$3 Million

A group of ethical Democrats campaigns against Barack.

Grab It

The economy needs to be grabbed as an issue by one of the candidates - and it should be John McCain. The void in leadership that it highlights presents an incredible opportunity to play president.

It is Obama, though, who is seizing the moment.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama plans to give a speech on the financial crisis and issue a ``rescue plan'' for the middle class, his campaign said.

``Our economy is facing its greatest uncertainty in over 70 years,'' the Illinois senator's campaign said in an e-mail to reporters this morning. ``Families who saw their incomes decline by $2,000 in the economic `expansion' from 2000 to 2007 now risk seeing deeper income losses.''

His campaign didn't release details about the new proposals. Obama, 47, is due to speak at 1:30 p.m. local time today in Toledo, Ohio. It's the only public event he has scheduled in the next few days as he prepares for his final debate with Republican nominee John McCain on Oct. 15.

Read down one or two posts to see what McCain should say.

Near or Not?

Ready to go into a 4pm White House meeting, it's unclear whether congress has hammered out acceptable terms for an agreement.

Key Republicans and Democrats reported agreement Thursday on an outline for a historic $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, but there was still resistance from rank-and-file House Republicans despite warnings of an impending panic.

"I now expect we will, indeed, have a plan that can pass the House, pass the Senate, be signed by the president and bring a sense of certainty to this crisis that is sill roiling in the market," Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, said as members of both parties emerged from a two-hour negotiating session.

"We're very confident that we can act expeditiously," said Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., the Banking Committee chairman.

Some are being much more reserved in their analysis. Are they delaying the celebration on behalf of John McCain? No reason to think that Republicans won't be as willing to politicize this as Democrats have been.

Not everyone in the closed-door talks was as optimistic. Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, the only House Republican in the bargaining meeting, stopped short of saying he agreed with the other lawmakers on an imminent deal.

"There was progress today," said Bachus, the senior Republican on the House Financial Services panel.

Later, he issued a statement saying he was not empowered to strike any deals and there was "no agreement other than to continue discussions."

Both houses' Republican leaders, Rep. John Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell, also issued statements saying there was no agreement.

Good old Bill Clinton comes through again, reminding people that Democrats share some of the blame for the current situation.

Thanks, Bill

Bill Clinton comes through for McCain.

Former President Bill Clinton defended Sen. John McCain's request to delay the first presidential debate, saying McCain did it in "good faith" and pushed organizers to reserve time for economy talk during the debate if the Friday plans move forward.

It's good of Bill to choose now to be above the fray.

Appearing on Good Morning America Thursday, Clinton told ABC News' Chris Cuomo that McCain's push to postpone the debate would only be a good political move if both candidates agreed. McCain announced on Wednesday that he would "suspend" his presidential campaign to come to Washington to help negotiate a financial bailout bill

"We know he didn't do it because he's afraid because Sen. McCain wanted more debates," Clinton said, adding that he was "encouraged" by the joint statement from McCain and Sen. Barack Obama.

"You can put it off a few days the problem is it's hard to reschedule those things," Clinton said, "I presume he did that in good faith since I know he wanted -- I remember he asked for more debates to go all around the country and so I don't think we ought to overly parse that."

If the debate moves forward as planned for Friday night, Clinton says "they should be able to talk about this some of the debate because it is a security issue."

And, by the way, you don't have to tell Bill why voters have gone crazy for Palin!

Bill Clinton praised Sarah Palin Wednesday, saying he found the Alaska governor an “appealing person” and her and her family “gutsy, spirited and real.”

“I think that she and her husband and their kids come across gutsy, spirited and real,” he said in an interview to be broadcast Wednesday night. “I have significant disagreements with her about any number of social and economic issues but I find her an appealing person and I think that it’s best to say that Senator McCain looks like he knew what he was doing. He picked somebody who gave him a lot of energy, a lot of support.”

Obama Follows

The first phase of McCain's new emergency strategy appears to be working.

Injecting a jolt of new drama into the U.S. presidential race, Republican John McCain on Wednesday said he was temporarily suspending his campaign in a bid to help break a deadlock on Capitol Hill over the White House's proposed $700-billion bailout of Wall Street.

