People are taking every word she says and analyzing it to see if they can find a flaw.

Today Governor Rendell said he was urging Obama to come back and campaign in Pennsylvania for another day or so. He was also urging the Clinton's to join him. Many media outlets reported today that the McCain campaign has said that Pennsylvania is now considered a must win. A CNN poll on the Pennsylvania average showed Obama with a 53 % - 40 % lead today in our state.

----

How do you guys feel about the Columbian Free Trade Agreement?

With all due respect, there is not much analyzing that needs to be done. Palin clearly does not know the duties of the vice presidency as outlined in the Constitution. This was not the first time that she gave such an answer. One would think that her advisors would be coaching her to improve upon her answer. Not being able to communicate the basic function of her role as a vice presidential candidate is downright embarrassing.

Don't forget that Palin is getting these types of questions because of her lack of experience. The more she speaks in a format that is unscripted, the more her lack of readiness is apparent. I was also horrified that Palin was unable to cite one U.S. Supreme Court case other than Roe V. Wade. Considering that she could be in a position to have to make an appointment to the Supreme Court one day, that lack of knowledge is incredible.

Olbermann losing his mind over Palin last night.

AP: Palin children traveled on state funds
VP hopeful charged state for children's travel, amended expense reports
The Associated Press
updated 5:23 p.m. ET, Tues., Oct. 21, 2008

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Gov. Sarah Palin charged the state for her children to travel with her, including to events where they were not invited, and later amended expense reports to specify that they were on official business.

The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race, and a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel.

In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters' 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office in December 2006. In some other cases, she has charged the state for hotel rooms for the girls.

Alaska law does not specifically address expenses for a governor's children. The law allows for payment of expenses for anyone conducting official state business.

As governor, Palin justified having the state pay for the travel of her daughters — Bristol, 17; Willow, 14; and Piper, 7 — by noting on travel forms that the girls had been invited to attend or participate in events on the governor's schedule.

But some organizers of these events said they were surprised when the Palin children showed up uninvited, or said they agreed to a request by the governor to allow the children to attend.

Several other organizers said the children merely accompanied their mother and did not participate. The trips enabled Palin, whose main state office is in the capital of Juneau, to spend more time with her children.

"She said any event she can take her kids to is an event she tries to attend," said Jennifer McCarthy, who helped organize the June 2007 Family Day Celebration picnic in Ketchikan that Piper attended with her parents.

State Finance Director Kim Garnero told The Associated Press she has not reviewed the Palins' travel expense forms, so she could not say whether the daughters' travel with their mother would meet the definition of official business.

After Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain chose Palin his running mate and reporters asked for the records, Palin ordered changes to previously filed expense reports for her daughters' travel.

In the amended reports, Palin added phrases such as "First Family attending" and "First Family invited" to explain the girls' attendance.

"The governor said, 'I want the purpose and the reason for this travel to be clear,'" said Linda Perez, state director of administrative services.

When Palin released her family's tax records as part of her vice presidential campaign, some tax experts questioned why she did not report the children's state travel reimbursements as income.

The Palins released a review by a Washington attorney who said state law allows the children's travel expenses to be reimbursed and not taxed when they conduct official state business.

Taylor Griffin, a McCain-Palin campaign spokesman, said Palin followed state policy allowing governors to charge for their children's travel. He said the governor's office has invitations requesting the family to attend some events, but he said he did not have them to provide.

In October 2007, Palin brought daughter Bristol along on a trip to New York for a women's leadership conference. Plane tickets from Anchorage to La Guardia Airport for $1,385.11 were billed to the state, records show, and mother and daughter shared a room for four nights at the $707.29-per-night Essex House hotel, which overlooks Central Park.

The event's organizers said Palin asked if she could bring her daughter.

Alexis Gelber, who organized Newsweek's Third Annual Women & Leadership Conference, said she does not know how Bristol ended up attending. Gelber said invitees usually attend alone, but some ask if they can bring a relative or friend.

Griffin, the campaign spokesman, said he believes someone with the event personally sent an e-mail to Bristol inviting her, but he did not have it to provide. Records show Palin also met with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Goldman Sachs representatives and visited the New York Stock Exchange.

