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.

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 …

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 …

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.

Obama-Ayers “Fact Check”  —  Apparently, Rep. Michele Bachman is being furiously “fact-checked” for having claimed that Barack Obama had a close connection with unrepentant terrorist, Bill Ayers.  According to Fact.Check.org, a supposedly non-partisan organization, “There's...no evidence of a deep or strong friendship with Ayers.”

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.

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.

Is Capitalism Dead?  —  IS THIS the end of American capitalism?  As financial panic spread across the globe and governments scrambled to contain the damage, reality seemed to announce the doom of U.S.-style free markets and President Bush's ideology.  But this is wrong in two ways.

Early Voting, a Rundown  —  For New Yorkers and others, “early voting” still means getting up before the polls open on Nov. 4 and being among the first to cast a ballot on Election Day.  But by the middle of this week, dozens of states will provide a way for at least some voters to cast …

Barack Obama is the better choice for our president  —  In the past 50 years, The Eagle has never recommended a Democrat for president.  We made no recommendations in 1960 and 1964 — when Texas' own Lyndon B. Johnson was on the Democratic ticket — nor did we in 1968 …

How to Read the Constitution  —  The following is an excerpt from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's Wriston Lecture to the Manhattan Institute last Thursday:  —  When John F. Kennedy said in his inaugural address, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country …

McCain has $47 million to spend in October  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate John McCain reports spending $37 million in September and has $47 million for the campaign in October.  —  McCain's monthly financial report filed with the Federal Election Commission shows …

Obama's Secret Campaign Cash: Has $63 Million Flowed from Foreign Sources?  —  As Barack Obama reaped a stunning $150 million in campaign donations in September, bringing his total to more than $600 million, new questions have arisen about the source of his amazing funding.

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 …

Source: Wayne Huizenga wants to sell more of Dolphins to Stephen M. Ross this year  —  MIAMI GARDENS — By the end of the year, an NFL source said Sunday, Dolphins co-owner Wayne Huizenga would like to sell all but a small percentage of the team to real estate mogul Stephen M. Ross …

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 …

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.