By Andrew Zajac

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, President Obama's choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, cuts a figure of no-nonsense, Midwestern rectitude.

Middle of the road, plain-spoken, competent. Yeah, her husband likes rock, Gary Sebelius.doc but he's a federal magistrate, so how wild is he going to get?

If there is a provocateur gene in the family, it may have gone to son John, who caused a stir last year when he began marketing "Don't Drop the Soap", a prison board game he created, out of the governor's mansion.

By Andrew Zajac

Chicago's Northern Trust Corp. now under fire for excessive merrymaking after collecting federal TARP money, earlier was under scrutiny for the favorable mortgage terms it granted to now-President Barack Obama when he bought his Hyde Park personal residence in 2005.

When they bought the $1.65 million property, the Obamas took out a $1.32 million mortgage for 5.67 percent.

At the time, jumbo mortgages in the Chicago area averaged 5.93 to 6 percent, according a Washington Post story detailing the transaction.

Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission alleging that the mortgage rate amounted to an illegal corporate campaign contribution by Northern Trust.

by James Oliphant

ABC's Brian Ross has gotten a hold of a campaign ad that Sen. John McCain refused to air that involves the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, President-elect Barack Obama's former pastor. As McCain's prospects turned increasingly bleak prior to the election, many in the GOP were clamoring that such a weapon be deployed. It apparently got off the drawing board.

by Laura Olson

A majority of American women voted for President-elect Barack Obama, but that doesn't mean they liked how the female candidates were treated during the 2008 campaign.

Women surveyed in a poll released this morning by Lifetime Networks as a part of its "Every Woman Counts" campaign said they feel coverage of Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin was too negative and focused excessively on her looks and wardrobe.

That goes for coverage of her female counterpart on the Democratic side, Sen. Hillary Clinton, as well.

"It was a post-gender election in terms of women looking beyond their gender as voters, but not in how women believe that male and female candidates were treated differently," said pollster Kellyanne Conway of WomanTrend.

Pollsters from Lake Research Partners and WomanTrend, a division of the polling company, inc., spoke with 600 women across the U.S. between November 21 and 24, asking about the impact of the recent economic downturn as well as their impressions of the presidential election.

by William Neikirk

The time has come to take another look at the 20th amendment to the U.S. constitution that established Jan. 20 as the date for newly elected presidents to take office.

President-elect Barack Obama is having to wait more than two months before taking charge as the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression rages. He has said little while a lame-duck president and divided Congress try to cope.

With businesses failing and jobs declining while economic gloom spreads, the country feels absolutely leaderless. Divisions are deep over helping the auto industry and preventing foreclosures. Each piece of bad news builds on another and leads to fears of a devastating deflation.

With deep stock market plunges, a sense of urgency exists. Yet there can be no new president for another two months, a man by the way who won the election because of his stands on the economic issue.

by Frank James

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, raises an important question about the possibility that President-elect Barack Obama could name Sen. Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state.

Friedman questions whether the relationship between Obama and Clinton can become so close that Clinton would be viewed by foreign leaders as speaking for Obama, of having his full backing, when she enunciates policy, or if there would always be some doubt about that.

My question is whether a President Obama and a Secretary of State Clinton, given all that has gone down between them and their staffs, can have that kind of relationship, particularly with Mrs. Clinton always thinking four to eight years ahead, and the possibility that she may run again for the presidency. I just don't know.

When it comes to appointing a secretary of state, you do not want a team of rivals.

That's the rub. To be effective, a secretary of state can't be thought to be freelancing or have an agenda other than that of the president's. If nothing else, it prevents confusion and the kind of misunderstanding that can literally prove deadly to someone.

A successful secretary of state almost needs to be a president's alter ego or right hand, as James Baker was to the first President Bush or Madeleine Albright was to President Bill Clinton, knowing what the president wants to accomplish and doing it. Because of the decline in U.S. standing abroad and the challenges of terrorism, Iraq and Afghanistan, among others, there's little margin for error or infighting.

Is it possible for Clinton to be throw herself completely into the task of making Obama's foreign policy a success is the key question before Obama right now in these days before he makes his choice for the State Department officially known.

by Jason George

The Illinois ball for president-elect Barack Obama's inauguration might be Washington D.C.'s hottest ticket, but the event's headliners aren't exactly Kanye, The Boss or any of those A-list entertainers who've endorsed Obama.

In fact, wedding singers, corporate-events crooners and bar mitzvah bands make up the list of the musicians scheduled to perform at the Illinois State Society's Jan. 19 Inaugural Gala, according to a partial list obtained by the Tribune.

Planners say they are still hoping to hire a handful more professional acts, who will also be joined by two high school choirs.

Of course, it's not the musical entertainment that's making the D.C. event so popular but the assumption that Obama will keep with inaugural tradition and hit his home state's party. In 2001 and 2005, Texas' "Black Tie and Boots Inaugural Ball" reigned as the not-miss affair because of Pres. George W. Bush's Lone Star connections. In 2005, headliners at that ball included Asleep at the Wheel, Lyle Lovett and Clay Walker.

by Jason George

Mike Huckabee's new book about the 2008 primary race is titled "Do the Right Thing," although the 'right thing' might have been to name the book, "Mitt Romney is a Big Fat Spender."

Romney's expensive media consultants?
His 40 rented golf carts at the Iowa Straw Poll?
The fact that he spent multi-millions to lose the nomination?

All that perceived profligacy and ineptitude appears to delight Huckabee to no end and few pages in the book pass without a mention of 'ol Mitt's mistakes.
In fact, Romney appears more in "Do the Right Thing" than any person except Huckabee himself, according to the book's own index, and about 99.9 percent of Romney's appearances ain't pretty, of course.

For literary benefit, all this focus on big-bad Romney allows the former Arkansas governor to somewhat accurately paint the 2008 race as a financial David vs. Goliath affair. (It's 'somewhat' because Romney's and Giuliani's well-funded losses, obviously, did not translate into a Huckabee nomination.) But it's within this prism of the campaign inequalities, that Huckabee's 2007 ascent from obscurity to winning eight state contests seems even more remarkable than it did when it actually occurred last winter.
Certainly, Huckabee's wins remain a great story of campaign grit, gab and Chuck Norris.
(Norris first appears in DRT on Page 3.)

Saying all that though, the fact that Huckabee's distaste for Romney appears so often in "Do the Right Thing," probably has less to do this year's campaign than one four years from now...

by Mark Silva

The view from Sarah Palin's kitchen: She would have been happy to speak out for herself more during the presidential campaign.

President-elect Barack Obama did "a great job'' of speaking for himself, the Republican Party's vice presidential nominee said in an interview with Matt Lauer of NBC's Today Show that ranged from the governor's office in Alaska to the kitchen at home where Palin was whipping up a meal for her family.

"He did a great job of articulating his ability to usher in change,'' said Palin, maintaining that she had no rift with the senior senator from Arizona at the top of the ticket. "Sen. McCain and I had a great relationship'' and it remains "very warm and friendly.''

Lauer went to great lengths in this interview to ferret out why people within the McCain-Palin campaign appear so intent on dragging Palin down, but didn't get much in the way of answers. And that includes the stories about the money spent dressing Palin.

"I'm flabbergasted,'' Palin said, that people think she ordered any fancy clothes for herself. "When I arrived at the Republican National Convention, there were stylists there, there were wardrobes.... What is patently false is that I ever asked anyone at the convention to go out and buy anything for me.''

by Frank James

Being that it's Armistice Day, it seems like perfect timing for Politico's piece on the complicated, uneasy truce between the Obamas and their team and the Clintons and their people. Definitely a clash of personalities between the worlds of No-Drama Obama and All-Drama Bubba and Hillary.

A lot of it comes down to money which, as we all know, has ruined many a good relationship. Evidently, the Clinton people would like to see a lot more help from Obama in retiring the huge campaign debt she ran up trying to destroy Obama.

As Politico reports:

These tensions have created a somewhat schizoid relationship between Clinton and the Obamas - warm on personal matters, warier on political ones, and downright frosty on the still-unresolved issue of Clinton's mountainous campaign debt, which Barack Obama had pledged to help reduce.

Since the Democratic National Convention, Hillary Clinton headlined about three dozen rallies and fundraisers - working rope-lines where well-wishers often lamented her exit from the race.

by Frank James

Good luck getting a ticket to President-elect Obama's inaugural. The demand for them is extraordinary, with some would-be profiteers asking as much as $40,000 for tickets that won't be available until January.

Reports that some people are trying to gain a big payday by selling tickets congressional offices will be giving away, has drawn the attention of Sen. Dianne Feinstein. The California Democrat plans to submit legislation that would make such opportunism illegal.

An excerot from The Hill newspaper:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is drafting legislation that would make it illegal to sell tickets to President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration ceremony.

by Mark Silva

Sarah Palin didn't ask for the clothes.

Sarah Palin knows Africa is a continent.

Sarah Palin, the first-term governor of Alaska and losing Republican nominee for vice president, says so, in an interview with FOX News Channel's Greta Van Susteren airing tonight at 10 pm EST.

In FOX's On the Record, taped in Alaska, Palin attempts to refute stories that disgruntled members of the McCain-Palin campaign have been spreading about she and her family going on a shopping spree for the $150,000 in clothing that the Republican National Committee bought for them, or the contention that she didn't know from countries when it came to Africa and the nations that are parties to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"I did not order the clothes,'' Palin tells Van Susteren. "Did not ask for the clothes...

"And never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is (Africa) a country or is it a continent.''

Asked about the election, Palin says, "At the end of the day, American voters spoke.'' Asked about her own intentions for 2012: "I can't predict what's going to happen a day from now, much less four years from now.''

In an extensive interview, Palin discusses this and more, with some excerpts here, courtesy of FOX:

Iraqi municipal workers begin the task of clearing up the debris of several restaurants following a twin bombing when a car first detonated in the Sunni district of Adhamiyah in Baghdad, followed by a suicide bomber on November 10, 2008. (Photo credit should read KHALIL AL-MURSHIDI/AFP/Getty Images)

Today's bombings in Iraq which left dozens dead is a stark and horrible reminder that, while violence has dropped significantly there as a result of the U.S. military's surge, that country is still very dangerous.

It's a measure of progress that today's blasts, which killed at least 31 people in Baghdad and more elsewhere, according to the Associated Press, represented the worst day of violence since June. Less than two years ago such a time gap in major attacks was unheard of.

But it's also true that the continuing violence indicates how difficult the challenge will be for President-elect Barack Obama.

He has promised to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by early 2010. But if removing U.S. forces were to result in increased violence and instability, that decision could result in criticism from not just Republicans who would say "I told you so" but foreign allies too, especially those in the region who would face the greatest risk from an increasingly unstable Iraq.

By Jim Tankersley

Forget "hope" and "change" and "yes we can." The word that will matter most, when Barack Obama assumes the Oval Office, is "doable."