In January, the governor, Willow and Piper showed up at the Alaska Symphony of Seafood Buffet, an Anchorage gala to announce winners of an earlier seafood competition.

"She was just there," said James Browning, executive director of Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, which runs the event. Griffin said the governor's office received an invitation that was not specifically addressed to anyone.

When Palin amended her children's expense reports, she listed a role for the two girls at the function — "to draw two separate raffle tickets."

In the original travel form, Palin listed a number of events that her children attended and said they were there "in official capacity helping." She did not identify any specific roles for the girls.

In July, the governor charged the state $2,741.26 to take Bristol and Piper to Philadelphia for a meeting of the National Governors Association. The girls had their own room for five nights at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel for $215.46 a night, expense records show.

Expense forms describe the girls' official purpose as "NGA Governor's Youth Programs and family activities." But those programs were activities designed to keep children busy, a service provided by the NGA to accommodate governors and their families, NGA spokeswoman Jodi Omear said.

In addition to the commercial flights, the children have traveled dozens of times with Palin on a state plane. For these flights, the total cost of operating the plane, at $971 an hour, was about $55,000, according to state flight logs. The cost of operating the state plane does not increase when the children join their mother.

The organizer of an American Heart Association luncheon on Feb. 15 in Fairbanks said Palin asked to bring daughter Piper to the event, and the organizer said she was surprised when Palin showed up with daughter Willow and Bristol as well.

The three Palin daughters shared a room separate from their mother at the Princess Lodge in Fairbanks for two nights, at a cost to the state of $129 per night.

The luncheon took place before Palin's husband, Todd, finished fourth in the 2,000-mile Iron Dog snowmobile race, also in Fairbanks. The family greeted him at the finish line.

When Palin showed up at the luncheon with not just Piper but also Willow and Bristol, organizers had to scramble to make room at the main table, said Janet Bartels, who set up the event.

"When it's the governor, you just make it happen," she said.

The state is already reviewing nearly $17,000 in per diem payments to Palin for more than 300 nights she slept at her own home, 40 miles from her satellite office in Anchorage.

Tony Knowles, a Democratic former governor of Alaska who lost to Palin in a 2006 bid to reclaim the job, said he never charged the state for his three children's commercial flights or claimed their travel as official state business.

Knowles, who was governor from 1994 to 2002, is the only other recent Alaska governor who had school-age children while in office.

"There was no valid reason for the children to be along on state business," said Knowles, a supporter of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. "I cannot recall any instance during my eight years as governor where it would have been appropriate to claim they performed state business."

Knowles said he brought his children to one NGA event while in office but didn't charge the state for their trip.

In February 2007, the three girls flew from Juneau to Anchorage on Alaska Airlines. Palin charged the state for the $519.30 round-trip ticket for each girl, and noted on the expense form that the daughters accompanied her to "open the start of the Iron Dog race."

The children and their mother then watched as Todd Palin and other racers started the competition, which Todd won that year. Palin later had the relevant expense forms changed to describe the girls' business as "First Family official starter for the start of the Iron Dog race."

The Palins began charging the state for commercial flights after the governor kept a 2006 campaign promise to sell a jet bought by her predecessor.

Palin put the jet up for sale on eBay, a move she later trumpeted in her star-making speech at the Republican National Convention, and it was ultimately sold by the state at a loss.

That left only one high-performance aircraft deemed safe enough for her to use — a 1980 twin-engine King Air assigned to the public safety agency but, according to flight logs, out of service for maintenance and repairs about a third of the time Palin has been governor.

McCain says "he couldn't agree more with the Obama campaign about Western PA."

McCain's newest attack labeled 'False'.


October 21, 2008

Fact check: Would Obama hike taxes on small businesses that employ 16 million?


The Statement: Speaking during a campaign stop Monday, Oct. 20 in Belton, Missouri, Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain criticized Democratic opponent Sen. Barack Obama's proposals on taxes. "The Obama tax increase would come at the worst possible time for America, and especially for small businesses like the one Joe dreams of owning," McCain said. "The small businesses Senator Obama would tax provide 16 million jobs in America."

