DOA

Can this be for real, or is it just the usual gameplaying - make women feel good about Barack by pretending to be respecting Hillary?

George Stephanopoulos reported Clinton's name being in the mix last week on Good Morning America, but the buzz grew louder today after Clinton was spotted boarding a flight to Chicago.

It might have been about a job in the Obama administration, or maybe she had a craving for deep dish.

Her spokesman Philippe Reines would not discuss Clinton's schedule, and of course the Obama Transition Team would not comment.

The thinking about a Secretary of State Clinton is simple, I'm told: she's smart, she's strong, she's experienced, she's a team player, she is usually pretty diplomatic, and she also brings some gender diversity to an Obama Team concerned about such matters.

Let's be serious - why would Obama want Hillary around, and why would Hillary want to put her career in the hands of Barack. Secretaries of State last about 2 years, don't they?

She brings instant stature to the job, one Democrat told me. Many world leaders have known her for almost two decades.

"Clinton is the gold standard around the world, " said Chris Lehane, a former spokesman for Vice President Al Gore.

Ya, sure. Consider this idea DOA.

Glib Guidance

The biggest failure in network news has some advice for one of America's biggest political stars.

Couric thinks Sarah Palin has a thing or two to learn about politics before she contemplates a White House run in 2012. "I think she should keep her head down, work really hard and learn about governing.

Katie is right, actually. That is what Sarah should do. Blow everyone away in a couple of years by just how informed she is.

But I'm not anyone to give advice to anyone about anything," she told Page Six at Glamour Magazine's 2008 Women of the Year Awards dinner at the Essex House.

Right again!

Although her interview with Palin made the Alaska governor look dumb (while rejuvenating Couric's flagging career in the process), Couric won't give herself too much credit. "I was really just a conduit that allowed her to air her views," she said. "I don't want to judge. I'll let the voters do that."

Of course you will.

Sarah, Smile

How in love with Sarah are you?

Judy Patrick is a professional photographer. From Alaska. Wasilla, to be exact. Where she once served as deputy mayor. To the actual mayor. Sarah Palin.

Over the years Patrick's accumulated quite a collection of photographs of her friend, including a nice assortment from Palin's successful 2006 insurgent campaign for governor.

Patrick has noticed how eager the public is to follow the 44-year-old mother of five with the lifetime NRA membershp and the blue-collar union member husband who races snow machines and fishes and the Army son in Iraq and the baby with the unusual name.

As The Ticket noted yesterday with videos, even Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey came away impressed.

So at her own expense Patrick has printed up a sizeable batch of 13-month 2009 Sarah Palin calendars, using her own Palin photo archives, minus some good shots she gave to the John McCain-Palin Republican presidential campaign.

The calendars are just now becoming available here for $15.95 and will soon be in Barnes & Noble as well. Judy has her own commercial website here.

To see two more monthly photos from the 2009 Sarah Palin calendar, click on the Read more line below.

For political fans, regardless of Tuesday's outcome, the calendar they'll really be eager to see is for 2012.

Piling On

Scott Conroy of CBS News writes a blog entry entitled "Palin Stretches Facts In Effort To Paint Obama As Presumptuous." She's a politician - isn't she required to stretch the truth?

Following a fiery introduction by "The View" co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who accused the media of being "deliberately sexist" in its coverage of Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor suggested that Barack Obama assumes he already has the election wrapped up.

No exaggeration on the sexism charge - many women feel this way... in fact, I think Cokie Roberts made the same accusation today on This Week.

"And you know that elections - they're not decided until the votes are counted," Palin said at a rally here.

She's got that one right - although most of the media disagrees.

"But our opponent, he sure seems, once again to be getting out a little bit ahead of himself. Just yesterday, the New York Times reported that Barack Obama's inaugural address is already written."

The article Palin was referring to reported that John Podesta - who is in charge of Obama's transition team - wrote a hypothetical inaugural address for the Illinois senator in a book released last summer at a time when he was advising Obama's opponent Hillary Clinton.

