Top Items:
The Huffington Post:
David Brooks: Sarah Palin “Represents A Fatal Cancer To The Republican Party” — In an interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg at New York's Le Cirque restaurant to unveil that magazine's redesign, Brooks decried Palin's anti-intellectualism and compared her to President Bush in that regard:
Gallup:
Gallup Daily: Obama's Lead Over McCain Expands to 11 — 52% share of the vote is Obama's highest to date — PRINCETON, NJ — The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking report shows Barack Obama with a 52% to 41% lead over John McCain. — These results, based on Oct. 5-7 polling …
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Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight.com:
What is Obama's Ceiling? — This post is going to seem slightly less relevant now that Gallup has come in showing an 11-point lead for Obama. But the other five daily tracking polls (yes, there are now that many trackers) all showed movement toward John McCain.
The Jed Report:
McCain Loses It: Calls Americans ‘My Fellow Prisoners’ — Update (12:26pm): I've posted an extended version of the clip in the vodpod so you can see the context. McCain was talking about his domestic policies, and clearly meant to say “Americans” or “countrymen” or somesuch.
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Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:
LOSING IT? — In most political speeches, the common refrain is “my fellow citizens”. — John McCain just referred to the country as “my fellow prisoners.” — “Across this country, this is the agenda I have set before my fellow prisoners and the same standards of clarity and candor must now be applied to my opponent.”
Discussion:
Open Left
Victor Davis Hanson / The Corner:
2005 — “He [Obama] said they have not spoken by phone or exchanged e-mail messages since Mr. Obama began serving in the United States Senate in January 2005” (New York Times, 10/3) — Why in the world was Barack Obama still communicating on the phone or via email with Bill Ayers up until 2005 …
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Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
SCRAPPING THE AYERS ATTACK ALREADY?.... The political world was told to expect some ugly, guilt-by-association attacks last night. We'd hear about Bill Ayers. And Tony Rezko. And maybe even Jeremiah Wright. The phrase “unrepentant terrorist” would be bandied about. — And then, nothing.
Discussion:
TIME.com, Top of the Ticket, Balloon Juice, TPM Election Central, The Swamp, Newshoggers.com and The New Republic
David Harsanyi / Denver Post:Negativity and the truth — Most polls tell us that Americans …
Discussion:
protein wisdom
Washington Wire:
Obama's Name Again Is Used in Attack — Elizabeth Holmes reports from Lehigh, Pa., on the presidential race. — Barack Obama's middle name was attack fodder once again Wednesday when John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin were introduced at a rally here in Lehigh, Pa.
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Brad DeLong / Grasping Reality with Both Hands:
John McCain's New Mortgage Plan Is Worse than I Had Imagined Possibly, Even Given What I Know About John McCain — Douglas Holtz-Eakin says, this morning: … What does this mean? It means that John McCain wants to give $100 billion of taxpayers' money to America's worst-behaving mortgage financiers.
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Jeff Jacoby / Boston Globe:
Obama's 180 on genocide — JOHN MCCAIN'S opening words last night were: “Senator Obama, it's good to be with you at a town hall meeting!” Indeed it was. We now know why Barack Obama declined McCain's invitation earlier this year to appear together in a series of 10 town hall meetings around the country.
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Fred Barnes / Weekly Standard:
Paging Rick Warren — Why did a town hall debate in Nashville revolve around what interests an East Coast newsman? — A presidential debate at its best gives voters a glimpse of a candidate's personality, quick-wittedness, likeability, sense of humor, judgment, basic honesty, knowledge, even character.
Matthew Weaver / NO QUARTER:
Obama is Hiding a Radical Past! — Edited and updated at 8:50 p.m. ET. — Did you know that Barack Obama was affiliated with a leading national socialist party? Barack Obama didn't include in his 2008 resume that he entered politics in the mid-1990s endorsed by Chicago's leading socialists.
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Nitya / Political Radar:
Palin Fields Questions on Plane — ABC News' Imtiyaz Delawala reports: For the first time in a month on the campaign trail, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin took questions from her full traveling press corps, covering topics ranging from her continued connection of Sen. Barack …
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Salon:
Nobody's dummy — What a powerful letter — which I am pleased to share with Salon readers. Yes, let us not forget the tragic series of dubious political judgments that led the U.S. to lurch into Southeast Asia after the French had prudently packed up and left.
Discussion:
protein wisdom, The Daily Dish, Classical Values, Taylor Marsh, five feet of fury. and The G Spot
Thomas L. Friedman / New York Times:
Palin's Kind of Patriotism — Criticizing Sarah Palin is truly shooting fish in a barrel. But given the huge attention she is getting, you can't just ignore what she has to say. And there was one thing she said in the debate with Joe Biden that really sticks in my craw.
Discussion:
The Daily Dish, Lonewacko, The Next Right, MoJoBlog, Lean Left, Buck Naked Politics and TalkLeft
Wall Street Journal:
Housing Pain Gauge: Nearly 1 in 6 Owners ‘Under Water’ — More Defaults and Foreclosures Are Likely as Borrowers With Greater Debt Than Value in Their Homes Are Put in a Tight Spot — The relentless slide in home prices has left nearly one in six U.S. homeowners owing more on a mortgage …
Discussion:
Hot Air, DownWithTyranny!, The Big Picture, Fraters Libertas, The Swamp and Think Progress
Jim Tankersley / The Swamp:
McCain's ‘suspension’: not quite — Turns out John McCain never did quite “suspend” his campaign during negotiations over the federal bailout plan, at least on television. — Tucked into a new report today on the campaign air wars from the Wisconsin Advertising Project is this factoid:
Discussion:
TPM Election Central
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Wockner:
Polls flip: Gays now losing marriage in Calif. — A TV ad showing San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom saying California is going to have same-sex marriage “whether you like it or not” is being credited with flipping poll numbers to favor the Nov. 4 ballot proposition to amend the state constitution …
Lisa Rein / Washington Post:
Md. Police Put Activists' Names On Terror Lists — The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged yesterday.
The Politico:
The worst debate ever — With the country at one of its most interesting — not to mention terrifying — moments in a generation, John McCain and Barack Obama met in Nashville for what was surely one of the dullest and least satisfying presidential debates in memory. — There have been boring debates before, of course.
Kate Sheppard / Gristmill:
One swing voter, swung — For the first time in this year's presidential debates, the two candidates were asked point-blank about what they would do to address climate change in the first two years of their administration. — Ingrid Jackson asks the candidates about environmental issues.
Time Edit / Swampland:
They Liked Him, They Really Liked Him — From TIME's Amy Sullivan: As he did for the first presidential debate, Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg gathered a group of undecided voters in a swing state (this time Colorado) to watch the town hall, polling them before and after to gauge …
Justin Fox / The Curious Capitalist:
Treasury prepares for a TARP-and-switch. And it's a good thing, too — Did anybody else notice that when Hank Paulson was describing in his press conference today what the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act enables Treasury to do, the first thing he listed was “to inject capital into financial institutions”?
Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blogs:
Cindy on attack — Amie Parnes reports from a McCain speech in Pennsylvania that Cindy McCain again went after Obama directly today, and accuses him, more or less, of endangering her son's life. — “The day that Sen. Obama cast a vote to not to fund my son when he was serving sent …
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