insurance to make sure consumers won't be required to participate in location-based tracking. It wants insurance companies to offer low-tech alternatives for pay as you drive discounts, such as regular manual odometer inspections.

"We don’t have a problem with them knowing your mileage, it's the broader possibilities here," said Carmen Balber of Consumer Watchdog. The group objects to proposals that require anything beyond mileage data, including Progressive’s “time of day” tracking. “We think you should be able to give these discounts without putting people in a situation where they have to choose between a fair insurance rate and their privacy, Balber said.”

Balber compared insurance driving data collection to Easy Pass and other electronic toll payment mechanisms. Both store information about drivers that can end up being used as evidence in lawsuits or other legal actions, she said.

Balber also argued that while Progressive’s MyRate is an optional service, the firm offers automatic discounts to all participants, meaning those who don’t sign up will be forced to pay more.

But other analysts say mileage-based discounts will lower costs for the insurance industry as a whole, and most consumers will benefit. The programs also encourage motorists to drive fewer miles annually, reducing the number of accidents, pollution and national infrastructure costs, they say. A Brookings Institution report published earlier this year said nationwide implementation of pay as you drive insurance would result in savings of $52 billion – and low-mileage drivers would save an average of $256 each year. Of course, high-mileage drivers would pay more.

But the program has other, more subtle benefits, Hutchinson said. Drivers who sign up with MyRate get access to a Web site that lets them monitor their mileage usage and other driving habits. So far, consumers enjoy the service, he said, and they learn from it how to reduce their insurance bill and lower their risk of having an accident.

About one-third of customers who are offered the MyRate plan chose it, Hutchinson said.

Of course, some customers do find the service a little unnerving.

"A minority (or our customers) is philosophically opposed to this tracking behavior and our response to that is ‘fine,’" he said. The firms plans to keep MyRate voluntary and be clear about what it’s doing with all the data it collects. “We want people to be comfortable with what we’re doing. We believe in complete transparency,” Hutchinson said.

Read msnbc.com's special report, Privacy Lost

So far, GMAC Insurance is the only other insurer to announce plans for a major low-mileage discount based on electronic tracking. GMAC uses the OnStar system to track miles driven, and offers discounts to drives who log less than 15,000 miles per year.

Other insurance firms are in various stages of testing (for more information see a detailed analysis at Insure.com)

But with California regulators forcing the issue – the state’s requirements will be finalized next year – mileage tracking devices will likely be available to most drivers very soon.

Gallup Daily: McCain’s Bounce Gives Him 5-Point Lead Leads Obama 49%-44% in first results conducted fully after GOP convention

PRINCETON, NJ -- John McCain leads Barack Obama, 49% to 44%, in the immediate aftermath of the Republican National Convention, according to the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking results.

These results are based on Sept. 5-7 interviewing, and are the first in which all interviews were conducted following the completion of the GOP convention. Immediately prior to the convention's Sept. 1 start, Aug. 29-31 interviewing showed McCain with 43% support among registered voters, compared with 49% today. Thus, Gallup credits McCain with a six-point convention bounce.

That is slightly better than Barack Obama's four-point bounce from 45% in Aug. 22-24 polling before the Democratic National Convention started to 49% immediately after it concluded. Since 1964, the typical convention bounce has been five percentage points.

The net effect of the GOP convention bounce is that McCain has moved from a trailing position as the convention was getting underway (49% Obama, 43% McCain) to a leading position (49% McCain, 44% Obama).

McCain's current 49% share of the vote is his best performance in Gallup tracking to date. His five-point lead is his best since early May, when he led Obama by six points (48% to 42%). Obama has led throughout much of the campaign, and has led nearly all of the time since he clinched the Democratic nomination in early June. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.)

McCain has led Obama in each of the three individual nights' data comprising today's three-day rolling average, but the real question is whether he can sustain the lead as voter excitement around the convention fades. Since 1964, the first election year for which Gallup could reliably measure convention bounces, there have been only two examples in which one candidate consistently trailed until the time of his party's convention, but took the lead after and never relinquished it. Those occurred in 1988 for the elder George Bush and 1992 for Bill Clinton.

But there are also examples where a consistently trailing candidate took the lead after his party's convention, but later relinquished it -- Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Al Gore in 2000.

The most common pattern has been for one candidate to consistently lead prior to both conventions, and to maintain a lead during the convention period, even if his opponent got a convention bounce.

There is potential for further movement in the campaign, most notably with three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate scheduled for late September through mid-October, in addition to the intensive day-to-day campaigning between now and Election Day. -- Jeff Jones

(Click here to see how the race currently breaks down by demographic subgroup.)

Survey Methods

For the Gallup Poll Daily tracking survey, Gallup is interviewing no fewer than 1,000 U.S. adults nationwide each day during 2008.

The general-election results are based on combined data from Sept. 5-7, 2008. For results based on this sample of 2,733 registered voters, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±2 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

Barack Obama — Magna Cum Saudi?

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 9/5/2008

Election '08: Does Barack Obama owe his meteoric rise to an Israeli-hating adviser to a Saudi billionaire? Why did a race-baiting mentor to the Black Panthers favor this yet unknown community organizer?

In her stunning national political debut as the Republican candidate for vice president, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin described Obama as a man who had written two memoirs but no significant laws or reforms. So how did this unaccomplished community organizer rise to fame and fortune? He had some interesting help.

We know he's a Harvard graduate and was editor of the Harvard Law Review. Less known is the story of how he got into the prestigious Ivy League university. As Newsmax's Kenneth Timmerman reports, he was helped by a letter written by Percy Sutton, former Manhattan borough president and a credible candidate for mayor of New York in 1977.

