memeorandum: Nebraska law lets parents abandon teens (Jim Kavanagh/CNN)

5:25 PM ET, October 8, 2008

Top Items:

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 …

Discussion: The New Republic, FiveThirtyEight.com, The Swamp, Firedoglake, Amygdala, Open Left, American Street, Oliver Willis, MyDD, The Reaction and Comments from Left Field

John Whitesides / Reuters:
Obama has slim 2-point lead on McCain

Discussion: Hotline On Call

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:

Discussion: Hot Air, Think Progress, The Daily Dish, Washington Monthly, The New Republic, Legalities, Taylor Marsh, Wonkette and Bob Cesca's Goddamn …

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.

Discussion: Campaign Silo, Majikthise, Wonkette and Daily Kos

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

Satyam Khanna / Think Progress:
McCain addresses crowd as ‘my fellow prisoners.’

Discussion: Shakesville

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, The New Republic, Balloon Juice, Top of the Ticket, Newshoggers.com, TPM Election Central, The Swamp and folo

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 …

The Politico:
Campaign shifts back to economic crisis

Discussion: The Swamp, Washington Monthly, The Huffington Post, Washington Wire, The New Republic, New York Times, New York Times, TPM Election Central, Hullabaloo, The Nation, The Raw Story, The Caucus and Democratic Strategist

David Harsanyi / Denver Post:
Negativity and the truth — Most polls tell us that Americans …

Discussion: protein wisdom

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.

Discussion: Think Progress, Paul Krugman, TalkLeft, Matthew Yglesias, Washington Wire, Corrente, The Anonymous Liberal, The Sideshow and Kevin Drum

Marc Ambinder:
The McCain Resurgence Plan

Discussion: Hot Air, GINA COBB and Kevin Drum

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blogs:
Moral hazard — My colleague Victoria McGrane, late …

Discussion: Jonathan Martin's Blogs and Marc Ambinder

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.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Wizbang, The Corner, Hot Air, Stop The ACLU, Cassy Fiano and QandO

Fred Barnes / Weekly Standard:
Paging Rick Warren

Discussion: The Mahablog, Guardian, Commentary and YID With LID

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 …

Discussion: Think Progress, Wake up America and The Swamp

Mark Halperin / TIME.com: McCain Release on Ayers

Hotline On Call:
Palin's First Avail — On the plane this afternoon from FL to NC.

Discussion: The Daily Dish and Political Machine

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: MoJoBlog, The Daily Dish, Lonewacko, The Next Right, Lean Left, Buck Naked Politics, TalkLeft and Stop The ACLU

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.

Discussion: Swampland and TIME.com

The Huffington Post:
Another McCain-Palin Introducer Declares “Barack Hussein Obama”

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Washington Monthly and Wonkette

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: The Daily Dish, protein wisdom, Classical Values, Taylor Marsh, The G Spot and five feet of fury.

Jbrown / Politically Drunk On Power!:

Web Archives Confirm Barack Obama Was Member Of Socialist ‘New Party’ In 1996 — In June sources released information that during his campaign for the State Senate in Illinois, Barack Obama was endorsed by an organization known as the Chicago “New Party”. The ‘New Party’ was a political …

Discussion: The Corner, Hot Air, NewsBusters.org, DBKP and JammieWearingFool

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, The Big Picture, Fraters Libertas, The Swamp, Think Progress and Eschaton

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”?

Discussion: Matthew Yglesias, Brian Beutler and Washington Post

Marc Ambinder:

Ad Spending Update: McCain's 100% Negative — According to the latest figures from Ken Goldstein and the Wisconsin Advertising Project, the presidential campaigns are spending nearly $29 million a week to persuade YOU on television that the other guy is bad.

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Jim Tankersley / The Swamp:
McCain's ‘suspension’: not quite

Discussion: TPM Election Central

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.

Discussion: Open Left, Reason and ACSBlog

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.

Discussion: The Swamp and JustOneMinute

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 …

Discussion: Newshoggers.com, The Swamp, Firedoglake, folo and The New Republic

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.

Discussion: Get Energy Smart! and Climate Progress

Julian Sanchez / Ars Technica:

750,000 lost jobs? The dodgy digits behind the war on piracy — A 20-year game of Telephone — If you pay any attention to the endless debates over intellectual property policy in the United States, you'll hear two numbers invoked over and over again, like the stuttering chorus …

Discussion: Matthew Yglesias and Outside The Beltway

Knoxville News-Sentinel:

UTK student David Kernell indicted in Palin e-mail hacking case — David C. Kernell, 20, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Knoxville, Tennessee., for intentionally accessing without authorization the e-mail account of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. — More details as they develop online and in Thursday's News Sentinel.

Discussion: The Smoking Gun, JammieWearingFool, Gateway Pundit, Pat Dollard, Michelle Malkin, Patterico's Pontifications, Hot Air and The Jawa Report

Jay Nordlinger / The Corner:

Celebration — Friends, have you seen this video? Maybe you have. Maybe I'm the last person to have seen it (I've been a little out of the campaign loop). Maybe it has been presented, celebrated, picked over, celebrated again. If so, forgive me — or celebrate some more.

Discussion: Dirty Harry's Place

CNN:

Bush: The elephant in the room — (CNN)- During the first debate, Barack Obama mentioned President Bush ten times. Many of the references tied him to John McCain — who never mentioned the name of the current commander-in-chief. — Tonight, the Republican nominee pointed to Bush three times …

Discussion: The LA Times President …