Don Bendell, DonBendell.com

 

John McCain: “First of all, Senator Obama my friends call me John, but you can call me Senator McCain. Secondly, 40% of America’s citizens pay no taxes at all, so how are you going to cut taxes for 95%? And third, are you crazy? The 5% making over $ 250,000 that you are going to increase taxes on are the small business owners who own 95% of the businesses where your middle class workers have employment. Why cut their taxes if they end up losing their jobs or benefits anyway because of the increased tax burden on the business owners?”  

 

Sarah Palin: “Senator Biden, why criticize me? I got 2,500 votes running for Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. You only got 2,328 votes running for the Democratic nomination for President, and by the way, don’t worry about my interviews until you figure out that there was no television and no President FDR in 1929.”   

 

“By the way, Senator Obama, Bush policies and conservative politics did not cause the Wall Street crisis. This may be above your pay grade, but let me explain:

 

"Jimmy Carter initiated the Community Reinvestment Act, which Bill Clinton expanded significantly." Read article.

Roger Simon, Politico.com

 

If Sarah Palin goofs, flounders, stumbles or blunders during her debate against Joe Biden on Thursday night, Biden is going to let it slide.

 

“If she makes a gaffe, he underplays it,” one of the people prepping Biden for his vice presidential debate told me. “At most, he says, ‘I am not sure what Gov. Palin meant there.’”

 

There are three reasons for this. First, Biden does not want to look condescending. For the same reason, he plans on referring to Palin as “Gov. Palin” during the debate and never as “Sarah.” (He will sometimes refer to John McCain as “John,” however, because they have been senators together for many years.)

 

Second, Biden knows the press is going to pounce on any mistakes, and so he does not need to.

 

Third, and most important, Sarah Palin is not Biden’s true target.

 

“Joe Biden’s No. 1 job during the vice presidential debate is to keep the focus on the top of the ticket,” the Biden debate prepper told me. “He is going to keep the focus on John McCain.”

 

This is an arguable strategy. After all, McCain is the experienced one on the Republican ticket, the one whose credentials to be commander in chief from Day One are not in much question.

 

So why attack him instead of Palin, whose lack of readiness has been the subject of endless discussion as well as late-night comedy?

 

Because, at least in the past, Americans have not concentrated on the bottom of the ticket when it comes time to vote. They care about who the president is going to be, not who the vice president is going to be.

 

Dan Quayle had a disastrous debate against Lloyd Bentsen in 1988. Even before Quayle stumbled into the trap of comparing himself to John F. Kennedy, Quayle had enormous difficulty answering this basic question from Brit Hume: Read article.

Perry Bacon Jr., Washington Post.com

 

Introducing Sen. Barack Obama at a rally in Detroit on Sunday, his running mate did not hold back.

 

"John McCain said he'd follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell," said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. "Well, let me tell you something: President Barack Obama will follow him to where he lives and then send him to hell."

 

Biden's latest ad-lib drew laughter and cheers from the crowd, but there has been a downside to the Democratic vice presidential nominee's freewheeling style: a string of comments that either don't reflect campaign positions or misstate basic facts.

 

Unlike his Republican counterpart, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Biden has not been shy about talking to reporters, but comments he has made since Obama chose him last month have presented Democrats with their own problems and revived the longtime senator's reputation for gaffes.

 

In an interview with CBS News that aired last week, Biden described how Franklin D. Roosevelt had appeared before the country on television in 1929 to explain the stock market crash. But Herbert Hoover was president in 1929, and televisions sets did not start appearing in American homes until a decade later. Read article.

Bret Stephens, Online WSJ.com

 

Gwen Ifill (debate moderator): "Sen. Biden, the following questions go to you.

 

"Let's begin with your approach to diplomacy. During the primary campaign last year, you criticized Sen. Obama's pledge to meet with the leaders of states such as Iran and Venezuela as 'naive,' particularly if such meetings were held without preconditions.

 

"You also noted that when you met Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s, you did so on condition 'that no press would be available,' and you added that 'I'd only meet him in his office late at night, and I wouldn't dignify being seen with him.'

 

"Having said that, senator, do you think that as president, Barack Obama would be 'dignifying' Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by meeting him? Or do you agree with Sen. McCain when he argued in last week's debate that 'if without precondition you sit down across the table from someone who has called Israel a "stinking corpse," and wants to destroy that country and wipe it off the map, you legitimize those comments'?" Read article.

Andrew Malcolm, LA Times.com

 

Were Palin's Democratic opponents overplayed their hand in portraying the 44-year-old mother of five so derisively in recent days?

