Obama loses patience with press pack

by James Janega

Are you a supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama? Did you try to get a ticket to Grant Park?

Well, the campaign may not be saying whether you got that ticket or not, but an email sent to applicants Friday afternoon -- the kind calculated to make an enthusiast's heart skip a beat - offered a chance for *front-row tickets* ... for a donation of $5 or more. Apparently, it went to the few remaining Democratic U.S. citizens who have NOT sent money to the campaign yet.

"We're saving some of the best seats in the house for 5 people who make their first donation to the campaign before Sunday at midnight," the email said.

"If you're selected, you can bring a guest, and we'll fly you in and put you up in a hotel for the night. You'll go backstage at the big event and - no matter what happens - you'll have a front row seat," the email signed "Barack" continued.

by Jill Zuckman

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Arnold Schwarzenegger, the movie star and governor of California, rocked the Nationwide Arena Friday evening as he compared Barack Obama and John McCain to bodybuilders.

Once a year in March, Schwarzenegger holds Arnold's Classic, the world's biggest body building exposition, in Columbus.

"I want to invite Mr. Obama, he needs to do something about those skinny legs," Schwarzenegger said. "We're going to make him do some squats and some biceps curls to beef up those scrawny little arms. If only we could put some meat on his ideas."

McCain, on the other hand, Schwarzenegger said, "he's built like a rock," adding that his character and his views are solid.

by Frank James

Sen. John McCain and his team have talked in recent days about closing the polling gap with Sen. Barack Obama.

That may be true in some of the battleground state polls though even that is under some dispute between partisans on both sides.

But the Gallup Poll is suggesting that the race is not tightening, at least not on a national level.

An excerpt of Gallup's report:

PRINCETON, NJ -- The political landscape could be improving for Barack Obama in the waning days of the campaign. Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Oct. 28-30 shows him with an eight percentage point lead over John McCain among traditional likely voters -- 51% to 43% -- his largest margin to date using this historical Gallup Poll voter model.

Thursday night's interviews are the first conducted entirely after Obama's widely viewed 30-minute prime-time campaign ad, which ran on several television networks Wednesday evening. Obama held a substantial lead over McCain in last night's polling, however no greater than what Gallup found on Wednesday.

by Jill Zuckman

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Upbeat and on the offense, John McCain accused rival Barack Obama Friday of a Halloween trick to tax people's retirement contributions as he toured the back roads of small town Ohio for a second day.

McCain brought a little extra star power along with him, showing off Arnold Schwarzenegger, the movie star and governor of California, in the state capital, and Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, in Hanoverton

Campaign officials insisted they have just had their best 10 days of polling since the convention, boasted of a voter contact operation that would dwarf President Bush's from 2004, and promised a final 24-hour burst of campaigning in seven cities in seven states leading up to Election Day.

"We're jazzed up by the movement," said campaign manager Rick Davis. "And we are witnessing, I believe, probably one of the greatest comebacks that you've seen since John McCain won the primary."

by Mark Silva

Barack Obama is getting a boost from Hispanic voters in early voting in South Florida, according to exit-polling that shows strong margins for the Democratic candidate among traditionally Republican voters.

If margins such as these hold true on Election Day in the Miami area, Obama could have a strong claim to Florida's 27 electoral votes.

The exit polling of 8,683 voters leaving most of the county's early-voting sites between Oct. 20-29 was sponsored by the political science class of Associate Professor Mike Abrams at the University of Miami and financed by Bendixen & Associates, a long-established polling firm working as a consultant to the Obama campaign.

The ability of any Democrat to claim a sizeable share of the Hispanic vote in South Florida is part of any winning formula there. The exit polling found winning numbers:

-- 60 percent of those voting early were Hispanic, in a county with a 55-percent Hispanic electorate.

-- Among all Hispanics voting, Obama was favored by 47 percent, McCain 53.

-- Among Cuban-born Hispanics, McCain 69 percent, Obama 31.

-- Among U.S.-born Hispanics, Obama 72 percent, McCain 28.

-- Among white, Anglo voters, Obama 64 percent, McCain 36.

-- Among African-American voters, Obama 98 percent.

by John McCormick

DES MOINES - Returning to the place that set him on a potential path to the presidency some 10 months ago, Sen. Barack Obama thanked Iowans for their support today and asked them to help him cross the finish line successfully next week.

"On the day of the Iowa caucuses, my faith in the American people was vindicated and what you started here in Iowa has swept the nation," Obama told a crowd his campaign said totaled about 25,000 in a downtown park under a warm fall sun.

"We're seeing the same turnout. We're seeing the same people going, getting in line. Volunteers. People participating," he said. "A whole new way of doing Democracy started right here in Iowa and it's all across the country now."

The Illinois Democrat appeared more spirited than he has in recent days and more frequently adlibbed away from text on the teleprompter that he has typically closely stuck to in recent weeks.

His voice frequently rose and echoed against the capital city's downtown buildings. Drawing loud cheers, Obama sought to mobilize volunteers and voters for the final push until Tuesday.

Sen. Ted Stevens, right, answers a question during a congressional debate in Anchorage, Alaska Thursday Oct. 30, 2008 as Democrat candidate Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich listens. (AP Photo/Al Grillo)

by Frank James

The freshly minted convict Sen. Ted Stevens had a debate in Alaska last night against Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. One of the most interesting parts of the debate came early when the longest-serving Republican senator said he wasn't convicted.

He was asked what he would tell the Republican presidential ticket Sen. John McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin who have both called on him to resign following his being convicted by a jury in federal district court on seven counts of failing to disclose gifts on his Senate disclosure forms.

He answered with this whopper:

I have not been convicted of anything.

I would have to say John, and, and Sarah, I understand.

When an incredulous reporter asked him if the reporter had heard him correctly, was the senator really saying that McCain and Palin were cynically calling for his resignation for merely political reasons, Stevens said "yes."

by James Oliphant

Has John McCain thought of this?

by William Neikirk

One thing that has bothered me about this presidential race is that neither candidate has been sufficiently forceful about the sacrifices likely awaiting the American people.

Certainly Sen. Barack Obama and John McCain have vaguely talked about possible tough times ahead, and a lot of Americans certainly know that for a fact. But the campaigns have been mostly about tax cuts and other goodies designed to make things better.

You can't blame them much. No candidate wants to dwell on sacrifices and belt-buckling in a nation accustomed to a long period of relatively good times. When Jimmy Carter delivered his famous "malaise" speech during the energy crisis in the 1970s, it hurt his re-election chances.

by Frank James

Gen. David Petraeus today took over the U.S. military's Central Command which has responsibility for some of the most critical and combustible parts of the world, including the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Petraeus is the closest the U.S. has to a conquering hero of Iraq for his execution of the surge in Iraq is widely agreed to have been masterful and responsible for much of the reduction in violence there.

Which makes it interesting that Petraeus was smacked down by the Bush Administration on an idea he had to visit Syria after assuming his new command.

by James Oliphant

Want to vote absentee in Northern Virginia? Good. Take the day off.

The wait to vote absentee in Arlington County was more than two hours Friday morning. The line circled throughout the lobby of the county's Office of Voter Registration, located in the Clarendon neighborhood just outside Washington, D.C.