In an interview earlier this year on New York's all-news cable channel NY1, the 88-year-old Sutton made some interesting revelations about his relationship with the young Obama. He told NY1 reporter Dominic Carter on "Inside City Hall" that he was introduced to Obama by a friend raising money for him. The friend asked Sutton to write a letter in support of Obama's application to Harvard law school.

"The friend's name is Dr. Khalid al-Mansour, from Texas," Sutton said. "He is the principal adviser to one of the world's richest men. He told me about Obama."

Sutton recalled that al-Mansour said, "There is a young man that has applied to Harvard. I know that you have a few friends up there because you used to go up there to speak. Would you please write a letter in support of him?" Sutton did.

According to Timmerman, "At the time Percy Sutton, a former lawyer for Malcolm X and a former business partner of al-Mansour, says he (al-Mansour) was raising money for Obama's graduate school education (and) al-Mansour was representing top members of the Saudi Royal family seeking to do business and exert influence in the United States."

One of those Saudi royals was Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a nephew of Saudi King Abdullah. He was the Saudi prince who offered to donate $10 million to help New York rebuild after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. After the prince publicly suggested (as Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright, did recently) that U.S. policies brought on the attacks, then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani told Prince Alwaleed where he could deposit his check.

Dr. Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansour, born Donald Warden, is another interesting fellow from Obama's past. He himself is a graduate of Harvard and has been a guest lecturer there. His writings and statements reveal him to be an ideological clone of the Rev. Wright, who married Barack and Michelle and baptized their children.

In his 1995 book, "The Lost Books of Africa Rediscovered," al-Monsour alleged that America was plotting genocide against black Americans. The first "genocide against the black man began 300 years ago," he said at a book-signing in Harlem, while a second "genocide" was on the way "to remove 15 million black people, considered disposable, of no relevance, value or benefit to the American society."

Al-Mansour told an audience in South Africa that "the Palestinians are treated like savages," something our worst ex-president, Jimmy Carter, as well as Wright might agree with. He has accused Israeli Jews of "stealing the land the same way the Christians stole the land from the Indians in America."

When he was known as Donald Warden, according to the Social Activism Project at the University of California at Berkeley, al-Monsour was the mentor of Black Panther Party founder Huey Newton and his associate, Bobby Seale.

California Congresswoman Barbara Lee entered an official statement of appreciation of Warden and his Black Panther colleagues for their role in founding a radical group known as the African-American Association into the Congressional Record of April 23, 2007.

What did this radical extremist see in young Barack Obama that he would seek to sponsor and perhaps finance Obama's education? Obama says he paid his way solely through student loans. How did they meet? Where did the money he raised come from? Now that we know who the father of Bristol Palin's baby is, maybe the mainstream media will have time to find out.

Investor's Business Daily

Posted Monday, September 08, 2008 11:25 AM So Who's Winning This Thing? Andrew Romano

Forget my conversation with the sardonic, Southern-fried Fred Thompson. Forget my coverage of the gassy St. Paul protests. And forget my behind-the-scenes profile of the man who's prepping Sarah Palin for the spotlight. When I returned to New York from Minnesota last week, I discovered over the course of dozens of conversations with actual human beings that there's only one question on the minds of people who aren't paid to obsess over Election 2008: So who's going to win this thing?

Never mind that my business card says "reporter" and not "Nostradamus." When I gave an honest answer--"I have no idea"*--people pounced. "What do you mean you have no idea?" they said. "You've been covering this stuff for, like, a year." They had a point. So instead of avoiding the question, I've decided to launch Stumper's postconvention coverage with an in-depth look at where the race stands right now. Because while polls are terrible at predicting what will happen two months hence, they're actually pretty good at showing how people would vote if the election were held today. (After all, that is the question pollsters ask their victims.) And judging by the latest stats, the race has reached its most interesting and perplexing point since... well, ever.

From the end of the primary season on June 3 until the shortly before the start of the Democratic Convention late last month, the Real Clear Politics average--a blend of the most recent half dozen or so national match-ups between Barack Obama and John McCain--told an essentially static story: despite never breaking the magical 50 percent mark, Obama led McCain by a steady three to six points for months. But two back-to-back conventions--which typically mark the point when the public begins to pay attention--have scrambled those jets. After arriving in Denver tied with McCain for the first time since late May--45.1 percent for Obama to 43.9 percent for McCain--Obama appeared to depart with a five-point boost. By Sept. 2, in fact, he was ahead of McCain 49.2 to 42.8--his largest share of the vote to date and his widest average lead (at 6.4 percent) since late June. Now, however, that lead has been neutralized. With the festivities in St. Paul finally finished, the race has reverted to a tie--46.7 to 45.5. Only this time it's McCain who has the advantage in the RCP average--his first since Hillary Clinton hung up her spurs.

In other words, McCain--yes, that McCain--is winning, at least on a national level.

Should Obamans be worried? Absolutely. But that's not because the latest polls have revealed something shocking about the election. Instead, the new numbers simply confirm what expert observers knew all along--that the race would get really, really close once the public finally tuned in. And before you Democrats start shopping for cyanide--and/or before you Republicans start booking rooms for Mac's inaugural bash--there are three caveats to consider.

First, while McCain's convention bump is real, it's far too early to tell whether he's actually ahead of Obama. That's because the Real Clear Politics average includes one poll--the new USA Today/Gallup--that shows something dramatically different from the rest of the post-convention surveys: McCain leading 54 percent to 44 percent, the largest edge for either candidate since Obama mounted a few double-digit margins in mid-June. Given that the two other soundings taken over the same time period resulted in a dead heat--Rasmussen, 48-47; CNN/ORC, 48-48--it's prudent, for now, to assume that Gallup is a bit of an outlier until other polls confirm its 10-point split.