Teary-eyed jubilation is giving way to clear-eyed realism. As his campaign rhetoric runs into governing reality, Obama will have to contend with a set of political and practical restrictions that are perhaps more daunting than any faced by an incoming president since Franklin Roosevelt took over amid the Great Depression. And he will have to tailor his early policy agenda accordingly.

Obama is set to inherit a plunging economy, ongoing wars and a massive federal deficit coupled with a long national wish list. His party owns large House and Senate majorities, but the numbers hide major disagreements over priorities. He will be pulled by core Democratic groups who have waited years to advance their interests, by the weight of his campaign promises and by the expectations of a beleaguered electorate.

So what can he do? With those constraints and history in mind, politicians and policy experts suggest several domestic and foreign initiatives, costing relatively modest amounts by today's spending standards, many of them tinged in green. Read on for their full list, from today's Chicago Tribune.

by Mark Silva

President-elect Barack Obama's closest campaign advisers suggest that one of their successes was not becoming obsessed with any question of race, CBS News' 60 Minutes will report Sunday evening.

"Not getting obsessed about Barack Obama's race was one of the secrets'' of a campaign that will deliver the first African American president to the White House, aides tell CBS's Steve Kroft. The president-elect's four top campaign aides, political advisors David Axelrod and Anita Dunn, Campaign Manager David Plouffe and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, spoke with Kroft on election night for 60 Minutes this weekend.

Answering Kroft's question about whether race was a part of planning the campaign, Plouffe replies, "No, honestly, you had to take a leap of faith in the beginning that the people will get by race. And I think the number of meetings we had about race was zero.''

Axelrod tells Kroft: "The only time we got involved in a discussion of race was when people asked us about it. It was a fascination of the news media...the political community. But internally, it was not an obsession of ours."

The only time that Obama's race became a campaign issue for them was when the media began playing video of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's former pastor, excoriating America's treatment of blacks from his pulpit, they say

"That was a terrible weekend," Dunn remembers. "The excerpts were endlessly looped on television." Then, said Axelrod, "[Obama] said 'I'm going to make a speech about race and talk about Jeremiah Wright and the perspective of the larger issue...And either the people will accept it or I won't be president.''

"There wasn't discussion [on whether he should make a racial speech]," remembers Gibbs. And it's a good thing, says Dunn: "If there had been a discussion, we've often joked, probably most of the people in the campaign would have advised against it,.

Yet the speech was crucial, Plouffe believes: "It was a moment of real leadership. I think when he gave that race speech in Philadelphia, people saw a president...out of the ashes really, he rose as the candidate.''

by Frank James

Curtis Gans, one of the nation's leading voter turnout experts and director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University, says Americans didn't vote in the numbers that had been expected for this general election.

Indeed, he says this years turnout as a proportion of eligible voters may have only matched 2004 or slightly exceeded what was seen four years ago.

While Democrats were energized and turned out in larger numbers, the fall off in Republican turnout probably accounts for why turnout this year wasn't as spectacular as experts had forecast before Election Day.

Here's an excerpt from CSAE's report.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (November 6, 2008)--Despite lofty predictions by some academics, pundits, and practitioners that voter turnout would reach levels not seen since the turn of the last century, the percentage of eligible citizens casting ballots in the 2008 presidential election stayed at virtually the same relatively high level as it reached in the polarized election of 2004.

by John McCormick

Robert Gibbs, a top Barack Obama aide since 2004, is in discussions to be White House press secretary.

A top transition source says there has not yet been a formal offer or acceptance.

The position is considered one of the highest profile of any administration, routinely putting the person behind the podium on television screens worldwide.

by Frank James

One thing about being President-elect Obama is that you get a lot of advice, including potential to-do lists.

The Government Accountability Office, Congress's investigative agency, has just posted its list with supportive material on its website.

Here's GAO's list.

Many of the urgent policy concerns identified here are critical and time sensitive and require prioritized federal action. They include

rebuilding military readiness.

by Frank James

Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the intense, profane yet quite personable Illinois congressman who normally is the one putting the pressure on, is now in the vise himself, with President-elect Obama asking him to be White House chief of staff.

The conventional wisdom in Washington is that when a president or president-elect asks you to take a key job in his administration, you don't say "no."

In this case, the pressure on Emanuel is even higher since he and President-elect Barack Obama are friends and top members of Chicago's tight-knit political aristocracy.

Let's say Emanuel were to politely refuse and Obama's second choice wound up making critical mistakes in a presidency that won't have much room for them.

Maybe Mayor Richard Daley would allow Emanuel to return to Chicago. Maybe. But the congressman would be well advised to not so much as double-park.

by Frank James

The autopsies of Sen. John McCain's failed presidential bid continue to roll in.

This morning, National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" aired an interview with John Weaver, a former McCain strategist who left the campaign last year when the Republican presidential nominee's campaign first imploded during the primaries.

Among the McCain campaign's mistakes, according to Weaver, was its failure to realize this year's contest wasn't a 'base election" like 2004 when President Bush won by energizing core Republican voters and increasing their turnout.

The Rovians in the Bush campaign basically were fighting the last war.

Another mistake, Weaver said, was that the McCain campaign waited too long to define President-elect Obama. By the time they got around to it, it was too late. Obama had already defined himself.

by Frank James

Curtis Gans, director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University, warned early on Election Day that figuring out just how many of the eligible voters went to the polls wouldn't be simple since there are different ways to count the overall voting-age population.

And so in the wee hours Wednesday morning the Associated Press produced a story that gave us widely divergent voter participation comparisons based on the estimated number if voters who voted in this year's general election which ranged from 134 million to 135.6 million.

According to one estimate, voter turnout may have been the highest since 1908. But another estimate suggests the proper comparison was not to 100 years ago but to 44 years ago.

by Mark Silva

It wasn't only a big voter-turnout that drove Tuesday's election.

Tuesday night's election results drove a big viewer-turnout.

71.4 million people tuned into election coverage between 8 and 11 pm EST, according to Nielsen.

41.5 percent of all households.

This compares to 59.2 million in 2004 and 61.6 million in 2000.

by Mark Silva

Democrat Barack Obama won the White House "on the strength of a substantial electoral shift toward the Democratic Party and by winning a number of key groups in the middle of the electorate,'' the Pew Research Center reports today, based on exit polling.

Overall, 39 percent of those who voted were Democrats, 32 percent Republicans - "a dramatic shift from 2004 when the electorate was evenly divided.''

"Barack Obama gained the support of more voters in the ideological "middle" than did either John Kerry or Al Gore before him. He won at least half the votes of independents (52 percent vs. 49 percent for Kerry), suburban voters (50 percent vs. 47 percent for Kerry), Catholics (54 percent vs. 47 percent for Kerry), and other key swing groups in the electorate.
"Without a doubt,'' Pew adds, " the overwhelming backing of younger voters was a critical factor in Obama's victory, according to an analysis of National Election Pool exit polls.... Obama drew two-thirds (66 perecent) of the vote among those younger than age 30.

"Obama drew two-thirds (66 percent) of the Hispanic vote, a 13-point improvement over Democratic Sen. John Kerry's support in 2004. Obama also gained seven points among African American voters (95 percent vs. 88 percent for Kerry), and managed to slightly improve on Kerry's share of the white vote (43 percent vs. 41percent for Kerry).''

by Mark Silva

Sarah Palin, the temporary sensation of the 2008 presidential campaign, was asked today what impact she might have had on the Republican Party's loss and what designs she might have on 2012.

Palin, the Alaska governor who served as John McCain's running mate, started the campaign in August as an instant celebrity among her party's most conservative base.

But by the end of the contest, she had become a cause of concern among a majority of all voters surveyed who believed she was unprepared for the presidency, should duty call.

"Well, you know, I don't think anybody should give Sarah Palin that much credit that I would trump an economic, woeful time in this nation that occurred about two months ago -- that my presence on the ticket would trump the economic crisis that America found itself in a couple of months ago and attribute John McCain's loss to me,'' Palin told CNN's Dana Bash in an Arizona hotel-lobby interview aired today.

"But now having said that, if I cost John McCain even one vote, I am sorry about that because John McCain, I believe, is the American hero,'' Palin said. "I had believed that it was his time. He being so full of courage and wisdom and experience. That valor that he just embodies. I believe he would have been the best pick. But that is not the Americans' choice at this time.''

Asked if she might consider a run in 2012, Palin said: "Well, you know, right now, I cannot even imagine running for national office in 2012.

"And I say that, though, of course, coming on the heels of an outcome that I certainly did not anticipate and had not hoped for. But this being a chapter now that is closed and realizing that it is a time to unite and all Americans need to get together and help with this new administration being ushered in. Policies that have got to help this nation to keep us secure. I mean it is a time for all of us to work together...

"Having said that,'' Palin said, "2012 sounds so far off that can't even imagine what I'd be doing then.''

President-elect Barack Obama in Union, Mo., Wednesday, July 30, 2008. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

by Frank James

I haven't had a chance to read as much of the day-after election coverage as I would've liked since I was traveling from traditionally Blue Illinois to nouveau Blue Virginia.

But one anecdote that stuck out in all the coverage I pored over today was in the New York Times' story about how President-elect Obama's campaign team ran a near perfect effort to win.

It was in what journalists call the "kicker" of the story.

Evidently, in recent weeks, people in the Obama and McCain campaigns saw whites who had revealed some racial bias in their survey responses start to shift to Obama.

Here's the great kicker:

In Mississippi, Stuart Stevens, a longtime political strategist who had worked for both Mr. McCain and Mitt Romney in the primaries, was surveying polling data for a Republican client. He was picking up on an unexpected shift for Mr. Obama, even among white voters. As he put it in an interview: If a house is on fire, the owner does not care what color the fireman is.

by Mark Silva and updated with ''poll'' and photo gallery

CHICAGO -- The first puppy must be a rescue puppy:

Among all the demands of interest groups placed upon the next president of the United States, the demand for a rescue puppy -- make that "a homeless animal'' -- in the new White House may stand out among the demands on the Top Dog..

President-elect Barack Obama, who promised his two young daughters a puppy if he won the White House, announced at his acceptance speech last night that he will be making good on that promise.

But that doesn't mean breeders should be sending their calling cards. Wayne Pacelle, president of The Humane Society of the United States, reminds the Obama family today that they previously have spoken of making that puppy a rescue puppy.

Now, that doesn't rule out AKC pedigrees -- many dogs of pure lineage end up at shelters. But it suggests that the first pooch may not look like Barney and Miss Beazley, the Bush family's little Scotties. Unless, of course, the local pound has a show-dog ready to go.

Pacelle says the first family's pick of a puppy will send "a real message of hope and change for all the dogs in shelters waiting for a loving home and those currently suffering in abusive puppy mills,,.

"Most presidents in recent times have had pets, and as the next president, Barack Obama can set a tremendous example for the rest of Americans by adopting a homeless animal. The Humane Society of the United States looks forward to working with President Obama and watching his children bond with the newest member of their family."