It's perhaps a sign that the local election board was slightly unprepared for the swell of voters. The Virginia state Board of Elections said Thursday that more than 300,000 absentee ballots had already been cast this year, 80,000 more than were cast in the 2004 presidential race.

Linda Lindberg, the Arlington County registrar, says that more than 20,000 absentee ballots have already been cast and that as many as 35,000 votes could be cast all in all before Tuesday. Only 12,000 absentee ballots were cast in Arlington in 2004.

The wait has been averaging around two hours. "Most people have been willing to wait," she said.

Voting absentee is an option available to many Arlington residents because the law allows an absentee ballot if you work in Washington, but live in Arlington.

The idea was that it was supposed to be more convenient. It doesn't look that way now.

by Frank James

Consumer spending is about 70 percent of the economy, definitely the dog that waves the tail.

So when it falls substantially, as it did in September, the economy is in a hole it can't crawl out of until consumers start spending again. Which they won't so long as corporations keep announcing large layoffs and house prices keep falling. Which just feeds the whole cycle all over again.

The Commerce Department reported this morning that consumer spending fell by an inflation adjusted 0.4 percent in September.

by Frank James

Back at the end of July, I wrote a posting ruling out a McCain-Palin ticket. I figured Troopergate had sunk her chances. What presidential candidate willingly takes on a running mate with such a liability?

Shows you how much I know. I'm the same guy who thought the jury in the original O.J. Simpson murder trial would find him guilty.

Anyway, based on the latest NY Times/CBS News poll, it looks like Sen. John McCain should've gone with my very conventional wisdom.

That poll indicates that Palin is a drag on the ticket.

by Frank James

The U.S. Senate race in North Carolina between incumbent Sen. Elizabeth Dole and Kay Hagan is so close that Dole has resorted to a much-discussed TV ad that tries to link the Democrat to "Godless Americans"

Hagen has responded with her own ad, accusing Dole of violating the Ninth Commandment against bearing false witness.

One way of looking at this is obviously the way most people have, which is that Dole is so desperate that she's resorted to a ridiculously outrageous ad in a last-ditch attempt to stay in her Senate seat.

Another way to look at it, however, is as a testament to how far away North Carolina has moved away from the racial politics of Jesse Helms. An African-American is at the top of the ballot for Democrats this year, yet he's not the focus of the flailing, last-minute Dole ad. Who would have believed that just a few short years ago?

by John McCormick, updated

COLUMBIA, Mo. - In the closing days of the contest, Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is adding states to its advertising portfolio that were previously thought safe for Sen. John McCain.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe told reporters this morning that ads would start running in Georgia, North Dakota and Arizona. He said early voting numbers and polling suggest Obama has a real chance in those states.

Calling core Obama supporters "very sticky," he said the campaign is focusing especially on more slippery undecided voters.

"We like what we are seeing with all the states with early vote," he said on a conference call.

In Iowa, where Obama is headed this morning, Plouffe said there has only been one day during absentee voting when more Republicans cast ballots than Democrats.

Georgia has a large proportion of African-American voters and has been a lucrative fundraising state for Obama.

"If we win it, we'd win it narrowly," he said. "When we look at Georgia, we think we see a pathway there."

On Arizona, Plouffe said he suspects the state would have been more a part of the battleground mix earlier, had it not been McCain's home state.

"If someone else had been the Republican nominee, I think Arizona would have been a core battleground," he said, saying polling there suggests it could be a "a very, very close race."

Plouffe said much of Obama's success in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico is because he is doing well among Hispanic voters in the West. "It's enough in the realm of the possible that we want to put a little extra effort at the end," he said.

With Obama's massive financial advantage, the campaign manager said the advertising expansion would do not take away from Obama's efforts in places like Ohio, Florida and Virginia.

"Nothing we are doing is taking away from our core efforts in the battlegrounds," he said. "From a resource perspective, we think we are doing everything that we need to do in the battlegrounds."

Plouffe said the advertising addition could have a side benefit of helping Democratic Senate candidates in Georgia and North Carolina. "Our goal is to get to 270 electoral votes," he said.

The top architect of Obama's ground game, Plouffe said much work remains to be done over the weekend to turn out voters for Tuesday. "It's going to be a ferocious four days," he said.

by Jill Zuckman

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - This just in: Sen. John McCain will spend some of his last precious hours campaigning in the battleground city of....New York.

McCain will appear on Saturday Night Live this weekend within the last three days of campaigning.

"Senator McCain has appeared on the show before, and always has a good time," said Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for the campaign.

Despite his well known abilities as a stand-up comedian, McCain has sometimes been accused of looking angry on the campaign trail. This may be one of his last opportunities to reach a national audience showcasing his good humor.

by Mark Silva

John McCain and Sarah Palin like to cite the five former secretaries of state who have endorsed McCain's candidacy for president - their response to the endorsement that former Secretary of State Colin Powell gave Barack Obama.

One of them is Lawrence Eagleburger, who served but a month as secretary at the end of President George H.W. Bush's term and served as undersecretary throughout his term

But Eagleburger, it turns out, may only have warmed up to half the Republican Party's ticket. In an interview yesterday with National Public Radio, Eagleburger was asked if Palin is ready to step in during a time of crisis.

"It is a very good question," he said, pausing a few seconds, then adding with a laugh: "I'm being facetious here. Look, of course not."

"I don't think at the moment she is prepared to take over the reigns of the presidency,'' he said. "I can name for you any number of other vice presidents who were not particularly up to it either. So the question, I think, is can she learn and would she be tough enough under the circumstances if she were asked to become president, heaven forbid that that ever takes place?

"Give her some time in the office and I think the answer would be, she will be [pause] adequate. I can't say that she would be a genius in the job. But I think she would be enough to get us through a four year... well I hope not... get us through whatever period of time was necessary. And I devoutly hope that it would never be tested."

He spoke as part of an NPR series called Make the Case for the candidates. The solid McCain supporter made half a case. Hear his Palin assessment at the Huffington Post.

by Andrew Zajac

Companies affiliated with the family of Gene and Nora Lum, who were convicted of making illegal campaign contributions in a Democratic fundraising scandal a decade ago have donated at least $4,800 to the campaigns of Michael Brown, a candidate for Washington D.C. city council, who pleaded guilty in the same scandal.

Brown, the son of the late Ron Brown, a Clinton administration Commerce Secretary and one-time head of the Democratic National Committee, is seeking an at-large seat on the 13-member DC council.

by Christi Parsons

My colleague Jill Zuckman has been covering John McCain since before many reporters knew anything about him. And my years as a correspondent in the Illinois Statehouse covered the entire tenure of a little-known lawmaker by the name of Barack Obama.

Today's presidential nominees have followed wildly different strategies of promoting their messages. On the cusp of Tuesday's historic election, a look back to their earlier days in politics sheds an interesting light on the candidates who stand before us today.

Read correspondent Zuckman's analysis of the McCain campaign in today's Chicago Tribune here, and my piece on Obama here.

by Mark Silva

Hope springs eternal, or at least daily.

In the event that it feels like polls have taken over the electoral process, the Gallup Poll - which has run a closely-watched daily tracking survey of voters in the presidential election contest this year - plans to start a daily measure of the president-elect's popularity and voter-optimism after Election Day.

This is new territory: During the transition to a new White House, Gallup plans to ask voters daily about their:

 Optimism about the new administration.

 Opinion of the president-elect, favorable, unfavorable.

