G. Terry Madonna is a familiar talking head on CNN and other news channels these days and even more in demand because John McCain is making his last stand in Pennsylvania. There probably is no pollster more knowledgeable and well spoken when it comes to Keystone State politics than Madonna, who is the man behind the F&M Poll (formerly the Keystone Poll) at the Center for Politics & Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, where he is director. Madonna and I worked...

Twenty or so years ago, a small and comely twentysomething blond American stopped over in New Zealand on the way from her hometown of Boston to graduate school in Australia. She ended up spending an evening in a pub near Auckland where she met a group of Maoris and so liked what she saw — the country in general and a hulkingly handsome Maori by the name of Seven in particular — that it eventually would lead her to write one of the most unusual travelogue and history books of the many...

I was not initially moved to blog about the Ashley Todd affair because it stank of being phony from the jump. Furthermore, I didn’t want to add another drop to the oceans of invective that have accumulated in this most rancorous presidential campaign. But all of that changed when I was able to confirm to my satisfaction that, while the McCain campaign most certainly did not send this very messed up young woman out to that ATM machine in Pittsburgh, it actively-encouraged reporters to pursue...

My jaw kept dropping every time I read a right-of-center commentator who is licking their chops over a Sarah Palin candidacy in 2012. For one thing, the 2008 election isn’t even over. For another, how could these people ignore the obvious: While McCain has brought his own baggage to the big dance, his partner has been like a giant anchor, pulling the ticket down, down, down with every passing week since her post-convention boomlet faded like so many summer flowers. Isn’t it obvious that...

With the clock running out on the 2008 presidential race and John McCain sinking like a stone, the excuses for why his campaign has come a cropper are flying fast and furious. I’ve been collecting them over at Kiko’s House in a daily feature titled “McCain-Palin Trainwreck Excuse du Jour.” Here are synopses and links to the most recent entries: It’s those uppity Negroes getting all tribal. He just can’t get any traction with the Bill Ayers story. He has an appalling lack of judgment. It’s...

I slowed down long enough last night to listen to a John McCain stump speech from Pennsylvania in its entirety and the guy had all the enthusiasm of a public radio station fund drive announcer trying to convince listeners that the station will go off the air if they don’t buy his baby new shoes. Yes, it’s that bad. About all that McCain can hope for 12 days out is a “dead cat bounce,” that is, a tightening in the polls because unlikely voters are in fact voting for him, but...

PHILLIES PITCHING ACE COLE HAMELS Some of my earliest childhood memories are of sitting at the kitchen table with my mother and grandmother listening to the Philadelphia Phillies on the radio. And more often than not, listening to the Philadelphia Phillies lose. My love of baseball was nurtured on these spring and summer evenings while my father was on shift work, and I had learned the finer points of the game — from the suicide squeeze play to the art of bunting to when to intentionally walk...

Sarah Palin has finally spoken out against incendiary shouts from audience members at her campaign rallies — but of course with a disclaimer. In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, John McCain’s running mate said that: “We have heard through some mainstream media is that folks have hollered out some pretty atrocious and unacceptable things. We have not heard that. “If I ever were to hear that standing up there at the podium with the mic, I would call them...

In my first encounter with General Colin Powell at the Pentagon, I could not take my eyes off of the ribbons cascading down the left breast of his dress greens. In my second encounter with Powell following a press briefing that he had given as President Reagan’s national security adviser, there was the unmistakable sense that beneath his calm exterior burned a fire of great intensity that he banked with the same care that he measured his words. It has been over 20 years since those encounters,...

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 Obama that he was no longer a war hero and brilliant diplomat but just another uppity Negro. If the hate-mongering of these people was not so destructive, the knots into which they tie themselves would be amusing. They slavishly support an immoral war fostered by...

(1.) The Republicans continue to confuse talk radio with reality. (2.) Barack Obama has raised an astounding $604 million to date. The bellyaching of John McCain over this record amount is sheer jealousy, while his allegation that raising huge amounts of dough is a recipe for scandal is laughable since the average Obama donation is under $100. (3.) Did the smarties running McCain’s campaign ever contemplate that Obama’s fundraising dominance would be so complete that he would be able...

It would be nice to say that while Bruce Cockburn is best known for his socially conscious songs, he also is a great guitarist. But unless you dwell at the left end of things — whether it be politics or the FM radio dial — it is unlikely that you’ve ever heard of the Canadian singer-songwriter. That is a damned shame because there is not merely a currency to Cockburn’s songs but a wonderful poetic depth, such as in these lyrics from “Pacing the Cage”: Sunset...