We already have a little survey going on what kind of puppy the president should pick, and also a photo gallery of presidential puppies..

by Mark Silva

CHICAGO -- The Rev. Jesse Jackson cried last night.

Jackson, who waged his own campaigns for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in the 1980s, stood in Chicago's Grant Park with a quarter-million other cheering people to see Sen. Barack Obama on the night of his election as president. And he, like others, including retired Gen. Colin Powell, watching from afar, cried.

Jackson, asked about his tears in an interview aired by National Public Radio this morning, said: "Well, on the one hand, I saw President Barack Obama standing there looking so majestic. And I knew that people in the villages of Kenya and Haiti, and mansions and palaces in Europe and China, were all watching this young African-American male assume the leadership to take our nation out of a pit to a higher place.

"And then, I thought of who was not there,'' Jackson said on NPR News' Tell Me More. "As mentioned, Medgar Evers, the husband of Sister Myrlie. ...So the martyrs and murdered whose blood made last night possible. I could not help think that this was their night.

"And if I had one wish: if Medgar, or if Dr. King could have just been there for a second in time, would have made my heart rejoice. And so it was kind of duo-fold - his ascension into leadership and the price that was paid to get him there."

On his own role in the ongoing Civil Rights movement, Jackson had this to say: "Well, in some sense to play the role of conscience, to play the role of supporter.

"Dr. King fervently supported Kennedy over Nixon. We still had to march for a public accommodations bill. He supported President Johnson over Goldwater. We still had to march for the right to vote. Now when Mr. Barack Obama gets to Washington, there'll be competition for his attention. And so the Civil Rights Movement must make its presence felt. And the labor movement. And the women's movement."

(The Rev. Jesse Jackson reacts to projections that Sen. Barack Obama will be elected president during the Grant Park rally on election night. Photo by Joe Raedle / Getty Images)

(White House photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

by Mark Silva

Lately, whenever President Bush has stepped out into the Rose Garden to address the nation, the economic meltdown has been foremost on his mind and at the front of his lips.

But today, on the first day of that phenomenon that is President-elect Barack Obama, Bush stepped out to the garden to address the transition already underway - and also acknowledge the historical significance of Obama's election.

"All Americans can be proud of the history that was made yesterday,'' Bush said. "They showed a watching world the vitality of Americas democracy and the strides we have made toward a more perfect union.'' Obama's life story, and his election, are a testament to the fulfillment of the American story, he said.

"Many of our citizens thought they would never live to see that day,'' said Bush, not specifically citing the election of the first African-American president but alluding to it with his words - "especially uplifting for a generation that witnessed the struggle for civil rights with their own eyes.''

The early-retiring and early-rising president didn't get much sleep last night at the White House - he telephoned the Democratic winner at 11 pm EST, and as the election contest was called for Obama a massive crowd assembled in the park and street out front of the White House with people chanting: "Yes, we did.''

by Frank James

The Democrats made big gains in Congress last night though they didn't get to the 60 votes they needed to be able to get legislation or judicial nominations through the Senate without Republican cooperation.

At last count, they hold 56 seats, with Republican Sen. Norm Coleman getting 762 more votes in a tight-as-a-tick race in Minnesota. But there will be an automatic recount and the race may not be certified until December.

Here's an excerpt of an Associated Press report:

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) _ Republican Norm Coleman outlasted Democrat Al Franken in one of Minnesota's tightest Senate elections ever, squeaking past the former comedian early Wednesday by a margin that appeared certain to trigger a recount.

The margin was well within a threshold set by state law for an automatic recount. If it holds up, Coleman would be among the fortunate Republicans who survived big gains by Democrats nationwide.

President-elect Barack Obama in Chicago's Grant Park on Election Night. (Chicago Tribune photo by Nuccio DiNuzzio.)

by Frank James

It's the morning after one of the most memorable days in American history and we're still too close to it to have as much perspective as we would like.

President-elect Obama. It still seems unreal to many of us that the nation will have a president who is African-American come January 20.

But the realities of what Obama faces are daunting: an economy in recession, two wars, an existential terrorist threat, an energy crisis, global warming, belligerent nation states with leaders who will indeed test him, a deeply divided nation.

Obama knows many of the details of what he faces. But so much is unknowable.

We can only hope that he's the right leader for the moment because many Americans have the sense that we have to get the next four years mostly right or face the real prospect of becoming a superpower in the declining phase of its trajectory.

Your thoughts?

by Mark Silva

After months of self-imposed silence, the "washed up terrorist'' of the 2008 presidential campaign - John McCain's name for Chicago's Bill Ayers - has spoken out. He did so with our friend, Peter Slevin, Chicago-based correspondent for the Washington Post.

Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and onetime radical anti-war protester in the 1960s, said that the Republicans had turned him into "a cartoon character'' this year.

Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate, had accused Democrat Barack Obama of "palin' around with terrorists'' for working on civic boards in Chicago with Ayers and attending a campaign reception at Ayers' home during Obama's first bid for the state legislature.

"Pal around together? What does that mean? Share a milkshake with two straws? "Ayers told the Post. "I think my relationship with Obama was probably like thousands of others in Chicago. And, like millions and millions of others, I wish I knew him better."

by Frank James

When should a dead voter's vote count and when shouldn't it? The question arises because of the news today that the absentee vote cast by Sen. Barack Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, will be counted in Hawaii.

The reflexive answer is that it should never count. How can someone who's no longer among the living have a vote that counts like a living voter's? That would seem to be a violation of the constitutional requirement of one person, one vote.

But Slate's Trailhead blog explains why a vote by Obama's deceased grandmother will be counted:

So why was Dunham's vote allowed to count? Hawaii Chief Elections Officer Kevin Cronin tells Trailhead that, when an absentee voter dies, the ballot is not removed until Hawaii's Department of Health issues an official list of the names of deceased persons to the city clerk's office, which will not happen until later this month. Unlike Steen, who passed away several weeks prior to the election, the two-day turnaround in Dunham's case creates "a practical administrative problem," Cronin says, in fishing out her ballot out from among the tens of thousands of absentee ballots in Honolulu--even if her death had been officially reported by the Department of Health.

by Mark Silva

CHICAGO - "When the polls close, the journey ends,'' Sen. Barack Obama said today of the long presidential campaign's close, as he boarded a campaign plane home to Chicago to watch historic election returns.

But for one of these candidates, Obama or Sen. John McCain, the journey is just beginning. An intensive transition will get underway, and the 44th president will be inaugurated on Jan. 20 at a time of likely recession at home and protracted wars abroad.

The expectations surrounding the next president could be difficult for any one leader to meet.

Yet, after 21 months, in Obama's case, something indeed was ending today - and reporters could see it on Obama's face as he boarded his campaign plane in Springfield, Mo. (pictured here in photos by Emanuel Dumand of AFP Photo.)

For McCain, who formally launched his second campaign for the presidency last year - he fell short of the Republican Party's nomination in 2000 and finally claimed it in 2008 - another journey also was ending.

McCain, who had suffered the attacks of George W. Bush's successful campaign in 2000, waged his own high-flying assault against Obama in a campaign that pitted the relative experience of the two combatants against their visions for the nation. Yet in the end, McCain was able to joke about his own fortunes in a good-humored appearance on Saturday Night Live that also was evocative of a journey ending.

McCain staged his last campaign rally in Grand Junction, Colo., today (seen here shaking supporters hands, in a photo by Stephan Savoia of AP.)

He and wife Cindy shared a public, private moment there (captured in the picture by Robyn Beck of AFP / Getty Images.)

By Andrew Zajac

The Swamp offers this thought to cheer, or perhaps depress, students of the American political process now on the verge of a lull in the action after one of the longest presidential campaigns in U.S. history:

If John McCain wins, you're likely looking at a campaign to succeed him begin soon after he's sworn in, like maybe right after the dancing stops at the inaugural balls.

by James Oliphant

CHICAGO--Your correspondent is here, awaiting the results of today's presidential election.

Having lunch at a downtown Asian restaurant, I decided to see if the message inside the fortune cookie I received at the close of the meal offered any clue about the outcome tonight.

It read:

YOU WILL PASS A DIFFICULT TEST.

Make of that what you will.

by Frank James

There'll be a lot of memorable moments today, some of them captured on video.

Here's one. A Sen. Barack Obama's neighbors watched him arrive at the South Side Chicago school this morning to vote, an older white gentleman named Cliff Wilkerson marveled at what he was seeing, given that he grew up in Oklahoma in a sundown town, a place where blacks had better not be caught on the streets after sundown.

Meanwhile, Tamara Bennett, a middle-aged black woman, told Wilkerson she was sorry her mother and father didn't live to see today and never thought she would either to which Wilkerson said he was glad she did. And glad he did too. Just one of many moments that show America at its best.

Tom Krieglstein, 28, and Joe Musselman, 24, are first in line at Michigan Ave and Congress Pkwy, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008. (Chicago Tribune photo by Michael Tercha.)

As many as a million people are expected at Grant Park tonight for what a lot of people expect will be a victory celebration.

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign is issuing about 75,000 tickets. Everyone else is going to have to line up and hope to get in.

People started lining up early, like Monday night. Chicago Tribune journalists found the two earliest birds, the Brothers Kreiglstein -- Tom, 28, and Dan, 29 from Chicago.

Here's a report from the Tribune's Breaking News Desk.

by Jason George

WASILLA, Alaska -- Stopping for a coffee at the Mocha Moose, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told reporters she's not sure if she'll have a role in national politics if she and Sen. John McCain don't win today's election.

"You know if there is a role in national politics, it won't be so much partisan," she said, 15 minutes after voting at the Wasilla City Hall where she once served as mayor.

"My efforts have always been here in the state of Alaska to get everybody to unite and work together," she added. "It certainly would a uniter type of roll"

Asked if she had any regrets in this campaign, Palin first said wished she had "more hours in the day so we could've gotten around to more areas of our country." She then seemed to find her preferred answer: blaming the media.

Palin said she was disappointed with much of the reporting about her.

"The state of journalism today, the world, for the blogosphere, the 2-3-hour news cycles, where just too much is reported based on gossip and innuendo and things taken out of context," she said.

She then suggested that her next role might be righting the wrongs she sees in journalism.

"I'd like to help in that effort also because I have great respect for the world for journalism."

She then said no more questions and left.

by Mark Silva

Sarah Palin may not have been saying who she was voting for today -- a privacy thing, perhaps.

But John McCain's body language in Phoenix today made his own vote pretty clear.

McCain will join Palin for a final campaign tour today.

by Rick Pearson

Supporters of Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain were getting an 11th-hour pitch to call Colorado households on his behalf.

An e-mail to supporters contained the names and phone numbers of 10 Colorado voters, along with a script to make the sales pitch.

Polls have shown Colorado leaning toward Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. Denver is where Obama accepted the Democratic nomination.