The daily obsession with polling will carry on not only during the transition, it appears, but also during the new president's new term: Gallup plans to run a daily tracking survey of presidential job approval after the inauguration of the 44th president - as opposed to the biweekly gauges that Gallup has offered during President Bush's terms.

Meanwhile, Gallup has found this, in the contest between Barack Obama and John McCain:

-- Twenty one percent of all those who will vote have voted in early voting, and "they skew toward Obama.''

-- Among those voters surveyed who "worried about money yesterday,'' 58 percent said they support Obama, and 35 percent support McCain. Among those who didn't worry about money yesterday: McCain 49, Obama 45.

by Jill Zuckman

WATERLOO, Iowa -- At the beginning of his long journey to the Republican nomination, John McCain sometimes spoke of his old friend Bob Dole, the 1996 Republican candidate for president.

McCain spent months traveling with Dole in '96, keeping the candidate company, entertaining the press and observing how a presidential campaign works. Or didn't work, in Dole's case.

The worst thing about Dole's candidacy, McCain used to say, was that Dole cut himself off from the press, isolating himself from reporters who liked him and wanted to hear what he had to say.

"I would not enjoy, in any way, the seclusion and keeping the media away," McCain said earlier this year. "It just wouldn't be any fun. And it's got to be fun."

To be sure, Dole had other problems. His sentences ran on at length. He spoke the language of the Senate, referring to "mark-ups" and "conference committees." He often concluded a thought by saying, "whatever." Most of all, he was an underfunded underdog facing a popular president.

Good morning.

Here are a few Washington events of note for Friday, October 31, Halloween.

It's the final weekend of the race for the White House. Republican John McCain is making four stops in the battleground state of Ohio, in Hanoverton, Steubenville, New Philadelphia and Columbus, while Democrat Barack Obama is campaigning in Des Moines, Iowa and later in Highland, Ind.

Back in Washington, President Masoud Barzani of Kurdistan is speaking on the Kurdistan region and the future of Iraq.

Japanese Ambassador Ichiro Fujisaka is giving his outlook on the future of U.S.-Japanese relations.

by Frank James

One day, Sen. John McCain is pushing the notion that Sen. Barack Obama is a socialist intent on spreading the wealth of higher-paid Americans to lower-income Americans. Today, McCain was pitching the idea that Obama was a corporate tool for the oil industry.

Here's what McCain said this morning at his Defiance, Ohio rally following Exxon Mobil's announcement of its record corporate profits.

Today -- (cheers, applause) -- today ExxonMobil reported record profits. Senator Obama voted for billions in corporate giveaways to the oil companies. I voted against it. (Cheers, applause.) When I'm president, we're not going to let that happen.

Conflicting messages, yes. But this is clearly throw-it-all-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks time for the McCain campaign.

by Christi Parsons

Is Rep. Rahm Emanuel being courted to run the White House for Barack Obama? Or is that story just part of a big (not to mention premature) D.C. guessing game?

Aides and advisors to Obama and Emanuel -- fellow Democratic members of Congress from Ilinois -- are trying to tamp down the rumors.

"There's no news because there's no job to offer," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said on behalf of his team. "We're focused on one thing and that's the election, not anonymous D.C. parlor games."

It's not the craziest idea ever floated. Emanuel was a key player in Bill Clinton's administration and is an avid ally of Obama, his fellow Illinois Democrat. Both are fine credentials for the position in question.

But as a high-ranking member of the House, Emanuel's in a pretty good position to help Obama shepherd his agenda through Congress should he win the presidency. That's not something to give up lightly.

And while Emanuel's name is prominently in the mix, there's also a contingent putting its money on former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle.

by Frank James

There's been a good back and forth this week between Democratic and Republican pollsters.

Stan Greenberg of Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner, a Democratic pollster, sent out his own analysis of the presidential race this afternoon, to counter one distributed earlier in the week by Bill McInturff, official pollster for Sen. John McCain's campaign.

McInturff said he saw a number of indicators pointing to the race tightening significantly and being "functionally tied across the battleground states."

Greenberg disagreed. "The structure of this race just has not changed as we have moved to the finish line," he said in his response to McInturff, meaning that the Democratic pollster sees Sen. Barack Obama still leading by a significant margin in the swing states.

Both letters are worth reading although most people will probably agree with the pollster whose view reflects their own.

by James Oliphant

Barack Obama will be interviewed on the NBC Nightly News tonight, part of his Closing Argument Tour--coming soon to a swing-state near you.

In the interview with Brian Williams, Obama explained the criteria he would employ for selecting justices for the Supreme Court. The next president likely could see one, perhaps two, vacancies in the next four years. And in fact, five justices on the court are 70 or older.

Obama suggests that an originalist such as Justice Antonin Scalia need not apply.

Here's an excerpt. Obama's sit-down will be shown in two parts on Thursday and Friday.

WILLIAMS: Senator, a question about the Supreme Court. Everyone running for President always says, especially on the narrow issue of abortion rights-- no litmus test. It-- it's said on both sides of the issue. And if that's true, if you're not going to call a future Justice into the Oval Office, if you're successful in this endeavor and bring up the subject, how then do you also avoid surprises? I don't think-- George H.W. Bush, 41, ever dreamed that in Justice Souter he was appointing a dependable liberal vote.

OBAMA: Right.

by Mark Silva

McScarecrow:

This campaign, it was a bummer,
'til we recruited Joe the Plumber.
He was really half insane.
And myself I should be kickin', for Sarah Palin in the pickin.'
If I only had a brain.

Sarahthy:

With those regrets that you are thinkin,' you coulda ' been a Lincoln,
You betcha, with a brain.

Biden the lion:

You know there'll be crisis,
If Obama pays the prices.
He's got a spine of steel.
But my foot I will be eatin,' long as I am out there speakin.'
If I only had the wheel.

TinBama:

I'm hot in Carolina, I've got all the Illini,
and Colorado's in the game.
The goal's two hundred sevn'ty, and we'd have states aplenty.
If I could only change my name.

by Frank James

A clever ad to encourage voting in North Carolina. The YouTube description indicates the ad is the idea of two comedy writers:

A video for North Carolina voters, by Dave Willis (Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Squidbillies) and Scott Jacobson (The Daily Show, SNL's "TV Funhouse").

by Mark Silva

Can a guy with an unpronounceable name become a star?

Wurzelbacher. Sounds like popcorn.

How about a guy with a readily recognizable name?

Joe the Plumber.

The plumber from Ohio may have stood up the Republican nominee for president whom he has endorsed at a rally today, but Joe has an agent -- an agent who reps the likes of Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers and Leon Redbone. The TV's abuzz with talk of a record contract -- seems he can sing.

But he may want to cut that track fast.

. Joe the Plumber.bmp

by Mark Silva

Here's the debate you've been waiting for:

Bob Barr versus Ralph Nader.

The Libertarian candidate for president will face off with the independent candidate for president today in Ohio in an encounter focused on the economy. Pastor Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party's candidate, plans to show up, too.

The debate at the City Club of Cleveland, will be broadcast on the Internet .

It starts at 4:30 p.m. EDT and runs an hour.

C-SPAN also is taping for later broadcast "the first independently-organized debate of the season to include all presidential candidates who have a mathematical chance to win the election,'' as Barr puts it.

by Frank James

Barbara Lippert, long-time columnist for Adweek, had some doubts before Sen. Barack Obama's infomercial last night but on balance liked what she saw.

