Adirondack newspapers face McCain endorsement controversy

The Adirondack Daily Enterprise, based in Saranac Lake, faces a controversy over Friday's endorsement of presidential candidate John McCain.

The essay embraces the Republican and slams Democrat Barack Obama, saying that "troubling questions remain" about his character.

The controversy?

The endorsement wasn't actually written locally. It was produced by a writer in West Virginia at Ogden Newspapers, Inc., the Enterprise's corporate headquarters.

And yet the editorial includes this statement: "[W]e urge residents of our area to cast their ballots for John McCain, the leader Americans need."

"Our area"?

Managing editor Peter Crowley points out that the editorial did include the corporation's name at the top, which reads simply "Ogden Newspapers Inc."

"As the byline indicates, the editorial is by Ogden Newspapers Incorporated, which is our parent company," Crowley said on Friday. "Locally, our editorial board did not reach a conclusion. Our local editorial board editorials are by consensus."

Would average readers know and understand the distinction? And it now seems unlikely that the Enteprise's readers will ever know what their local editorial board thinks.

Just yesterday, the Enterprise published a locally-written essay stating, "[T]he Enterprise editorial board is not endorsing candidates this election cycle..."

The Enterprise isn't alone.

A nearly identical McCain endorsement, also penned in West Virginia, ran in the Gloversville Leader-Herald, also owned by the Odgen chain.

That editorial also ended with the phrase "we urge residents of our area to cast their ballots for him."

The essays in both papers triggered angry reactions from some local readers. One read:

Who is Ogden Newspapers Inc.? Is this the view of the Enterprise or of Ogden Newspapers Inc.? I would have liked to read the view of the Enterprise's editorial staff, not some corporate conglomerate newspaper publishing house.

Sorry, no stinkin' polls for you!

I've been receiving emails sporadically from Gillibrand-Treadwell watchers asking why I haven't been using poll numbers to gauge the race.

The answer is that there are no stinkin' polls, as Radiobob might put it.

Siena tracked this race in 2006, when Gillibrand was a VERY longshot. But this year, when the race is arguably very competitive, they opted out.

Both campaigns say on background that they've done internal polling. And I've heard the results of those polls described but only at third hand.

Even in a blog I won't quote information that's uncorroborated and third hand. Standards, standards...

All the national pundits I can find, including the Washington Post, Stuart Rothenberg, Larry Sabato, and Congressional Quarterly agree that this race leans Democratic.

But Sandy Treadwell is spending millions of dollars on TV ads in a district that George Bush carried handily four years ago.

So I'll be watching this one very closely on Tuesday.

Memo to Republicans: Knock it off with the "Democrat Party" stuff

There was a time, not so long ago, when Republicans controlled the use of political language.

Phrase-meisters like Lee Atwater and Karl Rove rewrote the campaign dictionary, inventing terms like "flip-flopper" and defining into oblivion the term "liberal."

(Back in the Fifties, even prominent Republicans such as Dwight Eisenhower happily described themselves as "liberal.")

These days, the GOP's language control sounds less cunning and more desperate.

Case in point? Republicans refusing to use the term "Democratic Party."

Apparently, they think it sounds like a confirmatory adjective. As in, "This is the party that is democratic."

But there's also a power-play involved. You literally control what your opponent is called.

And it's also something of a code signal, sort of a verbal fist-bump.

Conservatives understand that by using this term, they're lavishing derision and disrespect on the opposition.

(For a brief history of the use of "Democrat" Party as an epithet, check out Wikipedia's entry. You'll find that it was a favored tactic of Joseph McCarthy, among others.)

In my opinion, it's churlish and petty.

If Democrats suddenly started describing Republicans as members of the "Republic Party" I'd dis that, too.

Naturally, there are limits to respecting other peoples' names and titles. If someone asked to be called "The Better than Everybody Else Party" I'd resist.

But it's a common courtesy in American society to use names and even honorifics that are standard usage.

When I meet a Roman Catholic priest, I call him "Father X," even though I'm not a Catholic and he's certainly not my father.

I'm also comfortable using the term "Grand Old Party," an honorific commonly applied the Republicans.

This kind of respect is a first step toward more civility in American discourse. And fortunately, some Republicans get it.

Last August, the Republican platform committee voted to use the proper term in its official documents. This from the Associated Press:

"We probably should use what the actual name is," said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, the panel's chairman. "At least in writing."

In 1996, references to the Democratic Party were purged from a draft of the platform. As party leaders explained at the time, they wanted to make the subtle point that the Democratic Party had become elitist, no longer small-d democratic.

In the debate Tuesday, Jim Bopp of Indiana echoed that sentiment but said fair's fair.

"We should afford them the respect that they are entitled and call them by their legal name."