"Today is Election Day, and John McCain is the only candidate with the experience we can trust to bring real change to Washington and get our economy back on track," the Arizona Republican's supporters are supposed to say.

"The race is shaping up to be extremely close, and your vote will make a difference. Can we count on your vote?"

by Frank James

Citing her right to privacy, Gov. Sarah Palin refused to say who she voted for after emerging from her polling place in Wasilla, Alaska.

That's right, she wouldn't say she voted for her own presidential ticket. We assume she did, but she stood on principle and wouldn't say. She did say the secret ballot is one of the "cool" things about the U.S.

Agreed.

by James Oliphant

The Chicago Tribune's sister pub, RedEye, has compiled a list of words we will all be glad to see fade from scene once this campaign has ended.

They include, as you might guess:

"Maverick"
"Game-changer"
"Hockey Mom"

Here's a link to the rest.

by Mark Silva

CHICAGO -- One year ago today, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York was the widely favored Democratic candidate for president.

Today, at Griffin Elementary school in Chappaqua, N.Y., Clinton cast her presidential ballot for Sen. Barack Obama of Chicago, who voted in his Hyde Park neighborhood, not far from Park Ridge, where Clinton was born.

The former first lady's long pursuit of the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination ended in June, following a hard-fought contest with Obama. Clinton, voicing optimism about the next few years ahead, insisted today that she felt no regrets in her vote. Indeed, she said, she has appeared at some 75 events to promote the candidacy of the junior senator from Illinois.

"It is a very humbling and overwhelming experience to cast my vote,'' Clinton said, after leaving her polling place. "It's a really extraordinary day. It's a great tribute to our country.''

by Mark Silva

The outcome of today's election matters more than elections in the past, most voters say. And somewhat more of them are saying that this year than have said so in the recent past.

The Gallup Poll has found that 74 percent of those surveyed say this one matters more than previous elections. Fewer than half of those surveyed had said that about the 1996 or 2000 elections.

"Gallup has found an extraordinarily high level of interest in the election throughout this year, and its data also suggest turnout will exceed what it was in 2004,'' Gallup's Jeff Jones reports.

"Democrats (80 percent) are slightly more likely than Republicans (74 percent) to attribute greater importance to the 2008 election outcome. That is a similar pattern to what Gallup showed for the 2004 election.''

Voter concern is "further underscored'' by the fact that 92 percent of registered voters surveyed agree with the statement: 'The stakes in this presidential election are higher than in previous years,' including 76 percent who strongly agree.''

Fifty-four percent of voters surveyed say they are "afraid of what will happen if [their] candidate for president does not win." Another 22 percent agree somewhat. This matches what Gallup found in the 2004 election.

"It would appear that U.S. voters as a whole view the outcome of presidential elections as more consequential than they did in the recent past,'' Jones concludes. "This has fueled a surge in turnout in the 2004 election, which is likely to be repeated again this Election Day.

The survey of 957 registered voters was run Oct. 23-26, and carries a possible margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

by Frank James

Pollster.com has one of the best websites for tracking polls and allocating states on the Electoral College map using the best available information.

Their Election Day map shows Sen. Barack Obama with 291 electoral votes (270 is the magic number) based on the most recent polls with Sen. John McCain at 142. Toss-up states number 105.

Obviously, even giving McCain all the toss-ups doesn't get him to 270. Just as obviously, EVs are allocated on real votes, not polls.

Among the most important changes to the Pollster.com map was Ohio, a state President Bush won in 2004, being moved to the "toss-up" category from "leans Obama" although Mark Blumenthal, the main analysts for the site says he thinks Ohio is still leaning Obama.

Also, because of the latest polling, Colorado, which Bush also won in 2004, is now seen as solid for Obama.

by Mark Silva and updated.

CHICAGO -- We think we know how this voter voted today.

The morning vote of Barack Obama in his Southside Chicago neighborhood capped a campaign that started 21 months ago for the junior senator from Illinois.

After a final round of Election Day campaigning, Obama planned a pick-up game of basketball with some friends today.

Someone else showed up at Obama's polling place this morning, too: Bill Ayers, the University of Illinois at Chicago education professor, former radical war protester from the Sixties and associate of Obama's on civic boards whom the McCain campaign attempted to make a central figure in the election contest. Sarah Palin, John McCain's running mate, had accused Obama of "palin' around with terrorists.''

A pool reporter at the polling place called out: "Mr. Ayers, who did you vote for?" Ayers turned around, but did not reply.

Obama arrived at the Beulah Shoesmith Elementary School polling location (precinct 24, ward 4) at 7:36 am CST, just minutes after Ayers had departed. Wife Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia accompanied him.

When Obama cast his ballot, he announced to the few dozen onlookers snapping photos with their camera phones, "I voted."

The crowd let out a big cheer.

Tonight, he would join an expected crowd of some 70,000 inside the fenced perimeter of his election night rally in Grant Park. But the city was girding for as many as one million people assembling along the Lake Michigan shoreline for an expected celebration.

(Photo of Michelle and Barack Obama voting by Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune.. Photo of Obama by Jae Hong / AP)

by Frank James

If you're the Obama campaign and want to get the highest turnout possible today, especially among first-time or infrequent voters, you have to be somewhat concerned about the precipitation expected or already falling in some key places, including Virginia, North Carolina and eastern Pennsylvania where Philadelphia is.

That's one reason there was such a push for early voting in the states that allow it.

Weather should not be a factor, however, in much of the rest of the country, especially the battleground states of the Midwest like Missouri, Indiana or Ohio.

A line of voters stretches around the corner as the polls open Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008 in Surfside, Fla. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

by Frank James

Election Day is finally here! And what a most historic one at that. The nation will either elect its first African-American president or its first woman vice president. Most of the reputable polls in recent days suggest it will be the former.

We had expected long lines at polling places and those expectations are being met judging by reports we are seeing from the East Coast and southern states already open.

Besides whether the next president will be Barack Obama or John McCain by the end of the day (we hope), we should also know whether the Democrats will fully control Congress, with a Senate majority large enough -- 60 seats -- to allow them to pass legislation and approve judicial nominations over the objections of Senate Republicans.

An exciting day. An historic day. There are moments that are milestones; this is one of those times.

Make sure you get out to vote if you haven't already. That is a right too many Americans have fought, bled and died for on foreign shores as well as our own, for it to be taken lightly.

by Mark Silva

The first votes of the long-awaited 2008 presidential election have been counted, from the first Election Day polls to open. In Dixville Notch, N.H.

It's Barack Obama 15, John McCain 6.

We guarantee you: That margin will narrow today, with polls now open in half the states. The outcome, which candidate comes out with more popular votes today -- and most importantly, the electoral college majority of 270 -- will take a while to glean tonight.

The vote caps a historic presidential campaign more than two years in the running and the costliest ever. It will conclude with either the election of the first African-American in a nation once riven by slavery and long plagued by racial strife, or with the election of the first female vice president in a nation where women won the right to vote only 88 years ago. Either way, the outcome of the 2008 presidential election would inspire people long denied a place in the national political arena.

It could end with the election of the oldest man ever to win a first term as president: John Sidney McCain III, 72, the senior senator from Arizona, who served a full career in the U.S. Navy - including five-and-a-half years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam - before beginning a congressional career that has spanned another quarter century. He is older than Ronald Reagan, then 69, was at his first election.

Or it could end with the selection of one of the youngest American presidents ever - only John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton were younger at election. Barack Hussein Obama II, 47, the junior senator from Illinois, has served less than four years in the Senate and served eight years as a state legislator before that.

But it is much more than age that divides Obama and McCain.

by Mark Silva

The Bradley effect? A problem or urban myth?

CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric asked Democrat Barack Obama the question that many are asking about all those opinion polls which portray an advantage for the first African-American candidate for president. Pre-election polls showed that another African-American, former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, was favored in a 1982 California governor's race, only to lose the race.

(The so-called "Bradley effect'' of voters not leveling with pollsters about an African-American candidate has been disputed by many, including The Gallup Poll's Frank Newport -- suggesting that Bradley's own pollster invented a myth as a means of covering the tracks of his own bad polling. Others suggest that Obama may overcome any such reak factor with an extraordinary turnout of African-American voters.)

"There's been a debate about the Bradley effect, which as you know, in essence is when some respondents lie to pollsters and say "Sure, we'd vote for an African American candidate but on Election Day they just don't do it,'' Couric told Obama, in an interview conducted in Ohio and aired this evening. "A lot of people say it's a phenomenon that's outdated, overstated - and misunderstood. Having said that, do you think we'll see evidence of that on Election Day?''

"You know, I have to tell you, I'm in the camp that says it's outdated and overstated,'' Obama replied. "I mean, the fact of the matter is that people have been worrying and fussing about whether or not I'm hampered because I'm an African American since we were campaigning in Iowa.

"The reason I'm sitting here two days before the election as the Democratic nominee is because the American people ultimately care about whether or not you can do the job.''

by James Oliphant

Remember almost two weeks ago when Sarah Palin said she would release her medical records?

It still hasn't happened.

Early last week, a spokeswoman for the McCain campaign, Tracey Schmitt, said the campaign was working on it and it would be done "sooner rather than later." But since then, nothing.

Palin remains the only candidate on either the Democratic or Republican ticket who has released no personal health information, although critics have maintained that none of the four candidates have provided enough detail.

So, what's the hold up? Palin herself suggested that there was no there there.

"So be it, if that will allow some curiosity seekers, perhaps, to have one more thing that they can either check the box off that they can find something to criticize, perhaps, or find something to rest them assured over," she told NBC's Brian Williams. "Fine. I'm healthy, I'm happy, had five kids. That is going to be in the medical records. Never been seriously ill or hurt. You will see that in the medical records if they're released."

The operative word in that sentence now seems to be "if."

by James Janega

Seeking to squelch persistent rumors that Sen. Barack Obama isn't eligible to become president because he allegedly was born outside the United States, a Hawaiian official has confirmed she has "personally seen and verified" that the state "has Sen. Obama's original birth certificate" - meaning Obama was born in the Aloha state, and is therefore an American citizen.

"There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama's official birth certificate. State law (Hawai'i Revised Statutes §338-18) prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record," reads an Oct. 31 statement from Hawaii's Dr. Chiyome Fukino, who heads the Hawaii office that oversees health records -- including birth certificates.

"Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai'i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai'i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama's original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures," Fukino said in the three paragraph statement.

"No state official, including Governor Linda Lingle, has ever instructed that this vital record be handled in a manner different from any other vital record in the possession of the State of Hawai'i," the statement concludes.

Does this mean Obama was born in Hawaii?

"Yes," said Hawaii Health Department spokeswoman Janice Okubo, in both email and telephone interviews with the Tribune. "That's what Dr. Fukino is saying."

by Mark Silva and James Janega

It seems they have broken into song at Obama headquarters.

They are not sounding like Miserables over there, either.

