John McCain edges ahead in Ohio; does Joe the Plumber get an assist?

At the least, the surprise spotlight John McCain put on "Joe the Plumber" may have helped the Republican presidential candidate in the working man's home state.

Last Tuesday, a poll by Rasmussen Reports showed Barack Obama ahead of McCain in the oh-so-important state of Ohio, 49% to 47%. In that particular survey, it was the first-ever Obama advantage.

Then, on Wednesday, McCain made Joe Wurzelbacher of Holland, Ohio, a nationally known figure by mentioning him again and again in his final debate with Obama as a short-handed way of arguing that the Democrat's tax policies were wrong-headed.

Today comes a new Rasmussen poll showing the two candidates' positions in Ohio have flip-flopped -- McCain leads Obama, 49% to 47%.

Here, though, is the survey's bottom line -- and the reason both campaigns spend so much time and energy on the Buckeye State:

It’s hard to classify Ohio as anything but a pure toss-up. For four straight weeks, the two candidates have been within two points of each other or closer. During that time, neither man has topped 49% support or fallen below 47%. If the four polls are averaged together, Obama and McCain are within a half-point of each other.

The state polls are all over the place. A Suffolk University Poll released yesterday has Obama up +9 in Ohio. There's a good chance Obama could lose Ohio and Florida, and won't even matter. Rasmussen now has Obama up +10 in Virginia.

Kudos. That's one of the most intelligent opinions ever posted in General Discussion. What is so noble about an average guy? Why wouldn't one want the best and the brightest as this Nation's Chief Executive? Why wold you want an average person to be president of the United States? What the hell is average anyway? And tell me, how do you rise to a level to become the Democratic or Republican party's presidential nominee and be average? That doesn't make any sense.

First of all I have accepted the fact that McCain will probably not win the election. My hubby told me how he heard about that Michelle ordered all that stuff. So I found that blog and posted it. I don't care if it's Rush's blog or whose blog it is.

I am not the type of person who will post a lie on purpose. If this story is not true then I apologise but if it is true then shame on her.

What I don't get is that we idolize people who are athletic, even if we are a nation of mostly couch potatoes, and even elect them into office. Yet we want the POTUS to be just 'like us'.

I want the man or woman who controls the world's biggest economy and the second largest nuclear arsenal to be a whole lot smarter than you, me and the average Joe the plumber combined many times over. That's the kind of person I want as president. Someone who makes me feel utterly inadequate and to hell with my tender ego.

Obama SHOULD embody the American dream. He worked his ass off to get a good education (no trust fund kid), and he didn't waste that education sitting around getting drunk and high. He is exactly the kind of role model this country needs, yet he is seen as "elite"?? I'll never get it.

And of COURSE it isn't TRUE ANYWAY!

And even if it was, McCain has 7-8 houses and Michelle can't even eat lobster?

I'm sure Rush Limbaugh will do the right thing and inform his audience 20 million strong of his mistake, and resign.

Riiiight.



You're not allowed to go out and treat yourself every now and then? I'll go out about once a month and have a really nice dinner. I still donate my money to charities, volunteer my time, etc. But I work really hard and make a lot of money and you better bet I'm going to go out and enjoy it every now and then. Yet shame on Michelle and yet Rush who was addicted to prescription pain medication, prosecuted for illegal possession, and loses his hearing or something like that is OK to believe.

I just listened to Hardball with Chris Matthews and he showed a clip of Palin at a sit down interview. She stated that the Vice President is in charge of the Senate. That is not only stupid; it is profoundly stupid. God, she hasn't even read that part of the Constitution for which she is applying. From Article I:

"The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.

The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the office of President of the United States."

Well, she did state prior to her getting chosen that someone would have to tell her "what exactly the Vice Presdient does", so it isn't a surprise. It looks like nobody told her.


..Haha, they're playing that clip on David Gregory's show now too. They're calling it a Dan Quayle moment.

Wow.

"The Vice President is in charge of the Senate, and they can really get in there with the Senators and make policy changes". Wow. Just Wow.

She was answering the question for a 2nd Grader, y'know...

We need an unscheduled, no prep, debate between Palin and Biden. Put it on PPV and I'll pay $50 for it.

Obama's grandmother fights to see him elected

By ALLEN G. BREED – 2 hours ago

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — If Michelle Obama is her husband's "rock," his grandmother is a big part of the ground beneath it.

Madelyn Payne Dunham gave young Barack Obama a place to call home while his mother traveled the world. When he needed money for school, she went without new clothes to help pay his tuition.