The second caveat relates to the reason why Gallup shows such a wide margin. While most polling outfits at this stage focus solely on registered voters (i.e., anyone who answers the phone and is registered to vote), Gallup has also turned its attention to likely voters (i.e., respondents most likely to show up on Election Day, according to "how much thought [they] have given to the election, how often they say they vote and whether they plan to vote in the election in November"). Screening for likely voters is tricky business, especially this year. For starters, the old screening models--which tend to favor tried-and-true Republican demographics--may not apply to an election in which Team Obama is investing massive resources in turning out subgroups (young people, African-Americans) traditionally underrepresented at the polls. But the more important thing to remember is that shifts in the likely voter pool correspond to fluctuation in voter enthusiasm--and thus, according to statistical studies, vastly "exaggerate the volatility of voter preferences."

Here's the deal. Thanks to Sarah Palin and the party in St. Paul, "there has been a very substantial jump in the percentage of Republicans saying they are more enthusiastic about voting in this election, from 42% a week ago (after the Democratic convention, but before the Republican convention) to 60% today," according to Gallup--a leap that has narrowed the "enthusiasm gap" between the parties from "19 points in the Democrats' favor a week ago to only seven points today." Gallup credits McCain's newfound national lead to this burst of enthusiasm. But the problem is that while the GOP's joviality is an important development--it means that McCain will have an easier time turning out his base in November--revved-up Republicans only account for about 45 percent of the electorate. That's not nearly enough people to boost McCain to an actual 10-point lead. What a group that size can do, however--especially when they get excited--is skew Gallup's assessment of who's likely to vote further to the right than usual. And that, according to polling expert Nate Silver, is exactly what they've done: "Republicans, especially evangelical conservatives, are pumped now, after having been indifferent toward John McCain for most of the election cycle. They may be picking up the phone when a pollster calls [where] they had been screening out the call before, perhaps to the extent that they are biasing the sample." Case in point: the same Gallup poll shows McCain ahead 50 percent to 46 percent among registered voters--i.e., everyone Gallup called, as opposed to only the ones who expressed extreme enthusiasm. That's probably the more accurate result.

Our final caveat? Presidential election are fought on a state-by-state basis--not in the national polls. Here, the picture doesn't look quite as rosy for McCain. According to Real Clear Politics, Obama currently leads in each of John Kerry's 2004 states, including top McCain targets Michigan (+4.3 percent), New Hampshire (+0.3 percent), Pennsylvania (+5.0 percent) and Wisconsin (+7.2 percent).  He also leads by healthy margins in a pair of Bush states: New Mexico (+4.3 percent) and Iowa (+9.0 percent). If Obama can hold these advantages until Election Day, he'll wind up with at least 263 electoral votes--seven shy of victory. That's where the red states of Virginia and Colorado come in. At this point, Obama's leading in the latter (+0.4 percent) and tied in the former. Win either one and the White House is his. At this point, RCP gives the Democrat 273 EVs (Colorado, no Virginia) to McCain's 265; the prediction whizzes at FiveThirtyEight.com are even more optimistic, projecting additional Obama victories in Virginia and Ohio for a final score of 304 to 234. Which means that while McCain is "winning" nationally, Obama is ahead in the electoral college.

That said, we should probably add one more caveat to the list: no battleground state polls have been released since the second day of the Republican Convention. If the national surveys are right and McCain has in fact received a five-point post-St. Paul bounce, that enthusiasm will almost certainly trickle down. That means that Obama's narrow leads in New Hampshire and Colorado could vanish, and that McCain could pull ahead in Virginia. Palin has already taken Alaska and Georgia (evangelicals) off of Obama's wish list and put Wisconsin, Oregon and Washington--implausibly--on McCain's. If the post-convention state polls fluctuate as much as their national counterparts have, we'll be right back where we began:

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Ten days ago, Sen. Joe Biden was the most brilliant vice presidential pick imaginable. He was going to add the experience and foreign policy credential that Sen. Barack Obama's thin resume was missing.

The so-called expert commentators were arguing that blue-collar Joe was going to guarantee Pennsylvania (because he was born in Scranton) and other states and get Catholic voters because he is a pro-choice Catholic.

I guess they forgot that Joe didn't do so well with Iowa Catholics (23 percent of the population) when he campaigned there for more than a year in the Democratic caucus race. But then getting less than 1 percent of the vote and coming in fifth place showed he didn't do real well with any voter group in Iowa. Nor did he do well anywhere else, other than Delaware.

Then, after Sen. John McCain chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, people laughed and said Biden was going to wipe the floor with Palin in the vice presidential debate. Now, after her incredible convention speech, Biden is saying that he's the underdog because he's not a very good debater.

If Obama had done the smart thing, he would have picked Sen. Hillary Clinton for vice president. If he had, he would have united his party for sure and energized his base.

He just couldn't do it and maybe thought he didn't need to do it. He was wrong. That choice would have meant that McCain probably wouldn't have picked Palin. And if McCain had picked anybody else from his shortlist, the Republican convention would have been boring, and the party's base would not have been motivated.

The one thing we know for sure -- the selection of Biden did the least to enhance any ticket since George H.W. Bush picked Dan Quayle back in 1988. This is turning out to be another election the Democrats were convinced they couldn't lose. So far, the selection of Palin has been a game-changer and has energized my party like no one since Ronald Reagan did four decades ago.

The polls are back to even again. The only difference is the Republicans now have a communicator to match Obama and the Democrats have on their ticket an older veteran of Washington politics to match McCain's experience. The reformer Obama who was going to be the candidate of change is now running with Mr. D.C. establishment.