The production is worth the click.

by Mark Silva

Most people are enthusiastic about the choices they face for the next president, but among supporters of Democrat Barack Obama, excitement is running at about twice the rate of enthusiasm for Republican John McCain's presidency.

These are among the findings of Marist Poll of voters nationally, released on the eve of a historic presidential election .

81 percent of those voters backing Obama are enthused about their vote, the survey found, compared with 37 percent of McCain's backers.

With 72 percent of the voters surveyed expecting lone lines at their polling place, 41 percent say they will stay as long as it takes to cast a ballot - including 48 percent of Obama's backers, 39 percent of McCain's. 38 percent are concerned about many people being told they are ineligible to vote - including 48 percent of Obama's backers, and 26 percent of McCain's.

The survey of 716 voters was conducted Oct. 29 and has a possible four percentage point margin of error.

by Jason George

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - Hank Williams Jr. hit the high notes for the McCain-Palin ticket today, appearing here at a rally with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Williams performed the "National Anthem" and then segued right into "McCain - Palin Tradition," a song he wrote earlier this month that uses the melody from his '70s hit, "Family Tradition." Here's the first verse:

The left wing liberal media have
Always been a real close knit family
But, most of the American People
Don't believe em anyway ya see

Country music is pretty prevalent in Palin's recent events. She walked on stage today to Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" and she campaigned all Sunday with Gretchen "Redneck Woman" Wilson.

(Photo of Sarah Palin by Charlie Riedel / AP)

by Mark Silva

In the end, a campaign is a family affair.

If the pursuit of the highest office in the land will not inexorably alter the family life of the candidate who wins it, the campaign will certainly consume it.

John McCain, senior senator from Arizona, has had the company and moral support of his wife Cindy on the campaign trail. She even performed a good-humored Vanna White-like cameo role on Saturday Night Live for the Republican nominee over the weekend, displaying his mock QVC line of McCain "Fine Gold."

Since the couple were married in 1980 - his second marriage - the former Cindy Hensley has supported the political career of the former Navy flier and prisoner of war in every way possible: Helping him finance his first campaign for Congress in 1982, helping him get a house in the district where he wanted to run and then raising their children in Phoenix while the congressman and then senator plugged away for nearly 26 years.

She was the 24-year-old daughter of a wealthy beer distributor when they met. He was 18 years her senior, a Navy captain. Both lied about their ages at their meeting in Hawaii. They have had three children together and adopted a fourth. All but the youngest sons and daughters of McCain's seven total, the adopted Bridget, a teenager, are adults now. For the McCain's the White House would largely be an adult affair.

Barack and Michelle Obama, on the other hand, are the parents of two young girls. He has often campaigned without the company of his family.

Not since John Kennedy occupied the White House has the nation focused on a first family that included two picture-perfect young children. Barack Obama, junior senator from Illinois, has largely shielded his children from the glare of the campaign - cringing when interviewers elicited regretted personal information for a celebrity TV show, and turning guard-dog protective when press photographers got too close to last week's father-daughter Trick-or-Treating.

But in the White House, the Obamas would inevitably present a family tableau unseen for many years, an irresistible source of scrutiny for a nation already hosting a historic inheritor of the Oval Office, the first African-American president in a nation once riven by slavery and only lately providing legal protection for the voting rights of minorities.

For the Obama's, the White House would largely be a family affair, a family that they would be sharing, as much as they attempted to shield it, with a nation.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), wife Michelle and children Malia and Sasha arriving in Cleveland for a rally with balladeer Bruce Springsteen on Sunday. (Chicago Tribune photo by Zbigniew Bzdak)

by Frank James

The Associated Press has a little news segment on the difficult state of affairs President Bush leaves his successor to deal with.

We all know the litany by now: the ailing economy and financial markets, Iraq, Afghanistan, global warming and so on.

The video includes a snippet of what looks to be a Bush press conference in the White House East Room in which he says his view of his job was "to confront problems, to not pass them on to future Congresses. Or a future president."

Obviously the president missed the mark on that goal.

The video led me to think. did Bush accomplish anything that could be viewed as helpful to his successor?

by Frank James

Adam Smith, the political editor for the St. Petersburg Times, was at a Sen. John McCain rally this morning in Tampa which he said was very poorly attended compared with a rally for President Bush four years ago.

"Maybe it's because it's Monday," he said on the Diane Rheem public-radio show this morning on his cell phone from the rally site. He said the McCain rally had about a thousand people while the Bush rally four years ago had about 15,000 people.

He hastened to add that he's not saying it's predictive of what the vote in the Tampa Bay area will be tomorrow. But it could be indicate a lack of excitement on the Republican side that could eat into Republican turnout tomorrow. Here's a posting he had up before the rally's start.

by Mark Silva

Sarah Palin, stumping in Lakewood, Ohio, this morning, introduced her husband, Todd - "the First Dude,'' the governor of Alaska called him - a "blue-collar'' commercial fisherman and oil-field worker, Steelworkers Union member and champion snowmobile racer.

"He knows a little something about racing and how to win,'' Palin said this morning, appearing in a bellwether state that has voted the way the United States has in most modern elections - and which has been a necessary part of every Republican's winning presidential formula.

In Ohio, Palin launched a full-throated assault on Obama's tax plans -- "socialism'' -- and a pitch for her energy development.

"We'll drill, baby, drill, and mine, baby, mine,'' she said. "You betcha, we will.''

She drew boos from the audience for her talk of Democratic rival Barack Obama's tax-talk. And she revived that Obama primary talk about "the bitterness'' of blue-collar voters -- noting that he had said that in San Francisco, and recently told a San Francisco newspaper about his reticence on coal mining. "Something about San Francisco'' with this candidate, said Palin, without filling in her suggestion.

"Sen. Obama has an ideological commitment to higher taxes. It's like he just can't help himself,'' she said. "It's ideological with him....

by Frank James

The highly regarded Ohio Poll sponsored by the University of Cincinnati predicts that Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, will win Ohio.

If Obama does beat Sen. John McCain in Ohio, it would represent a seismic shift in presidential politics since no Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio.

President Bush relied on Ohio to deliver the votes that allowed him to defeat Sen. John Kerry in 2004 and give him a second term. If Obama wins Ohio, it's difficult to see McCain winning in enough other places to capture 270 Electoral College votes and it could point to an Electoral College landslide and a relatively early call of the presidential race tomorrow evening.

An excerpt from their press release:

Cincinnati, OH--The final Ohio Poll for the 2008 election season finds Senator Barack Obama likely towin Ohio's 20 electoral votes.

In 95 of 100 cases, the statewide estimates will be accurate to plus or minus 2.7 percent.

by Mark Silva

Sen. Barack Obama, in an interview with CBS News, says his aunt from Kenya living in the United States without legal residency will have to face the same consequences as any other undocumented immigrant.

CBS anchor Katie Couric asked the Democratic presidential nominee, in an excerpt of the interview aired on the CBS Evening News, "You have an aunt who's been living in this country apparently illegally... Would you support her being deported to Kenya?''

"If she is violating laws, those laws have to be obeyed,'' Obama said. "We're a nation of laws.

"Obviously that doesn't lessen my concern for her,'' he added. "I haven't been able to be in touch with her. But I'm a strong believer you have to obey the law.''

More of Obama's interview with Couric will air on The Early Show this morning and on a special one-hour edition of the CBS Evening News tonight.

by Jason George

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- At Gov. Sarah Palin's Sunday rallies, she's earned big responses by repeating the line that an independent organization has found that Sen. Barack Obama's proposed policies "would destroy 6 million jobs over the next decade."

A quick search though finds that the only thing destroyed is the truth in that statement.

The facts: The "independent organization" Palin cites is actually the Center for Data Analysis, which is part of The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank.

Further, the figure is what the Heritage Foundation believes would be the amount of potential jobs not created if Obama changes tax law (including repealing the Bush tax cuts.)

by Mark Jacob

After days of refusing to say when it would issue tickets for its Grant Park rally Tuesday night, the Obama campaign has begun informing the recipients via e-mail.

One applicant was told today he could expect delivery by e-mail from 6 to 7 p.m. Monday. Each ticket will admit the ticketholder and a guest.

Personalized for the recipient, the ticket is nontransferable. The ticketholder must bring a photo ID to the event

by Mark Silva

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- John McCain's campaign may have refrained from playing the Rev. Jeremiah Wright against Barack Obama in election campaign ads.

But that hasn't stopped an independent group, the National Republican Trust PAC, from airing anti-Obama campaign ads labeling the Democratic senator from Illinois as "too radical'' and "too risky,'' including this one featuring the most inflammatory words of the former pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago -- the pastor whose words Obama has repudiated, at the church which Obama attended for many years.

The Wright ad is airing in battleground states such as Virginia at the close of the campaign, as Obama attempts to close the deal with voters in states such as this Old South bastion that long have voted Republican. Virginia hasn't voted Democratic in presidential elections since 1963, for Lyndon Johnson, but Obama holds an apparent advantage in the state -- with some polls portraying a narrowing gap in the closing days.

Bill Burton, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, voiced confidence in Obama's chances in the key states of Virginia, Florida and Nevada -- as well as in Pennsylvania -- today, in an interview with MSNBC's Morning Joe.

The PAC, which has aired a series of harsh attack ads against Obama, bills itself as "an independent organization to help promote American values.''

It is "committed to continuing the legacy of Ronald Reagan,'' it says.

And fighting Obama.

by Mark Silva

WASHINGTON--The view from the Oval Office on Jan. 20, 2009: A nation in recession, a runaway federal budget deficit, spiraling national debt, two costly and frustrating wars, and the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks still at large.

Oh, and nearly 50 million Americans lack health insurance, Medicare and Medicaid are eating a growing share of the federal pie, and Social Security's bankruptcy looms just beyond the horizon.

So why would anyone want this job?

It's not only today's enormous challenges that will confront the 44th president, but also the near-certainty that some still-unknown crisis will erupt in the next four years.

"It's really the most difficult transition since Abraham Lincoln, to be honest with you," said Paul Light, professor of public service at New York University and an expert in presidential transitions. "Lincoln, between the time he was elected and inaugurated, witnessed seven states secede from the union."

See the report on the challenges confronting the next president in today's Tribune, with added commentary here in the Swamp:

by Mark Silva

See Sen. John McCain, peddling QVC goods such as those commemorative "Town Hall Debate Plates," blank China for debates that never were.

See the line of "McCain Fine Gold,'' displayed by the real Cindy McCain.

See Sarah Palin's "Ayers-freshener,'' which makes the room smell not quite right, see McCain's own pork knives and see Palin's side-line of Palin 2012 T-shirts -- for, one way or the other, Tina Fey says, Palin is "not going back to Alaska.'' She either runs in 2012, or she becomes "the white Oprah.'' Either way, she's OK.

And see McCain's eleventh-hour strategies for victory, including "the reverse maverick'' and the "double maverick.''