Wow. He was writing the victory speech for Barack even as he was advising Hillary? No wonder Hillary ran such a bad campaign! Bill's buddies couldn't wait to throw them under the bus!

"Nine days out from the election, nine days out, and yet it's already written," Palin said.

"John McCain and I, we're out here asking for your vote so we can get to work for you, and a lot of folks are still undecided. And you know, Barack Obama and I, we both have spent quite some time on the basketball court. But where I come from, you have to win the game before you start cutting down the nets."

Ok so far.

Palin then brought up the presidential seal that the Obama campaign had made for the Democrat and the campaign's plan for Obama to speak at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin last summer - a setting that is typically reserved for heads of state.

"Or the stadium that he's already rented out for the victory party that he has planned," she said.

But the Obama campaign has not, in fact, rented out a stadium for a victory party. Obama plans to hold his election night celebration at Hutchinson Field, at the southern end of Grant Park in Chicago.

Oh, that's right. He's getting the venue for free, where a fortune will be spent to built a victory site. Sorry...

"You kind of get the feeling that the Obama campaign thinks this whole election process is just a formality," Palin said. "They've overlooked though the minor detail of earning your confidence and your trust and winning your votes. And I know that judging by media coverage, it does seem that the coronation is already set, but as for John McCain and me, we don't take any vote for granted, and we are not assuming that we have your vote, we are respectfully asking for it."

That's his excuse for a column. How about some coverage on how Barack stretches the truth when he says he's not a socialist?

Heels On

Is telling the truth about Barack and his scummy friends enough to pull the current campaign narrative away from the clutches of the economy? Barely, but I think it is. The challenge remains how to educate Americans about the Obamafia. Right now, the job of educating the public about Bill Ayers et al seems to have been assigned only to Sarah Palin.

Campaigning through Republican strongholds of Gulfcoast Florida today, Palin continued her weekend theme of tying Obama to Ayers, who was a founder of the violent Weather Underground group blamed for several bombings during Vietnam War protests, when Obama was a child. Obama has denounced those activities.

Ideally, the theme of Barack's shady character would be pursued by a third party, not by the McCain campaign. It's hard for a campaign not to come across as shrill and speaking only from self-interest when attacking during the final days. But it's still good to hear discussion about the bad guys who Barack made close bonds with.

And in an interview with conservative New York Times columnist William Kristol published today, the Alaska governor suggested that there should be more discussion about Wright, who was Obama's pastor of 20 years at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Obama has denounced the pastor as well.

But when Kristol pressed Palin about Wright, she replied, "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more, because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country... To me, that does say something about character. But, you know, I guess that would be a John McCain call on whether he wants to bring that up."

Which must be done. Jeremiah Wright is the only member of the Obamafia known to the general public, but the hot pursuit at the truth about Barack's dirty past never materialized. While it may be too late now to bring it up with power, McCain can't let November 4 arrive without voters knowing about who Barack is.

And I guess we’ll soon know McCain’s call on whether he wants to bring Wright up — perhaps at his debate with Obama Tuesday night.

I asked at the end of our conversation whether Palin, fresh off her own debate, had any advice for McCain. “I’m going to tell him the same thing he told me. I talked to him just a few minutes before I walked out there on stage. And he just said: ‘Have fun. Be yourself, and have fun.’ And Senator McCain can do the same.” She paused, and I was about to thank her for the interview, but she had one more thing to say. “Only maybe I’d add just a couple more words, and that would be: ‘Take the gloves off.’ ”

Tomorrow night should be very interesting. How does McCain damage Obama without doing as much damage to himself?

Sarah the Savage

If you ran anti-abortion ads that were this visual and manipulative, would there be an outcry?

A Real Lemon

What faith Americans have in our country. A deep trust that no matter what happens, our nation will always prosper. We are utterly confident in the future - or, at least, in our own ability to manage it. Consider the rejection yesterday of the bailout.

