Easy, fuck the u out of it.

Folks, the best Campaign TV ad of the year so far, and I tell ya....it's great propaganda.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1185304443/bctid1803307744

BO V/O: I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message.

V/O: John McCain admits he doesn’t understand the economy

So who advises him?

Carly Fiorina, the fired CEO who got a $42 million golden parachute.

Phil Gramm, the ex-Senator who pushed through deregulation, and called Americans hurt by this economy "whiners."

Then there’s George Bush, whose disastrous policies McCain wants to continue.

They think the economy is fundamentally strong.

We know they’re fundamentally wrong.

Olbermann can be an ass, but this is great.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/26782223#26782223

Oh God, this reminds me of the George Carlin routine on the Seven Words...

"Tits? What's so wrong with tits? It sounds like a chocolate treat!"

Back to that new Obama ad I posted above...

The ending line of that ad should possibly be that campaign's new tagline:

"They think the economy is fundamentally strong...We know they’re fundamentally wrong."

I think we'll be hearing that line again.

That is a great line RR. I wouldn't be surprised it was picked up by the Obama camp. I like it.

I did see the Olbermann segment also. Very good.

As far as the "Obama 'O' clip. Yea, that's funny. I can imagine if they wanted to do the same type of thing with McCain, they only need say over and over and over again..."My Friends"

TIS

I'm sure he's super cereal.

Let's see. How about we send over some ships, chain up your parents, siblings and children, rape your women, drag them across the Atlantic, then reward them with jobs out in the field for the length of their lifetimes. Then we'll free their children, but we won't let them get a decent job for a hundred years or so, all the while excluding them from certain colleges, corporations and, gasp, even country clubs. Then you let me know how long it takes for you to stop acting "victimized."

Funny thing is, you're not even American, yet you think you know what goes on in the average American mind. Oh, and for the record, I'm a 49 year old white male of Italian descent.

Top Republican says Palin unready

Wasn't slavery over 300 years ago? Aren't people alway saying to each other nowadays,"Let it go, you'll feel better"?

Slavery (here) ended 145 years ago.

If you forget history, you are doomed to repeat it.

Top Democrats say Obama unready, their party's presidential nominee

I could find much worse things said about McCain during the Primaries from his
Top Republican "supporters".

Hagel isn't running against McCain, so no incentive to diss her. Hagel actually supported McCain's campaign in 2000.

Uh-oh. Biden is in trouble again!

Biden in hot water with some Ohioans
Posted: 07:30 PM ET

Biden may have upset some crucial swing state voters.

(CNN) — Joe Biden's off-the-cuff remarks on the trail have at times taken the Obama campaign off-message, but the Delaware senator's latest riff just may have landed him in hot water with voters — and die hard football fans — in a key battleground state.

Speaking to members of the University of Delaware football team Friday morning, the Democratic VP candidate said he thinks the Fightin Blue Hens (1-1 this season) could thrash a certain team from Ohio.

"I was out in Ohio," he said while fiddling with a football in his hands. "I told the folks in Ohio that we'd kick Ohio State's ass!" (It remains unclear if Biden actually ever told Ohio voters this.)

Biden, a proud University of Delaware alum, was clearly trying to rally his Division 1-AA team ahead of their match-up with Furman this weekend, but the comments couldn't have come at a worse time for faithful Buckeye fans who saw their team suffer a 35-3 trouncing at the hands of USC last weekend.

The comments also come as polls show the race in Ohio could hardly be tighter: A CNN poll of polls in the Buckeye state shows Obama holding a slim 1 point lead there. Close enough, presumably, that enough angry OSU fans could just make the difference — at least that's what Republicans are hoping.

The state GOP is already attacking the Democratic ticket over the comments, as well as his comments yesterday suggesting it was patriotic for some wealthier Americans to pay higher taxes.

"As if his comments about it being a patriotic duty for Ohioans to pay higher taxes weren't bad enough, now Biden is taking pot shots at the Buckeyes," GOP State chair Bob Bennett said. "Barack Obama and Joe Biden must really think they can win this election without Ohio, because they're doing their best to lose it with stupid comments like these. Keep talking, Joe."

David Wade, a spokesman for Biden said, “I think this episode explains exactly why we’ll win Ohio: Joe Biden is loyal to his home team, and John McCain is loyal to President Bush."