McCain, the maverick who is surrounded and advised by the D.C. establishment, has somehow picked the real reformer who has altered the Alaska political landscape by throwing out the establishment "good old boys" of both parties.

The tens of millions of Americans who watched on television got a visual view of who makes up the two parties (or at least the delegates). The Democrats had many people of color, women, union members, young and energetic folks dressed casually and having a great time: crying, yelling, cheering, singing, dancing. Many are the workers and teachers and organizers who want change.

Republicans were older, overwhelmingly white, men and women (many as old as me) and some young who looked old, in silly outfits or suits and ties with fancy jewelry and big hair, cheering, yelling, crying and trying to dance and also having a great time. They are the businessmen and the producers (who have much to protect) and through their efforts have made America a better place.

I saw more Veterans of Foreign Wars hats and political buttons from past conventions than I thought still existed. And God love them all, the Democrats and Republicans for still participating and enjoying it. But they each represent different Americas and very different ideologies. And though they don't define it the same, they both want change. iReport.com: Are you still undecided? Tell us why

Judging only from the rhetoric of the conventions, I don't know what either party really wants other than the big house that sits at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Both are going to cut taxes; both are going to have new programs.

By the end of McCain's speech, he was arguing we all need to do something meaningful with our lives to make our country a better place: to become a teacher, join the military, enter the ministry, feed a hungry child, teach an illiterate to read or run for public office. (Just what we need, more candidates.) These were all admirable suggestions, but the speech was the occasion when he was supposed to show the difference electing him would make.

In the end, these conventions became the telling of compelling stories of the lives of the four candidates on the two tickets. All have lived the American dream and have overcome a lot to get to where they are.

But what we want to know in the coming weeks is this -- how do we move forward an economy on the brink, end a war and reassure uncertain Americans who feel their lives are not going to get better until someone leads us out of this mess.

That's the challenge to both tickets today. There are eight weeks left to make the sale.

And so far not enough voters are buying either product.

By Ed Rollins
CNN Contributor

Poll: McCain takes lead from Obama The Associated Press ASSOCIATED PRESS
Originally published 11:41 p.m., September 7, 2008, updated 11:16 p.m., September 7, 2008

THE RACE: The presidential race nationally.

___

THE NUMBERS

John McCain, 50 percent

Barack Obama, 46 percent

___

OF INTEREST:

McCain got a substantial bounce coming out of the Republican National Convention, overcoming a 7-percentage-point lead held by Obama before the convention began in St. Paul, Minn., last week. The addition of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to the Republican ticket led 29 percent of voters to say they were more likely to vote for McCain, while 21 percent said they were less likely.

___

The USA Today-Gallup Poll was conducted from Sept. 5-7 and involved telephone interviews with 1,022 adults, including 959 registered voters. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Obama's verbal slip fuels his critics Christina Bellantoni (Contact)
Sunday, September 7, 2008

ST. LOUIS, Mo. - Sen. Barack Obama's foes seized Sunday upon a brief slip of the tongue, when the Democratic presidential nominee was outlining his Christianity but accidentally said, "my Muslim faith."

The three words -- immediately corrected -- were during an exchange with ABC's George Stephanopoulos on "This Week," when he was trying to criticize the quiet smear campaign suggesting he is a Muslim.

But illustrating the difficulty of preventing false rumors about his faith from spreading, anti-Obama groups within one hour of the interview had sliced it out of context and were sending it around via email. They also were blogging about it.

Mr. Obama, who is a Christian and often proudly speaks about how his faith has influenced his public service, said he finds it "deeply offensive" that there are efforts "coming out of the Republican camp to suggest that perhaps I'm not who I say I am when it comes to my faith."

The exchange came after Mr. Obama said that Republicans are attempting to scare voters by suggesting he is not Christian, which McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said was "cynical."

Asked about it on ABC, Mr. Obama said, "These guys love to throw a rock and hide their hand."

"The McCain campaign has never suggested you have Muslim connections," said Mr. Stephanopoulos, who repeatedly interrupted Mr. Obama during the interview.

"I don't think that when you look at what is being promulgated on Fox News, let's say, and Republican commentators who are closely allied to these folks," Mr Obama responded, and Mr. Stephanopoulos interrupted: "But John McCain said that's wrong."

Mr. Obama noted that when Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin "was forced" to talk about her pregnant 17-year-old daughter, he issued a forceful statement to reporters that the line of inquiry was "off limits." But he said the McCain campaign tried to tie him to "liberal blogs that support Obama" and are "attacking Governor Palin."

"Let's not play games," he said. "What I was suggesting -- you're absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith. And you're absolutely right that that has not come."

Mr. Stephanopoulos interrupted with, "Christian faith."

"My Christian faith," Mr. Obama said quickly. "Well, what I'm saying is that he hasn't suggested that I'm a Muslim. And I think that his campaign's upper echelons have not, either. What I think is fair to say is that, coming out of the Republican camp, there have been efforts to suggest that perhaps I'm not who I say I am when it comes to my faith -- something which I find deeply offensive, and that has been going on for a pretty long time."

Asked to comment on the accidental misstatement illustrating the difficulty of the issue, Obama spokesman Bill Burton offered this comment: "I'm not surprised that the only outlet doing this story is The Washington Times."

You can view the full context of Mr. Obama's comments on ABC here.

SPECIAL-INTEREST JOE

September 7, 2008

If Barack Obama really wants to fix "the broken politics of Washington," he could start with his running mate, Beltway insider Joe Biden.

Indeed, the Delaware senator's Capitol Hill seniority has proven to be a dividend to his family - including his son, Hunter, a multimillion-dollar DC lobbyist.