...a majority of those politicians anointed by the U.S. Constitution to reflect the will of the people voted no. This is a remarkable event, the culmination of an historic sense of betrayal that Americans have long felt for their representatives in Washington D.C. The nation's credit crisis exposed Monday a much deeper and more fundamental problem — a political credibility crisis that now threatens to harm our nation further, should the markets freeze up and more companies begin to fail, as many experts predict.

We were promised by the most powerful people in the country that the solution offered may have been ugly, but it was entirely necessary. We didn't believe them.

Asked to take a leap of faith regarding a dizzyingly complex problem, a critical mass of voters refused to trust their leaders, turning down the medicine that was offered. And so the politicians who are most exposed to popular whims have run for cover.

The deal was too cozy - the players too interconnected, the problem too abstract - for us to buy in. We've always heard that our trust in politicians was just a notch below car salesmen, and yesterday we confirmed it.

Years ago, the trust between the people and their politicians was broken. The credibility was lost. The reserve of goodwill went bankrupt. And when they needed it most, our nation's leaders found they had squandered their ability to exert influence over the people who chose them to lead.

Our elections reflect this disdain. We're willing to throw anyone into office, figuring it can't make things any worse. A governor from Arkansas who chases women uncontrollably? Sure. An inexperienced Texas governor whose main claim to fame is that his father was president? Ok, we'll try that.

We're passive aggressive. We don't feel any control over what our government does or what our society is becoming. Like teenagers bending rules to escape their feelings of powerlessness, we express our resentment with an "I don't care," shrug of the shoulders.

Nearly every major political leader in America supported the $700 billion financial bailout bill. The President of the United States. The Vice President. The Treasury Secretary. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve. The Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Democratic and Republican nominees for president. The Democratic and Republican leadership of the House and the Senate. All of them said the same thing. Vote "yes."

We wanted a "no," so that's what they gave us.

I don't know if it's unique to our country, or unique to our time. Perhaps it's just human nature. Sometimes being impetuous feels good... very good. Even when the stakes are incredibly high.

Which is why the worsening economic situation bodes well for Barack.
If anyone can be made the American Idol, then why can't anyone be made president? The more we need someone with proven abilities, the less faith we have in experience. The more we need someone we can trust, the more intrigued we are by someone who hasn't earned it.

Because we don't really think that it's all about the government. We figure, in the end, it's about us. And we trust in our own ability to pull through. So we'll take it our way rather than theirs. And we'll live with the outcome. No matter how painful.

The irony is that the desire to act out cuts across party lines. The same instinct that makes Republicans want to lash out at the corruption in Washington by refusing their imperfect bailout makes Democrats want to elect the man so uniquely unqualified to be president.

Joe's Bad Day

Democrats are wringing their hands over the possibility of Sarah Palin being a heartbeat from the presidency. Perhaps they should be more concerned over Joe Biden.

The Democratic ticket seems flumoxed. First, Biden was chastised by Barack for having said last week that AIG shouldn't be bailed, then Biden told Katy Couric that he thought the Obama campaign ad that attacked McCain for not using a computer was terrible - "If I'd had anything to do with it we never would have done it." - then he told a voter that the campaign's policy is anti-coal even though the campaign's position supports clean coal.)

What a day! And then there's this one.

"When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened,'" Barack Obama's running mate recently told the "CBS Evening News."

Biden said this in the same interview, shown last night, with Katy Couric.

Except, Republican Herbert Hoover was in office when the stock market crashed in October 1929.

Not to mention that when FDR wanted to speak to the American people, he did it on the radio.

FDR was elected three years later when voters denied Hoover a second term. The Democratic challenger appealed to the "forgotten man" by promising a "new deal" to solve the Depression era.

Can you imagine the uproar if Sarah Palin was as dumb as Joe Biden?

Democrats usually like to remind the public that a Republican was president during the 1929 stock market crash. During the 2004 presidential election, John Kerry's campaign repeatedly cited Hoover as the last president until George W. Bush to oversee a loss of jobs during his time in office.

The City Gal & The Hillbilly

It seems that Saturday Night Live bit, with Hillary and Sarah appearing together, was prescient.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will join the Republican vice presidential candidate at a rally outside the United Nations Monday morning to protest the appearance of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

It could be that the city girl and the hillbilly working together can punch a few more holes in the glass ceiling.