And when the Illinois Senator decided to seek the Democratic presidential nomination, Dunham provided the "Kansas heartland" pedigree he needed to appeal to conservative white voters — and a personal anecdote about racial prejudice that helped the man with the foreign name and Ivy League resume connect with the African-American experience.

The 85-year-old former bank executive is said to be "gravely ill" after falling and breaking her hip, and some reports suggest she might not live to see the results of the Nov. 4 election. Whatever happens, she's already lived long enough to see her "Barry" achieve what she'd wanted for him, her brother says.

"I think she thinks she was important in raising a fine young man," Charles Payne, 83, said in a brief telephone interview Tuesday from his Chicago home. "I doubt if it would occur to her that he would go this far this fast. But she's enjoyed watching it."

Although he made his mark thousands of miles from the Honolulu apartment where she helped raise him, Obama and others credit Dunham — whose birthday is Sunday — with instilling in him an appreciation for education and hard work, and with setting an example of thrift, practicality and tolerance.

"I think there's nobody more important than her, except his mother, in shaping his character," said David Mendell, who interviewed Dunham in 2004 for the Chicago Tribune and later wrote the book, "Obama: From Promise to Power."

Mendell said Obama got "that dreamer quality" seen in his speeches from his late mother. But when he has to decide whom to trust in politics, "that's his grandmother's practicality coming out in him."

"His grandmother was a real no-nonsense, no-frills woman who was far more skeptical of human nature than his mother," Mendell said Tuesday. "And in politics, he has to rely on both of those characteristics."

The oldest of four children to an oil company clerk and a teacher, Madelyn Payne grew up in a "company house" on the edge of Augusta, Kan. She was a good student and an avid reader, with a special fondness for a good murder mystery.

A couple of weeks before her high school graduation in 1940, without her parents' knowledge or blessing, she married Stanley Dunham — making her a maverick long before Arizona Sen. John McCain turned the term into a campaign buzz word. While her husband was away in the Army during World War II, she was home raising their daughter, Stanley Ann, and supervising a B-29 bomber assembly line at the Boeing plant in Wichita.

After the war, she followed her husband around the country as he took a series of sales jobs and got a college degree on the GI Bill — an accomplishment she always dreamed of, but was never quite able to find the time for. Despite that, she worked her way up from a bank secretary to one of the first female bank vice presidents in Hawaii.

The couple were living in Honolulu when their daughter met Barack Obama Sr., a student from Kenya. Barack Jr. was born there in 1961 and remained with his grandparents after his father left to pursue his education. Aside from a four-year interlude during which he lived in Indonesia with his mother and stepfather, Obama spent his childhood in Honolulu — most of it in the two-bedroom, high-rise apartment where Dunham still lives.

Obama often speaks fondly of "Toot" — his version of the Hawaiian word "Tutu," or grandparent. In his memoir, "Dreams From My Father," he wrote of looking up from the basketball court to find her watching him practice from the 10th-floor window — and of how she took the secretarial job at Bank of Hawaii "to help defray the costs of my unexpected birth."

But an incident that occurred when he was a teenager also reminded him just how deep the mistrust between whites and blacks goes in this country.

In the book, he recalled overhearing Toot ask her husband for a ride to work, because a particularly aggressive panhandler had accosted her for money at the bus stop the day before. When Stanley Dunham refused, his grandson couldn't understand why.

"Before you came in, she told me the fella was black," his grandfather explained, according to the memoir. "That's the real reason why she's bothered."

Obama said the words were "like a fist in my stomach."

"Never had they given me reason to doubt their love; I doubted if they ever would," he wrote. "And yet I knew that men who might easily have been my brothers could still inspire their rawest fears."

Obama revived the story in March, when comments by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright prompted Obama to publicly address race relations in America.

"I can no more disown him," he told an audience in Philadelphia of his former pastor, "than I can my white grandmother — a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."

Charles Payne said his sister's reaction to being made a campaign issue was "no more than just sort of raised eyebrows." Although she was too ill to travel for the campaign, she followed it closely on television — even undergoing a corneal transplant earlier this year so she could watch the coverage.

"She was almost totally blind," Payne said. "She's not physically able to" campaign, he said, "but it doesn't mean her interest has flagged."

Obama's campaign announced that he had canceled events later this week to spend some time with his grandmother. Payne said his sister was hospitalized briefly but is back home in her Honolulu apartment, where Obama's sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, cares for her.

When Payne spoke with his sister on the telephone Monday, they talked about family matters.

"We had a short and as upbeat as possible conversation," said Payne, 83, a retired university library administrator. "She's unhappy with the condition that she's in, I can tell you that."