Full disclosure: I'm an Obama voter, but going in I had my doubts about the wisdom of running a 30-minute Obamamercial. Sure it was a macho move to buy up all that media time (estimated cost: $3.5-4 million) and roadblock the 8 p.m. hour on CBS, NBC, Fox, Univision and various cable networks.

But it also could come off as manipulative and wasteful, like a steel-tanked political machine rolling over America's living rooms...

by Frank James

It's National Mock Election Day today with school students around the country and their parents voting for the president, Congress and even state officials.

Educating future voters is what it's all about. Retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has gotten deeply involved in the movement to teach young people citizenship, has made a video to promote the effort.

Results are available in various places. For instance, Dallas's, Texas Independent School District has a website for the results.

by Mark Silva

This election campaign has seen no shortage of scurrilous and "viral'' chain email - you know, like the ones that suggest that Barack Obama is a radical Muslim or that he is unpatriotic, eschewing the flag pin and even allegiance to his nation.

The impact of all this remains unknown.

But, with the help of some students of political science, professors at Elmhurst College set out early this election season to gauge the potential impact of the email-campaign on voters.

They ran an experiment: They randomly assigned 363 students to double-blind tests. One group would receive a piece of "hate-mail.'' Another would get "second-hand exposure,'' such as reading about a hateful e-mail in a newspaper account.

Their preliminary findings: Voter-choice was not altered by exposure to the email, either firsthand or secondhand. Yet, still Obama's "feeling thermometer scores'' dropped in the condition where subjects read the email, and the temperature for him rose in conditions where they read a rebuttal from Obama's Web-site.

"Our results suggest that these types of personal candidate attacks can have an affect on citizen preferences,'' Professors Phillip Hardy and Mary Walsh write in a draft of their report graciously shared with the Tribune. "The preliminary findings from our study point to (1) decreased feeling thermometer scores toward the target candidate; (2) a diminished sense of empathy and morality associated with him; and (3) fear of Obama's religious background.

They've also concluded that "this type of communication (i.e., chain emails) is likely to continue in future campaigns, and it does not appear to be benign or meaningless,'' in the words of Hardy, who will present the study with Walsh at the Illinois association of political scientists after the election.

by Frank "the Blogger" James

Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher wasn't where the McCain campaign thought he was going to be today, that is, at a Ohio rally this morning.

Sen. John McCain called out for Wurzelbacher and when he couldn't find him after a few pregnant seconds, a momentarily deflated McCain recovered very deftly, saying: "Well, you're all Joe the Plumber..." Nice.

by John McCormick

SARASOTA, Fla. - With his frontrunner presidential campaign on cruise control, Sen. Barack Obama certainly had plenty of car analogies during a late-morning speech inside a baseball stadium here.

There was a "ditch," a "dead end street," a "back seat" and the suggestion that it was time to put "someone else at the wheel."

Obama has likely not driven a car himself for nearly two years, but that did not stop him from using a bunch of motoring references, including one while he expressed displeasure with a new report showing a decline in the nation's gross domestic product.

"Our economy is actually shrinking," he said. "All this didn't happen by accident. Our failing GDP is a direct result of a failed economic theory of eight years of trickle-down, Wall Street first, Main Street last policies that have driven our economy into a ditch."

Then, he echoed a new ad his campaign unveiled today. "If you want to know where Senator McCain will drive this economy, just look in the rearview mirror," he said, speaking to a crowd his campaign said totaled about 13,000.

Cars came up again when he suggested the nation has lost its way under a Republican administration for the past eight years.

"You've got to ask yourself, after nine straight months of job losses, the largest drop in home values on record, wages lower than they've been in a decade, why would we keep on driving down this dead end street?" Obama asked.

Pointing to his late-night appearance Wednesday with former President Bill Clinton, Obama suggested that undecided voters should not make this too complex.

by Mark Silva and updated

Barack Obama bought a half-hour of prime-time campaign TV on four of the five broadcast networks, in addition to a few cable TV networks, but still nearly 80 percent of all households in the biggest markets managed to tune into something else.

But he beat Ross Perot.

Overall, among the networks that presented Obama's "infomercial'' last night, 21.7 percent of all households in the 56 big markets tuned in, Nielsen reports.

All told, Nielsen reports, <strong>33.5 million people watched Obama's infomercial, the simulcast aired on CBS, FOX, NBC, Univision, BET, MSNBC, and TV One between 8pm and 8:30pm EDT. " On an average Wednesday night,'' Nielsen notes, "these networks draw a combined average of 30.3 million average viewers during that half-hour.''

In comparison, the final debate between Obama and John McCain in the presidential contest drew 38.3 percent of all households in the top 56 local TV markets. The candidates' first debate drew 34.7 percent, the second 42 percent.

The last presidential candidate to air a paid simulcast was H. Ross Perot, in his second run for the White House in 1996. That drew a 16.8 percent rating, and 22.7 million viewers for Perot that year.

Obama's biggest audience last night: Baltimore.

Nearly one third of all households - 31.3 percent - tuned in there.

The lowest, Portland, Ore.: 14.2 percent.

By Jim Tankersley

Soccer moms and their husbands - the much-labeled, closely watched suburbanites who helped President Bush win re-election four years ago - are now serving up a national polling lead for Barack Obama in the days leading into the presidential election.

The new Hofstra National Suburban Poll, conducted for the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University in New York, shows a seismic suburban shift toward the Democratic nominee over the last month.

The poll, conducted Oct. 22 through 26, shows Obama leading Republican John McCain 47 percent to 39 percent among registered suburban voters. Among likely suburban voters, Obama leads 46 to 43, a statistical tie. In a similar Hofstra poll a month ago, McCain led 48 to 42 among registered suburbanites and 51 to 42 among likely voting suburbanites.

by Frank James

It's hard not to notice the disconnect between this ad from Sen. John McCain's campaign and the message McCain has been pounding on the campaign trail.

McCain has spent weeks calling Sen. Barack Obama's character into question through raising the William Ayers issue, the ACORN issue, the Tony Rezko issue and, this week, the Rashid Khalidi issue.

The McCain campaign's argument has been clear, Obama doesn't have the judgment and character to be president. This would seem to be the end of the matter.

But this ad released yesterday, raises the question of experience, then ends with the announcer saying "The fact is, Barack Obama is not ready... yet." Okay, so are we supposed to forget the other stuff the campaign's been saying? If we accepted the McCain camp's prior argument about Obama's character, are we then supposed to turn around and believe it wouldn't matter in four years?

Does this ad make sense to anyone out there? I think it really confuses McCain's argument. Either he believes Obama is unfit to be president or he doesn't.

by Frank James

Sen. Barack Obama has a humorous ad that warns his supporters against complacency and believing the election is over just because the polls and so many pundits are pointing to an Obama victory next week.

by Frank James

Beating up on the oil companies approached a sport over the summer, particularly for Democrats, when oil prices rose to $140 a barrel and gas prices at the pump topped out over $4 a gallon.

But as oil prices fell as a global recession began to take hold, reducing demand for petroleum, the oil companies seemed to become less villainous for Democrats including Sen. Barack Obama who, among other things, had called for a windfall-profits tax.