Treadwell spends nearly $6 million; GOP pulls NYS election funding

The New York Times is reporting this morning that the national GOP is pulling its funding from most congressional races in the state.

“Tough decisions have to be made,” said Representative Peter T. King, a Republican from Long Island, who conceded that the party was seeking to minimize its losses. “You have to decide who comes off life support and who gets a massive infusion.”

The inference is that the Republican Party is pulling the plug on NY state.

Included in the story is a passage about the 20th Congressional district race, where the GOP has never spent any national money.

Republican leaders had high hopes of toppling Ms. Gillibrand earlier in the year and recruited Alexander Treadwell, an independently wealthy former state Republican Party chairman, to run as the party’s candidate.

Peter Constantakes, a spokesman for Mr. Treadwell, said on Thursday that the national party’s decision not to finance the race was not surprising given its limited resources. But he noted that Mr. Treadwell had spent nearly $6 million of his own money on his campaign in a race that his supporters clearly believe is still competitive.

Six million dollars! That's a pile of money for a congressional seat.

If Treadwell wins and serves the eight years that he says he would limit himself to (he favors term limits), that would price out at a little more than $750,000 per year.

Most pundits still give incumbent Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand the edge. Read the full NY Times piece here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/nyregion/31races.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin

Gillibrand scores newspaper endorsements; Treadwell picks up local government support

Incumbent Democratic Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand has picked up some endorsements from newspapers in her district.

The Chronicle, based in Glens Falls, is supporting her re-election. So is the Poughkeepsie Journal, and the Albany Times-Union.

The T-U calls it thus:

In a Congress with larger Democratic majorities in both houses, and with Barack Obama in the White House, the country could begin the arduous task of repairing the damage of the Bush era. That means reversing tax laws that favor the rich at the expense of the middle class, creating a government-run health insurance program and bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq as soon as it's feasible, not in some vague, distant future when "the job is done."

On each of those critical issues, Ms. Gillibrand is the better candidate. She's the one the voters of the 20th Congressional District should look to for change in Washington.

Treadwell, meanwhile, has scored big with enorsments from local government leaders across the district, many of whom are Republicans. This from a press-release issued by the Treadwell campaign:

Essex County Clerk Joseph Provoncha said, "Sandy Treadwell has been a huge influence in Essex County and in my career. I can think of no one better to serve the people of Essex County than Sandy Treadwell."

Treadwell campaign repudiates Osama-Obama link

This morning, NCPR aired a story that included my reporting from the scene of a rally for Republican congressional candidate Sandy Treadwell held in Queensbury.

During the rally, a Treadwell booster told a brief joke linking Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to Al Quaeda leader and terrorist Osama bin Laden.

Mr. Treadwell and former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani had not yet arrived at the event when the comment was made.

This afternoon, the Treadwell campaign issued the following statement:

"We were not aware of anybody making such a comment," said campaign spokesman Peter Constantakes. "We do not agree with such comments and in fact we repudiate them."

What if there's a "Georgia affect"?

Okay, this is sheer speculation, thinking out loud kind of stuff.

What if Barack Obama turns out to be sort of a Red State surfer.

By that I mean he pushes the Democratic Party's numbers and gets CLOSE in a bunch of traditionally Republican states.

Call it the "Georgia" affect.

We could see him come within a few thousand votes of beating John McCain in states such as Colorado, Georgia, Montana, North Carolina, and Virginia -- while falling short in all or most of them.

It would be a case of moving the needles dramatically -- just not enough to matter.

If it happened, Obama would draw a lot of fire for pushing for a mandate, a big win, rather than focusing his campaign's efforts on one or two easier pick-ups.

Frankly, this is a long, long shot. The polls suggest that John McCain needs a major surge to turn this hypothetical into a reality.

He's down 11% in Iowa and 7% in Colorado and Virginia.

But the Republican still has four days to convince red-state voters that they should give the race one more look.

Siena poll suggests GOP will hold state Senate

Democrats need to flip at least one seat -- and preferably two -- to gain control of the state Senate.

The latest poll numbers from the Siena College research team suggest that incumbents on both sides of the aisle are holding steady.

No likely gains for the GOP -- but for now, they'll be happy with the status quo. More on this story later today on NCPR from our Albany correspondent Karen DeWitt.

Siena Poll details

Rudy's rally in Queensbury

Last night's visit by Rudy Giuliani to a fire hall in Queensbury drew a huge and enthusiastic crowd.

I watched one eager mom work the room feverishly so that her toddler could meet the former New York City mayor. "He's Rudy's biggest fan!" she said, pleading with Giuliani's handlers.

This was one room in New York state where the Republican Brand seemed alive and well, with the party faithful defiantly resisting the spread of "Democratic socialism."

I spoke briefly with Giuliani and asked him about the GOP's chances on Tuesday. He predicted a better-than-expected showing.

He's a better politician than I am a reporter, but I think he believes it.