Get the facts!

The Facts: McCain's criticism appears primarily aimed at Obama's personal income tax proposals — which he says would give tax cuts or leave taxes the same for individuals who make less than $200,000 or families that earn less than $250,000 — but increase them on people making more. Roughly 85 percent of small businesses are taxed at the owner's personal income tax rate, according to an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. Most of those businesses earn less than $250,000 a year.

The McCain campaign uses figures from a National Federation of Independent Business survey to back up its claim. The survey says 12 percent of business owners who employ between one and nine people earn more than $200,000 a year — as do 27 percent of those who employ 10-19 people and 50 percent of those who employ between 20 and 250 workers. Obama says $200,000 is the lowest income level at which an individual would see a tax increase under his plan.

But in assuming all of those business owners would see an increase, the McCain campaign appears to suppose that all of the business owners making between $200,000 and $250,000 would file their taxes individually, not jointly with a spouse or other family member. And roughly 15 percent of small businesses aren't taxed based on the owner's personal income rate, as the Journal notes. Based on those facts, it's impossible to know exactly how many of those business owners would see a tax hike — but it surely would not be 100 percent.

The McCain campaign uses census figures to estimate how many people work for the businesses it says would be impacted — an effort McCain spokesman Brian Rogers acknowledges is "admittedly a rough estimate." The NFIB says the number of jobs small businesses create is "impossible to calculate," in part because some people only work at small businesses part-time while holding down full time jobs with a bigger employer.

The Verdict: False. McCain uses an overly broad interpretation of the NFIB survey's figures — applying Obama's tax plan to those figures in a way that is highly unlikely to match reality.

Although the story about Michelle Obama's room service tab was a complete lie, CBS News reported this morning that the Republicans have spent about $150,000 buying new clothes for Sarah Palin and her family. The designer duds have been purchased at stores like Saks and Neiman Marcus. They plan to donate the clothes to charity afterwards.

So, I guess lots of "Joe Six Packs" and "Hockey Moms" with "small town values" can relate to spending $75,000 in one spree at Neiman.

I am not too bothered about this. Look at Obama's suits....they don't come off the rack at JC Penney's. These people are running for high office. They get private planes, motorcades, good places to stay ... and in the process they wear high end clothing. Comes with the territory.

You're 100% correct, but look at the hypocrisy of it. The other day, the NY Post and Rush Limbaugh were making a big deal out of a story that turns out to be 100% made up. The NY Post even printed a retraction. But even if the story had been true, it wasn't even nearly as 'bad' as Palin spending $150K on new clothes.

Maybe because on her own she wears stuff like this:



Apparently the GOP is not only just afraid of what she will say when she speaks to reporters, they are afraid she is too stupid to dress herself.

Maybe she thought they were moose, not donkeys.

If there's anything many Republicans are good at, it's looking past their own hypocrisy. This story is a non-issue in comparison to a fake story of some uppity woman eating lobster.

DT, I know what the truth is. Yes, I agree with your point.

However, if the Republicans are going to portray Sarah Palin as a hockey mom who woke up one day as Governor of Alaska, who put the state jet on EBay, who is just "plain folks" and hangs out with Joe Six Pack and Joe the Plumber, then blowing $150,000 on clothing, hair and makeup, while referring to Senator Obama as "elitist", then I have a problem.

I agree with that point SB. But the truth is her net worth is about one million dollars. It's fair game for politicians to pretend they are "one of the people" when they are not. George W. Bush did it successfully, his father, an opera buff whose favorite food is gourmet chinese pretended (not to successfully) to favor country music and pork rinds. Jimmy Carter's "peanut farm" was a big time agribusiness venture worth millions, LBJ always cried poor mouth when hewas a rich man, and on it goes.

This "elitist" nonsense is typical Rovian abuse of the English language. Once, if you were among the Elite that was a good thing. Now, it connotes being somehow "foreign."
Like when they said Kerry "looked French," or that Obama is "exotic." They did the same thing to the word "liberal" and they mangled the name of the Domocratic Party to the "Democrat Party." Hopefully this time around the people will not be buying such garbage.

Despite at least a 1/2 dozen other polls today showing Obama with a huge lead and growing, the AP now says the race is tied.



AP presidential poll: All even in the homestretch

By LIZ SIDOTI

WASHINGTON (AP) — The presidential race tightened after the final debate, with John McCain gaining among whites and people earning less than $50,000, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll that shows McCain and Barack Obama essentially running even among likely voters in the election homestretch.

The poll, which found Obama at 44 percent and McCain at 43 percent, supports what some Republicans and Democrats privately have said in recent days: that the race narrowed after the third debate as GOP-leaning voters drifted home to their party and McCain's "Joe the plumber" analogy struck a chord.

Three weeks ago, an AP-GfK survey found that Obama had surged to a seven-point lead over McCain, lifted by voters who thought the Democrat was better suited to lead the nation through its sudden economic crisis.

The contest is still volatile, and the split among voters is apparent less than two weeks before Election Day.

"I trust McCain more, and I do feel that he has more experience in government than Obama. I don't think Obama has been around long enough," said Angela Decker, 44, of La Porte, Ind.

But Karen Judd, 58, of Middleton, Wis., said, "Obama certainly has sufficient qualifications." She said any positive feelings about McCain evaporated with "the outright lying" in TV ads and his choice of running mate Sarah Palin, who "doesn't have the correct skills."

The new AP-GfK head-to-head result is a departure from some, but not all, recent national polls.

Obama and McCain were essentially tied among likely voters in the latest George Washington University Battleground Poll, conducted by Republican strategist Ed Goeas and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. In other surveys focusing on likely voters, a Washington Post-ABC News poll showed Obama up by 9 percentage points, while a poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center had Obama leading by 14. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, among the broader category of people registered to vote, found Obama ahead by 10 points.

Polls are snapshots of highly fluid campaigns. In this case, there is a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points; that means Obama could be ahead by as many as 8 points or down by as many as 6. There are many reasons why polls differ, including methods of estimating likely voters and the wording of questions.

Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political science professor and polling authority, said variation between polls occurs, in part, because pollsters interview random samples of people.

"If they all agree, somebody would be doing something terribly wrong," he said of polls. But he also said that surveys generally fall within a few points of each other, adding, "When you get much beyond that, there's something to explain."

The AP-GfK survey included interviews with a large sample of adults including 800 deemed likely to vote. Among all 1,101 adults interviewed, the survey showed Obama ahead 47 percent to 37 percent. He was up by five points among registered voters.

A significant number of the interviews were conducted by dialing a randomly selected sample of cell phone numbers, and thus this poll had a chance to reach voters who were excluded from some other polls.

It was taken over five days from Thursday through Monday, starting the night after the candidates' final debate and ending the day after former Secretary of State Colin Powell broke with the Republican Party to endorse Obama.

McCain's strong showing is partly attributable to his strong debate performance; Thursday was his best night of the survey. Obama's best night was Sunday, hours after the Powell announcement, and the full impact of that endorsement may not have been captured in any surveys yet. Future polling could show whether either of those was merely a support "bounce" or something more lasting.

During their final debate, a feisty McCain repeatedly forced Obama to defend his record, comments and associations. He also used the story of a voter whom the Democrat had met in Ohio, "Joe the plumber," to argue that Obama's tax plan would be bad for working class voters.

"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody," Obama told the man with the last name of Wurzelbacher, who had asked Obama whether his plan to increase taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year would impede his ability to buy the plumbing company where he works.

On Wednesday, McCain's campaign unveiled a new TV ad that features that Obama quote, and shows different people saying: "I'm Joe the plumber." A man asks: "Obama wants my sweat to pay for his trillion dollars in new spending?"

Since McCain has seized on that line of argument, he has picked up support among white married people and non-college educated whites, the poll shows, while widening his advantage among white men. Black voters still overwhelmingly support Obama.

The Republican also has improved his rating for handling the economy and the financial crisis. Nearly half of likely voters think their taxes will rise under an Obama administration compared with a third who say McCain would raise their taxes.