The campaign didn't come up, and Payne wasn't sure whether his sister had cast her vote yet.

Some reports have Dunham close to death. Payne declined to speculate on how long his sister might have, and whether she had the strength to see her grandson through the election.

"I think, of course, it's been terribly important to her," he said. "And she would like nothing better than to see that."

Jesus Christ I sense I hit a nerve SB, don't get so riled up it's just my view. For the record I don't reside in a teeny tiny box as you say. I'm looking at the big picture, and I just don't think Obama is the right man for the job. So don't start attacking me just because someone else shit in your bowl of wheaties.




The above quote wasn't really necessary. & for the record I have satelite.

Ya know, here in the UK, we don't have these types of political spats. Everywhere I've seen it: Obama supporters V McCain supporters. Whys it so controversial an election?

This one is really no different than any other election year here. Gets tiring after a while.

Eminem endorses Obama

So basically 2002 is endorsing 2008.

http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic...EWS15/81021003

Uhm, no. She was answering the question like a second grader.

Obama opens double-digit lead over McCain: poll
Tue Oct 21, 2008 7:25pm

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has opened up a 10-point lead over Republican opponent John McCain two weeks before the November 4 U.S. election, according to Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released on Tuesday.

The poll found 52 percent of voters favor Obama compared with 42 percent for McCain, up from a 6-point Obama edge two weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The 10-point lead is the largest in the Journal/NBC poll to date and represents a steady climb for Obama since early September, when the political conventions concluded with the candidates in a statistical tie, the newspaper reported.

The poll also found that the popularity of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has fallen. Voters are less likely to see the Republican vice presidential nominee in a positive light, and much more likely to report negative feelings, the Wall Street Journal said.

Forty-seven percent view Palin negatively, compared with 38 percent who see her in a positive light.

Fifty-five percent of voters say Palin is not qualified to be president, up from 50 percent two weeks ago.

The poll of 1,159 registered voters was conducted from Friday to Monday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

(Writing by Joanne Allen; editing by Chris Wilson)

I notice that you didn't respond to one of the points that I made. What i don't get is how anyone can say that they fear the "horror" that electing Obama will visit upon this country. We aren't living a nightmare NOW???

And as for who shit in my Wheaties, it's the Republicans, and they've been doing it for eight looooooong years.

Two mentions of a bowel movement in a cereal bowl and I didn't make one of them?

Sorry, PB. What was I thinking??

Who pooped in my porridge?

I hadda get it outta my system, as it were.

In a new NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll that has Obama up +10, Sarah Palin has overtaken George Bush as the #1 anchor around McCain's Campaign. Also, she has the lowest approval rating in the 28 year history of the poll.


http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/WSJ_NBCPoll_102108.pdf

I just saw that WSJ poll. Great news! It's hard not to get my hopes up. Deep down I sense that Obama is even further ahead, but the media loves to say it's "close". I'll be happy with a small win mind you, but I think it'll be much bigger than most think (FWIW)

I hear that the states having absentee voting are having huge turnouts. I hope they are prepared for Nov. 5, because I predict it to be chaos. I hear of all the people Obama has "on the ground" and I just don't think all the newbies will stay home this time. I think most WILL vote. We'll see. I'll bet anybody a pretty blue drink that I'm right.


TIS

On Countdown, Keith Olberman just played several clips of Palin discussing the VP. It was hilarious. After each clip he would yell out "Nooo". I had seen the clips before, but not in awhile. God, I can't believe that she keeps repeating these stupidities about the VP's Constitutional authority. Why hasn't someone in the campaign taken her aside? This is embarrassing even for me. She actually said that the FFs gave the VP flexibility and authority if he chooses to use it. Madonne!

I saw that Olivant. It was hilarious.

Keih also discussed this story of voter fraud on the part of the Republican party. This "Jacoby" guy was arrested the other day right here in Ontario, CA.

I agree with Keith, watch McCain's charges of voter fraud taper off. Ya think??? How sad that it comes to this

TIS



http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Arrest_in_California_GOP_voter_fraud_1020.html

I beg to differ with you. I'm a Republican and I have never shit in your Wheaties.

Oh those third graders with those liberal bias questions..what can you do?

She was talking to a reporter in a national tv interview. The question was sent in by a third grader but the answer was for everybody. And even if it was a simplification for a third grader, it was still mostly wrong. The Vice President IS formally the President of the Senate, but all that really entails is overseeing procedure and occasionally casting a tie-breaking vote. The VP does not have any more ability to "really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes" than any other citizen. There's very little power over the Senate granted to the VP. The branches are still mostly separate.