There's a lot of dissent these days within the GOP.

But there are still some Republicans who sincerely think McCain and his down-ticket conservative allies have a real shot on Tuesday.

Focus group at Paul Smiths

Okay, it's only a political science class -- but I get to teach a couple of sessions today.

Frankly, I'm much more interested in hearing what college students are saying about this election.

Democrats are banking heavily on young voters turning out in droves. It's a pretty wobbly bet, if history is any guide.

Can text-messages and Facebook appeals drive a new political wave on Tuesday?

That question aside, the Youth Problem is one of about a dozen dilemmas facing Republicans.

According to the latest Pew poll, 68% of Americans under the age of 30 prefer Barack Obama to John McCain. Ouch.

Fewer than 1-in-4 young people prefer to the GOP ticket.

Win or lose next week, the danger for Republicans is that the Democratic "brand" could become the default choice for the next generation of voters.

That's what happened with Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940s and with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

NY Heavyweights weigh in for final push

I'm off this afternoon to see Rudy Giuliani stumping for Republican challenger Sandy Treadwell. The AP reports that Giuliani and Hillary Clinton are both out supporting congressional hopefuls today.

The two former presidential candidates each plan on stopping in at
several events Wednesday.

Clinton's schedule includes visits to Utica, Buffalo and Rochester to
endorse Congressman Mike Arcuri and congressional hopefuls Alice Kryzan,
Eric Massa and Dan Maffei.

Giuliani is endorsing Sandy Treadwell in Albany and speaking at two
rallies, in Halfmoon and Queensbury.

No mention of a Clinton event for Kirsten Gillibrand, the Democratic incumbent in NY 20.

Obama's coattails

One of the reasons that Dems are hoping for a landslide next week is the structural shift that followed their lengthy primary.

Democrats were already scrambling to register more voters, but Barack Obama's campaign kicked it into high gear, signing up tens of thousands of new voters.

Because the endless primary was fought on non-traditional ground (for Democrats), that meant Obama had to build an infrastructure in places where none existed before.

That means hundreds of new campaign offices, voter registration drives, mailing lists -- all the nuts and bolts of winning ground-game elections.

Obama's effort linked up more or less seamlessly with the "50-state" campaign launched by Howard Dean four years ago.

And it meshed with the Democratic Congressional Committee's efforts to recruit more "red-state friendly" candidates.

In many of those same districts, Republicans had become complacent. They were so used to winning handily that they allowed their own political infrastructure was in disrepair.

If Obama's numbers are strong on Tuesday, it could be all over for dozens of Republicans -- especially in states that allow "straight-party" voting. This from The Hill newspaper:

[V]oters are allowed to save time and vote for every Democrat (or Republican) on the ballot with a single mark of the ballot. Straight-party voting is allowed in several states where Obama has poured in money and campaign workers: Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Some pundits are stretching to imagine that as many as 40 Republicans could lose their seats.

If that happens -- and if Dems reach a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate -- Barack Obama will have more power on Day One than any other president in the last century.

We'll see on Tuesday if his coattails are that long.

Delayed gratification

Okay, I know there are at least six undecided voters left in the U.S. But does anyone really think we need another five days in this campaign?

It's like one of those interminable baseball games (sorry, David) that runs into endless extra innings...and more extra innings.

Tonight, Barack Obama has reserved a half-hour on most of the major broadcast networks. Is there really something fresh for him to say, some "closer" argument that we haven't heard before.

I got an email a couple of days ago from my step-dad, who was voting early in Kansas. He was elated.

I found myself envying his ability to just pull the damn lever.

I'm just empathetic enough to try to put myself in the candidates' shoes. Can you imagine? Next Tuesday must look a hundred years away...

What if the polls are just plain wrong?

Because, let's face it, some of them have to be wrong.

Jay Cost, who writes for RealClearPolitics.com, puts it this way:

I take all of these firms seriously whenever they produce new numbers. They are disagreeing with one another in ways that can't be chalked up to statistical "noise." That gives me great pause.

Today's polls range from a high of 53% for Barack Obama down to a relatively anemic 48%.

John McCain's numbers sprawl even more wildly: from 38% up to 47%. Yikes.

So it's actually possible that the Democrat and the Republican are effectively tied.

Why is this happening? The bottom line is that pollsters aren't really sure how to measure the electorate's opinions.

Who will show up? What's the proper mix of people to include in any poll? How do you factor in race?

If Americans were less complicated, the pollsters would have an easier time of things. But where would the fun be in that?

Is the press in the tank for Obama?

The news media in these final days of Election 2008 is caught on the horns of a dilemma.

On the one hand, they're convinced that Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat, has a lock on the presidency. What's more, the vast majority of reporters are captivated by the historic nature of his candidacy.