While you can be quite sure that as the memory fades this special moment will be nothing more than a pimple on the ass of history, but isn’t it extraordinary that a woman who declares that she is ready to be vice president can’t meet the press but can do a star turn on “Saturday Night Live”? Yes it is extraordinary, but merely symptomatic of a train-wreck of a campaign that is measured more in grimaces and red-meat speechifying than position papers. As it is, Sarah Palin’s...

With the clock running out on the 2008 presidential race and John McCain sinking like a stone, the excuses for why his campaign has come a cropper are flying fast and furious. I’ve been collecting them over at Kiko’s House in a daily feature titled “McCain-Palin Trainwreck Excuse du Jour.” Here are synopses and links to the first seven entries: Sarah Palin can’t be controlled. Leading Republicans are turning on him. Obama is getting off easy because he’s black. His...

I am a great believer in making one’s own luck, but at this point John McCain can’t catch a break. His invocation during the debate of Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher was a winner, but Joe promptly threw a wet blanket over that modest coup in telling CBS News that Barack Obama’s response to a question that he had posed about the economy had left him feeling uneasy: “I’ve always wanted to ask one of these guys a question and really corner them and get them...

Save for his concession speech 19 days from now, the third and final presidential debate was probably the last time a goodly number of voters could see John McCain in action. It was a splendid opportunity for him to go out with a bang and to make the argument that he would make a better president during a depression, which is certainly where the U.S. seems to be headed. While McCain did score some belated points on the economy and occasionally had Barack Obama on the defensive, he failed miserably...

A story by a Scranton Times-Tribune reporter that someone shouted “kill him!” about Barack Obama at a Sarah Palin rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania on Tuesday is now in doubt. The rival Wilkes-Barre Times Leader now reports that not a single person interviewed by the Secret Service heard the outburst. More here.

My father and mother were the blackest white people whom I have ever known. What I mean by that is that not only were some of their best friends Negroes, to use the painfully archaic cliche of their day, they talked the talk and they walked the walk as civil-rights activists. But despite being optimistic about most things they were unable to imagine the day that a black person could become president of the United States. Joe and Jane Mullen were never denied a hotel room or turned away at a lunch...

It was only two days ago that Joe Biden, with an assist from Bill and Hillary Clinton, appeared at a campaign rally at the Riverfront Sports Complex in Scranton, Pennsylvania, but the atmosphere could not be more different when it was Sarah Palin’s turn today: “Chris Hackett addressed the increasingly feisty crowd as they await the arrival of Gov. Palin. “Each time the Republican candidate for the seat in the 10th Congressional District mentioned Barack Obama the crowd booed loudly. “One...

A fog of pathos has settled over the McCain-Palin campaign. While the Sarahcudda continues feeding red meat to the dwindling audiences at campaign rallies, which is the only thing she has been adept at, the Big Guy keeps peeing all over those $525 Italian loafers. The Bill Ayers “controversy” is a window through the fog into McCain’s state of mind. Whenever he has met Obama face to face in recent weeks, he inevitably fails to call him out on his own campaign’s attack ad memes...

With the election looking for all the world like a Barack Obama win, would there be any hint of complacency when Joe and Jill Biden and Bill and Hillary Clinton took the stage at a rally in the Coal Country of Pennsylvania over the weekend? I stayed glued to the teevee for the entire event, nicely-planned to end before the day’s most important happening, the Eagles-49ers game, to try to suss out whether smugness and self satisfaction were in the house. They were not. In fact, the quartet on...

Is John McCain “walking it back” in his campaign’s attacks on Barack Obama? Will his remonstrations to the pitchfork brigade to chill-out continue? Do he and Sarah Palin disagree on tactics? Is he abandoning the low road? Is he trying to go out on a positive note? Which McCain will be on the stump from here on out? Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde? As far as turning around the most ethically challenged and ineptly run presidential campaign in recent memory is concerned, it hardly matters. The...

Some people seemed genuinely shocked that the world’s most famous hockey mom has joined Santa Claus and Mike Schmidt, among other celebs, in being roundly-booed by Philadelphia sports fans. Despite pleas from the scoreboard at the Bailout . . . er, Wachovia Center for fans to make nice, they predictably showed the back of their hands to Sarah Palin, and would have mooned her if they could have gotten away with it, when the vice presidential wannabe was introduced and helped drop the first...