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- With time running out on the clock, John McCain appears to be giving up on potential swing states like Colorado, Wisconsin and New Hampshire and instead putting all his electoral eggs in one basket -- Pennsylvania. What's curious about this strategy, as many others have pointed out, is that not only is McCain unlikely to actually win in PA, but also, even if he did, it still wouldn't guarantee him the election. Frankly, I never considered Pennsylvania to be competitive, mostly for reasons I discussed back in April: "[in 2004] Kerry won 12 counties to Bush's 56, although arguably what pushed him over the line was his huge margin over Bush in Philadelphia county. There, Kerry picked up 542,205 votes to Bush's 130,099 -- a difference of 412,106 -- which was more than Kerry's margin over Bush in every other county he won combined."
- McCain received the all-important Al Qaeda endorsement today, but unlike four years ago, this one doesn't appear destined to have much of an impact.
- Defending Sarah Palin on the Don Imus show, McCain made the remarkable assertion that "I think she is the most qualified of any that has run recently for vice president." Meanwhile, over at The Corner, Ed Whalen asks, flabbergasted, "how is it that anyone can believe that Joe Biden, whose national-security "expertise" consists of being wrong on virtually every important question over the past few decades is more qualified to be Vice President than Sarah Palin is?" and links to a WSJ article that discusses how Biden "was wrong on the Cold War" which ended, you know, 17 years ago. Relevant!
- Campaigning in Nevada, Sarah Palin criticized Barack Obama as a "faux-feminist" in an effort to drum up some female votes for McCain. Meanwhile, Rick Davis and radio host Bill Bennett agreed that Palin drives feminsts "crazy" because she's "attractive, competent and very happy." Shorter McCain campaign: feminists are ugly, incompetent and unhappy. Glad we got that cleared up.
- When she's not busy helping the RNC become $150,000 lighter, Palin spends the rest of her time contributing directly to the McCain campaign by becoming the number one concern voters have about his campaign. 34 percent of respondents cited "Palin not qualified" compared to 23 percent who said that McCain would continue Bush policies. Ah, the wonders of making short-term tactical wins the centerpiece of your campaign.
- Last Palin item: the VP hopeful tells CNN's Drew Griffin that "I’m not going to call him [Obama] a socialist but as Joe the plumber has suggested, in fact, he came right out and said it, it sounds like socialism to him and he speaks for so many Americans who are quite concerned now after hearing finally what Barack Obama’s true intentions are with his tax and economic plan." Hey, why bother answering the question when you can just cite an unwilling campaign surrogate instead?
- Michele Bachmann decides to dig herself into a deeper hole, first telling a local paper that Chris Matthews "laid a trap" for her, and then this morning going on Mike Gallagher’s radio show to ask "what are Barack Obama’s policies? Are they for America or will they be against traditional American ideals and values?"
--Mori Dinauer