McCain, who was the first sitting senator ever to appear on Saturday Night Live several years ago, became the last candidate for president in the 2008 contest to appear on the show before Eleciton Day, with SNL's election-eve edition Saturday night capping a season of ratings boosted by parodies of McCain's running mate.

So who better to get things going than McCain himself and Fey, who has all but patented that Sarah imPalination that made SNL must-see TV in the final weeks of the election campaign.

Guest host Ben Affleck, noting that his many years of endorsements of Democratic candidates had seemed to backfire on him, joked that he was, for the reverse psychological effect it might have, endorsing McCain this evening

"Good evening, my fellow Americans, I'm John McCain,'' the Republican nominee for president said.

"And, you know, I'm just Sarah Palin,'' said Fey.

See the rest of the script of the opener below, the video above, and see McCain's stint on SNL's Weekend News Update here in the Swamp:

by Frank James

Brian Moore knows socialists. Socialists are friends of his. And he says that Sen. Barack Obama is no socialist.

And Moore should know since he's the Socialist Party candidate for president.

Moore was on C-Span's Washington Journal program yesterday when he was asked by a caller whether Obama was a socialist, a political philosophy the Democratic presidential nominee has been tagged with by Sen. John McCain because of the Illinois Democrat's "spread the wealth" comment to Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher.

Moore's answer:

First of all, Mr. Obama is not a socialist, he's a capitalist and a capitalist in the bad sense. He's received $25 million from contributions from Wall St. He's embraced the bailout, voted and supported the bailout. He's supporting a health-care system that would turn over authority back to the private insurance companies."

by Jim Tankersley

As the presidential race enters its final weekend after two years of battle, John McCain's best chance for a history-defying comeback rests in the greatest of electoral unknowns: voter turnout.

To win on Tuesday, analysts and polls suggest, the Republican nominee must win nearly all the remaining undecided voters in key swing states and peel a large chunk of "soft" supporters from Democratic rival Barack Obama. Then he must hope that his supporters vote in overwhelming numbers, and that more Obama supporters than expected stay home.

It would be a daunting task in any election, but it's particularly the case this year, when analysts predict the largest voter turnout ever, perhaps 130 million, and the biggest percentage of eligible voters casting ballots in a century.

"It would have to be almost like a perfect game," said Christopher Borick, a Muhlenberg College professor who conducts a daily tracking poll in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state. "Everything would have to break his way."

A police officer on Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008 outside the public housing building in South Boston where Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama's aunt Zeituni Onyango reportedly lives. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

by Frank James (updated at 12:48 pm ET with Sen. Obama's response.)

What impact will the Associated Press report that Sen. Barack Obama has an aunt who is an illegal Kenyan immigrant at last report living in Boston have on the presidential race?

It might have an impact if it could be shown that he aided in her lawbreaking. But since there are millions of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. years after immigration judges ordered them to leave the country, it's not a foregone conclusion that Obama did anything to help her stay.

**** Update -- Obama issued a statement saying he didn't know his aunt was in the U.S. illegally:

"Senator Obama has no knowledge of her status but obviously believes that any and all appropriate laws be followed." *********

The more interesting question is what will become of Zeituni Onyango if her nephew is elected president? If he wins, she becomes (and already may be) the most famous illegal immigrant in the country. How her case is handled will be watched closely for evidence of favoritism. On the other hand, if it appears she's dealt with harshly in order to serve Obama's political needs, that could be problematic too.

Another interesting question, of course, is how information about Onyango made its way to the media within days of the election.

by Andrew Zajac

Earlier this week, the Chicago Tribune reported on a mysterious pattern of donations to the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain and other, mainly Republican causes from Shi Sheng Hao, of Roselle, Illinois, and people related to him.

The story pointed out that Hao has business ties to the family of Gene and Nora Lum, who were convicted in a Democratic fundraising scandal in the 1990s, and who, it turns out, have kept a family hand in the political money business.

by Dick Batchelor

One of the two major candidates for president has been kidnapped. The victim went along willingly, without a murmur of protest. He'll remain a hostage on Election Day. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to find him, and it's no mystery. The victim is in plain sight: It's John McCain.

The real John McCain was kidnapped by political-adviser Karl Rove and his cabal of mean-spirited and "no-holds-barred" consultants.

I always admired the McCain that America came to know and respect in his run for the GOP nomination in 2000. He was a candidate of honor and integrity. Yet he was smeared by members of his own party. Recall the rumor that McCain fathered an out-of-wedlock black child? That ugly lie was straight from the playbook of the late Lee Atwater's school of dirty tricks. In fact, McCain and his second wife, Cindy, are very proud of their adopted child -- who happens to be dark-skinned.

Time was when McCain disdained the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells, the pastors who forgot their first calling as disciples of Christ to embrace a worldly lust for power and a seat at the head of the Republican table. Time was when McCain co-sponsored sensible immigration reform with Sen. Ted Kennedy; he did the same for campaign-finance reform with Sen. Russ Feingold. He challenged Republican orthodoxy that would ignore the threat of global warming, and he rebuked the mindless patriotism that would make physical torture, which he himself endured, acceptable U.S. policy.

But then he kicked the hornets' nest on "K" Street -- or, as I like to call it, Gucci Gulley. When he did, McCain incited those powerful lobbying groups who will not be denied feeding at the public trough.

Dick Batchelor, a political analyst and former Democratic state legislator in Florida, wrote this commentary about the 'hijacking of John McCain' for the Orlando Sentinel.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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 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.''

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.

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 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 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 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 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 James Oliphant

Robert Draper is the political writer who this week penned the behind-the-scenes account of John McCain's zig-zagging campaign for The New York TImes magazine.

Now, Draper, to his apparent horror, has been called upon to blog the last week of the campaign for GQ. (Shades of David Duchovny in "Californication.")

Draper has a post up that looks at the "grim binary choice" presented to the McCain campaign staff regarding Sarah Palin. The choice, as Draper writes, was "whether to make Palin look like a scripted robot or an unscripted ignoramus."

More:

On the other hand, it had to be hard for Sarah Palin--who has achieved all she's achieved with a highly personal touch--to take all this ridicule under an enforced gag order. After being introduced to the world as one of the "Team of Mavericks," she's admonished not to be one. She's being called out by some McCainites for not cleaving to all of the senator's positions. The Republicans who fawned over her superstar looks are now shocked--shocked!--to learn that her much-admired wardrobe has been purchased with RNC funds. I've heard from one well-placed source that McCain has snubbed her on one long bus ride aboard the Straight Talk Express, to the embarrassment of those sitting nearby.

Read the rest of the post here.

by Andrew Zajac

Top McCain campaign adviser Charles Black has been accused of failing in his duties as a director of e-Smart Technologies Inc. by allegedly allowing its CEO to defraud the company, according to an investor's suit filed in federal court in New York Monday.

The suit, brought by Douglas Borwick, of Breckenridge, Colorado, who identified himself as the owner of two million e-Smart shares, is the latest in a series of legal and regulatory difficulties faced by e-Smart before and during Black's tenure as a consultant and director, dating back to mid-2003.

Earlier this month, the Securities and Exchange Commission suspended trading in e-Smart for ten days due to concerns about the accuracy of investor information and the possibility that it was selling unregistered securities. The conduct identified by the SEC forms the basis for much of the suit.

Read more below, and see the complaint here: lawsuit.pdf

by James Oliphant

ARLINGTON, Va.--A snapshot of the last days of the campaign in a battleground state:

Coming off the Metro, I'm greeted by young volunteers (Obama supporters, perhaps?), telling me where in Northern Virginia I can vote before Election Day. (Interesting quirk: If you plan to spend any time in D.C. that day, you can vote absentee in Virginia. That's potentially quite a lot of people.)

Then, at home, to find Willie Horton in my mailbox:

Barack Obama, the mailer reads, "acted more as a friend to criminals than to cops. . . "

Okay, to be fair, it isn't quite a Willie Horton-style ad, because Obama isn't accused of allowing a woman to be raped. He just wants to use your tax dollars to give needles to drug addicts and he doesn't believe in protecting children.

by Frank James

Defense Secretary Robert Gates spoke at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington today of, among other things, the need for the U.S. to modernize its nuclear weapons capability. I'll deal with what he said on that score in another post.

But I was struck by part of an answer he gave about Iraq during the Q&A session following his speech. A questioner asked him what further steps should be taken to deter Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Gates essentially said Europe could and should do more to isolate Iran. Then he related a fascinating story about something he personally experienced three decades ago involving Iranian officials:

I will tell you, you know, there has been a lot of conversation about this. I have spent 30 years in the search for the elusive Iranian moderate. When Jessica (Matthews, now president of the Carnegie Endowment) and I were working together under Dr. Brzezinski -- I was with Zbig when he was at the 25th anniversary of the Algerian revolution. And we got word that the Iranian leadership wanted to meet with him. This was October 1979. And Zbig got permission to do this. So we met with the prime minister, defense minister and foreign minister of the new Iranian revolutionary government. I think it was the first senior-level meeting with the Iranian leadership since the revolution.

by Mark Silva

Barack Obama has gained some daunting campaign-closing advantages in two big battleground states - Florida and Ohio - according to the results of a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg News poll.

Obama holds a 50-43-percentage point advantage over Republican John McCain in Florida, the poll finds -- in a state that has only sparingly voted for Democrats since the 1960s, and then only Southern Democrats.

And Obama holds a 49-40-point advantage over McCain in Ohio among likely voters surveyed -- in a state that has voted the way the nation has voted most times and always been part of a Republican's winning formula.

Tom Slade, a former chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, credits Obama's advantage there to a tide of resentment with the way Republicans have been running things and to Obama's own extraordinary campaign organization in the state.

"The Obama campaign is running just the best presidential campaign I've ever seen,'' Slade told the Swamp today. "It's going to take something short of a miracle to overcome the basic odds... I have never seen so many angry people in my life. They are just double-barrel pissed-off.''

In both states, the Democrat "has opened commanding leads over McCain among women, young people, first-time voters and blacks and other minorities,'' the L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll finds.

by James Oliphant

John Harris and Jim VandeHei, the editors of the Washington-based newspaper Politico, have covered a few campaigns in their time. The former Washington Post writers Tuesday attempted to explain why their newspaper has covered Barack Obama more favorably than John McCain.

Harris and VandeHei do not deny that this has occurred. Their piece Tuesday was an attempt to explain the numbers in the recent Pew Research Center poll that found that McCain, over the six weeks since the Republican convention, got four times as many negative stories as positive ones. The study found six out of 10 McCain stories were negative.

"OK, let's just get this over with: Yes, in the closing weeks of this election, John McCain and Sarah Palin are getting hosed in the press, and at Politico," Harris and VandeHei write.

But, they argue, the fault doesn't lie with them but with McCain. Basically, they're saying: It's not our fault you've run such a lousy campaign.

by Mark Silva

Now, wait a minute.