 

Was John McCain manager Steve Schmidt's puzzingly strong attack on the New York Times last week really a trap, an intentional bid to call even more attention to negative coverage of Palin to lower expectations? 

 

Harry Smith flew all the way up to Alaska last week and drove out to Wasilla with his crew to learn that Chuck Heath, who looks like the high school track coach he was when his daughter ran to a cross-country championship for him, thinks:

 

"She is ready to do anything she wants to. She perseveres. She works so hard. She learns so fast."

 

Knowing full well what he's going to get back from the worried....

 

. . .parent of anyone in American public life these days, but desperately hoping to generate at least some news for all those trans-continental expense dollars, the prominent member of the media himself puts words into the father's mouth.

 

Harry: "There’s a sense that she hasn’t been treated fairly by the media.”

 

Chuck Heath: “That’s what I feel. Someone said, ‘Well they have to get to know Sarah Palin.’ But Sarah Palin -- there is a good side of Sarah Palin and they’re digging and digging for the bad side and there is no real bad side. They’re fabricating a lot of things that I don’t want to go into.”

 

That much news is certainly worth getting up early for. But here's a really silly idea for this gotcha society:

 

If a candidate's family is not being arrested or not out on the campaign trail inviting news coverage as McCain's 96-year-old mother, Roberta, does, why don't we just leave them alone? Read article.

 

Ken Masugi, NRO.com

 

It was not Sarah Palin but her double Tina Fey who said “I can see Russia from my house.” In her interview with CBS’s Katie Couric the real Alaska governor noted “That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and, on our other side, the land-boundary that we have with Canada. It’s funny that a comment like that was. . . .

 

“Couric: Mocked?”

 

Declining to elaborate, Gov. Palin should instead have stuck to her geographic guns and wiped smirks off of faces!

 

In Harvey Mansfield’s edition of Alexis de Tocqueville’s classic Democracy in America, there is a map (p. xvi) showing the American continent, Amerique Anglaise. Alaska is labeled as Amerique Russe. Signs of Russian presence — in forts and Orthodox churches — can still be found throughout the state. In World War II Japan occupied some of the Aleutian Islands, where fierce battles were fought and Alaskans were taken prisoner and shipped to Japan. Hundreds of Aleut Indians were relocated, their villages razed, ostensibly to protect them from Japanese capture. More recently, Soviet and Russian planes have tested Alaskan/American air space. And Alaska is home to our only ground-based ballistic-missile defense site.

 

“I can see Russia from my house” may in fact make a great campaign slogan, if it signifies a profound understanding of America’s place in a dangerous world. Gov. Palin needs to reach for her inner Alaska, stick to her guns, and turn her hunters into prey. Read article.

Dr. Lynette Longclose, No QuarterUSA.net

 

Two weeks ago I published an article on my blog entitled, “THE X FACTOR.” The article went viral and is posted on dozens of blogs. I have received over 1,000 emails commenting on my position as a liberal Democrat voting for McCain-Palin. Most of the emails agreed with my position, but others called me Benedict Arnold, Lipstick Lady or Bill O’Reilly’s new squeeze. My loyalty to the progressive women’s movement has been challenged because I have chosen to try a different approach to fight for women’s rights. I want to start by squashing all rumors. No I am not stupid. No I am not a closet Republican. And yes I understand the possible implications on Roe v. Wade by supporting a McCain-Palin ticket.

 

A few days after posting the article I delivered a shortened version of the speech at a McCain-Palin Rally. An executive member of the National Organization for Women contacted me the very next day. It was a friendly conversation tinted with sarcasm. “How do you feel about your speech?” she asked me. “Great.” I responded. “Why shouldn’t I feel great? I gave a speech about women’s rights in front of a large audience. I highlighted the underrepresentation of women in every branch of government, the sexism in the media, and the unfair treatment of Hillary Clinton by the Democratic Party.” “Where did you give your speech?” A rhetorical question deserved a quip answer, “Before thirty-thousand Americans.” Republicans are Americans, aren’t they? “By speaking at a McCain-Palin event people will think you are endorsing McCain.” That’s the point, I am endorsing McCain-Palin. Read article.

Ed Morrissey, Hot Air.com

 

Tony Rezko has apparently seen enough of prison and wants to cut a deal, according to the Chicago Tribune. Federal prosecutors have begun meeting with Rezko and getting information, according to at least one defense attorney connected to other defendants in the case. This sounds like bad news for the Chicago Machine and Governor Rod Blagojevich:

 

Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a convicted influence peddler who was once one of Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s most trusted confidants, has met with federal prosecutors and is considering cooperating in the corruption probe of the governor’s administration, sources told the Tribune.