Since the last AP-GfK survey in late September, McCain also has:

_Posted big gains among likely voters earning under $50,000 a year; he now trails Obama by just 4 percentage points compared with 26 earlier.

_Surged among rural voters; he has an 18-point advantage, up from 4.

_Doubled his advantage among whites who haven't finished college and now leads by 20 points. McCain and Obama are running about even among white college graduates, no change from earlier.

_Made modest gains among whites of both genders, now leading by 22 points among white men and by 7 among white women.

_Improved slightly among whites who are married, now with a 24-point lead.

_Narrowed a gap among unmarried whites, though he still trails by 8 points.

McCain has cut into Obama's advantage on the questions of whom voters trust to handle the economy and the financial crisis. On both, the Democrat now leads by just 6 points, compared with 15 in the previous survey.

Obama still has a larger advantage on other economic measures, with 44 percent saying they think the economy will have improved a year from now if he is elected compared with 34 percent for McCain.

Intensity has increased among McCain's supporters.

A month ago, Obama had more strong supporters than McCain did. Now, the number of excited supporters is about even.

Eight of 10 Democrats are supporting Obama, while nine in 10 Republicans are backing McCain. Independents are about evenly split.

Some 24 percent of likely voters were deemed still persuadable, meaning they were either undecided or said they might switch candidates. Those up-for-grabs voters came about equally from the three categories: undecideds, McCain supporters and Obama backers.

Said John Ormesher, 67, of Dandridge, Tenn.: "I've got respect for them but that's the extent of it. I don't have a whole lot of affinity toward either one of them. They're both part of the same political mess."

This AP poll is based on a likely voter model vs registered voter model. This only proves that when you adjust your models to assume that none of the newly registered Obama Voters will actually vote, sure enough, Obama's lead disappears..duh.

But, meh, I don't mind the error in this basic statistical concept is all spin, maybe it will offset complacency.

This doesn't jive:

"World's Most Popular Christian Evangelist" endorses Obama

Just off the press release wire:

HOUSTON, Oct. 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Dr. K.A. Paul, the man the New Republic magazine called the world's most popular Christian evangelist, today endorsed Senator Barack Obama for President of the U.S. ...

"Number one, speaking from an evangelical perspective, the current administration, I believe, has delayed the second coming of Jesus," he said.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/

errr OK...

FWIW, today Gallup has Obama up +8 among likely voters, and +9 with all registered voters.

I apologize ahead of time if this has already been brought up in this thread, but is race going to be an issue for voters when it comes to Obama or McCain? This clip was on Howard Stern's show where they interviewed black people in Harlem and switched Obama's policies with McCain's, even saying Palin was Obama's VP candidate, and people didn't know the difference. But they were all for Obama.

That is the Gallup Poll Expanded. The "traditional" (using past voting records in the statistic) Gallup Poll has Likely Voter +5. It all depends on the model the poll used, and they all use different methods.

And hell if I know which one is right. I just know that the AP poll indicates that Obama might squeak by McCain if the election were held today and only if people who voted in 2004 vote.

That was hilarious Blibble. The video did not play for me though the sound worked well. I could understand them not knowing Obama's policies on abortion and war, but the Sarah Palin one was pretty goofy.

I have to admit, that as an Obama supporter, that Howard Stern video is disturbing to me.

Stern has a rich history in politics. When he helped Governor Pataki get elected, Pataki had Stern sitting in the front row of his inauguration. When he helped get that c*nt Christine Whitman elected, she named a rest stop after him.

For you, Lou.

You know, I just ate. Thanks.

She is by far the #1 reason I am no longer a registered Republican.

Let's put it this way, if she was running for office against George W. Bush, I'd vote for Bush.

Blib,
I couldn't get the link to work, but nothing would surprise me. The ignorance of people knows no boundaries.

Behold, my new signature line
(and that's regardless of how the election goes):

"If the political winds should shift, I shall stand with the Muslims."
Barack Hussein Obama

AppleOnYa

The actual quote from the book is from page 261 and is as follows:

"Of course, not all my conversations in immigrant communities follow this easy pattern. In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific reassurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."