As The Los Angeles Times reported, Hunter Biden and his uncle - Joe Biden's brother - got $2 million in financing (to buy a premium hedge fund) from a law firm that has lobbied the senator's office on a key bill, and benefited nicely from Biden's vote.

That firm, SimmonsCooper - one of the nation's leading tort-law firms - used as its local counsel in Delaware a law firm whose partners included another Biden son, Beau, who'd obtained the contract.

SimmonsCooper and the Biden family are old friends, the paper reports.

The firm and its employees have given more than $200,000 to Joe Biden's campaigns - his largest contributor. Biden is the biggest recipient of SimmonsCooper's largesse.

Those donations began after Biden fought efforts by the asbestos industry to get lawsuits against it out of court by creating a trust fund to handle mesothelioma claims. SimmonsCooper spent $6.4 million lobbying senators, including Biden, to kill the plan.

(Biden, by the way, is one of DC's strongest supporters of the trial-lawyer industry - and his position as chairman of the Judiciary Committee is critical to the tort bar. Think of him as Washington's Shelly Silver.)

In introducing Biden as his running-mate, Obama declared: "Washington hasn't changed him." Maybe not - but is he a guy who'll change Washington?

Obama, Biden's Son Linked by Earmarks
Candidate Got Funding for Nursing Program

By James V. Grimaldi and Kimberly Kindy
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 27, 2008; A16

 

Sen. Barack Obama sought more than $3.4 million in congressional earmarks for clients of the lobbyist son of his Democratic running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, records show. Obama succeeded in getting $192,000 for one of the clients, St. Xavier University in suburban Chicago.

Obama's campaign has taken a hard stance against the world of lobbying in the nation's capital. Obama said he limits his own efforts to get money for pet projects -- a process known as earmarking -- to those that benefit the public. He has posted his earmark requests on his presidential campaign Web site to encourage transparency.

Since Obama announced his selection of Biden on Saturday, attention has focused on Biden's lobbying connections as well as his son's lobbying activities. R. Hunter Biden is one of many relatives of members of Congress who work as lobbyists.

The younger Biden started his career as a lobbyist in 2001 and has registered to represent about 21 clients that have brought in $3.5 million to his Washington firm, according to lobbying disclosure forms.

Sen. Biden has collected more than $6.9 million in campaign contributions from lobbyists and lawyers since 1989, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

A spokesman for the Obama campaign said that Hunter Biden himself has never lobbied his father. Another lobbyist in the firm successfully sought an earmark from the senator for the University of Delaware. But Hunter did not work on the account, the spokesman said.

Campaign spokesman David Wade also said Hunter Biden never appealed directly to Obama.

"Hunter Biden met with the Obama Senate office, not with Senator Obama," Wade said. "It's hardly surprising that a Senator from Illinois would fight for investments in Mercy Hospital, Thorek Hospital and St. Xavier University right in Illinois, or that he'd be joined in that effort by a Republican colleague, Representative Judy Biggert."

Hunter Biden, a 38-year-old Georgetown graduate and Yale-trained lawyer, is a name partner in the firm Oldaker, Biden & Belair, founded by William Oldaker, an election lawyer and lobbyist who worked on Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's 1980 presidential campaign and has been a fundraiser and campaign adviser for Sen. Biden.

An analysis for The Washington Post by Taxpayers for Common Sense of Hunter Biden's firm's lobbying business found that its clients collected $2.7 million in earmarks in the last fiscal year.

One of those clients was St. Xavier University, a four-year, 5,600-student institution run by the Roman Catholic Sisters of Mercy in Orland Park, Ill. Steve Murphy, vice president for university advancement, said Hunter Biden approached him in 2005 offering to secure congressional earmarks.

Hunter Biden and his colleague, Eric Schwerin, told Murphy they were "working with a number of clients, institutions like yours, and we would like to help you identify earmarks, federal support and grants."

Murphy said he found Biden's parentage a selling point. Murphy then accompanied Biden to the offices of the Illinois delegation, including Obama's.

Obama requested $1.4 million for St. Xavier, including $900,000 to establish an early-childhood teacher training center "to meet the demand in the southwest Chicago metropolitan area," according to a news release on the Web site of Obama's Senate office. Obama requested the early-childhood money in both 2006 and 2007.

Obama also in June 2007 sought $500,000 for a skills laboratory for St. Xavier's nursing school, which has one of the largest nursing programs in the state.

In the end, Obama's $1.4 million in requests resulted in $192,000 for the nursing facility.

Murphy said that a big selling point was the diversity of the nursing students, who often ended up working in communities where nurses were in shortage.

"Two years ago, we graduated more African American and Hispanic nurses than any private college in the state of Illinois," Murphy said. "I'm not at all apologetic that we asked for federal support for huge health-care needs of this growing community."

Since Hunter Biden signed St. Xavier as a client in December 2005, the firm has earned $320,000 from the university.

In 2006, Obama also asked for $2 million for a cancer research treatment center at Chicago's Thorek Memorial Hospital, according to an Obama letter requesting the money posted on Obama's campaign Web site. Hunter Biden was the registered lobbyist and his firm was paid $120,000 for representing Thorek, which has not received funding.

Obama's spokesman also acknowledged lobbying for Mercy Hospital, another client of Hunter Biden.

In addition to his work for universities, Hunter Biden has done consulting work for MBNA, the largest employer in Delaware.

From 2001 to 2005, Hunter was paid an undisclosed amount by the credit card giant, which has since been purchased by Bank of America. It has been widely reported that he received $100,000 a year.

At the time, Sen. Biden led a successful, high-profile battle in the Senate for a bankruptcy bill that ultimately benefited credit card companies. The law makes it more difficult for people to file for personal bankruptcy protection under Chapter 7.