Barack Obama is the one riding high in the polls, virtually skating to an electoral victory on Tuesday, the way the majority of the television pundits tell the story.

He's the one who should exude excitement. But here he is, stepping off his campaign plane in the wintry air of Staunton, Va., today - a battleground where he is said to be winning. And the wind seems ready to carry his scarf and tie away with him. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

John McCain, on the other hand, is the one who is supposed to be worried. He is down in the polls, facing, the pundits say, a hill too steep to climb.

But here he is, arriving with wife Cindy today in Fayetteville, N.C., a state which he is unexpectedly fighting to keep from going Democratic this year for the first time in decades - and he appears as sunny as the Sunbelt itself. (Photo by Corey Lowenstein/Raleigh News & Observer/MCT)

Then again, appearances are not everything -- such as this one McCain made at the concession speech which former Sen. Bob Dole, the Republican Party's '96 nominee for president, made at a Washington hotel on Nov. 5, 1996. Elizabeth Dole, fighting to keep her seat in the Senate from North Carolina now, is seen at her husband's side.

(AP Photo/Joe Marquette)

by Mark Silva

President Bush has been something of a stealth bomber in this election campaign, dropping in on Republican National Committee fundraisers to raise money for his party's election campaigns, but not campaigning publicly for their candidates.

Not with his own approval ratings in the polls - his party's presidential nominee, John McCain, has been seeking as much distance from Bush as possible lately.

Today, the president's motorcade carried him from the White House and up the length of the National Mall to the headquarters of the RNC on First Street.

It was a pep call.

"During the visit, he encouraged them to work hard for John McCain and keep turning out the vote until the final ballot is cast next week,'' White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said of the president's visit to party headquarters.

"He also took the opportunity to thank the staff for all of their efforts during this election cycle and for their support of him over the last eight years,'' he said. "He spoke to the staff about the importance of American leadership on the issues of the economy, the War on Terror and freedom. ''

by Frank James

The closer we get to Election Day, the greater the concerns about whether polling places will be able to handle the expected crush of voters in next week's historic presidential election.

Democrats appear much more concerned about the polling-place meltdowns that could be caused by very long lines, especially since heavy voter turnouts traditionally favor Democrats over Republicans, especially when minority voters show up in huge numbers.

Christopher Edley Jr., dean of the Berkley Law School and an adviser to Sen. Barack Obama, has a Washington Post op-ed piece in which he outlines the concerns.

by Mark Silva

Barack Obama is not only buying commercial network airtime Wednesday night, but Obama also will make an appearance on Comedy Central's The Daily Show, the network says.

Favorable forum? "You rock, Barack,'' the audience told Obama the last time he appeared on Jon Stewart's show.

"There's a certain inspirational quality to you,'' Stewart told Obama then. "My question is, is that something that America's really going to go for?''

"We're going to find out,'' Obama said then.

Has the "insanity'' of the process sunk in yet, Stewart asked.

"Everyday,'' Obama said, "it reveals itself in new ways.''

by Mark Silva

"O'Biden... Obama'' -- they may be starting to look alike to John McCain.

Now that both McCain and Barack Obama are airing the words of Democratic running mate Joe Biden on the question of testing the next president, McCain suggested today that he would have caught a lot of flak for saying what Biden said about Obama facing a test early in his administration if he is elected president.

"I've been tested, to start with,'' McCain said in a cable television interview. "Second of all, Sen. O'Biden was right - Sen. Biden was correct,'' he added, correcting himself with a laugh. "If Sarah or I had said that, could you imagine the reaction? Scaring Americans, etc.... But Sen. Biden had it right, this is an untested individual who has been wrong on the things he's been tested about.''

McCain and Sarah Palin, campaigning together in Hershey, Pa., today, sat for a talk with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo to talk about what the Republican ticket would do about the economic crisis.

"The administration is not doing what I think they should do, and that's go in and buy out these bad mortgages, give people mortgages they can afford, stabilized home values and start 'em back up again,'' said McCain, the party's presidential nominee and senator from Arizona. "I'd like to start with keeping people in their homes.''

by Mark Silva

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - I am a very likely voter.

I live in a battleground state, one that hasn't voted for a Democrat for president since 1964, but which, according to the latest public poll, favors Democrat Barack Obama by 8 percentage points.

For weeks, bright-eyed young people have been showing up at my doorstep with Obama shirts on their backs and clipboards in their hands asking, with an unmistakable optimism, for whom I will be voting. Can't really say, I tell them - news reporter here, no petition-signihg, thank you. But they have meticulously recorded the preferences of my family and neighbors, double-checking it weekend after weekend and building a data base which clearly they plan to utilize on Election Day for a get-out-the-vote drive of unprecedented proportions.

And then, finally today, the first sign of Republican John McCain's campaign arrived in my mail-box, from the Republican Party of Virginia: A fold-out, full-color flier with photographs of a felon from Chicago, Tony Rezko, with warnings that Rezko, "convicted just this year on federal charges of fraud for receiving kickbacks in a land deal,'' is a friend of Obama and helped Obama buy his $1.65 million home in Chicago. Never mind that the conviction of power-broker Rezko for influence-peddling in Chicago had nothing to do with the fact that Rezko bought land next door to Obama on the South Side of Chicago and sold him a piece of it. None of the extensive federal investigations of Rezko's abuses ever accused Obama of any wrong-doing.

This is a presidential campaign?

by Mark Silva

Michelle Obama made an appearance on Jay Leno's Tonight Show last night. When the talk show host thanked the candidate's wife, Obama shrugged: "It's the Tonight Show.''

Her two young daughters, however, "could care less'' about all this television and campaign business, she said. "Quite frankly, they could care less,'' she said of the activities of her husband, the Democratic presidential nominee. "When he comes home they're like, you know, let me show you my soccer trophy.''

Recently, she said, with family sitting around the kitchen table he was telling her mother about the all-network, prime-time campaign TV ad buy that his scamapign is making Wednesday evening. "Wednesday he's airing this...'' Michelle Obama said -- not quite sure what to call it. "He's on all the networks, I don't know what they're calling it, but he's all over the place.''

Daughter Malia asked: "You're going to be on all the TV? She says, 'Are you going to interrupt my TV?'''

"He says, 'No, we didn't buy time on Disney,' and she said 'Oh good.' And she got up and walked away. She was just like, 'You don't mess with my TV.'''

by Mark Silva

Sarah Palin has this to say about that half-hour of prime-time TV that Barack Obama's campaign plans to air Wednesday night.

"American viewers will go into it just understanding that it's more of the same and it's scripted, of course,'' Palin says in an interview airing this evening on FOX News Channel's Hannity and Colmes. "That goes to the heart of my concern about his lack of candidness in terms of telling Americans really, what his plans are.''

On the campaign trail, she maintains, Obama has been forced to be more forthcoming about his tax plans, such as "spreading the wealth around... Finally there is some candidness being forced out of Barack Obama for him to get to fess up on what his plans are for tax increases and spreading the wealth.''

Palin, the Republican running mate popular among the Republican faithful but drawing increasing criticism from Democrats and independents who question her credentials for the presidency should she need to step into the officie, allowed that she'd never imagined being in this position.

by Frank James (see end of post for 8:15 pm ET update)

We don't know more than what the Associated Press and others are reporting about an alleged neo-Nazi skinhead plot fo kill Sen. Barack Obama and scores of everyday African-Americans.

But while this information is sad, disgusting and infuriating, it's not surprising.

Here's what AP is reporting:

By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer

In court records unsealed Monday, federal agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target a predominantly African-American high school by two neo-Nazi skinheads. Agents said the skinheads did not identify the school by name.

by Mark Silva

People tend to get carried away at times like these.

People like Terrel Brown and Ben Wise, of bellwether Canton, Ohio, a place that has voted like Ohio has in most presidential elections, in a state that has voted like the United States has in most presidential elections.

No surprise that both Barack Obama and John McCain both campaigned there today, eight days from Election Day. Brown and Wise, pictured in the AP photo abve by Phil Long, turned out for Obama in Canton.

And Obama, pictured here by the AP's Jae C. Hong, had a few more wating for him there in battleground Ohio.

Polls portray a close contest in Ohio.

"Sen. McCain might be worried about losing an election,'' Obama said, "but I'm worried about Americans who are losing their homes, and their jobs, and their life savings."

John McCain, the Republican nominee, campaigned Kettering, a suburb of Dayton, with an attempt to persuade voters that his plan for the economy is better than Obama's. He is pictured here in a photo by Stephen Crowley of the New Tork Times.

In Dayton, McCain returned to one of his favorite themes, that Obama is too liberal for the United States and favors "redistribution of wealth." Obama has called for a tax increase for those earning more than $250,000 a year couple with a tax cut for those earning less.

McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, was campaigning across Virginia today, pictured here in Fredericksburg in a photo by Steve Helber of the AP.

Obama's running mate, Joe Biden, campaigned in Greenville, N.C., on the campus of East Carolina University, where Takaaki Iawbu of the Raleigh News and Observer pictured him emerging from the curtains.

In Virginia, Palin is attempting to hold a state which hasn't voted Democratic since 1964, but where Obama is strongly favored in the latest polls.

North Carolina has not voted for a Democrat for president since 1976 - Jimmy Carter, a Southerner.

President Bush comfortably carried the state in both his election and reelection, with 56 percent of the vote. Yet the latest polling there has portrayed it as a toss-up between Obama and McCain.

by Mark Silva

Willliam Ayers, the Chicago education professor and former leader of the 1960s Weather Underground, has been villified in the presidential campaign underway as a "washed up terrorist'' - with Democrat Barack Obama, who has served on civic boards with the educator, accused by John McCain's campaign of "palling around with terrorists.''

But Ayers, for his part, has nothing public to say about it all, as an encounter with journalism students and ABC News over the weekend underscored.

Ayers told a journalism student attending an education justice symposium in New York on Sunday that he and other former radicals were being "demonized" by Fox News, ABC reports. "We're nice guys, right?"

Asked by the student if he repudiated the work of the Weather Underground, which carried out a series of 1960's robberies and bombings, ABC reports, Ayers walked away without answering. Ayers declined requests for an interview from ABC News, and after the appearance in New York, he used a garbage-littered freight elevator in an unsuccessful attempt to duck ABC News cameras waiting outside.

"I have nothing to say," he told ABC News. Asked about Republican Sen. John McCain's description of him as a "washed up terrorist," Ayers said nothing "as he raced to find a taxi,'' according to the account by ABC's Brian Ross and intern Molly Dean, a graduate student in journalism at New York University..

Ayers, now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, made no mention of his radical past or Obama during an hour and a half presentation to a group of 50 at the Harold Clurman Festival of the Arts. Obama, however, who served on civic boards with Ayers and attended a reception at his home during his first campaign for the state Senate, has told ABC's Charlie Gibson, "This is a guy who engaged in some despicable acts 40 years ago when I was eight years old."

