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- Barack Obama's schmaltzy yet effective 30-minute infomercial was viewed by one-fifth of American households, or about half of the audience for the second McCain-Obama debate. As to the purpose of the ad, I'll outsource my commentary to television critic Tom Shales: "The film conveyed feelings, not facts -- specifically, a simulation of how it would feel to live in an America with Barack Obama in the White House. The tone and texture recalled the "morning in America" campaign film made on behalf of Ronald Reagan, a work designed to give the audience a sense of security and satisfaction; things are going to be all right."
- John McCain tells Larry King yesterday that he doesn't think racism will play a significant factor in the election, and that he doesn't believe Barack Obama is a socialist, but that his policies support spreading the wealth around. Meanwhile, the RNC's independent expenditure arm makes the case that just as we don't want amateurs flying our planes or performing our surgeries, we can't afford to have a novice in the Oval Office, either. I guess I missed that clause in the Constitution that explains the credentialing association charged with signing off on qualifying presidential candidates.
- This radio ad in Virginia channels McCain's inner Goldwater, informing the audience that "[Obama wants] more for big government, less for you. Just as you suspected." McCain: in your heart, you know he's right.
- McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds on quasi-2012 presidential aspirant Sarah Palin's Alaska oil revenue wealth-sharing plan not having "undertones" of socialism: "No, in Alaska it's a unique state because all the residents there have a unique share of the natural resources, that the oil companies come in and use, so therefore they share the revenues of the resources. ... Alaskans have an ownership stake." So an ownership society and socialism are different … how again?
- John McCain is now running robocalls in Arizona. Man, you just never know what he's going to do next! Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is recruiting volunteers in The Copper State.
- Does John McCain have the electoral equivalent of dark matter, whose power will only be realized upon Election Day? Mark Blumenthal and Charles Franklin say eh, not so much.
- While the Beltway chatter is now focused on an Obama administration's theoretical relationship with a Democratic Congress, Obama has quietly been raising money in the last few months for his presidential transition team. Meanwhile, some crank at GOPUSA puts forth Obama's "dream Cabinet." I especially liked this one: "no one personifies Barack Obama's view of American foreign policy better than Noam Chomsky ... He would be the perfect secretary of state to carry out Barack Obama's feeble foreign policy initiatives." Get it? Noam Chomsky! The radical anarchist! Man, these guys are so far ahead of the curve, they've landed smack-dab in the middle of the 1970s!
- In Colorado, an alliance of voting-rights activists have reached an agreement with the secretary of state to ensure that 20,000 purged voters will still get to cast a ballot. Read more in TPM's helpful Republican vote suppression guide.
- For the curious, libertarian magazine Reason polled its staff and contributors to determine who they're voting for this year. Demonstrating the rigid ideological consistency that burdens the libertarian mind, the staff split -- by my count -- between Obama (3.5), McCain (1), Bob Barr (5.5), no vote (6) and "anybody but McCain-Palin" (1) (half points awarded to leaners). At any rate, it's not easy to tally, that's for sure.
--Mori Dinauer
