×
- An accidentally leaked campaign memo acquired by ABC's Jake Tapper breaks down Barack Obama's strategy for tonight's debate, but it turns out that it pretty closely resembles the official memo that was deliberately given to the press. No surprises here.
- Politico reports on the tsunami of television advertising Obama has unleashed compared to John McCain: "In the first three weeks of September, Barack Obama ran 1,342 television commercials in the Washington media market that reaches heavily populated and contested Northern Virginia. According to The Nielsen Company, in the same period and market, John McCain aired just eight commercials on broadcast stations."
- John McCain helped raise over $10 million for the RNC last night in New York.
- Marc Ambinder reports in a brief item that Barack Obama is moving campaign staff out of Michigan and into Indiana, supposedly in an effort to widen a mere electoral victory into a landslide. But I'd agree that, even if he gets one, it shouldn't be thought of as a mandate, per se.
- Responding to a CBS News/New York Times national poll showing Barack Obama with a 14-point lead over John McCain, pollster Bill McInturff remarked that "the financial tsunami has produced one of the most difficult and volatile times to conduct polling in modern times. During these uniquely volatile last few weeks, I have seen as much day-to-day movement as I have witnessed in my 20 plus year career as a pollster."
- Ben Smith shares some anecdotes from an "upper-Midwest" focus group that demonstrates, once again, that Obama's "otherness" just doesn't compete as an issue compared with a tanking economy widely believed to be the product of Republican rule. See also Ezra on the Republicans' epic failure.
- Kevin Drum has a roundup on the latest desperate right-wing conspiracy theories surrounding Barack Obama. My favorite has to be the Family Security Matters item titled, "Was a Communist Obama’s Sex Teacher?": "In another major scandal involving Obama, the tabloid National Enquirer has seized upon the Frank Marshall Davis story in its October 20th issue. It glosses over his Communist Party membership and focuses instead on his role as sex pervert, pedophile, pornographer and mentor to Obama." Inquiring minds want to know.
- Speaking of conspiracies, I'm eagerly waiting for someone at The Corner to comment on the fact that William Timmons, head of McCain's presidential transition team, used to lobby on behalf of -- get ready -- Saddam Hussein.
- And finally, polls that matter: Scholastic magazine has been in the field since the '40s polling the vital K-12 crowd and has found them to accurately predict the winner of each presidential campaign every year but two (1948 and 1960). We'll see if their predictions hold up this year.
--Mori Dinauer