"He was a crucial supporter of the law in that he paved the way for other Democrats to support it," said Travis Plunkett, legislative director of the Consumer Foundation of America, a consumer group that opposed the bill. "Senator Biden provided a lot of political cover for the credit card industry because they wanted to show that the proposal had bipartisan support. He aggressively undermined the opposition to the bill."

Over the past two decades, MBNA employees have given more than $200,000 to Biden's Senate campaigns, more than workers from any other company.

Wade said Hunter Biden was hired by MBNA after working as a Commerce Department lawyer on Internet privacy and online commerce issues. "Hunter consulted for five years as an expert on these very same issues at a time of enormous expansion in online banking," Wade said. "He was never a lobbyist for MBNA, and his work had absolutely nothing to do with the bankruptcy bill. Zero. Nothing."

Hunter Biden also lobbied for Napster, the music-sharing Web site that ran afoul of intellectual-property laws. Sen. Biden at the time was a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees laws governing intellectual-property rights.

Wade said Hunter Biden is careful not to approach his father when lobbying. Wade said the younger Biden does not share in revenue of other partners, so he does not directly benefit from their activities.

When he introduced him as his running mate, Obama said of Biden: "He has brought change to Washington, but Washington hasn't changed him." But Republicans quickly attacked Biden's connections to lobbyists.

"While Barack Obama decries Washington insiders and says that he detests lobbyists, Joe Biden is the model Washington insider with numerous connections to lobbyists and special interests," Republican National Committee spokesman Danny Diaz said."

Research editor Alice Crites and database editor Sarah Cohen contributed to this report.

When Barack's berserkers lost the plot....

Nick Cohen

Sunday September 7 2008

My colleagues in the American liberal press had little to fear at the start of the week. Their charismatic candidate was ahead in virtually every poll. George W Bush was so unpopular that conservatives were scrambling around for reasons not to invite the Republican President to the Republican convention. Democrats had only to maintain their composure and the White House would be theirs. During the 1997 British general election, the late Lord Jenkins said that Tony Blair was like a man walking down a shiny corridor carrying a precious vase. He was the favourite and held his fate in his hands. If he could just reach the end of the hall without a slip, a Labour victory was assured. The same could have been said of the American Democrats last week. But instead of protecting their precious advantage, they succumbed to a spasm of hatred and threw the vase, the crockery, the cutlery and the kitchen sink at an obscure politician from Alaska.

For once, the postmodern theories so many of them were taught at university are a help to the rest of us. As a Christian, conservative anti-abortionist who proved her support for the Iraq War by sending her son to fight in it, Sarah Palin was 'the other' - the threatening alien presence they defined themselves against. They might have soberly examined her reputation as an opponent of political corruption to see if she was truly the reformer she claimed to be. They might have gently mocked her idiotic creationism, while carefully avoiding all discussion of the racist conspiracy theories of Barack Obama's church.

But instead of following a measured strategy, they went berserk. On the one hand, the media treated her as a sex object. The New York Times led the way in painting Palin as a glamour-puss in go-go boots you were more likely to find in an Anchorage lap-dancing club than the Alaska governor's office.

On the other, liberal journalists turned her family into an object of sexual disgust: inbred rednecks who had stumbled out of Deliverance. Palin was meant to be pretending that a handicapped baby girl was her child when really it was her wanton teenage daughter's. When that turned out to be a lie, the media replaced it with prurient coverage of her teenage daughter, who was, after all, pregnant, even though her mother was not going to do a quick handover at the maternity ward and act as if the child was hers.

Hatred is the most powerful emotion in politics. At present, American liberals are not fighting for an Obama presidency. I suspect that most have only the haziest idea of what it would mean for their country. The slogans that move their hearts and stir their souls are directed against their enemies: Bush, the neo-cons, the religious right.

In this, American liberals are no different from the politically committed the world over. David Cameron knew that he would never be Prime Minister until he had killed the urgent hatred of the Conservative party in liberal England. A measure of his success is that hardly anyone now is caught up by the once ubiquitous feeling that no compromise is too great if it stops the Tories regaining power. Hate can sell better than hope.

When a hate campaign goes wrong, however, disaster follows. And everything that could go wrong with the campaign against Palin did. American liberals forgot that the public did not know her. By the time she spoke at the Republican convention, journalists had so lowered expectations that a run-of-the-mill speech would have been enough to win the evening.

As it was, her family appeared on stage without a goitre or a club foot between them, and Palin made a fighting speech that appealed over the heads of reporters to the public we claim to represent. 'I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion,' she said as she deftly detached journalists from their readers and viewers. 'I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country.'

English leftists made the same mistake of allowing their hatred to override their judgment after the Iraq war. If they had confined themselves to charging Tony Blair with failing to find the weapons of mass destruction he promised were in Iraq, and sending British troops into a quagmire, they might have forced him out. They were so consumed by loathing, however, they insisted that he had lied, which he clearly had not. They set the bar too low and Blair jumped it with ease. 'When a man believes that any stick will do, he at once picks up a boomerang,' said GK Chesterton, and when the politically committed go on a berserker you should listen for the sound of their own principles smacking them in the face.

Journalists who believe in women's equality should not spread sexual smears about a candidate, or sBOOGEDY at her teenage daughter's pregnancy, or declare that a mother with a young family cannot hold down a responsible job for the pragmatic reason that they will look like gross hypocrites if they do. Before Palin, we saw hypocrisy of the right when shock jocks who had spent years denouncing feminism came over all politically correct when Bill Clinton had an affair with Monica Lewinsky.

In Britain, the most snobbish attacks on Margaret Thatcher did not come from aristocrats but from the communist historian Eric Hobsbawm, who opined that Thatcherism was the 'anarchism of the lower middle classes' and the liberal Jonathan Miller, who deplored her 'odious suburban gentility'. More recently, George Osborne, of the supposedly compassionate Conservative party, revealed himself to be a playground bully when he derided Gordon Brown for being 'faintly autistic'.

In an age when politics is choreographed, voters watch out for the moments when the public-relations facade breaks down and venom pours through the cracks. Their judgment is rarely favourable when it does. Barack Obama knows it. All last week, he was warning American liberals to stay away from the Palin family. He understands better than his supporters that it is not a politician's enemies who lose elections, but his friends.

Inhofe says patriotism question will sink Obama

by: JIM MYERS World Washington Bureau
9/6/2008  12:00 AM

ST. PAUL, Minn. — U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe predicted voters' uncertainty over whether Barack Obama really loves his country will help Republicans win the White House again in November.


Inhofe made his comments at a breakfast for the state party's delegation earlier this week at the Republican National Convention.

"I have no doubt in my mind that we are going to win this election, the presidency and vice presidency," the Oklahoma Republican said.

Inhofe recalled Obama's recent trip overseas.

"He had nothing but positive media all the time, and then he goes into their convention and comes out of the convention without a lead,'' he said.

"That's unheard of."

Regardless of what polls show, Inhofe said, voters will have to ask themselves a question once they get behind the curtain in the voting booth on Election Day.

"Do you really want to have a guy as commander in chief of this country when you can question whether or not he really loves his country?" he asked.

"That's the big question.''

Shannon Gilson, spokeswoman for Obama, said Friday that he has a plan to strengthen the economy and offer immediate relief to working families, while Republican nominee John McCain and his Washington friends such as Inhofe are offering four more years of President Bush's failed economic policies.


After he was asked for an explanation on why voters should question Obama's love for his country, Inhofe issued a written statement on Friday to clarify his earlier comments.

"Let me be clear,'' he said.

"I am not questioning Sen. Obama's patriotism, but you have to question why at times he seems so obviously opposed to public displays of patriotism and national pride, like wearing an American flag lapel pin.''

Inhofe said Americans can show pride in their country in different ways but suggested all should be straightforward.

Will Missouri choose US winner again?

Residents of the US state of Missouri have since 1904 (with one exception) voted for the winning presidential candidate. As the 2008 elections draw closer, the BBC's Robin Lustig travels there to sample the views of the population.

"If you ever plan to motor west, travel my way, take the highway that is best. Get your kicks on Route 66."

So sang Nat King Cole back in the 1940s, and this week I've been partially retracing his steps - not all the way from Chicago to Los Angeles, which was the original Route 66, but from Chicago as far as Rolla, Missouri, which according to a giant sign on the outskirts of town is "the centre of everywhere".

Only 16,000 people live in Rolla, but its claim to fame is that it is pretty much the exact population centre of the United States.

What that means is that the same number of people live between here and Canada as between here and Mexico; and the same number between here and the Pacific as between here and the Atlantic.

So it truly is the middle of middle America.

So where better to sample the views of middle Americans as the 2008 presidential election campaign enters its final phase?

That's why we gathered a group of them together at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, assembled an invited panel including two local members of Congress, and let them fire away.

The voters of Missouri are an unusually canny lot. In every single presidential election since 1904 (with just one exception), they have voted for the winning candidate. In the last two elections, they voted Bush; in the two before that, they voted Clinton.

'Strong patriots'

In some parts of the state, especially in the two major cities, St Louis and Kansas City, the Democrats are strongest. In many rural areas, the Republicans are upper most.

But whether they vote Democrat or Republican, Missouri voters tend to be conservative: strong on patriotism and traditional family values.

That might be good for John McCain - and the opinion polls are suggesting that he is currently ahead of Obama in Missouri.

On my way to Rolla, I passed through the town of Hannibal, on the banks of the mighty River Mississippi.

It was the childhood home of Mark Twain, who wrote the tales of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, and who, according to the curator of the Mark Twain museum, Henry Sweets, epitomised many of the Missourians' best-known traits.

I also met farmer and state legislator Steve Hobbs, a Republican who believes that John McCain would make a fine president and who's a staunch supporter of a local ethanol plant which buys corn from local farmers and helps them stay in business.

Back in 1899, a Missouri congressman, Willard Vandiver, said: "I come from a country that raises corn and cotton, cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I'm from Missouri, and you have got to show me."

Which is why to this day, Missouri calls itself the "Show Me" state.

UTICA, New York - Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin left St. Paul, Minnesota,  with a smallish bounce overall and some energy in key demographic groups, as the race for the presidency enters a key stage and voters begin to tune in to the contest, the latest Zogby Interactive poll finds.

The McCain/Palin ticket wins 49.7% support, compared to 45.9% backing for the Obama/Biden ticket, this latest online survey shows. Another 4.4% either favored someone else or were unsure. 

The Ticket Horserace

9-5/6

8-29/30

McCain-Palin

49.7%

47.1%

Obama-Biden

45.9%

44.6%

Others/Not sure

4.4%

8.3%

 

In the two-way contest in which just McCain and Obama were mentioned in the question, the result was slightly different, with McCain leading, 48.8% to 45.7%.

One-on-One Horserace

9-5/6

McCain

48.8%

Obama

45.7%

Others/Not sure

5.5%

 

In a Zogby Interactive survey conducted last weekend, just after the McCain announcement that Palin would join his ticket, McCain Palin won 47.1% support, while Obama/Biden won 44.6% support.

The interactive survey of 2,312 likely voters nationwide was conducted Sept. 5-6, 2008, and carries a margin of error of +/- 2.1 percentage points. 

Pollster John Zogby: "Clearly, Palin is helping the McCain ticket. She has high favorability numbers, and has unified the Republican Party. The striking thing here in this poll is that McCain has pulled ahead among Catholics by double-digits. On the other hand, Palin is not helping with likely voting women who are not aligned with either political party. The undecided independent women voters decreased this week from 15% to 7%, but those women went to Obama. Palin is also helping among men, conservatives, notably with suburban and rural voters, and with frequent Wal-Mart shoppers, who tend to be "values" voters who like a good value for their money."

McCain's favorability rating increased from 50% favorable last week to 57% favorable now, a significant jump that indicates the GOP convention was a success. Among independent voters, 61% now have a favorable impression of him, compared to just 49% who said the same a week ago.

Nearly half - 49% - said they had a favorable opinion of Barack Obama, while 50% they had a negative impression of him. Among independent voters, 47% gave him favorable marks, compared to 46% who said the same thing last week.

Among the vice presidential candidates, 54% said they now hold a favorable view of Palin, while 42% hold an unfavorable view. While 49% have a favorable opinion of Joe Biden, 47% hold an unfavorable view of him.     

Just one week ago, 23% told Zogby that they did not know enough about Palin to make a judgment about whether they held a favorable or unfavorable view of her - but this most recent survey shows just 4% were unfamiliar with her - another indication that likely voters paid attention to the GOP convention this week, which won the highest television viewership numbers ever earned by an American political convention.

Zogby International was the most accurate pollster in every one of the last three presidential election cycles, and continues to perfect its telephone and interactive methodologies using its own live operator, in-house call center in Upstate New York, and its own secure servers for its online polling projects.

In the 2004 presidential election, not only was Zogby's telephone polling right on the money, its interactive polling also nailed the election as well. In 2006, the Zogby Interactive online polling was on the money in 17 of 18 U.S. Senate races (the 18th was within the margin of error)  a record of accuracy that is unmatched in the industry - as no other leading firm even attempts to poll statewide political races using an interactive methodology for public consumption.

Because Obama is SO focused on our country right????

While McCain Raises Money For Hurricane Victims Obama Set To Jet Off For Geneva

A while back it was reported that on September 2nd Obama would be jetting off to Switzerland to attend to big-money fundraisers organized by Hollywood A-lister George Clooney.  The price to get in the door was set to be $1,000 with an additional $10,000 payment required if you want a plate to put your food on.

Well now it’s September, the Republicans have all but canceled their national convention due to a hurricane scare in the gulf coast, and according to George Clooney as of yesterday the fundraiser is still on:

Clooney said the movie - though poking fun at the world of intelligence - had no political intent. Speaking of politics, wouldn’t Clooney, who is planning a fundraiser for presidential hopeful Barack Obama in Geneva, Switzerland next month, rather have been at the Democratic Convention in Denver, this week instead of in Venice?

‘I’m sort of happy to be here. It is one of my favourite places,’ Clooney said. ‘The stars of the convention should be the people who are being elected.’

Consider this: If John McCain and the Republicans had held their convention as scheduled without making any modifications to accommodate the situation in the gulf region they would have been excoriated in the media.  Talking heads would have raged, and Keith Olbermann would have launched into a special comment that would have undoubtedly invoked the image of McCain and/or Bush as modern Neros fiddling while America burned.

But apparently it’s ok if Obama jet-sets with some deep-pocket Hollywood types off in Switzerland for a couple of days.

I think it’s bad enough that Obama is campaigning and fund raising so much on foreign soil.  The trip through Europe?  Now an elitist-of-the-elite gathering in Switzerland?  But refusing to call off, or even just delay, the event while your political colleagues are focused on what could have been another major disaster in the gulf coast region just takes the cake.

Where is the press on this? Talk about a vetting process by the press, the reason why we don't care about your vetting process by the press is because you don't take your job seriously.

This from Investors Business Daily:

 Barack Obama was a founding member of the board of Public Allies in 1992. You go to the website, Public Allies, and you are going to see that it's just a community organizer. That's all this is, just community organization. Barack Obama, founding member of the board of Public Allies in 1992. His wife became the executive director of the Chicago chapter of Public Allies in 1993. Got it? Obama plans to use the nonprofit group which he features on his campaign website as the model for a national service corps.

We've heard about this national service corps, haven't we? Universal voluntary public service. When Michelle Obama said he'll never allow you to sit idly by again, he will never allow you to be unengaged. What does that mean? Universal voluntary public service, a national service corps. Quoting from the story: Our alumni from Public Allies are more than twice as likely as 18 34 year olds to engage in protest activities. Public Allies boasts in a document found with its tax filings. It has already deployed an army of 2,200 community organizers like Obama to agitate for "Justice and equality" in his hometown of Chicago and other U.S. cities including Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Washington. Cincinnati recruit Amy Vinson said, "I get to practice being an activist and I get paid for it." The Obamas' plan is to herd American youth into government funded reeducation camps where they will be brainwashed into thinking that America is a racist, oppressive place in need of social change. The pitch Public Allies makes on its website doesn't seem that radical. It promises to place young adults 18 30 in a paid one year community leadership position with nonprofit or government agencies. They will also be required to attend weekly training workshops and three retreats. In exchange they will get a monthly stipend of $1800 pus healthcare and child care. They also get a public service education award of almost $5,000 that can be used to pay off student loans and fund future education. Got it? Public Allies promotes diversity and inclusion. That's what you'll find on their website. More than 70% of its recruits are people of color. When they are not protesting, they are staffing AIDS clinics, handing out condoms, bailing criminals out of jail and helping illegal aliens and the homeless obtain food stamps and other welfare. Haven't gotten to the good stuff yet. Public Allies brags that they are more than 80% of their graduates have continued working in nonprofit or government jobs.