His decision Wednesday to do something bold and to link his campaign more strongly to the bailout legislation preceded a speech by President Bush last night, created a VP style media drama over what will happen to the debate Friday night, and forced Barack to dance along to his lead.

The move came on a dramatic day that ended with President George W. Bush making a rare prime-time televised address, warning that the "serious financial crisis" is putting the "entire economy . . . in danger."

Mr. Bush warned that if action was not taken soon, "America could slip into a financial panic and a distressing scenario would unfold."

McCain is now front and center on the attempts in congress to hammer out emergency legislation. And he and Barack got to put out their joint statement.

With debate in Congress over the proposed rescue package at an impasse, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said late Wednesday he would join Mr. McCain for an emergency meeting with Bush and leaders of Congress Thursday at the White House.

"This is a time to rise above politics for the good of the country," Messrs. Obama and McCain said in a joint statement. "We cannot risk an economic catastrophe. Now is our chance to come together to prove that Washington is once again capable of leading this country."

The real potential exists for McCain to look, once again, like the guy capable of going beyond looking presidential, and actually acting presidential in a time of crisis.

But while both candidates were putting their campaigns on hold, Mr. Obama rejected Mr. McCain's request for a scheduled presidential debate on Friday to be postponed while they worked jointly on the financial crisis.

Mr. Obama, who has been campaigning in Florida, said he agreed to return to Washington after Bush phoned with an invitation for the impromptu White House summit.

If this thing drags on another 24 hours, Barack could end up in a pickle over what to do about tomorrow night, with his campaign stuck in high profile reaction mode. But if it resolves quickly, McCain may not have been in Washington long enough to create a sense of linkage between his actions and the final legislation.

Democrats are doing their best to make McCain seem irrelevant.

Moments after Bush spoke on Wednesday, powerful Democrat Rep. Barney Frank said a bailout bill would pass.

"Earlier today, it became clear to me we would get the votes to pass this bill," Frank, who is chairman of the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, told CNBC.

Which Way

In a pivotal electoral moment, the candidates are jostling to gain advantage from the world financial crisis.

The emergency may become the ‘September Surprise' that completely changed the course of the 2008 race. Supporters of Mr Obama hope it will spur Americans to blame incumbent Republicans for the mess and turn their backs on John McCain. It is equally possible, however, that this moment of deep uncertainty may discourage them from voting for Mr Obama whom they may regard as too inexperienced.

McCain got off to a bad start this week, as his campaign showed obvious confusion - sending out confusing, mixed messages. Barack, in turn, responded with confidence and hard attacks on McCain, seizing the moment to get the campaign narrative back on the economy. It took three days for McCain to settle on a line of attack.

“My friends, this is the problem in Washington. People like Sen. Obama have been too busy gaming the system and haven’t ever done a thing to actually challenge the system. That’s not country first, that’s Obama first.”

Two can play the game of identifying campaign insiders who are symbolic of insiderism, and McCain took the opportunity to hit Obama.

McCain once again drew the connection between Obama and two former CEO’s of Fannie Mae, Fred Raines and Jim Johnson. McCain argued that Raines was an advisor to his opponent’s campaign -- something the Obama camp denies. A campaign aide said Obama camp has asked the Washington Post for a correction to a July 16 story identifying Raines as having taken calls from the campaign. The Washington Post has not issued one.

McCain said Johnson was at one point in charge of Obama’s VP selection process.

“That same executive got $21 million of your money,” McCain said of Johnson. “And the other CEO, another supporter of Senator Obama, Mr. Raines got $25 million of your money. Let’s tell them to give it back. Let’s tell them to give it back.”

The polls have already snapped away from McCain, satisfying the market's structural desire for change. McCain leads in no current polls, doing his best with a tie in the Rasmussen Daily Tracker. Gallup's daily has Barack up 5%.

Barack's Fannie Problem

Why did Barack Obama, who's been a senator for about 20 minutes, receive as much money as any politician but Chris Dodd from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Why did these pseudo public agencies give money to politicians at all?

Here's the list of the top recipients of political donations from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for the years 1989 to 2008. Keep in mind that Barack only got to the senate in January of 2005.