Given that background, it will be interesting to see if ExxonMobil's announcement today of record third-quarter profits gets the Democtats' idea of a windfalls-profits tax back on the front burner. The company reported record net income of $14.83 billion for the third quarter which was up 58 percent higher that the comparable year-ago quarter.

by James Janega

A persistent rumor circulated by opponents of Barack Obama in recent weeks questions the authenticity of his birth certificate from Hawaii, despite the fact that the Obama campaign debunked the rumor in June.

In the Tribune's political blog The Swamp last week, reporter Mark Silva and addressed the birthplaces of both presidential candidates.

Sen. John McCain, Silva wrote, "was born to American parents, his father serving as a submariner in the U.S. Navy at the Coco Solo base in the Panama Canal Zone when and where young John Sidney McCain III was born. Barack Hussein Obama II -- and yes, he actually has joked that he got his middle name from people who never thought he'd be running for president -- was born in Hawaii, in 1961, and has a birth certificate to show for it."

Conservative critics have suggested that Obama may have been born outside the U.S. and is not a "natural born citizen" eligible for the presidency. But they present no evidence that he was born anywhere other than Hawaii.

See the rest of the report on Obama's citizenship in the Tribune:In

by Mark Silva

The "disturbing'' part about Barack Obama's widely viewed 30-minute prime-time network campaign commercial, according to rival John McCain, is that the front-runner paid for his TV time with unfettered campaign contributions.

"What's disturbing about it is that he signed a piece of paper back when he was a long shot candidate,'' McCain said of Obama, in an interview on CNN's Larry King. Live last night. "And he signed it... 'I will take public financing for the presidential campaign if John McCain will.' I mean, it's a living document..''

McCain, who has held to a $84.5-million limit in general election spending required as part of his acceptance of public campaign financing - but also supplemented that with a smaller, "legal account,'' a supplemental fund that is allowed under the rules, and also has benefited from millions of dollars in Republican National Committee-financed TV advertising - has been outspent by Obama's unlimited and record fundraising.

Dismissing reports of infighting within his campaign over running mate Sarah Palin's role, McCain said "there's always a little friction'' in campaigns.

"So therefore he now is able to buy these half hour infomercials and, frankly, is going to try to convince the American people through his rhetoric what his record shows that he's not.,'' Obama told King, who asked if the Republican is "worried'' about losign.

"I don't think it's 'worried.' I think obviously I know we're still the underdog,'' McCain told King. " We're now 2 or 3 or 4 points down. And we've got six days to go to make that up. But it's not a matter of worry, it's just, you know, you and I have been together long enough, you know I love the underdog status.''

Here, courtesy of CNN, is a transcript of Larry King's interview of John McCain

by Frank James

Caught MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night and got caught up on Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher's (JTP) doings. I learned he's contemplating a run for Congress, has an odd opinion on where Barack Obama stands on Israel, has hired a publicist and is trying to get a country music contract. Olbermann, as one might expect, savaged JTP.

I also learned from Olbermann that Fox News's Shep Smith took JTP to task for misstating Obama's support of Israel, as Jon Stewart did last night too.

I'm thinking Joe's about 13.5 minutes through his 15-minutes of fame.

By the way, Olbermann says the line attributed to Abraham Lincoln about not being able to fool all of the people all the time was actually not said by Lincoln. There's one more thing I thought was true that isn't.

by Mike Dorning and John McCormick

KISSIMMEE, Fla. -- Making his closing case to the nation, Barack Obama flooded the airwaves Wednesday night with a half-hour commercial, high-profile television interviews and a rally with former President Bill Clinton.

Rival John McCain was also in Florida, fighting for a state that once appeared securely his.

In their first joint campaign appearance, Obama and Clinton met at a late-night rally outside a baseball stadium on a cool fall evening, drawing about 35,000 to an event timed for local newscasts in this battleground state.

"Barack Obama represents America's future, and you've got to be there for him next Tuesday," Clinton said during a rally that showcased the Democratic Party's past and
"This man should be our president," declared Clinton, America's 42nd president, as the man who wants to be its 44th sat nearby.

See the rest of the report on Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and John McCain's counterattack in today's Tribune:

by Frank James

This goes into tell the tell-us-something-we-don't-know category. The Commerce Depart. reported this morning that the economy was really, really bad in the third quarter, contracting by three-tenths of a percent.

The number is an early estimate so there's the possibility it could be revised in either direction. But if it is accurate, it would suggest the possibility that we entered a recession earlier this year. A recession is officially considered two consecutive quarters of negative real Gross Domestic Product growth.

by Mark Silva

Ahead in the polls, Barack Obama was asked about that so-called "Bradley effect,'' in which polling failed to detect antipathy for a black candidate before the election.

"They've been saying that for a while, but we're still here,'' Obama told Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, with a comical response to a serious question. "I don't think that white voters have gotten this memo about the Bradley effect.''

Obama, campaigning in Florida, hooked up with Comedy Central via satellite, six days out from an election in which polls portray him as the favorite for the presidency in key states that could heavily tip the balance of the electoral vote.

With Obama staking a claim to that potential "swing state'' of Florida - and recent polls supporting his claim - The Daily Show's Stewart allowed, with an audience cheering Obama's remote appearance -- and also that remark about 'the Bradley effect' -- that "clearly our show is no swing show.''.

"So much of this has been about fear of you... a socialist, a Marxist, a witch - that's right, they've been calling you a witch,'' Stewart said, asking if "any of this fear stuff has stuck.''

"It just hasn't think it has,'' Obama said, dismissing all the talk about socialism and the rest.

"I think there's a small segment of hardcore Sean Hannity fans that wouldn't want to go have a beer with me,'' he said, and, repeating his campaign trail joke about being a socialist for sharing his toys with his friends in Kindergarten, Obama, tongue in cheek, told his host: "I would tell you, Jon, that being on your program is further evidence of these tendencies.''

By Jim Tankersley and Christi Parsons

Last in a series, United States of Anxiety

America's financial system has crashed around us over the past two months, draining retirement funds, forcing job cuts, inflaming fears of a deep recession and refocusing the presidential election almost exclusively on the economy.

But Wall Street isn't our only national worry. It's just the one that cracked first.

The next president will inherit an America whose critical systems are breaking down: how we power our cars and heat our homes, how we care for our sick and how we live and work in an increasingly global economy.

Each could collapse into another national crisis, experts warn, unless we learn from the financial meltdown and act boldly in response.

To soothe America's anxieties, several scholars across professions and disciplines agree, the next president must shift his focus from the platitudes that have dominated the campaign to the perverse incentives--forces that push us to act against our self-interest--at the heart of our greatest problems.

by Mark Silva

So what is the "favorite book of all time'' for Barack Obama and John McCain? Katie Couric was asking last night.

"Well, the Bible is the book that shaped me and moved me the most,'' said Democrat Barack Obama, in response to the CBS News anchor's question, the last in a series of presidential questions aired last night on the CBS Evening News.

"But, in addition to that, Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon" might be one of my favorite books. It's just a beautiful, beautiful book,'' Obama said. "nd I've gotten a chance to know Toni Morrison during the course of this campaign, and she's just as elegant and wise and thoughtful as you would want her to be.

"ou know, it's always nice to meet somebody and they turn out to be just like you want them to be. She's just a spectacular writer and a spectacular woman,'' he said. "Shakespeare tragedies, whether it's Hamlet or Lear. There's so much in each of those tragedies. You can read them once a year and each year, there's something new, there's something you didn't notice. There is some insight into the human dilemma. It's powerful stuff.''