The event -- which includes prominent political and religious leaders, including Nobel Peace Prize Winner Elie Wiesel -- is being organized by a coalition of American Jewish organizations, under the umbrella group the National Coalition to Stop Iran Now.

Perhaps they'll start a women's party.

Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice president of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, said that Clinton accepted the invitation to the rally back in August, before Palin was part of the Republican presidential ticket. "We had approached Republican leaders because we wanted to have this event on a nonpartisan basis." The Republicans offered up Palin today, he said.

The potential of the McCain campaign having video of Sarah and Hillary together to use in a TV commercial strikes me as good reason to assume that they'll find some way to keep Hillary away from the newest rock star.

Hoenlein said Clinton has been informed of Palin's plans to attend the event and that she has no intention of pulling out. Will they appear together on the stage? "We haven't yet worked out the details," Hoenlein said. "A lot of this will depend on the Secret Service."

"Yes, that's it. It was the Secret Service. That's the ticket!"

In Their Heads

Can you believe how flustered the Democrats are?

Harry Reid's slip is only the latest sign. It was just last weekend that Barack referred to "My Muslim Faith." Now, it's "President McCain."

The slip came after (Reid) aggressively linked the Republican presidential nominee to the sitting President Bush, and suggested McCain would be a reckless commander in chief.

It's the Sarah Effect. She's got them flustered. And understanding that they're going to lose.

“We live in a dangerous and unpredictable world,” Reid said in an address on the Senate floor. “Our dangerous world calls for leaders with sound judgment, not those with a temperament prone to recklessness. … Will we stick with the same failed, out-of-touch foreign policy of George Bush, Dick Cheney and John McCain, which military experts and countless authors call the worst foreign policy in our nation’s history?”

The attempts to link McCain with the existing leadership are sounding sort of shrill lately. Sarah has moved McCain beyond that vulnerability.

But then Reid got a bit ahead of himself, as he began to describe Obama’s foreign policy toward Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

“President McCain even called the Obama approach naive,” Reid said.

President McCain. It has a nice ring to it... so nice, that even the Democratic leadership is getting used to it.

Charlie's Weak Interview

Charlie Gibson managed to make Sarah look bad in the first segment of his interview with her Thursday. Which means he did a bad job. Anyone who has been around as long as Charlie can make someone look bad - the challenge is to reveal them to the country, not stump them.

Sarah Palin showed herself as steely and supremely confident--even when she stumbled over a question about the Bush Doctrine --and brushed off whether it mattered that she had never met a foreign head of state in her much anticipated first network interview as John McCain's running mate.

Questions about being mayor and governor, and how those experiences might have prepared her for national leadership would have been better than a game of gotcha on foreign affairs. Save the international stuff until after she gets her footing.

ABC anchor Charles Gibson--who had something to prove as an interviewer after a controversial turn as a debate moderator--at times seemed exasperated at Palin's rehearsed patter in the segments of the interview shown on the evening newscast.

I don't feel that I learned much about Sarah Palin last night - but I did have confirmed for me that Charlie is spineless. I man with some backbone wouldn't have been so fearful of being accused of going easy on Sarah that he would have shown so much... hubris.

Palin, 44, the Alaska governor, kept herself out of major trouble, and that was her most important goal, first do no harm. She sounded reasonable--that is she is not calling for some kind of holy wars in explaining the statement she made in her church about war and God's plan. "I believe that there is a plan for this world and that plan for this world is for good."

Of course, it would have been nice if the McCain people just let her dodge the international stuff - "I'm not taking questions on foreign affairs yet, Charlie. I'm still getting up to speed on some areas that just haven't been relevant to my pay grade as a governor." But they had her pretend to be ready, and Charlie pretended his questions were reasonable, and the elephant in the room went unmentioned.

