memeorandum: The Limits of McCainism — Patrick Ruffini on the debate: (Ross Douthat)

7:40 PM ET, October 8, 2008

Top Items:

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: Washington Monthly, Hot Air, The Huffington Post, Think Progress, Comments from Left Field, Liberty Street, The Daily Dish, Donklephant, The New Republic, Taylor Marsh, Legalities, No More Mister Nice Blog, Wonkette and Bob Cesca's Goddamn …

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 …

Discussion: The Swamp, Reuters, FiveThirtyEight.com, protein wisdom, American Power, Oliver Willis, American Street, Firedoglake, The Reaction, MyDD, Undiplomatic, Jules Crittenden and Comments from Left Field

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.

Discussion: The Field on the Narcosphere, The New Republic, Amygdala and The Reaction

Chris Bowers / Open Left:

Your Daily Poll Warnings, Take Three — I've been posting daily poll warning threads recently, and looking at the comments in Quick Hits on the tracking polls, clearly I need to keep doing so. There is nothing wrong with worrying about daily tracking polls—I do so, too.

Discussion: Democratic Strategist

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: Liberty Street, Daily Kos, Campaign Silo, Taylor Marsh, Majikthise and Wonkette

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: Comments from Left Field and Shakesville

Jbrown / Politically Drunk On Power!:

Web Archives Confirm Barack Obama Was Member Of Socialist ‘New Party’ In 1996 — UPDATE: WE WILL POST AT LEAST ONE MORE SOURCE COMING TOMORROW! Subscribe to feeds or bookmark page. — In June sources released information that during his campaign for the State Senate in Illinois …

Discussion: Townhall.com, The Jawa Report, Human Events, Hot Air, DBKP, Lonewacko and JammieWearingFool

Stanley Kurtz / The Corner:
Obama Acorn Cover-up?

Discussion: Commentary, Wake up America and Michelle Malkin

Matthew Weaver / NO QUARTER:
Obama is Hiding a Radical Past!

Discussion: The Corner, Confederate Yankee, THE CITIZENS JOURNAL and Riehl World View

P.J. Gladnick / NewsBusters.org:
Will MSM Report on Obama Membership in Socialist New Party?

Discussion: YID With LID and Doug Ross

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 …

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
SCRAPPING THE AYERS ATTACK ALREADY?.... The political world …

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

The Politico:
Campaign shifts back to economic crisis

Discussion: TIME.com, The Huffington Post, Washington Monthly, The Swamp, Washington Wire, TPM Election Central, New York Times, The Raw Story, Hullabaloo, The Nation, The New Republic and New York Times

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 and five feet of fury.

Katie Allison Granju / Because I said so:

The real reason a lot of women can't stand Sarah Palin — There's a ridiculous fluff piece in TIME this week that's getting a lot of attention. In it, a female essayist alleges that among the reasons many women can't stand Sarah Palin is the fact that she's just too darn attractive.

Discussion: Patterico's Pontifications and Wizbang

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: Ben Smith's Blogs, Think Progress, Matthew Yglesias, TalkLeft, Washington Wire, Corrente, The Anonymous Liberal, Buck Naked Politics, The Sideshow and Kevin Drum

Paul Krugman: To do, not to do — Readers ask what I think should be done about the financial crisis.

Marc Ambinder:
The McCain Resurgence Plan

Discussion: Hot Air, Newsweek Blogs, GINA COBB and Kevin Drum

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: Wake up America, The Swamp and Think Progress

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

Discussion: The Daily Dish and Political Machine

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

Fred Barnes / Weekly Standard:
Paging Rick Warren

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

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

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.

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

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

Marc Ambinder:
Ad Spending Update: McCain's 100% Negative

Discussion: Daily Kos and Washington Monthly

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

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 …

Discussion: The Daily Dish, AMERICAblog News and Pam's House Blend

John Bresnahan / The Crypt's Blogs:

Judge throws out some key prosecution evidence in Stevens trial — Judge Emmet Sullivan threw out two big pieces of evidence in the Justice Department's prosecution of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) after it was disclosed that prosecutors failed to provide defense attorneys with all the information they needed to put on their case.

Discussion: TPMMuckraker

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

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: Calculated Risk, Matthew Yglesias, Brian Beutler and Washington Post

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, Boing Boing, Reason and ACSBlog

Zack Exley / Firedoglake:

The New Organizers: Obama's Neighborhood Teams — Inside the Obama campaign, almost without anyone noticing, an insurgent generation of organizers has built the Progressive movement a brand new and potentially durable people's organization, in a dozen states, rooted at the neighborhood level.

Discussion: Marc Ambinder