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 …

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.

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 …

CNN Poll: Race may be tightening  —  Latest CNN/ORC Poll of likely voters:  —  Barack Obama: 51 percent  —  John McCain: 46 percent  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — With two weeks and one day until election day, a new national poll of likely voters suggests the race for the White House may be tightening up.

Tires slashed during Obama rally  —  Someone slashed the tires of at least 30 vehicles parked outside the Crown Coliseum on Sunday during a rally for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, authorities said.  —  Sheriff's deputies are investigating.

Mark Salter on the Press and John McCain  —  There was an astonishing quotation in a recent New York Times story about John McCain from Robert Timberg, a biographer and admirer of McCain's.  Timberg told the Times reporter David Kirkpatrick that, “Political campaigns have a way of distorting reality …

Evidence of Obama-Ayers Tie Sent Down the Memory Hole . . . Almost!  —  The best evidence that Barack Obama launched his political career from Bill Ayers's living room has disappeared . . . down the memory hole.  —  Well, not quite.  The Wayback Machine and I have both saved copies.

Palin breaks with McCain on Federal Marriage Amendment.»  —  Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has said he opposes the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would amend the Constitution to ban marriage equality, because he believes it is an issue to be left up to states.

EXCLUSIVE: .22 Gunshot, paint balls fired at McCain / Palin Straight Talk Express  —  (Sunday, October 19 - Filed by Mark Williams in Raton, New Mexico with the Stop Obama Tour) We learned at this morning's Stop Obama Rally here that the McCain/Palin Straight Talk Express came through town yesterday.

Is McCain Coming Back?  —  Photo by Ricky Carioti — The Washington Post  —  Amid the wall-to-wall coverage of Barack Obama's $150 million fundraising take in September and the endorsement of the Illinois senator on Sunday by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, the campaign of his Republican opponent …

The crowd gap  —  Actually, it's more of a canyon.  —  Obama had an estimated 100,000 people come out to see him at the St. Louis Arch on Saturday.  —  In suburban St. Louis today, McCain had a crowd of about 2,000.  —  Now, it's a heck of a lot easier to draw a crowd on a weekend than a Monday morning.

Google CEO Backs Obama  —  Schmidt Expands Political Role by Hitting the Campaign Trail  —  Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt will hit the campaign trail this week on behalf of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, signaling Mr. Schmidt's push for a greater voice in politics …

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.

ARE THEY ALL AS SLEAZY AS MCCAIN?  —  Either because of age or recent immersion in politics, a lot of readers have asked, is it really usually this bad?  Do they all get this sleazy?  As sleazy as McCain?  —  The simple answer, I think, is, No. They don't.

Obama's Carbon Ultimatum  —  The coming offer you won't be able to refuse.  —  Liberals pretend that only President Bush is preventing the U.S. from adopting some global warming “solution.”  But occasionally their mask slips.  As Barack Obama's energy adviser has now made clear …

Palin Becomes Increasingly Accessible To The National Media  —  From CBS News' Scott Conroy:  —  (COLORADO SPRINGS) It was less than two weeks ago when Sarah Palin astonished her traveling press corps by lifting the curtain (literally) and journeying to the back of her campaign plane …

Chess, Not Checkers  —  I've hesitated to do this post, partly because I think excessive conservative attention gets paid to short-term political horse race issues.  But here's something practical and urgent that I think everybody on the Right — from rabid Sarah Palin fans to Andrew Sullivan …

The Excrescence Of Right-Wing GOP Hate  —  The racist and xenophobic bile that has flowed from the right-wing Republican base and spokesmouths like Rush Limbaugh has been unprecedented in this campaign season, and it was easy to predict that the moment Colin Powell endorsed Barack …