 

Rezko’s possible change of heart—after years of steadfast refusal—has sent ripples through a tight circle of prominent defense attorneys who represent dozens of potential witnesses and targets in the wide-ranging probe.

 

Will this affect Barack Obama? We don't know what tunes Rezko can sing once he starts. Read article.

 

Bernard Chapin, Pajamas Media.com

 

No words better sum up the fashion by which Barack Obama’s campaign handles criticism than “the politics of personal destruction.” Although popularized by Bill Clinton, the phrase embodies the political left’s timeless approach to securing victory in elections. Destroy your foe and hope that his ideas never become the issue, as ideological debate is not something at which they excel.

 

Yet this year was supposed to be different. The junior senator from Illinois promised an end to divisiveness, partisanship, and “politics as usual.” Recent events illustrate the emptiness of these platitudes. Since August, Team Obama has fought a covert war against their opposition and muzzled them by any means available.

 

Legal methods appear to be their response of choice. When a commercial from the American Issues Project linked Obama to former Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers, the campaign filed a complaint with the Department of Justice requesting that the 527 be criminally investigated. Simultaneously, they contacted “stations running American Issues Project’s ad in an unsuccessful attempt to compel them to pull the spot.” The same tactic was used in the primaries in regard to Hillary Clinton. Luckily, the Department of Justice does not — as of yet — deem the free expression of speech a felony or a misdemeanor. Read article.

 

Fred Barnes, Online WSJ.com

 

In 1984, I was one of the questioners at the first debate between President Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale. Reagan had a comfortable lead at the time. But he had a terrible night, often groping for details. He seemed hesitant and unsure, and gave a barely credible answer to my question about why he didn't go to church (he cited security concerns). Afterwards, when we shook hands, Reagan looked stricken.

 

Mr. Mondale gave a dazzling performance, and the expectation in the media was that the presidential race had suddenly become competitive. It hadn't. Reagan steadied himself in the second debate and won re-election in a 49-state landslide.

 

I drew a simple lesson from this episode: As important as they are, debates can't change the fundamentals of a presidential campaign. Reagan was popular, his foreign policy was strong, and the economy was booming. A bad debate didn't negate any of these fundamentals.

 

This lesson now applies to John McCain. Read article.

 

David Broder, JWR.com

 

There were no knockout blows in the first presidential debate of the fall, but John McCain out-pointed Barack Obama often enough to encourage his followers that he can somehow overcome the odds and deny the Democrats the victory that has seemed to be in store for them.

 

It was a small thing, but I counted six times that Obama began a sentence with the words that McCain was "absolutely right" about a point he had made. No McCain sentences began with a similar acknowledgement of his opponent's wisdom, even though the two did, in fact, agree on Iran, Russia and the U.S. financial crisis far more than they disagreed.

 

That suggests an imbalance in the deference quotient between the younger man and the veteran senator — an impression reinforced by Obama's frequent glances in McCain's direction and McCain's studied indifference to his rival. Read article.

 

Rene Guerra, GAJ.com

 

The Democrats and the rest of the Left have craftily turned around the blame for something disastrous they caused, via insidiously cunning ways. They, of course, couldn’t have done anything of that without the help of the "mainstream" media, who don't expose the true genesis of the monster that the current financial crisis is.

 

Every American should know the truth.

 

The whole thing started when the Democrats corrupted the original intention of the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that Bill Clinton signed rescinding the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act. The latter kept routine-business banks separate from big investment-banks. Specifically, the Glass-Steagall Act separated investment banking, commercial banking, and insurance services; thereafter, each of those three business activities could be offered only by separate institutions. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act brought down those barriers with the intention of stimulating capitalism, and then hell broke loose . . . when the Democrats put their hands on it: Read article.

William Kristol, IHT.com

 

John McCain is on course to lose the presidential election to Barack Obama. Can he turn it around, and surge to victory?

 

He has a chance. But only if he overrules those of his aides who are trapped by conventional wisdom, huddled in a defensive crouch and overcome by ideological timidity. The conventional wisdom is that it was a mistake for McCain to come back to Washington last week to engage in the attempt to craft the financial rescue legislation, and that McCain has to move on to a new topic as quickly as possible. As one McCain adviser told The Washington Post, "you've got to get it [the financial crisis] over with and start having a normal campaign." Wrong. Read article.

 

Print This E-mail This

Share It: