October 1st, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has just gotten some good polling news amid a slew of downer polls for his Presidential campaign: the latest Gallup Daily tracking poll now shows him narrowing the gap with Democratic Sen. Barack Obama:
The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update of registered voters finds Barack Obama at 48%, and John McCain at 44%, marking a slight narrowing of the race from the eight percentage point margin Obama held earlier this week.
The latest results are based on interviewing conducted Sept. 28-30, a time period in which the American public watched the Dow Jones Industrial Average seesaw between a 700+ point loss and a 400+ point gain on Monday and Tuesday, while attempts by Congress to pass some type of legislation dealing with the financial crisis continued.
Barack Obama has moved to an eight point or higher lead several times since June, including after his foreign trip in July, after the Democratic National Convention, and more recently late last week. In each instance Obama was unable to sustain his lead, and John McCain was able to narrow the gap, as is happening now - to, at least, a modest degree. In addition to continuing action on the part of the Senate and Congress on a financial rescue bill, Thursday’s vice presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden could potentially have an effect on the horserace.
Look for Palin to do much better in that debate than many have predicted. The reason: expectations for Palin have been leveled to below sea level. She has also basically spent 4 days in a debate camp run by McCain advisers, many of them former Bush campaign operatives. She’ll have lots of info, prepared answers and will have zingers ready to use at the first instance.
Also look for Biden’s words to be carefully vetted by GOPers since a gaffe by him, an inaccuracy or a flip comment will be an opening to shift the debate from the economy to a personality issue again and raise up Palin’s positives by tearing down Biden’s positives. In a sense, the debate tomorrow is more about Biden than Palin.
This poll is further evidence that Obama is far from closing the sale and that. even with the bad economy. Democrats can take nothing for granted and Republicans shouldn’t give up hope just yet.
September 2nd, 2008 By JAZZ SHAW, Assistant Editor
Actually, we’ll put two questions to the readership this morning. Both of them come, at different times, from Political Punch. Feel free to take a crack at them.
First: “What would the response be if Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, and his wife Michelle had a pregnant unmarried teenage daughter?”
In preparing your response to this one, allow me to offer another point of interest. Do the respective candidate’s individual stances on questions of pro-choice vs. pro-life affect your answer and how you would view the choices made by the families?
Second: “Would Sarah Palin, given her breadth of experience, history, views and issues, been selected by Sen. John McCain as his running mate if she were a man?”
While answering this one, please let us know one thing. If your answer leans toward the negative, does that frame the pick as being one more based on politics than qualifications, readiness to lead or ideological fit?
Let’s make this the Tuesday morning open thread for your enjoyment.
The Moderate Voice prides itself in “Domestic and international news analysis, irreverent comments, original reporting, and popular culture features from across the political spectrum.” A comment on my “Bill Kristol on Victory in Iraq and Impotence in Georgia,” certainly qualifies in each and all of these aspects. I do not know who “Spikester” is (perhaps I should), but he has written a most original, “irreverent,” superb, and–if it weren’t for the subject matter–entertaining comment on the Russia-Georgia conflict. I highly recommend it to TMV readers.
It is a l o n g comment, so please take your cup of coffee, or whatever liquid nourishment, with you and be prepared to stay a while. Whatever you think of the situation, you will find Spikester’s comments interesting–certainly irreverent–and worth your time. Scroll down in the comments section to my post until you come to Spikester’s comment.
I always find it interesting, the sources on which people rely for information about the world around them. Here’s my current list of Monday through Friday regulars.
Of course, this list is not the sole extent of what I read. I also spend time with many other sources, including the print editions of our local daily newspaper, The Economist, and Foreign Affairs, among others. That said, the sources listed above are the ones I frequent most often.
So … what’s on your list?
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* The brains behind this site belong to Nate Silver. He’s a rising star. Consider this profile, published in June, in Newsweek.
** I visit these sites primarily as aggregators of, portals into, other diverse sources, from both the MSM and new media.
For most of us one of the most frustrating words of our childhood was the dreaded and disliked ‘Because’. When a parent would tell us we couldn’t do something or could not go somewhere and we asked why, the response was ‘Because I said so’ or just ‘Because’.
But as I grow older I think it is time we all revisit this term with a little more affection and respect. It is not much of a stretch to say that we are in less than encouraging times right now. We have a housing crisis and rising gas prices at home and an unpopular war overseas. Every day many of us cringe as we read the newspaper for the latest bad news to come across the wires.
Under these circumstances it is hardly surprising that many of us have become less than cheerful about the future. But I think it is time for us to take a new look at things. Yes, the economy is in trouble, but it is not the worst economy we’ve ever had, indeed it is fairly good by historical standards. 5.5% unemployment is bad, but it is not the 20 or 30% reached during the Great Depression.
Gas prices are high, but most of us can still go to work, get our groceries and even take a vacation. For many people around the world just the idea of being able to ride in a car once is a fantasy.
The war is bad and every death is a painful one, but we are not seeing tens of thousands die like we did in past wars (nor have we ever seen the kind of death tolls suffered by many other nations around the world).
This does not, of course, mean that we do not face real problems. The ones cited above and many others are going to be taxing on all of us for weeks, months or even years to come. But the idea that our world is going to collapse tomorrow is a bit extreme, and yet it is an idea that many seem to want to promote.
The solutions to these problems will not be easy, but they will be found. We’ve had problems before and many times they have seemed far more unsolvable than todays issues, but we endured, persevered and moved on.
So take a page from your childhood and just accept those parental words…
I ask this because frankly, what’s happening there is scaring the crap out of me. There are some incredibly knowledgeable folks who blog here who know far more about the current state of global politics than I do.
What are we thinking? What do we do? What can we do?
I do a lot of shlepping and have just good old analog FM in my car, so I’m mostly listening to NPR. Some of you may know that Diane Rehm is Lebanese. She sounded downright frightened and kind of desperate today - asking her guests, what will become of Lebanon and even saying at one point, with great, what sounded to me to be sincere emotion, “Poor Lebanon.”
It is so dramatically different in that region then when I was there in the mid-80s.
Anyone? I’m opening this up for thoughts, venting, reflection.
Here are some of the latest reports (chosen from results from a Google news search on “lebanon”):
Since I don’t know a lot about military history, I’m not sure what this really means (I’ll be googling to learn after I post this). I like the Nobel Peace Prize win though.
Update: Wow - I know it’s only Wikipedia, but it puts me to shame for not knowing all this - I like the comparison to Teddy Roosevelt, from the sound of this:
In 1901, as Vice President, the 42 year-old Roosevelt succeeded President William McKinley after McKinley’s assassination by anarchistLeon Czolgosz. He is the youngest person to become President.[4] He was a Progressive reformer who sought to move the dominant Republican Party into the Progressive camp. He distrusted wealthy businessmen and dissolved forty monopolistic corporations as a “trust buster“. He was clear, however, to show he did not disagree with trusts and capitalism in principle but was only against corrupt, illegal practices. His “Square Deal” promised a fair shake for both the average citizen (through regulation of railroad rates and pure food and drugs) and the businessmen. He was the first U.S. president to call for universal health care and national health insurance.[5][6] As an outdoorsman, he promoted the conservation movement, emphasizing efficient use of natural resources. After 1906 he attacked big business and suggested the courts were biased against labor unions. In 1910, he broke with his friend and anointed successor William Howard Taft, but lost the Republican nomination to Taft and ran in the 1912 election on his own one-time Bull Moose ticket. He beat Taft in the popular vote and pulled so many Progressives out of the Republican Party that Democrat Woodrow Wilson won in 1912, and the conservative faction took control of the Republican Party for the next two decades.
Here’s a tribute to one of the leaders in the quiz - but be sure to watch or advance to about 58 seconds and go from there. You’ll be sorry if you don’t. Didn’t anyone else ever hear the rumor that these folks didn’t know English when they first started singing these songs?
I’m here in the media filing center. The Ohio Democratic Party top dogs have given an overview that I didn’t really hear because I was busy figuring out where I am, uploading photos and saying hello to other press. There is supposedly going to be over 500 press here.
In Ohio, it’s 3:30pm EST. I will be blogging through until about 7:30 or so, when I have to go into the audience - I won a ticket to the debate through a lottery, as well as was awarded credentials. MANY bloggers are here and it’s great. I’ve got some video and will be posting that too.
Here are some photos, after the flip. Have questions about what it’s like and what’s happening here? Leave them in the comments and I’ll try let you know! Read the rest of this entry »
CHICAGO — Labor groups are ready to hand out 10,000 rain ponchos, but hope their members won’t have to use them tonight when the Democratic candidates and thousands of union members and leaders gather at Soldier Field….
…Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, called the debate, which starts at 6 p.m. here (7 p.m. Eastern) “the biggest job interview ever.†All the Democratic candidates — except for former Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska — will be participating. MSNBC will broadcast the debate, with Keith Olbermann acting as moderator. He will ask questions and the candidates will face some questions from union members.
By staging the debate before such a large crowd, labor leaders are hoping to demonstrate their political muscle in an era when the percentage of workers in union has dropped decade after decade.
Democratic presidential candidates face a new kind of grilling Monday when debate questions come from America’s living rooms via YouTube. Analysts say the format could force candidates to be more straightforward but some say the debate isn’t as different as it should be.
So far, the discussion has focused primarily on domestic issues and seems to be on a higher level than previous debates. We are talking about racism, education, universal health insurance and AIDS rather than all war all of the time.
Post your comments on the Democratic Presidential Candidates’ Debate.
I don’t pay for CNN, MSNBC or Fox News so I can’t watch these debates on TV. I have managed to set up Internet viewing via CNN Pipeline Web Player. If I were unable to have broadband Internet, I wouldn’t have access to the debates.
In order to provide adequate information to the voting poor, let’s move the debates back to CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox broadcast channels.