The two have spoken in recent years about school reform, he added, but "the notion that somehow he has been involved in my campaign, that he is an adviser of mine, that I've palled around a terrorist, all these statements are made simply to try to score cheap political points."

by Frank James

Sen. John McCain has gone after Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic nominee's use of the words "spread the wealth" when the senator from Illinois explained his tax plan to Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher.

I just happened to be reading over the weekend an interesting New York Times Magazine piece by writer David Leonhardt from August on Obama's economic philosophy and came across the phrase "spreading the wealth," a usage which predated Obama's Joe-the-Plumber encounter.

Obama is quoted using the words in the article. Instead they were used by a NYT magazine editor who wrote a subhead that appeared over part five of the article, a lengthy passage describing a key piece of Obama's plan, the idea that he wants to use the tax code to reverse some of the growing income inequality that has become more pronounced in the last decade which has seen the rich get richer as the middle class and the poor have seen their incomes stagnate.

by Mark Silva

Sarah Palin, campaigning in "old clothes from'' a "consignment shop in Anchorage,'' is criss-crossing Virginia today, in a bid to save a state that hasn't voted Democratic in presidential contests since 1964.

The Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee also is attempting to regain that Joe-Sixpack image, dismissing the controversy over her party-financed $150,000 wardrobe from Neiman Marcus and Saks as "ridiculous.''

Palin showed up at an event Sunday night in Asheville, N.C., wearing jeans, and told a campaign crowd in Florida earlier in the day:

"This whole thing with the wardrobe, I try to just ignore it because it's so ridiculous... Those clothes, they are not my property,'' she said of the RNC-financed wardrobe, some of which is being returned and some bound for charity bins (as presidential nominee John McCain explained on Meet the Press on Sunday.)

"I'm not taking them with me,'' Palin said in Florida. "I'm back to wearing my old clothes from my favorite consignment shop in Anchorage, Alaska."

The Associated Press contributed.

by Mark Silva

"History is on the side of Barack Obama,'' the folks at the Gallup Poll report today, noting that only twice during the past 14 presidential elections did the candidate who was running ahead in Gallup polling a week or so before Election Day not end up winning the popular vote .

That was George W. Bush, who ended up winning by the electoral vote count in 2000, and Jimmy Carter, who was retired in 1980.

In only one contest, in 1980, did the candidate who was behind in the late polling (Ronald Reagan) pull ahead in both the popular vote and the Electoral College and thus win the election.

And today, Obama is up 9 points over Republican John McCain in the Gallup daily track.

by Mark Silva

Republican John McCain likes to call running mate Sarah Palin the most popular governor in America, but the Alaska governor's leading home-state newspaper has gone with someone else in its editorial endorsement: Democrat Barack Obama.

In its endorsement of Obama in the presidential contest, the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska's largest newspaper, called Palin "too risky" to be one step away from the Oval Office. "Like picking McCain for president, putting her one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time," the editors said.

The newspaper's editorial board concluded that Obama "brings far more promise to the office. In a time of grave economic crisis, he displays thoughtful analysis, enlists wise counsel and operates with a cool, steady hand."

The Daily News said that McCain has "stumbled and fumbled badly" in dealing with the economic crisis unfolding. "Of the two candidates, Sen. Obama better understands the mortgage meltdown's root causes and has the judgment and intelligence to shape a solution, as well as the leadership to rally the country behind it," the paper said.

Palin has demonstrated successes as a governor, the paper said, but few can argue that Palin is y ready to step into the job of being president, should that become necessary, despite her passion, charisma and strong work ethic.

"Gov. Palin's nomination clearly alters the landscape for Alaskans as we survey this race for the presidency -- but it does not overwhelm all other judgment.'' The editors said. "The election, after all is said and done, is not about Sarah Palin, and our sober view is that her running mate, Sen. John McCain, is the wrong choice for president at this critical time for our nation.''

by Mark Silva

In the closing week of the presidential campaign, Michelle Obama is taking a turn on the late-night comic's stage.

The wife of the Democratic presidential nominee will drop in on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno this evening.

The late-night shows have taken on a life of their own in this campaign - with David Letterman lecturing John McCain for skipping his Late Night show the week that McCain briefly "suspended'' his campaign for the economic crisis, and then forgiving McCain when he finally appeared.

Sarah Palin came face to face with imPalinator Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live.

But the solo appearance of a candidate's spouse on the comedian's stage at this stage of the campaign is another measure of the confidence the Democratic ticket is feeling about the closing days of the campaign. The show airs on NBC at 11:35 pm EDT.

by Frank James

Political analyst Charlie Cook is about the closest Washington political culture has to the opera's singing fat lady. (Don't read too much into that Charlie.) He tends to be right so he tends to be listened to.

So his column in the National Journal yesterday was really noteworthy because he came as close to saying the presidential race is over as you can without saying it's over.

For a political analyst, the normal posture this time of year is much like a baseball umpire's: hunched over, peering carefully as the ball approaches the plate, watching for whether it breaks left or right, whether it's coming in high or low. But, these days, we analysts are more like outfielders, watching in awe as a ball seems on a trajectory to not only clear the fence but very likely land in the upper deck.

by Mark Silva

Painful moments in political television:

 Sen. John McCain, nearly 26 years in Congress, 22 in the Navy, and today - on the 41st anniversary of the day, Oct. 26, 1967, that his bomber was shot down over Hanoi, the start of a five-and-a-half year imprisonment and torture - attempting to recite the names of the five former Republican secretaries of state who have endorsed his candidacy for the presidency.

It's a measure of the fatigue that befalls someone campaigning for the highest office in the land for the better part of two years that the name of George Shultz - whom McCain later acknowledged as one of the "greatest'' secretaries of state of all time after prompting for the fifth name - that the simplest rebuttal to the endorsement that Republican former secretary Colin Powell has given Democratic nominee Barack Obama should be so difficult to recite.

 McCain, who once touted that he has voted with President Bush "90 percent of the time,'' attempting today on NBC's Meet the Press to explain where he parts ways with the unpopular president. "I am not George Bush,'' the senior senator from Arizona said, successfully reciting many ways in which they have disagreed but ultimately vowing his allegiance to and "respect'' for the party's president.

It's a sign that one of the central attacks of the Obama campaign - portraying McCain as "more of the same'' - may have taken a toll on the GOP's self-styled "maverick.''

 McCain, insisting that he does not have to "defend'' running mate Sarah Palin -- "I praise her,'' he told NBC News' Tom Brokaw. "She needs no defense.'' And then struggling with a defense for someone 'thrust into this' campaign.

Then, shown polling which suggests that most Americans now think Palin is unqualified to serve as president should that become necessary, McCain asked: "Not qualified because.... Because....'' And Brokaw obligingly filled in the blank, speaking of Palin's many national media interviews: Because people "have come to the conclusion, based on everything we've seen, that she is not qualified to be president.''

McCain downplayed the $150,000 that the Republican National Committee has spent to dress Palin, saying one third of it has been returned and the rest will go to charity As McCain reeled off Palin's credentials, he painfully included this: "Her husband... works the third shift on the oil facilities on the North Slope..... Look, she leads a frugal life... she and her family were not wealthy... she and her family were thrust into this...''

"It sounds like I'm, quote, defending her, but the fact is, she is a dynamic person, with executive experience,'' McCain said. "She is exactly what Washington needs.... I could not be more proud of her.... She is a role model to millions and millions and millions of Americans.''

by Mark Silva

In Ohio, that state which has been the foundation of every Republican's winning presidential camapign, the newest poll from one of the most reliable in the business portrays a close contest between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, with Obama's "momentum'' in recent surveys suggesting a slight edge for him.

"While the race remains a statistical dead heat, more voters are siding with Democrat Barack Obama, who has erased Republican John McCain's previous lead in the Buckeye State and (Obama) now holds a 3-point advantage, 49 percent to 46 percent,'' the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports of the new Ohio Poll.
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"The poll, when compared to the two previous Ohio Newspaper Polls, suggests that the Illinois senator has momentum on his side.

"The latest poll of 886 likely voters, conducted Oct. 18-22, also asked Ohioans their views on the Iraq war and national security, issues where McCain holds an advantage. But with the economic crisis eclipsing all other issues, especially in Ohio, Obama has been able to keep the race focused on pocket-book issues, to his benefit.

"The poll shows that support for Obama has increased by 7 percentage points since the first poll was taken in mid-September. McCain's support has declined by 2 percentage points since then, and he has lost ground with white voters and with men.

The polls were conducted by the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati and have a margin of error of 3.3 percent. Eric Rademacher, interim co-director of the institute, says Obama has an edge, but the highly charged race and partisan electorate make the contest similar to the unpredictable one four years ago:

''It is very possible that 2008 could be a repeat of 2004 when the race for Ohio was decided by just 2 percentage points.''

by Frank James

If journalism schools ever needed a perfect example to show their students of how an interview should never be conducted, it would be the recent encounter between Sen. Joe Biden and Barbara West, an anchor for WFTV in Orlando, Fla.

Embarrassing and painful are two words that quickly come to mind to describe West's interrogation of Biden last week. It may be the worst interview of a major political figure by a "professional" broadcast journalist I've ever witnessed. It was like something out of the old Soviet Union where propaganda masqueraded as news.

Every question West asked revealed a bias against Sen. Barack Obama that reached the point of outright hostility. She was so outlandish that at one point Biden seemed to be wondering if he might've somehow stumbled into a taping of the Colbert Report. That was especially clear from this exchange.

WEST: You may recognize this famous quote: "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." That's from Karl Marx. How is Senator Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?

WEST: That's a question.

by Mark Silva

The rough morning story line on Sarah Palin:

The "rogue diva'' of the McCain campaign is starting to look out for her own future now that the Republican presidential nominee's prospects are in doubt. Or, as the New York Post puts it:

"Sarah Palin is the rogue elephant in the GOP war room.''

The paper suggests "the maverick mom is distancing herself from John McCain and blowing off the advice of senior Republican aides, convinced they're damaging her reputation and ruining the campaign. Things have gotten so tense between Palin and her traveling staff, an insider said, that she's overruling their advice - which was evident last week when she ignored GOP aides piling into waiting cars at a Colorado event and strolled over to the press corps for an impromptu talk.''

A campaign official privately tells the paper: "She's now positioning herself for her own future. Of course, this is bad for John. It looks like no one is in charge."

ABC News, among others, notes that, in an interview with CNN, one McCain adviser anonymously called Palin "a diva" who is "playing for her own future" political prospects.

""She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," the advisor told CNN. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else. Also she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: divas trust only unto themselves as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."

Another McCain aide anonymously told Politico that Palin has been "going rogue" by criticizing strategic decisions by the McCain campaign, such as their use of robo-calls against Sen. Barack Obama in recent weeks, and the decision to pull out of the state of Michigan in early October.

(Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin pictured at a rally in Fort Wayne, Ind., Saturday, AP Photo/Darron Cummings)