More Challenges for McCain, From Ayers to the Palin Pick  —  Obama leads on optimism and temperment in final weeks.  —  More challenges for John McCain: Likely voters overwhelmingly reject his effort to make an issue of Barack Obama's association with 1960s radical William Ayers.

Here the People Rule  —  According to the silver-penned Peggy Noonan, writing in The Wall Street Journal over the weekend, “In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics.”  —  Leave aside Noonan's negative judgment on Sarah Palin's candidacy, a judgment I don't share.

The Real Plumbers of Ohio  —  Forty years ago, Richard Nixon made a remarkable marketing discovery.  By exploiting America's divisions — divisions over Vietnam, divisions over cultural change and, above all, racial divisions — he was able to reinvent the Republican brand.

Busy day expected as early voting starts  —  Monday marks the first day of early voting in South Florida.  But in a high-stakes presidential election, voting early doesn't guarantee avoiding lines.  —  MRVASQUEZ@MIAMIHERALD.COM  —  Buoyed by the hype and excitement befitting …

Jon Stewart to Sarah Palin: ‘[Expletive] You.’  —  Speaking to a college audience in Boston, Mass. Friday, “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart used his stand-up routine to respond to Sarah Palin's comments about “pro-America” parts of the country, shedding the profanity restrictions that govern his Comedy Central show.

What Bradley Effect?  —  WITH only two weeks to go before the election, talk has turned to the Bradley effect.  The phenomenon is named for Tom Bradley, the African-American mayor of Los Angeles, who lost the 1982 California governor's race even though exit polls predicted he'd defeat his Republican opponent, George Deukmejian.

Pat Buchanan says Colin Powell endorsed Obama because he's black  —  Liberals in general are no fans of Colin Powell, but watching the right wing ideologues slam Powell because of his endorsement of Obama, I can only assume that they fear this particular endorsement because it will have an impact on undecided and independent voters.

Safety in Numbers?  Poll-Driven Press Goes Out on a Limb  —  The network maps are bathed in blue, the pundits contemplating a landslide, the conservative columnists preparing for the indignities of an Obama administration.  —  With the numbers breaking Barack Obama's way …

Biden to Supporters: “Gird Your Loins”, For the Next President “It's Like Cleaning Augean Stables”  —  ABC News' Matthew Jaffe Reports: Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., on Sunday guaranteed that if elected, Sen. Barack Obama., D-Ill., will be tested by an international crisis within his first six months …

Nafta-Plus  —  Canada looks to Europe in anticipation of Obama protectionism.  —  Barack Obama's promise to unilaterally rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement if Canada and Mexico won't go along with his ideas on labor and the environment has not gone unnoticed in Ottawa.

The Republicans have lifted the lid off their rightwing id  —  Now McCain's supporters are casting Obama as anti-American.  This may well scare voters, but not the way they mean to  —  A year or two ago, if you'd told me that Barack Obama would be leading John McCain by a seemingly comfortable margin …

Many Holes in Disclosure of Nominees' Health  —  Fifteen days before the election, serious gaps remain in the public's knowledge about the health of the presidential and vice-presidential nominees.  The limited information provided by the candidates is a striking departure from recent campaigns …

Turning Indiana blue  —  Sen. Barack Obama speaks at a rally at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis, Oct. 8, 2008.  —  INDIANAPOLIS — In presidential elections since the Depression, Indiana has been the lone industrial state where the elephants always roam.

Ontario police arrest man in voter fraud case  —  Mark Jacoby, who owns a firm hired by the California Republican Party, violated state laws with his own registration, authorities say.  —  SACRAMENTO — The owner of a firm that the California Republican Party hired to register tens of thousands …

Deficit Rises, and the Consensus Is to Let It Grow  —  Like water rushing over a river's banks, the federal government's rapidly mounting expenses are overwhelming the federal budget and increasing an already swollen deficit.  —  The bank bailout, in the latest big outlay …

ACORN INSTILLED FEAR: WORKERS  —  Pushed to meet daily quotas and bullied by bosses if they didn't, Ohio ACORN workers faked voter registrations, signed up people more than once, and even paid off registrants to keep from being fired, its canvassers told The Post.  —  “Every day, there was pressure on us.