"We forgive the Republicans on this one, though," he added. "After watching John McCain flip flop on everything from taxes to torture, they’re just mystified by someone who takes a position and sticks with it.”

UPDATE: Michigan Democrats, fans of OSU arch rival University of Michigan, weighed in on the back-and-forth, calling John McCain a "Panderer in Chief" for recently purchasing Ohio State apparel on a campaign swing.

"John McCain won't be hailing any victors on Election Day if he thinks Michigan fans will let this recent pander slide," said Liz Kerr, a spokesperson for the Michigan Democratic Party.

Do many of you voters here vote absentee???? I just registered before the CA primary and voted absentee for the first time then. It is very convenient, but I can't help but wonder if they counted my vote. Reading a poll on CNN I think about 25 percent polled aid they voted absentee.

The disadvantage, I noticed during the primary, was that there was a considerable amount of time between when I had to have my vote sent in, and the election.....well, enough that IF I had changed my mind, I couldn't do anything about it. I didn't change my mnd, but "if".

Anyway, I havent' gotten my ballot yet. Do you all know if there is a certain week in which they must be sent out? I must say, it is very convenient. I don't know if I'll miss the general patriotic feeling of just going to a polling place to vote or not, but this is pretty easy.

TIS

Hyman Roth does.

This is a neat segment on the Truman/Dewey election. Tom Brokow narrates noting that Truman was so far behind that they stopped polling in October. Although it turned out, in the end not to be an exceptionally close election, it was a definite upset.

I found this interesting, primarily because this was the year I was born. Yes, Truman was the President when was born. I have no memory of him however. The first President I rememember was Ike (Eisenhower) and then, I was a little kid. I remember going downtown with my mom 1950something and Ike was gonna be there. I saw a lot of people with the "I Like Ike" buttons.

Anyway, wouldn't you love to go back for a few moments to "be there" during some of these things? I know nothing about Dewey, but man, what a downer for him no?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25887219/#26642650

He was a very interesting character, TIS. He was the original "Mob Buster" with political aspirations; an earlier version of Giuliani.

The Col. will be this year cuz he will be in KY. hunting on election day.

I always thought you had to be out of state/country or in the military (and overseas) to vote absentee. When I moved to my new place they sent me info on it and said I could vote absentee if I wanted to.

TIS

Poll: Racial views steer some white Dems away from Obama
By RON FOURNIER and TREVOR TOMPSON, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) — Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them "lazy," "violent," responsible for their own troubles.

The poll, conducted with Stanford University, suggests that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004 — about two and one-half percentage points.

Certainly, Republican John McCain has his own obstacles: He's an ally of an unpopular president and would be the nation's oldest first-term president. But Obama faces this: 40 percent of all white Americans hold at least a partly negative view toward blacks, and that includes many Democrats and independents.

More than a third of all white Democrats and independents — voters Obama can't win the White House without — agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks, according to the survey, and they are significantly less likely to vote for Obama than those who don't have such views.

Such numbers are a harsh dose of reality in a campaign for the history books. Obama, the first black candidate with a serious shot at the presidency, accepted the Democratic nomination on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, a seminal moment for a nation that enshrined slavery in its Constitution.

"There are a lot fewer bigots than there were 50 years ago, but that doesn't mean there's only a few bigots," said Stanford political scientist Paul Sniderman who helped analyze the exhaustive survey.

The pollsters set out to determine why Obama is locked in a close race with McCain even as the political landscape seems to favor Democrats. President Bush's unpopularity, the Iraq war and a national sense of economic hard times cut against GOP candidates, as does that fact that Democratic voters outnumber Republicans.

The findings suggest that Obama's problem is close to home — among his fellow Democrats, particularly non-Hispanic white voters. Just seven in 10 people who call themselves Democrats support Obama, compared to the 85 percent of self-identified Republicans who back McCain.

The survey also focused on the racial attitudes of independent voters because they are likely to decide the election.

Lots of Republicans harbor prejudices, too, but the survey found they weren't voting against Obama because of his race. Most Republicans wouldn't vote for any Democrat for president — white, black or brown.

Not all whites are prejudiced. Indeed, more whites say good things about blacks than say bad things, the poll shows. And many whites who see blacks in a negative light are still willing or even eager to vote for Obama.

On the other side of the racial question, the Illinois Democrat is drawing almost unanimous support from blacks, the poll shows, though that probably wouldn't be enough to counter the negative effect of some whites' views.

