Barack Obama’s Lead May be Temporary

Yes, I like how the election is looking at the moment, but we are warned that this race may well tighten up and soon:

The polls now all indicate an Obama win on Nov. 4; some even suggest a landslide. But there’s a strong chance the race will tighten back up this month.

Anger over the Wall Street mess has been pushing voters to Barack Obama in droves. And John McCain’s effort to get involved in the solution only hurt him. [...]

But October may see the end of Obama’s surge: He’s peaking too soon.

Once the Democrat is seen as the clear leader and likely winner, the spotlight will inevitably shift to him. And he may not benefit from the increased attention.

Obama didn’t do well when he last emerged on top, in later Democratic primaries. The more it appeared that Hillary Clintonwould lose, the more voter concerns over Obama’s relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright cost him state after state in the later primaries.

Obama still beat Clinton because he’d already amassed a sufficient delegate lead earlier on. That dynamic doesn’t apply in the general election.

The Democrat gained by standing back during the rescue-bill drama. But now voters (with a strong push from the McCain campaign) will be giving him a closer look – and some won’t like what they see.

[...]
So Obama will be in the spotlight on how he’d handle the economy and on whether he is part of the political mainstream.

Voters will still be in the mood for throwing the Republicans out of office, so Obama may not fall all the way down – but October will be no cakewalk for the Democrat.

Go to DickMorris.com to read all of Dick’s columns!

Morris goes on to spout off discredited mud.

Embedded within a comprehensive Monday report from NPR on Barack Obama’s history with William Ayers, there is an interesting bit of straight talk from a former Republican who served in the state legislature.

Discussing Ayers’ rehabilitation as a member in good standing of the education policy-wonk community, former state Republican Rep. Diana Nelson said: “It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that he had led a fugitive life years earlier … It’s ridiculous. There is no reason at all to smear Barack Obama with this association. It’s nonsensical, and it just makes me crazy. It’s so silly.”

Emphasis mine.

And, remember that John McCain excels in town-hall meeting formats.

More Stuff

And some humor:

John McCain: Getting Desperate

Dick Morris gives his latest projection:

Frankly, I am not this optimistic. True, I think that we have a shot in Indiana. But Arkansas? Kentucky? West Virginia? I don’t see that at all. Perhaps he is trying to scare the Republicans into action, or perhaps set a super low bar for McCain so the Republicans can claim a “moral victory” if Obama doesn’t win by a wide margin? I don’t get it.

Really? A couple of things:

1. In Missouri, the offices are, in fact, partisan. And, of course, the McCain campaign is lying, again.

In response to a Democratic push to enforce Missouri’s ethics laws and the simultaneous (but separate) formation of a Democratic “truth squad” (which both McCain and Obama campaigns utilize to respond swiftly to swiftboating lies) the following poorly-worded TV news report has sparked off a firestorm of Republican lies and bullshit from the right wing lie machine, lead by Matt Drudge of the Drudgereport.com.

The story confuses the two initiatives — the first that Democrats are suggesting that (gasp!) ethics law be enforced — and the second related but separate initiative that members of justice and law enforcement agencies who are Obama supporters are joining Obama’s Missouri “truth squad.”

If you’re not careful it’s easy to be confused and think they are one in the same. And the Republican hate squad loves stories that are easy to spin like this one because they prey on a section of the American electorate who typically can’t or won’t invest the time to understand the full issue and the “story behind the story” (ie “the truth”). [...]

As far as the stem cell research claim Obama is telling the truth:

McCain opposes embryonic stem cell research that uses cloned human embryos. In 2006 he supported a trio of U.S. Senate bills designed to increase federal funding for adult stem cell research, ban the creation of embryos for research and offer federal support for research using embryos slated for destruction by fertility clinics. In 2007, in what he described as “a very agonizing and tough decision,” he voted to allow research using human embryos left over from fertility treatments.

My emphasis.

More on Sarah Palin

Death of a Friendship

Workout notes: yoga class, and now I am about to do some running (treadmill due to storms that are close by). Update: 6.5 miles of running on the roads; I might do a walk later in the afternoon as a study break.

Friendships: one just ended today. I put a poll there. Right now, there have been 250+ responses; 44% think that I should end the friendship.

Here is the diary itself (click on the above link to see the poll and the comments)

Ok, the title is misleading. I had been taking yoga from a particular instructor since 2003 and we had developed a bit of a friendship; we had gone on bike rides together, walks, etc.

So today after yoga class, I walked down to the car with her and the subject of politics came up. And a friendship ended.

She had been a big Hillary Clinton supporter and was angry that she didn’t win….it was the old “but she has more EXPERIENCE” canard.

So, she is seriously thinking about voting for John McCain.

I gave her reasons why I thought Obama was better qualified; I pointed out how Obama knows the world a lot better, is more respected and just has a better grasp on things. And I pointed out that Obama would have never picked an unqualified idiot like Sarah Palin to be VP.

Then came the shocker: SHE LIKES SARAH PALIN…the old “she is one of us”.

My jaw just about hit the ground.

Yes, my (former) yoga teacher isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer; she gets her news from talk radio.

But she is one of those who is anti-intellectual to the extreme (yes, she believes in things like haunted houses…no I am not making that up).

Anyhow…life is too short to associate with people like this.

So, after I’ve cooled off, I’ll tell her that I am not going to the party that she invited me to (this Saturday); what remains to be seen is how blunt I am in telling her why I am not going to associate with her any further.

Olberman Slams Palin…and McCain’s Supporters get Desperate

Keith Olberman goes off on Sarah Palin…

From a McCain rally:

Obama is a terrorist?

Of course, McCain not standing up to hateful supporters is nothing new:

DESPERATION IS A TERRIBLE THING

The wingnuts see the election slipping away…..

Meanwhile Barack Obama focuses on the economy.

John McCain: Keating Five, Rolling Stone and More Mud…

Ok, what is the current state of the financial crisis?

Robert Reich talks about it:

Put simply, no lender trusts any borrower to repay, fearing that that borrower won’t be able to rely on anyone else to honor obligations. Even banks are hoarding cash, unwilling to lend to other banks. Everyone with any savings is heading for the hills — for gold, for under the mattress, for wherever savings can be watched. We’re witnessing a huge international bank run. We have not seen a global financial crisis on this scale since the 1930s.

What’s happened? Put simply, the Bailout of All Bailouts has been a dud, at least so far. Most obviously, it hasn’t done what it was intended to do — reassure financial markets that the Treasury and the Fed would have enough money to handle any financial crisis.

So it’s everyone and every institution — and every country — for itself. Several nations (Ireland, Greece, Germany) have basically guaranteed all deposits. As a result, global capital is moving their way. They’re also thereby creating a new form of socialized capitalism. At the rate they’re going, these nations will soon own and run their financial markets, and maybe a big chunk of the world’s.

Ok, what about John Mccain?

First, here is a link to a very interesting Rolling Stone story about John McCain. I honestly don’t know what to make of the POW stuff, but much of the rest of this story is confirmed by McCain’s own book.

McCain’s attacks: false.

Mr. McCain claimed that “as recently as September of last year,” Mr. Obama “said that subprime loans had been, quote ‘a good idea.’” But that quote is taken out of context and reverses the intent of Mr. Obama’s remarks, which were clearly meant primarily as a criticism of practices on Wall Street.

“Subprime lending started off as a good idea helping Americans buy homes who couldn’t previously afford to,” Mr. Obama said in a speech to NASDAQ in September 2007. But, he added, “as certain lenders and brokers began to see how much money could be made, they began to lower their standards. Some appraisers began inflating their estimates to get the deals done. Some borrowers started claiming income they didn’t have just to qualify for the loans, and some were engaging in irresponsible speculation. But many borrowers were tricked into glossing over the fine print.”

You’ll see this a lot from Republicans: the subprime loan crisis was the fault of the greed of the poor people; they don’t focus as much on the way that these bad loans were bundled into bad bonds and sold on the market without transparency.

Mr. McCain also criticized Mr. Obama’s policies on taxes, in language similar to last month’s first debate, with a few new fillips. But fact-checking organizations have already repeatedly dismissed the bulk of the accusations he made as inaccurate or exaggerated.

Just as in the debate, for example, Mr. McCain accused Mr. Obama of voting to raise taxes on people making as little as $42,000 a year. But that vote was in favor of a non-binding budget resolution that would have allowed the tax cuts President Bush pushed through Congress in 2001 and 2003, which mainly benefitted the wealthy, to expire. It was not a tax increase and as a resolution, it did not have force of law. In addition, it was meant to be supplemented by other legislation which would include middle-class tax breaks.

Mr. McCain was absent from the Senate, out on the campaign trail, when both votes were taken. But the Obama campaign has noted in e-mailings to reporters that he, like Mr. Obama, voted for another, related piece of legislation, an amendment that contained essentially the same budget projections that Mr. Obama had earlier endorsed.

This article also takes on McCain’s lies about Obama’s health care plan.

But Senator McCain is not in a position to throw stones.

First, McCain is trying to backpedal on his previous claims that he made a mistake with the Keating Five scandal:

Here is a video about it: (here)

McCain’s backers have memory problems too.

In a conference call with reporters, attorney John Dowd was asked about a specific part of the Keating Five inquiry, the fact that Cindy McCain and her father had invested in a Keating strip mall.

“It was part of the inquiry, but it did not — John was unconnected to that and unaware of it at the time, and did not participate in it,” Dowd said.

Really?

“Sometime in 1986, I was told by Mr. Delgado, who was Executive Vice President of my father-in-law’s company, that they were going to invest in a shopping center and that the investment — the project — was being put together by a subsidiary of American Continental,” McCain said. “He later told me that they — that that had happened. And I had no interest in it and just noted in passing that this investment took place.”

The attorney asking the question during the hearing? John Dowd.

Video:

Do You Want This Woman To Have the Nuclear Codes?

Sarah Palin, at church:

This is an example of “speaking in tongues” at a Pentecostal Church:

From here. You can find longer versions of the videos there.

This. Woman. Has. No. Business. Near. The. Nuclear. Codes.

Others think that she is unqualified, including other Republicans:

More:

Humor: Friendly Atheist points out that Palin’s winking runs afoul of the Bible.

Lesson: Don’t Showboat Until You Have Won!

This lesson applies to sports, and probably to politics.

(From the Fail.blog)