Name

Office

State

Party

Grand Total

from PACs

Individuals

Dodd, Christopher J	S	CT	D	$165,400	$48,500	$116,900
Obama, Barack	S	IL	D	$126,349	$6,000	$120,349
Kerry, John	S	MA	D	$111,000	$2,000	$109,000

These totals are based on data released electronically from the FEC on Sept. 2 and include contributions to lawmakers' leadership PACs and candidate committees from the floundering companies' PACs and employees. Current members of Congress have received a total of $4.8 million from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with Democrats collecting 57 percent of that.

Barack claims to be Mister Clean. This doesn't reflect the fundraising of an outsider.

If having a staffer who has worked as a lobbyist makes you "on the take," I wonder what it means when you take more money from companies like Fannie and Freddie than anybody except Chris Dodd. More than, say, 352 other lawmakers, going back to 1989.

Little Johnny

I've been caught in the cross hairs of this email more than once. It provided some welcome relief to the barage of anti-McCain nonsense I've been receiving.

A teacher asked her 6th grade class how many of them were Obama fans. Not really knowing what an Obama fan is, but wanting to be liked by the teacher, all the kids raised their hands except for Little Johnny.

The teacher asked Little Johnny why he has decided to be different, again. Little Johnny said, "Because I'm not an Obama fan." The teacher then asked, "Why aren't you an Obama fan?"
Johnny said, "Because I'm a Republican." The teacher asked him why he's a Republican. Little Johnny answered, "Well, my Mom's a Republican, and my Dad's a Republican, so I'm a Republican."

Annoyed by this answer, the teacher asked, "If your mom was a moron, and if your dad was an idiot, what would that make you?"
With a big smile, Little Johnny replied, "Well, that would make me an Obama fan."

Advantage Obama

This week's news cycle - a meltdown on Wall Street - pushes the energy of the election back toward Barack. The Democrat needs voters unhappy in order to have traction, and this week's economic woes make lipstick talk seem long ago.

Ridiculing his rival for sticking with "an economic philosophy that has completely failed," Sen. Barack Obama laid out his approach to managing the current financial crisis -- promising to play a proactive role if he is elected president in order to prevent future meltdowns.

Monday morning, McCain said the fundamentals of the economy are still strong, a comment that's been used against him in the past. Instead of acting presidential and sticking with that arguably accurate and reassuring assessment, his campaign retrenched, offering a convoluted explanation to escape responsibility for the remark - fundamentals means workers, and workers are strong.

Obama is seizing this mess to gain an upper hand as effectively as McCain jumped on the Russian invasion of Georgia last month, and the McCain campaign is bobbling the ball almost as badly as Barack did.

Obama poked fun at McCain for proposing a commission to examine the crisis, calling that "the oldest Washington stunt in the book."

"This isn't 9/11. We know how we got into this mess," Obama said. "What we need now is leadership that gets us out. I'll provide it, John McCain won't, and that's the choice for the American people in this election."

Meanwhile, McCain adviser Carly Fiorina provided fodder for the Obama campaign to whip McCain with.

"No, I don't," Fiorina replied. "But that's not what she's running for. Running a corporation is a different set of things."

Later on MSNBC, said she said the same of the presidential nominee. "I don't think John McCain could run a major corporation."

Of course, Fiorina said the Democrats were likewise unqualified to run a major corporation, but that didn't stop the Obama campaign from pouncing, once again making the new kinda politics look remarkably like the old.

"If John McCain's top economic adviser doesn't think he can run a corporation, how on Earth can he run the largest economy in the world in the midst of a financial crisis?" spokesman Tommy Vietor asked.

The McCain campaign offered reassurance, which wasn't very reassuring.

Economy Ad

A well-done new ad for Barack. Not responding to McCain's celebrity theme directly, but sidestepping it and looking serious on the economy. Smart.



ABC's Jake Tapper nitpicks the ad:

There's some pretty iffy stuff in there -- Obama has voted to send tens of
billions to Iraq, too, though quite obviously he has also voted against funding
the war as well. And oil moneys aside, that's a pretty remarkable suggestion,
that the Iraqis are living high on the hog and screwing the very US taxpayers
who are helping them.

He's right, of course. But the ad still works.