"For Whom the Bell Tolls,'' Republican McCain replied, naming the Ernest Hemingway novel. "It's about a fella from Montana that goes to Spain to fight for a cause he believes in. His name is Jordan. He falls in love, of course, with a beautiful Spanish young woman, but he's willing - even when disillusioned with a cause he came to fight for, which was the Communists - he's willing to sacrifice his life for his comrades. And that's where I got the phrase "the world is a wonderful place and well worth the fighting for."

And, then, this: "What would you like to have on your tombstone?'' the CBS anchor asked the candidates for president.

Good morning.

Here are a few Washington events of note for Thursday, October 30.

The Commerce Department is releasing the Gross Domestic Product for the 3rd quarter and later Congress' Joint Economic Committee is holding a hearing on the report.

President Bush is speaking at a graduation ceremony for the FBI Academy.

The Georgetown University Law Center is holding a discussion on the law and morality of interrogation.

by Frank James

The McCain campaign poohed poohed the Obama infomercial thusly:

Please see our campaign's response to Barack Obama's thirty minute infomercial:

---Tucker Bounds, spokesman McCain-Palin

by Mark Silva

Barack Obama didn't only buy a half-hour of time on four national television networks tonight -- he also got a free ride on The Daily Show, the Comedy Central rendition of "truthiness.'' Here's an early preview, from the campaign pool report.

How is Obama holding up, host Jon Stewart asked in the taping.

"We are now counting down every single vote,'' Obama, the Democratic nominee for president, said. "And the crowds are terrific. And I think we've got a good shot at this thing."

Asking about former President Bill Clinton campaigning for Obama today in Florida, Stewart said: I know Florida.. Many of my people go there to retire...You might want to hold the rally early. They don't like to miss their shows at night or the early bird special at the diner."

"No comment on that Jon,'' Obama said, with an explanation for his reticence. "I'm trying to win Florida."

Asked about his "infomercial'' airing on four television networks tonight, Obama called it a "story about what's happening to families all across America. We've got four families that we feature. All of them have great hopes but all of them are struggling too, and we want to talk about what the next four years would mean to them.

"What I hope people come away with is, I think they'll say to themselves this election is very important,'' Obama said of the four families featured in his half-hour ad. "These four families that have been featured remind me either of myself or people that I know, and I think they'll have a better sense of exactly what I want to do as president.

Stewart asked: "If you do win, is that a mandate for socialism?"

by Frank James

We'll be live-blogging Sen. Barack Obama's infomercial using the CoverItLive.com technology. The live blog will appear in the box below which also allows comments. The infomercial starts at 8 pm ET.

We'll be interested in your reactions, specifically, was the infomercial worth it, did Obama close the deal?

But first, Access Hollywood beckons.

by Frank James

Virtually no one expects that the Federal Reserve's half-a-percentage-point of the rate banks charge each other for overnight loans to one percent will do much of anything.

Still, since the financial markets were expecting the cut, and the economy is so afflicted, the Fed had to act, so it did. Otherwise, it would have sent the completely wrong signal. It was a "just don't stand there, do something" moment.

Of course, the Fed has done a lot already, including helping to engineer Wall Street rescues and pumping dollars into the economy at a furious rate for the better part of a year. Surely no one could accuse the Fed of not doing enough.

Nonetheless, I heard a Harvard economist, Kenneth Rogoff, on the public radio program "Marketplace" say the Fed may very well take the rate down to zero before it's all over.

by Laura Olson

There is a Socialist candidate on the ballot in eight states, and it's not Barack Obama.

His name is Brian Moore, resident of Spring Hill, Fla., whose resume includes training at a Franciscan seminary, a stint in the Peace Corps and work in health-care consulting.

He's also a stay-at-home dad and a civil war re-enactor.

On his campaign site, Moore, 65, tells voters that "he comes from a working class background, of modest economic means, has worked in factories, is an all-around athlete and has protested wars and Wal-Mart salary levels in public demonstrations."

by Frank James

Nielsen, the audience measuring experts, says that Sen. John McCain's campaign is closing the gap on Sen. Barack Obama;s in terms of TV time in battleground states.

On Monday, Obama ran 113% more ad units than McCain, but by Tuesday that lead had shrunk to 105% -- or a margin of 1,617 ad units.

Not much of a gap closing but something.

by Mark Silva

Hearing too much about Barack Obama?

Many Americans say so in the final days of the presidential election campaign - "just as they did over the summer - but at least as many now say the same about Sarah Palin,'' the Pew Research Center's Andrew Kohut reports.

Yet "Palin was the focus of a relatively small amount of media coverage last week, compared with the amount of campaign coverage focused on the presidential candidates,'' Kohut notes, reporting on the weekly findings of Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Four-in-ten of those surveyed say they've been hearing too much about Obama, the Democratic nominee for president. That's down slightly from 48 percent in early August.

Yet as many or more (46 percent) say they've been hearing too much about Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee.

Far fewer Americans (31 percent) say they've been hearing too much about McCain, Kohut notes.

"While Obama was the most heavily covered candidate last week, news coverage of Palin was up significantly from the previous week,'' the Project for Excellence in Journalism found. Palin was featured prominently in 22 percent of campaign news stories, compared to 8 percent one week earlier. Obama was featured in 61 percent of campaign stories, and McCain was featured in 50 percent.

"Increased coverage of Palin was fueled, at least in part, by the controversy surrounding the amount of money the Republican National Committee had spent on her wardrobe,'' Kohut notes. "Fully half of the public (52 percent) heard a lot about the RNC spending $150,000 on clothes for Palin - roughly the same number that heard a lot about (former Secretary of State) Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama.''

by Frank James

Well, we haven't even gotten to Election Day and already Senate Democrats are letting it be known that they mayl exact revenge on Sen. Joe Lieberman, the former Connecticut Democrat who is now an independent and supporting Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain.

CQ just e-mailed an alert about a story that's up on its site :

There's a good chance Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) will lose his only committee chairmanship next year, according to Democratic aides.

Lieberman's spokesman, Marshall Wittmann, said his boss "is focused on doing all he can to elect John McCain as president rather than post-election Washington punditry and politics."

by Frank James

I'm told that the problem we were having with comments to The Swamp has been fixed. So let those pent-up comments flow. Thanks for your patience.

by Frank James

We're having a problem on The Swamp with error messages when people try to post comments. We've notified our tech elves and are hoping this problem goes away soon.

We'll keep you updated. At least we're just talkig about technical problems with a blog and not an aircraft we're on at 30,000 feet.

Andrew Zajac

Today's Chicago Tribune features a story about a virtually unknown network of large donors to mostly Republican causes, including the McCain presidential bid.

The main donor, Shi Sheng Hao, lists an address in suburban Chicago and is the largest political donor in Illinois this election cycle who is not a self-funding candidate for office.

Hao, 64, is an intriguing character. He has the same name as a Taiwanese businessman who is embroiled in a legal dispute with Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson over a casino license in Macau. The Taiwanese Hao also has links to members of the Lum family, who were entangled in a high-profile Democratic fundraising scandal in the late 1990s.

While it's not known for certain if the two Haos are one and the same, a series of coincidences strongly suggests they are.

Judge for yourself by reading the story posted below.

by Frank James

As someone who had to wait over an hour to cast an early vote yesterday in Fairfax County, Va,, I can personally attest to the crowds at polling places with six days to go before Election Day officially arrives.

Obviously, it's not just Virginia, an important battle-ground state, that's experiencing the pre-Election Day surge at the polls. Warnings of huge lines on Election Day; excitement especially on the Democratic side, and efforts of both presidential campaigns to lock in their votes early before events can cause voters to shift, have helped to create this year's record early voting in a number of states.

One of the best places to keep track of what's happening in terms of early voting is the website produced by Michael McDonald (the George Mason University professor, not the soulful singer) called United States Election Project.

Obama in Raleigh, N.C., a state that no Democrat has carried since Jimmy Carter did in 1976. (Tribune photo by Zbigniew Bzdak)

by Mark Silva

Who you callin' a socialist?

John McCain's campaign has labeled Barack Obama's economics as socialism ever since "Joe the Plumber,'' the Mr. Clean-look-alike in Ohio, asked the Democratic nominee for president about his tax plans and Obama spoke of "spreading the wealth around.''

Obama wants to be the "redistributor-in-chief,'' claims McCain, content with serving as "commander-in-chief.''

Obama, campaigning in North Carolina today - a state that hasn't gone Democratic since Jimmy Carter's first contest in 1976, but which offers Obama a shot at an Electoral College landslide this eyear - said this:

"Because [McCain] knows that his economic theories don't work, he's spending these last few days calling me every name in the book.... I don't know what's next. By the end of the week, he'll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten. I shared my, uh, peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

To which McCain camapign spokesman Tucker Bounds responded: "No one cares what Barack Obama does with his toys, but Americans do care that he wants to raise taxes, add a trillion dollars in new spending and redistribute your hard-earned paycheck as he sees fit.''

(Photo of John McCain campaigning at the University of Tampa in Florida today by Carolyn Kaster / AP. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, to the right, was seen as a potential running mate for McCain who could have helped secure the state for him.)

by Mark Silva

It's a measure of what single issue Barack Obama believes will motivate voters in the presidential election, and which single person might help tip it his way:

Obama, who will dominate 30 minutes of prime-time television tonight, also is airing a campaign ad with only eight spoken words in it: "I'm Barack Obama, and I approved this message.''

It is the words of Republican rival John McCain that dominate the ad - appearing on the screen as scrolling quotes of the GOP's nominee for president, and how little he knows about economics.

"I might have to rely on a vice president that I select for expertise on economic issues,'' McCain is quoted as saying.

It closes with his choice:

Sarah Palin, winking.

by Frank James

How much have you heard on the presidential campaign trail about the growing weaknesses in the U.S. nuclear arsenal?

I don't recall hearing much about it at all, which probably says more about the way we view things in the post-Cold War world than we did during that anxious period of modern history.

But still it's no less true that the U.S. has real problems with a nuclear arsenal that's aging and a growing shortage of people who know how to turn that around.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates tried to drive home that point yesterday during a speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The inescapable conclusion from what he said it that our nuclear arsenal faces a crisis.

by Mark Silva

In all of the campaign talk about talking with recalcitrant world leaders, John McCain suggested today that he might not mind getting on the telephone with Hugo Chavez, the Yankee (and we don't mean baseball)-bating president of Venezuela, or the aging Fidel Castro, the retired yet indefatigable ruler of Cuba.

In an interview with FM radio WAMR today in Miami, home away from home for many Venezuelans, the Republican nominee for president -- handily asked if his Democratic rival is a socialist -- said: "With Hugo Chavez, the best thing that we can do is become independent of his oil...

"You understand that I will not sit down across face-o-face with Hugo Chavez and negotiate,'' McCain said. "Maybe we can call him up this morning and talk to him over the phone."

Asked what he might tell Chavez (pictured five years ago with Castro, in a photo by Francisco Batista, Miraflores Photos / AP) in a phone call, McCain said: "I'd say 'You know you're about to run your country into the ditch because of your economic policies and a lot of the things that you're doing, and people in Venezuela deserve a lot better.' ''

McCain was on a radio roll: "Then maybe we can call up Fidel. He had some reflection about me in the last couple of days where he didn't say very nice things, and my feelings were hurt."

by Mark Silva

The McCain campaign, hoping to foment doubts about Barack Obama in the Jewish community, has complained that a newspaper has "suppressed'' a videotape of Obama attending a dinner with Rashid Khalidi, an Arab studies scholar and advocate of Palestinian rights, back in 2003.

But "the latest guilt-by-association target that the McCain campaign is using to hit Barack Obama could carry some collateral damage for its own candidate,'' the Huffington Post notes.
.
During the 1990s, while McCain served as chairman of the International Republican Institute (IRI), the group distributed several grants to the Palestinian research center co-founded by Khalidi.

A 1998 tax filing for the McCain-led group shows a $448,873 grant to Khalidi's Center for Palestine Research and Studies for work in the West Bank, the Post notes. The relationship extends back as far as 1993, when McCain joined IRI as chairman.. Foreign Affairs noted in September of that year that IRI had helped fund several extensive studies in Palestine run by Khalidi's group, including over 30 public opinion polls and a study of "sociopolitical attitudes."

"Of course,'' the Post writes, "there's seemingly nothing objectionable with McCain's organization helping a Palestinian group conduct research in the West Bank or Gaza. But it does suggest that McCain could have some of his own explaining to do as he tries to make hay out of Khalidi's ties to Obama.''

by Mark Silva

In the final days of a campaign which they had long hoped to wage for Hillary Clinton, the former president and the senator from New York will fan out across the country in the coming days to help make Barack Obama's closing argument for the presidency.

Hillary Clinton, who fell short of the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in a protracted primary battle with Obama, will campain for congressional candidates and help turn out the vote across her home state of New York today - in Utica, Rochester and Buffalo.

In the days ahead, she plans appearances in Ohio, Florida, and Virginia on behalf of the Obama-Biden ticket. (The senator is pictured camapigning in Colorado alongside Gov. Bill Ritter in an AP photo by David Zalubowski.)

The former president also plans stops in Pennsylvania and Florida today, attending a joint rally with Obama in Orlando.

On Thursday, Bill Clinton plans to campaign in Youngstown and Toledo, Ohio, and also make a stop in Minnesotar for Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken.

On Saturday, the former president will campaign in West Virginia and New Jersey, finishing the weekend in New Hampshire - where polling portrays a strong advantage for Obama -- for the Senate campaign of Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen.

(Bill Clinton is pictured campaigning in his home state of Arkansas in a photo via AP from The Jonesboro Sun'sJames Byard.)

by John McCormick

Tickets for Sen. Barack Obama's election night event in Chicago are gone, according to a message on a Web site his campaign made public Tuesday afternoon to handle applications from Illinois residents.

"Thanks for your interest," the message says. "There are no remaining tickets for this event."

The Illinois Democrat's campaign has declined to answer repeated questions on how many tickets it distributed or how many people it plans to accommodate at the site it is building at the south end of Grant Park.

by Frank James

Running for president means making many promises you can't keep, plain and simple. Further, it means making pledges you know or should know you can't follow through on and that many voters suspect you can't live up to.