Race is not the biggest factor driving Democrats and independents away from Obama. Doubts about his competency loom even larger, the poll indicates. More than a quarter of all Democrats expressed doubt that Obama can bring about the change they want, and they are likely to vote against him because of that.

Three in 10 of those Democrats who don't trust Obama's change-making credentials say they plan to vote for McCain.

Still, the effects of whites' racial views are apparent in the polling.

Statistical models derived from the poll suggest that Obama's support would be as much as 6 percentage points higher if there were no white racial prejudice.

But in an election without precedent, it's hard to know if such models take into account all the possible factors at play.

The AP-Yahoo News poll used the unique methodology of Knowledge Networks, a Menlo Park, Calif., firm that interviews people online after randomly selecting and screening them over telephone. Numerous studies have shown that people are more likely to report embarrassing behavior and unpopular opinions when answering questions on a computer rather than talking to a stranger.

Other techniques used in the poll included recording people's responses to black or white faces flashed on a computer screen, asking participants to rate how well certain adjectives apply to blacks, measuring whether people believe blacks' troubles are their own fault, and simply asking people how much they like or dislike blacks.

"We still don't like black people," said John Clouse, 57, reflecting the sentiments of his pals gathered at a coffee shop in Somerset, Ohio.

Given a choice of several positive and negative adjectives that might describe blacks, 20 percent of all whites said the word "violent" strongly applied. Among other words, 22 percent agreed with "boastful," 29 percent "complaining," 13 percent "lazy" and 11 percent "irresponsible." When asked about positive adjectives, whites were more likely to stay on the fence than give a strongly positive assessment.

Among white Democrats, one third cited a negative adjective and, of those, 58 percent said they planned to back Obama.

The poll sought to measure latent prejudices among whites by asking about factors contributing to the state of black America. One finding: More than a quarter of white Democrats agree that "if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites."

Those who agreed with that statement were much less likely to back Obama than those who didn't.

Among white independents, racial stereotyping is not uncommon. For example, while about 20 percent of independent voters called blacks "intelligent" or "smart," more than one third latched on the adjective "complaining" and 24 percent said blacks were "violent."

Nearly four in 10 white independents agreed that blacks would be better off if they "try harder."

The survey broke ground by incorporating images of black and white faces to measure implicit racial attitudes, or prejudices that are so deeply rooted that people may not realize they have them. That test suggested the incidence of racial prejudice is even higher, with more than half of whites revealing more negative feelings toward blacks than whites.

Researchers used mathematical modeling to sort out the relative impact of a huge swath of variables that might have an impact on people's votes — including race, ideology, party identification, the hunger for change and the sentiments of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's backers.

Just 59 percent of her white Democratic supporters said they wanted Obama to be president. Nearly 17 percent of Clinton's white backers plan to vote for McCain.

Among white Democrats, Clinton supporters were nearly twice as likely as Obama backers to say at least one negative adjective described blacks well, a finding that suggests many of her supporters in the primaries — particularly whites with high school education or less — were motivated in part by racial attitudes.

The survey of 2,227 adults was conducted Aug. 27 to Sept. 5. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.

———

Associated Press writers Nancy Benac, Julie Carr Smyth, Philip Elliot, Julie Pace and Sonya Ross contributed to this story.

There's no doubt racism will play a role in how some people vote. It goes both ways though. Over 90% on the African American population will vote for Obama, and good percentage of them only because he's black. Also, the African American Voter turnout this election will be the largest in history, due to Obama.

I know, Lou. You know me, "Negative PB." I just think that if it's close, he can't win. Be it racism, or the hijacking of Florida. Didn't the Republicans do that once?

Sorry Don Cardi; couldn't resist.

There's a good chance Obama is going to lose Florida anyway. Ohio is where you have to watch for shenanigans. My personal opinion is Obama is going to win fairly easily. I don't think McCain can recover from the week he's had. Obama should also do very well against him in the debates. Every day Palin's approval goes down, even amongst her own party and women. Unless Obama really stumbles in the last 6 weeks, it's his election to lose.

I've always figured Fla. going Republican. But Obama has a good chance in N. Carolina nd Virginia. I can't pick a winner yet, but Obama is in a good posiiton and like lou says, McCain may have trouble recovering from this week's events. However, keep in mind that the first debate is just a week away.