Living in the Bubble

I figure the experience discussion has pretty much been played out. If you think 13 years of government experience for Sarah Palin that covers city council, mayor and governor, plus a year as director of the state oil and gas conservation board, can't compete with 10 years in the Illinois legislature and a year and a half in the U.S. Senate before abandoning the post to run for president, then there's not much that one can say to change your mind. You're one of those whose cultural bias is too strong for logic to impact.

Matt Damon is one of those people who lives so deeply in the bubble that he doesn't see how ridiculous his position is - as is liberal consultant Dan Payne, who does occasional op-ed pieces in the Boston Globe.

What's noteworthy about these two is that they represent a group that seems oblivious to the reality that Palin has 1) more years of service, 2) more executive experience, 3) a larger variety of experiences, and has 4) shown more leadership than Barack during those years.

Damon is baffled about how someone with as little experience as Palin is in the running for VP. He doesn't realize it wouldn't have been possible if Barack hadn't lowered the experience bar so far for the top position.

“I know she was a mayor of a really, really small town. And she was governor of Alaska for less than two years. I just don’t understand... You do the actuary tables and there’s a one-out-of-three chance, if not more, that McCain doesn’t survive his first term and it will be President Palin . . ."

He's just so confused!

“ ‘I’m just a hockey mom from Alaska.’ And she’s the president,” he continued. “And it’s like she’s facing down Vladimir Putin and using the folksy stuff she learned at the hockey rink. It’s absurd. It’s totally absurd.”

An absurdity made possible by the idea that a motivational speaker with no evidence of any leadership abilities on his resume is the Democratic nominee. Then there's Dan Payne, a liberal who is offended by the notion of women and blacks being given a shot.

Sarah Palin is Clarence Thomas, completely unqualified but cynically chosen for being a member of a demographic group that usually votes Democratic. No wonder so many women are insulted by the choice.

Let's see - Sarah Palin was chosen because she would help accentuate McCain's maverick brand, and Biden was chosen to cover up the fact that Barack is unqualified to be president. Which is more cynical? And isn't every VP candidate chosen for cynical reasons?

Blind Racism?

The Governor of New York says that Sarah Palin was turning "community organizer" into racist code at the GOP convention.

"So I suppose a small town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except with real responsibilities," she said at the convention.

Paterson sees the repeated use of the words "community organizer" as Republican code for "black".

Whether you agree with this attempt to use the race shield so generously on Barack's behalf or not, you have to know that this is not good for Barack.

"I think where there are overtones is when there are uses of language that are designed to inhibit other people's progress with a subtle reference to their race," he said.

Barack doesn't want to be viewed as the black candidate, and if he's being defended from attacks on his inexperience with charges of racism, you make him into another Al Sharpton in the eyes of mainstream voters.

But the McCain/Palin campaign quickly fired back in a statement, saying: "It is disappointing that Governor Paterson would launch accusations of racism. … Governor Palin's remarks about Barack Obama's work as a community organizer was in response to the Obama campaign's belittling of her executive experience."

Where's the Competition?

Is the possible Obama money miscalculation being exacerbated by overreaching in the number of states it wants to put into play.

"One of our strategic goals here is to wake up on the morning of Nov. 4 with as many pathways to 270 electoral votes as possible," David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, recently told reporters. Nov. 4 is election day.

There are a number of states where Barack has organization and has spent money on advertising where McCain still looks stronger.

McCain has no field office in Georgia, using instead a Florida-based office for the Southeast. Yet he has reason for optimism: An aggregate of public polls compiled by the website Pollster.com shows McCain with a 6-point lead in Georgia.

Obama is pushing hard in North Carolina.

No Democratic candidate for president has won North Carolina since Jimmy Carter in 1976. This year, Obama has sent more than 100 paid staff to the state. The same nonpartisan ad study, compiled in part by the Wisconsin Advertising Project, showed that Obama aired more than $1.6 million worth of ads in North Carolina over a seven-week period this summer, compared with none for McCain.

Yet Pollster.com showed McCain with a 3-point edge in North Carolina.

The McCain managers are also unfazed by Barack's Montana incursion.

Montana is a small prize with just three electoral votes, but it has gotten considerable attention from the Obama campaign. Obama is airing TV commercials in the state, which last voted Democratic in the 1992 presidential race. He has opened 17 offices in Montana and visited the state five times, according to Democratic officials.

Republicans aren't the only ones unimpressed with Barack's strategy.

Even some Democrats privately wonder about Obama's strategy, questioning whether resources might be better spent on states that look more winnable.

When you combine the potential for Barack's refusal of federal funds to lead to money struggles as the steam comes out of his campaign with a possible overreach on strategy, Barack may have created a potential disaster scenario.

In McCain's view, the election hinges on several Rust Belt and Upper Midwest states, particularly Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as well as the perennial battleground of Florida.

More Numbers

CBS News has a poll out that shows McCain in a 2 point lead - reflecting the movement that other polls are showing as the post convention numbers continue coming in. Here's the lineup:

USA Today - McCain up 10%
Gallup Tracking - McCain up 5%
Rasmussen - McCain up 1%
ABC News/Wash Post McCain up 2%
CBS News - McCain up 2%

CBS analysis of its numbers is also similar to what other polls are showing.

Republican presidential nominee John McCain leads Democratic rival Barack Obama 46 percent to 44 percent in the latest CBS News poll, which was taken in the three days following the completion of the parties' nominating conventions.

Palin's favorable rating now stands at 44 percent, twice what it was immediately after her selection as McCain's nominee. Biden's favorable rating stands at 37 percent, identical to his pre-convention rating. Independents are more likely to have a favorable opinion of Palin (46 percent) than they are of Biden (31 percent).

McCain's move ahead of Obama can be traced in part to movement among previously undecided voters. In this survey, CBS News re-interviewed respondents to a CBS News/New York Times poll taken in mid-August. While many previously undecided voters remain undecided, more of those re-interviewed have moved towards McCain than Obama.

Thanks in large part to the Palin selection, McCain has rallied his white evangelical supporters. The percentage of white evangelical McCain supporters re-interviewed for this survey who are enthusiastic about McCain has doubled to 48 percent from before the convention.

Nearly three in four former supporters of Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, now back Obama over McCain. In the August survey, a smaller percentage, 63 percent, backed the man who bested Clinton in the Democratic primaries.

Palin Power

The new ABC News/Washington Post poll only shows McCain with a 2% lead among likely voters (joining Gallup, Rasmussen and USA Today polls in putting McCain out in front), but the news is dramatic when you look inside the poll.

McCain's gains stem from his improved standing against Obama on the election's core issues and a significant narrowing of the newly minted Democratic nominee's advantage as the candidate better suited to shake up Washington.

Who is the "change" candidate now?

In previous surveys, white women gave Obama a clear edge on bringing change; now they divide 47 percent for McCain, 44 percent for Obama... Only four in 10 voters in the new poll said Obama has done enough to explain the "change" he promises; that's down six points from before his convention.

The shift among white women is astounding!

White women have moved from 50-42 percent in Obama's favor before the conventions to 53-41 percent for McCain now, a 20-point shift in the margin that's one of the single biggest post-convention changes in voter preferences.

On the issues, voters are much more comfortable with John McCain than with Barack.

...on the dominant issue of the election, the economy, McCain has whittled Obama's advantage to a mere five points, the smallest it's been this year. McCain has a 17-point lead on which candidate can best handle an unexpected crisis and, for the first time, a double-digit advantage as the one more trusted on international affairs. McCain also has a 10-point lead on dealing with the war in Iraq, an issue that voters had been divided on since the outset of the campaign.

Palin's Big Bang

The Sarah Palin Effect? A convention bounce for McCain of as much as 13 points. Barack's bounce averaged a little over 4 points.

USA Today/Gallup - McCain up 10%
Gallup Tracking - McCain up 5%
Rasmussen - McCain up 1%
ABC News/Wash Post 2%

Jake Tapper reports on his ABC News Blog that:

There are Obama supporters who feel Clinton needs to make a strong case against Palin. And they are intrigued -- and troubled -- by the fact that she won't.

While the New York Times reports:

The names at the top of the ballot on Nov. 4 will be McCain and Obama, but the juicier battle this fall for an important group of swing voters — white working women with children — may be fought between the other two stars of the Republican and Democratic conventions, Sarah Palin and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Hillary can't just root for Barack to lose anymore so that she can run in four years. Now she has Vice President Sarah Palin to worry about. It ain't easy being Hillary!!!

She has no intention of turning over her “18 million cracks in the glass ceiling,” as she called her supporters, to Ms. Palin, a social conservative whose policy positions are poison in Hillaryland. What is more, Mrs. Clinton wants to be the one to make history as the first woman to win at the top of a presidential ticket, be it in 2012 or 2016.

Consider, also, how Obama looks if he has to send Hillary out to protect him from Sarah!

Clinton advisers say that Mrs. Clinton wants to do everything she can to elect Mr. Obama, so that she cannot be blamed if he loses — yet she also does not want to be too closely associated with him if he does lose, nor to tarnish her own image by taking on a rookie national politician like Ms. Palin and possibly coming up short.

Bounce Away, Bounce Here.

Barack's convention bounce has been wiped out, even though viewers of McCain's Thursday night speech won't be fully included in the Tracking Poll results until tomorrow's update. Earlier, Rasmussen called the race a tie, and now

The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update shows John McCain moving ahead of Barack Obama, 48% to 45%, when registered voters are asked for whom they would vote if the presidential election were held today.

This is a big move for McCain, showing the excitement created by Sarah Palin's addition to the ticket, and a very strong convention.

It is the largest advantage for McCain, though still within the 2-point margin of error, since May.

The 48 percent also registers the largest raw number McCain has received in the poll since Gallup started its daily tracking of the two presidential candidates in March. McCain matched that number in May.

The next few days will be needed to allow the impacts of the conventions to be fleshed out in the polls.

It also marks the expected bounce for the Republican coming immediately out of the convention. Obama experienced a similar bounce following the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention in Denver the week before. At that time, he led McCain 49-43 percent.

Also, a new Zogby poll shows McCain holding a 4 point lead.

Hitting Back

Boy, this new McCain campaign sure is a pleasure. Such tenacity in not letting Barack get away with the standard lines. In his continued celebration of the old kinda politics, it was reported yesterday that Barack was going after Sarah Palin for misrepresenting herself on earmarks. Sarah's not going to stand for it.

Gov. Palin hit back at Sen. Obama during an evening rally in the Land of Enchantment Saturday, arguing that the Democrat is in no place to lecture her on federal earmark requests.

“Today our opponent brought up earmarks and frankly I was surprised that he raised the subject. I didn’t think he’d want to go there,” she said. “Our opponent has requested nearly one billion dollars in earmarks in just three years…about a million dollars for every working day. Just wait until President John McCain puts a stop to that.”

Since Obama is a traditional politician, he lies virtually everytime he opens his mouth. Might as well wack him when he does it.

The state of Alaska has also requested hundreds of millions of dollars during Palin’s first year as Governor but she noted today that she “cut back earmarks in our state” this past year.

Why didn't Barack stick to his primary campaign theme of changing the way Washington does business. That's an idea that Americans are receptive to.

“I’m ready to help John McCain end earmarks once and for all…eleventh hour, behind closed doors, no public scrutiny, the earmark system that is broken–we will end that,” she said.

Since converting to being a traditional politician, he's opened the door for McCain/Palin to challenge him for rightful ownership of the "change" brand.

Flashback!

It's never too early for nostalgia, and since this campaign's been going on for a couple of years, there's much that we've forgotten about already.

Many thanks to our friends at the real barack obama for offering up this flashback of Hillary and Barack doing battle in January. As you watch, smile over the thought of Hillary being rolled out to save Barack from The Palin Effect.

The Obama campaign, alarmed by Palin’s instant popularity, has given Clinton’s staff a proposed fall campaign schedule in economically distressed battleground states — including Ohio and Pennsylvania — where she did well during the primaries, according to people familiar with the situation.