Yet, every four years, presidential nominees tell voters, with some variations of course, what they think citizens want to hear -- that they'll cut taxes while increasing spending for programs deemed popular with one or another sought-after demographic of voters while decreasing it on others.

It's a strange courting ritual between voters and candidates. It's essentially bogus but no one has yet figured a way out of it.

So it's no surprise we're seeing both Sen. Barack Obama's and Sen. John McCain's campaigns offer fiscal proposals that don't add up to sound fiscal policy for the long term.

by Jill Zuckman

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C.--Even as Sen. John McCain aggressively presses toward next week's finish line, nervous Republicans say they are worried that he could face a rout at the hands of Barack Obama, losing a cascade of classic red states such as North Carolina, where McCain campaigned Tuesday.

"Nov. 4th is not going to be a good night for Republicans, this is not going to be our year," said Republican strategist Joe Gaylord, who predicts an Electoral College "landslide" for Obama. "McCain, though heroic in his effort and trying very hard, is not going to be able to overcome the attitude of the American people to the Bush administration and its perceived failures."

McCain began the race with an uphill challenge, thanks to voter anger over President George W. Bush's handling of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Hurricane Katrina. Republican corruption involving super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff made the situation worse. And the tumultuous stock market coupled with the conviction Monday of longtime Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) served as just another reminder of why voters are leery of Republicans.

McCain officials insist that they haven't given up, that they are making inroads with their economic message and that the nervousness is inevitable.

"Any time you have a race where you're down a few points, you do a lot of reassuring," said Mike DuHaime, McCain's political director.

by Mark Silva

John McCain, outgunned by Barack Obama in television advertising, will attempt to counter the Democrat's prime-time move tonight - a 30-minute campaign commercial airing on most networks - with a 30-second spot calling Obama "not ready'' to lead.

"Behind the fancy speeches, grand promises and TV special, lies the truth,'' the narrator of the new McCain ad airing on broadcast networks warns, picturing Obama and the crowds he has drawn abroad and at home. "With crises at home and abroad, Barack Obama lacks the experience America needs.

"And it shows. His response to our economic crisis is to spend and tax our economy deeper into recession,'' warns the ad, displaying pictures of poverty and the impoverished - actually people whom Obama offers new tax credits to, not tax increases. "The fact is Barack Obama's not ready yet,'' the ad warns, playing on a theme long sounded in McCain ads portraying Obama as "dangerously unprepared'' to be president.

For his part, Obama is closing his campaign with a barrage of campaign commercials attempting to make a connection with voters, such as the half-hour presentation airing at 8 pm EDT tonight on most broadcast networks - with the Republican National Committee accusing Obama mainly of "delaying the start of the World Series'' with his commercial.
And Obama has been vastly outspending McCain on TV.

In the closing week, however, McCain is boosting his ad buy in seven key states -- Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, "closing the gap between his advertising and Obama's, according to Nielsen.

By Mike Dorning

NORFOLK, Va.--At the culmination of a campaign that styles itself a popular movement but which often has been caricatured by opponents as a cult of celebrity, Barack Obama will share the costly 30 minutes of network prime time he has purchased for tonight with a few everyday Americans.

A handful of ordinary Americans speaking about their individual families' struggles will be a highlight of the half-hour closing argument Obama will make to a national television audience, a senior campaign strategist said.

The star turn for a few individual Obama supporters reflects a long-standing tactic of the campaign, which regularly tries to deliver its message by focusing attention on the stories of individual supporters.

At rallies, Obama often eschews the tradition of an introduction by a prominent local politician in favor a warm-up from unknown supporter who is encouraged to recount details of their lives and what led them to support Obama. Likewise, the campaign's web coverage of events often devotes as much time to commentary from supporters in the audience as it does to the candidate.

The infomercial will rely heavily on documentary-style of tape of Obama and the campaign, an Obama aide said. But Obama also will speak directly to the nation, live from a rally in Sunrise, Fla.

The 30-minute message will air at 8 pm EDT, 7 Central, on three of the four major broadcast networks: CBS, NBC and FOX, but not ABC. The commercial also will air on the cable news channel MSNBC, the Spanish-language channel Univision and two African-American-oriented networks: BET and TV One.

by Mark Silva

The McCain campaign, amassing late-campaign ammunition for its appeal to Jewish voters, is calling on the Los Angeles Times to release a videotape of a 2003 banquet where Barack Obama spoke of his friendship with Rashid Khalidi, a leading Palestinian scholar.

The campaign has accused the newspaper of "intentionally suppressing''' the videotape, but the newspaper, noting that it obtained the tape from a confidential source, also maintains that it "brought the matter to light'' with its own report about the banquet in an April 2008 article about Obama's ties with Palestinians and Jews as he navigated the politics of Chicago.

"A major news organization is intentionally suppressing information that could provide a clearer link between Barack Obama and Rashid Khalidi," McCain campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb contends. "The election is one week away, and it's unfortunate that the press so obviously favors Barack Obama that this campaign must publicly request that the Los Angeles Times do its job -- make information public."

""The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it," said the newspaper's editor, Russ Stanton. "The Times keeps its promises to sources."

Jamie Gold, the newspaper's readers' representative, said: "More than six months ago the Los Angeles Times published a detailed account of the events shown on the videotape. The Times is not suppressing anything. Just the opposite -- the L.A. Times brought the matter to light."

The McCain campaign is eager to shed light on any relationship between Obama, who was then a state legislator, and Khalidi, now a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University who in the 1970s often spoke on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Khalidi later lived near Obama while teaching at the University of Chicago.

In a bid to break an 80 percent Democratic lock on the Jewish vote, supporters of the McCain campaign have been running ads in Jewish newspapers portraying Obama as a threat to Israeli security. And the McCain campaign is now airing a TV ad in Florida that portrays Obama as not considering Iran as "a serious threat.'' The ad warns: "Terrorism, destroying Israel, those aren't serious threats?'' and calls Obama "dangerously unprepared to be president.''

by Jill Zuckman

With union voters in Rust Belt states expected to make up to as much as 35 percent of the electorate there, thousands of AFL-CIO volunteers will make a final push beginning Saturday to get out the vote for Sen. Barack Obama and other candidates.

Tens of thousands of volunteers are expected to visit more than 3.9 million union homes, make 5.5 million phone calls and hand out more than 2 million leaflets at worksites in 21 states. In particular, the get-out-the-vote effort has targeted undecided union members who are gun owners, veterans and retirees in key states such as Ohio.

Union officials say they have seen an increase in support among those hardest-to-persuade groups since they began targeting them, trying to peel them away from John McCain.

Among union gun owners, support for Obama has risen 21 points since the beginning of September. Among veterans, support has risen 18 points. And among retirees, officials say, there has been a jump of 14 points.

"We're seeing a wave of support for Sen. Obama among union voters as they learn more about his positions on the issues they care about and contrast those positions to Sen. McCain's failed proposals," AFL-CIO Political Director Karen Ackerman said. "But this is no time to let up. We're going full throttle this weekend to ensure every union voter knows just how critical a vote on Election Day is to our country's future."

Good morning.

Here are a few Washington events of note for Wednesday, October 29.

The Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee is announcing whether it will cut interest rates.

President Bush is meeting with Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek of the Czech Republic.

A Council on Foreign Relations panel is discussing foreign policy in the 2008 presidential election.
Location: Washington Foreign Press Center, National Press Bldg.