Obama arrives on the scene at a time of intense national turmoil -- two wars, a Depression-like economic slump, the meltdown of one of our two big parties -- AND he would be our first African American president.

That, my friends, is a big story.

But journalists are also deeply conflicted about the appearance (and possible reality) of bias.

Are they "in the tank" for Obama? Is John McCain, the Arizona Republican, getting the journalistic shaft.

In a column today, the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz says yes: reporters are effectively measuring the drapes on Obama's behalf. Here's the money quote.

So much for the formality of next week's election. Many pundits and publications seem so certain of a big Democratic win that they're exploring the intricacies of an Obama administration and whether the party will have a filibuster-proof 60 votes in the Senate.

"If the mainstream media are wrong about Obama and the voters pull a Truman, that is going to be the end of whatever shred of credibility they have left," says Tobe Berkovitz, associate dean of Boston University's College of Communication.

If Kurtz -- and the McCain campaign -- are correct, then the media's credibility is already shot.

You can't be an extension of the Democratic National Committee and still be a journalist, even if you're right about the outcome.

But other journalists say this simply isn't so. John Harris and Jim VandeHei at Politico.com argue that coverage of McCain is negative because his campaign has been a disaster.

There have been moments in the general election when the one-sidedness of our site — when nearly every story was some variation on how poorly McCain was doing or how well Barack Obama was faring — has made us cringe.

As it happens, McCain’s campaign is going quite poorly and Obama’s is going well. Imposing artificial balance on this reality would be a bias of its own.

My opinion?

For what it's worth, I think journalists have done a better job this election cycle than ever before.

They've probed weak spots in both candidates' records; but they've also felt liberated to challenge false and absurd assertions.

The McCain campaign has asked America to center much of the campaign coverage on questions about Obama's legitimacy. In a nutshell: Is he one of us?

But accepting that basic narrative as THE story of the 2008 wouldn't have been "balance." It would have been unconscionable.

Instead, reporters pushed both candidates to talk substantively about the issues that face America -- a fair and honest debate that McCain's staff tried unabashedly to curtail.

The McCain campaign has also asked journalists to ignore the fact that their operation has functioned erratically, even sloppily.

We know factually that some of the key decisions that faced their candidate, including the choice of a running-mate, were made hastily.

As a consequence, a large number of Republicans and conservatives have disavowed Sen. McCain's effort.

That's news.

The bottom line is that this wheel will turn. Democrats will nominate someone soon who will run a far clumsier campaign than we've seen this year from the Republicans.

And when journalists see that blood in the water (whether its blue blood or red blood) they'll come running.

Uncle Ted

I grew up in Alaska and both my parents were passionately involved in Republican Party politics.

My step-dad, Dick, was elected a member of our town assembly and my mom, Elaine, worked for years as a kind of legislative staffer.

Through all that time, Sen. Ted Stevens was an institution, a guy who existed beyond politics. He helped make Alaska a state.

His title was Senator. But in a state with only a half million people, Stevens wielded a kind of power that was more intimate, more personal.

Everyone had met him. And if he hadn't helped you directly -- with a job, an earmark, a letter of recommendation to a military academy -- then you knew someone he had helped.

When I met Stevens, I was working as a journalist and he had already taken on some of the aura of entitlement and arrogance that seem to have brought him down.

It's a failing of many politicians: the sense that the public treasury is your own; and the belief that normal rules of ethics simply don't apply.

I actually believe Stevens when he says that he doesn't feel that he did anything wrong.

He felt that he could color outside the lines -- maintaining a complicated financial relationship with an oil industry company -- while maintaining his integrity and his independence.

He was wrong. There were rules and laws governing his behavior. Not suggestions or guidelines.

In the end, it's always startling what men like Stevens are willing to give up in exchange for a pittance. He was convicted for receiving a quarter-million dollars in illegal gifts.

A historic career that spanned a half-century -- his status as a legend in America's Last Frontier -- thrown away for $250,000.

"Oh, you liberal scum!"

That's how Glens Falls Post-Star editor Ken Tingley describes some of the reaction to his paper's endorsement over the weekend of Democrat Barack Obama.

Several readers fired some vicious shots that they were not surprised because we are liberal-leaning newsroom.

In the Sunday editorial, the Post-Star supported Obama and blasted Republican John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as the veep nominee:

His politically motivated selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate is reason alone not to vote for him. Inexperienced, unprepared and unqualified for such a high office, Gov. Palin is the wrong person to place a breath away from the presidency in such difficult times.

Read Tingley's blog entry here, which includes the desire for election season to be over so that "some sanity returns."

http://www.poststar.com/blogs/?p=9736&cat=49

And read the full Obama endorsement here:

http://www.poststar.com/articles/2008/10/26/opinion/editorials/14029355.txt

Obama and race

Republican pollster Bill Greener is up today with a thoughtful and well-reasoned argument (link below) that Obama will lose states where he isn't polling above 50%.

There's an old rule in politics that an incumbent candidate is always in danger when he dips under 50 percent, even if he is leading his opponent in the polls. It's all about the undecideds...

The same pattern seems to be true for African-American candidates in much of the country. If you're a black candidate running against a white candidate, what you see is what you get...

As of this writing, Barack Obama is not polling consistently above 50 percent in a number of electoral-vote-rich swing states, including Ohio and Florida. He should be worried.

The theory is that ALL of the "undecideds" will break for McCain.

Greener is a bit coy about the reasons why, declining to call it racism. ("I'm not going to advance any theories for why voters do what they do, or why they may mislead pollsters.")

But I think his prediction is pretty plausible. Which means that the election could be much closer than it looks.

If Obama wins only the states where he's currently polling above 50%, the Democrat captures 286 Electoral College votes. A victory, but not a landslide.

If McCain can push down Obama's popularity by a percentage point or two in a couple of key states, it becomes a real contest.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/10/27/undecideds/

Eight days to go...

The three major polling aggregators all agree that Democrat Barack Obama has locked up states that give him between 259 and 268 Electoral College votes.

He needs just 270 to win the presidency. So he begins the last full week of campaigning poised at the finish line.

Republican John McCain has secured states that promise him somewhere between 137 and 142 EC votes.

He's in far worse shape than he was when he captured the Republican nomination way back in March.

I know it's crass for bloviators to call an election before the votes have been cast. So I'll raise two possibilities for these final days:

1. Some kind of major game-changing event occurs -- massive in scope -- that would open a door to McCain. A minor gaffe won't do it.

or -

2. The only question on election night will be "How big is Obama's victory - a narrow win in the Democratic Party tradition, or something more profound?"

Post-Star reports Giuliani planning Treadwell appearance

In 2006, former President Bill Clinton campaigned for Democratic challenger Kirsten Gillibrand, helping to boost her toward an upset victory.

Can Rudy Giuliani, former NYC mayor and presidential candidate, do the same for Republicdan challenger Sandy Treadwell?

According to Maury Thompson's political blog at the Glens Fall Post-Star, Giuliani will make an appearance with Treadwell Wednesday evening at the West Glens Falls fire station in Queensbury.

Thompson reports that another event may be scheduled in Half Moon.

Read his great political blog here "All Politics Is Local" here:

http://www.poststar.com/blogs/?cat=259

Republicans and race

A wretched hoax was perpetrated last week by a female John McCain supporter.

She pretended that she was insulted, attacked, and robbed by a large African American man, a supporter of Barack Obama.

She told police that the attacker carved the letter "B" into her skin. It was a lie. A toxic, vicious lie.

The ugliness of the deception drew a sharp line between this election and the dangerous politics of race.

The McCain campaign pounced on the event. Fox News executive vice president John Moody penned a blog-entry called "Moment of Truth."

"[S]ome voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee."

The connection between an alleged assault and Barack Obama? Mr. Moody doesn't say. But he did add this:

"If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain's quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting."

This incident -- with its eager propagation on conservative websites (Drudge, etc.) and right-wing talk radio -- point to the hard choices conservatives still face when it comes to race in America.

The truth is, the right has become far more inclusive. A movement that was once limited to conservative white Protestants now includes Jewish members, Roman Catholics, along with small numbers of African Americans and Hispanics.

The "Southern" strategy, with its Willie Horton winks and nudges, has faded. And for all his failings, George W. Bush constructed the most diverse cabinet in American history.

The vast majority of rank-and-file Republicans aren't racist.

But evidence is widespread that many conservative commentators and leaders are still struggling with race.

When long-time Republican Colin Powell crossed party lines recently to endorse Barack Obama, he was joining more than two dozen senior military officials who've publicly supported the Democrat.

He articulated a reasoned (although debatable) set of motivations for his choice. But right-wing pundit Pat Buchanan wasn't having it.

"Would Colin Powell be endorsing Barack Obama if he were a white liberal Democrat?" Buchanan said, during an interview on MSNBC. "It is naive...to suggest that [race] had nothing at all to do with his decision."

In similar fashion, a wide range of conservatives -- including vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin -- have argued that there are essentially two Americas competing in this election:

One is a "true" and "real" America that happens to be predominately white, rural and conservative. The other America is urban, increasingly multi-ethnic, and Democratic.

At times during the campaign, conservatives have seemed almost eager to flirt with toxic language and racial innuendo.

When William Kristol wrote his lead editorial for the most recent issue of the Weekly Standard, the flagship conservative magazine, he began with this sentence.

"It is always darkest before it goes totally black."

Really? An African American appears poised to become the first man of his race to serve as President of the United States...and you go with that opener?

The last couple of weeks, I've blogged occasionally about the challenges that face the GOP, if their losses next week are as cataclysmic as some are predicting.

Well, here's Job One for Republicans.

By mid-century, whites will no longer be a majority in the U.S. Whites will be one of many "minorities" in the weave of our national fabric.

Without sacrificing their conservative principles, Republican leaders need to find ways to engage the complexity and richness of that modern, multi-ethnic society.

It won't be easy. Race is never easy in America. But the party of Lincoln (and Powell) has overcome bigger hurdles.

Fix says 4 NY Republicans vulnerable

Chris Cizzilla, whose "The Fix" blog is on the Washington Post's website, lists an astonishing four NY Republicans among the Top-50 most vulnerable House districts in the US.

And yes, by his count, that many seats are in play nationwide.

Interestingly, Cizzilla doesn't include Democratic Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand on his "vulnerable" list, despite Republican Sandy treadwell's $4.4 million dollar challenge.

US Chamber of Commerce backs GOP in Senate races

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today on a last-ditch effort by the US Chamber of Commerce to prevent a Republican implosion in the Senate.

Here's the key quote:

Business executives fear that Democrats, bouyed by heavy spending from organized labor, could gain enough muscle in the Senate to spark policies favoring increased unionization, higher taxes, more restrictions on trade and more regulation on the financial-services and housing sectors.

According to the WSJ, the spending has triggered ire on the part of Democrats. Here's NY Sen. Chuck Schumer, who's leading the Democratic Senate campaign nationwide:

"The whole [Democratic] caucus is upset at what the Chamber has done," he told the Journal.

Read the full account here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122480659803164965.html

Republican, Adk seasonal Gov. Bill Weld backs Obama

Former Mass. Governor Bill Weld, who has a seasonal home in the Adirondacks, is crossing over to support Democrat Barack Obama.

The Republican -- who ran unsuccessfully for Governor of NY two years ago, losing in the GOP primary -- issued this statement today:

"Senator Obama is a once-in-a-lifetime candidate who will transform our politics and restore America's standing in the world. We need a president who will lead based on our common values and Senator Obama demonstrates an ability to unite and inspire. Throughout this campaign I've watched his steady leadership through trying times and I'm confident he is the best candidate to move our country forward."

The challenge for ascendant Dems

Democrats have positioned themselves for a blow-out election based on three broad principles:

1. They're not Republicans; and they're not led by George W. Bush.

2. They promise competence over ideology.

3. They recruit strong candidates from across the political and cultural spectrum.

That kind of big-tent approach makes for powerful politics.

When you have Kirsten Gillibrand -- a fairly conservative Democrat from upstate New York -- working in sync with Barack Obama -- a fairly liberal Democrat from urban Chicago -- it's a tough coalition to beat.

The challenge will be translating the Democriatic "mandate" into policy -- if November 4th does indeed turn into a blow-out.

What, exactly, do all those very different Democrats stand for, or want from their government?

There's a lot of pent-up hunger among progressive groups for their issues and their $ priorities to be at the top of the list in Washington DC.

Can Democrats harness all those conflicting forces and keep them in line? Can they avoid the intoxication and temptation of power?

Joe Biden says Barack Obama will be tested within six months. The big test may come from within his own party.

Sixty votes for Senate Dems?

If Barack Obama wins on November 4th and Democrats extend their dominance in the House, Republicans will have only two weapons remaining in Washington, DC.

First is the Supreme Court.

Back in the days of Franklin Roosevelt, when Democrats last saw their clout soar to these heights, conservative justices shot down much of Roosevelt's early New Deal legislation.

The Roberts court is pretty conservative -- so the clash between the Judiciary, an Obama administration, and the Democratic Congress could be profound.

The second GOP weapon will be the Senate filibuster.

Senate rules allow the minority party to block legislation, unless they're overwhelmed by a 60-member "cloture" vote.

Only now there appears to be a very real chance that Dems will win a 60-seat majority next month, pushing Republicans further to the margins.

Here's New York Senator Chuck Schumer's take on the race, in an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

As for 60 [Senate seats], it is possible,” said U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). “You can look at the map yourself. But given the red terrain we’re fighting in, it’s very difficult. And I don’t want people to get such high expectations, because it’s hard to win in states like Georgia or Mississippi. It is. And we need some of those states to win.

And read this analysis by the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/?hpid=topnews

If Dems do hit the magic 60 number, conservatives -- who've long opposed an "activist" judiciary -- may have to rely on Federal judges to maintain vestiges of their national agenda.

Tina Fey jokes that John McCain is off "traveling on foot through the Adirondacks"

The North Country reference - such as it is - comes about 3 minutes into the Saturday Night Live clip.

Will Ferrell, as George Bush, asks, "Where's McRage?"

Fey, as Sarah Palin, answers, "He was last seen traveling on foot through the Adirondacks, but my husband Todd and two of his drinking buddies are in pursuit on snow machines."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/23/will-ferrell-back-as-bush_n_137399.html

Opie, Sherriff Andy, and the Fonz endorse Obama

Didn't think Barack Obama was scrapping for rural votes? Well, now he's got the coveted Opie endorsement.

Yep, THAT Opie.

Forget Colin Powell. The Democratic ticket has Sherriff Andy Griffith voting for him.

Okay, it's not small town - it's downright Hollywood. But for kabillions of Americans, especially age 30 and older, Ron Howard's characters ARE rural icons.

Check it out here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/23/ron-howards-call-for-obam_n_137214.html

And if that's not down home enough for you, check out bluegrass icon Ralph Stanley's endorsement:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FWenrdKswE&feature=related

There's a great bit in the recent New York Times article about Ralph Stanley's meeting with Obama.

When the candidate met Stanley backstage, Obama told him that he had some of Stanley’s banjo music on his iPod. Stanley nodded appreciatively, but a few minutes later he turned to a friend and asked, “What’s an iPod?”

Press-Republican: thousands of North Country names dropped from voters lists

The Plattsburgh Press-Republican is reporting that election officials have stripped thousands of names from North Country voting lists, in Clinton, Essex and Franklin Counties. Here's the key passage:

According to a voter-registration database compiled by New Yorkers for Verified Voting, 5,997 North Country residents were purged because they had died, moved, were imprisoned or were disqualified for other reasons.

Another 10,278 people saw their voter status changed to inactive because they did not respond to letters sent to verify their current address and status.

According to the P-R's report, voters dropped from the list will likely still be able to cast provisional ballots. Read the full article here:

http://www.pressrepublican.com/midday/local_story_297095908.html

Mellencamp for Obama, says "Small Towns Dying"

John Mellencamp came late to the Obama campaign, but in the final days of the campaign he's joined a small-town focused radio campaign in his home state of Indiana.

"I’ve seen a lot of small towns," Mellencamp drawls, "but now I’m seein' small towns across America dying. "

The answer?

"This is John Mellencamp, and I’m proud to support Barack Obama, because whether you live in a small town or a big city, it’s time for a change."

New polling shows Obama may have a chance of stealing away Indiana, which has tilted red for decades. Hear the ad here:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/mellencampad/

NPR reports collapse of McCain's rural support

Howard Berkes, NPR's rural correspondent, is citing poll numbers that suggest a major decline on Republican John McCain's rural support -- a foundation for his hopes in November.

"That is really bad news for John McCain. If the rural vote is essentially split in these swing states, then John McCain is certain to lose," says Seth McKee, a political scientist at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg. McKee specializes in rural voting patterns.

Check out Howard's full report here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96008609

One word of caution to Obama supporters (and comfort to McCain fans): Kerry seemed to show some strength in rural America, too, but small-town voters rallied to Bush in the final days.

In 20th CD race, it's W vs. Big Tobacco

Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) and challenger Sandy Treadwell (R) are slinging accusations in the final 12 days of their $8 million campaign battle.

Treadwell is working to link Gillibrand to Big Tobacco. She's accepted campaign cash from cig companies and served as an attorney defending Phillip Morris in the 1990s.

Gillibrand, meanwhile, is working to link Treadwell to George W. Bush. Treadwell has been a prominent Republican leader for decades, though he now distances himself from the unpopular Republican president.

The pair face off in a debate tonight produced by WMHT and the Albany Times-Union. We'll air it live tomorrow morning at 11 a.m. We'll have complete coverage tomorrow during the 8 O'clock Hour.

Polling mayhem tilting to Obama

Okay, I'm a wonk - a numbers junky, a political fine-print fan - and even I have whiplash.

Yesterday's polls seemed to show significant tightening, with John McCain pulling within sight of Obama in some key battleground states.

Today? Landslide numbers for Obama. Here's the list currently from RealClearPolitics.com.

National	Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby	Obama 52, McCain 40	Obama +12
Indiana	Big10 Battleground	McCain 41, Obama 51	Obama +10
Illinois	Big10 Battleground	Obama 61, McCain 32	Obama +29
Pennsylvania	Morning Call	Obama 52, McCain 42	Obama +10
Ohio	Quinnipiac	Obama 52, McCain 38	Obama +14
Florida	Quinnipiac	Obama 49, McCain 44	Obama +5
Pennsylvania	Quinnipiac	Obama 53, McCain 40	Obama +13

Obama ahead 10% in Indiana? Up 12% nationally?

If that's true, then this election is one for the history books.

These numbers also dispute the notion that McCain is catching up in the key Pennsylvania fight.

Bottom line? Polls are twitchy, crude indicators. They fold in a ton of variables and assumptions.

But overall, it's clear that John McCain still has some mountains to move.

State-by-state polls tighten

Some positive movement today for John McCain. In many of the battleground states that he has to sweep November 4th, he's crept back from 5-7% deficits to near parity.

In Florida, the Republican is actually ahead by 1% according to NBC/Mason-Dixon. In Virginia, the same pollsters say he's only down by 2%.

Unfortunately for the GOP ticket, there's not much sign of movement yet in Colorado and Pennsylvania, which have emerged as key must-win states.

In those states, Obama's lead appears to range between 5 and 11%.

Thirteen more campaigning days until November 4th!

How would YOU like to see the GOP change?

I keep poking at this question because it seems beyond dispute that the Republican Party has backed out onto a very creaky plank.

Sharks are circling, especially here in New York state.

If this election spins out of control even a few more degrees, the GOP's meltdown could make Wall Street's turbulence look downright placid.

Some Republicans are calling for some introspection. Former National Review scribe Christopher Buckley put it this way during an appearance on the Daily Show:

"I didn't leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me. My hope after November 4th is that there's going to be some serious soul-searching in those quarters. There probably won't be, but it seemed like a thoughtful thing to say."

Conservative Republicans are pushing back against the notion that the party needs to make substantial changes.

Former Washington Times editor Tony Blankley wrote a column this week arguing that there are only two types of Republicans: right-wing conservatives, and "me-too" Democrats.

"I certainly will do what I can to make it a big-tent conservative movement. But just as it does in every great cause, one question has to be answered correctly: Whose side are you on, comrade?"

I think Blankley's wrong. I think the GOP had a long and politically successful history before the rise of the Goldwater-Gingrich-Palin wing of the party.

And as I've written before, I think the Republican movement is essential to American democracy.

So here's a question for blog readers: How can the GOP become a better, more appealing movement -- one that can climb back into favor in New York state and around the US?

Is the future Sarah Palin? Colin Powell? What are the big new ideas -- or the old ideas that should be jettisoned? Post your thoughts.

Treadwell, Gillibrand face off in Poughkeepsie

We'll air a Gillibrand-Treadwell debate Thursday evening, produced by WMHT -- but the two faced off for the first time last night in Poughkeepsie.

According to the Glens Falls Post-Star the key flashpoint was taxes. Sandy Treadwell, the Republican challenger, claimed that Gillibrand voted for "the largest tax increase in American history."

Gillibrand said that wasn't true -- and after the debate staffers for the two politicians continued the debate.

"You can repeat a lie over and over again, but it still doesn't make it true," [Gillibrand spokeswoman Jess] Fassler said.

Their race has drawn a bit more ink as the final weeks of the campaign tick down. NCPR will simulcast WMHT's debate (co-sponsored with the Albany Times-Union) Thursday at 9pm.

And thanks to WMHT for letting us share the program with our audience.

Zogby puts Obama up nearly 10%

Pollster John Zogby, in Utica NY, says Democrat Barack Obama continues to solidify and expand his lead over Republican John McCain.

"Three big days for Obama," Zogby says, marking the Dem at 51.6% and McCain at 42%.

Here's his summary of the race two weeks out:

"These numbers, if they hold, are blowout numbers. They fit the 1980 model with Reagan's victory over Carter -- but they are happening 12 days before Reagan blasted ahead. If Obama wins like this we can be talking not only victory but realignment..."

Of interest here in the North Country is the fact that Obama appears to be leading among Roman Catholics nationally by 12%, according to Zogby.

The Democrat is also tied with NASCAR fans...not a good sign for the GOP.

Can McCain flip Pennsylvania?

John McCain appears to be making a serious play for our neighboring state of Pennsylvania.

Here's the money quote from the New York Times:

“We need to win Pennsylvania on Nov. 4, and with your help — with your help — we’re going to win!” Mr. McCain shouted to the crowd in his first appearance of the day, at a manufacturing plant in Bensalem, north of Philadelphia, where he said that Mr. Obama would raise their taxes and was too untested to handle an international crisis.

Pennsylvania voted for Democrats in 2000 and again in 2004, when the Republican Party was at the height of its power and popularity

So...is McCain desperate - or does he know something the rest of America doesn't know?

Most likely its desperation.

Virginia and Colorado look increasingly like long shots -- so the Arizona Senator needs to strip a blue state from the Democratic column.

He seems to have decided that Pennsylvania is his best shot.

Currently, Obama has a double-digit lead, so it won't be easy. And over the last couple of years, the Dems have built a registration advantage of 1.2 million voters.

Barack Obama also has more money to spend in Pennsylvania.

Here's the good news for McCain.

Pennsylvania has big swaths of rural-conservative voters, who trend more like Ohio than New York. He could score bigger-than-expected margins there.

Pennsylvania's industrial suburbs could also be a place where the Bradley factor might kick in.

Those white, blue-collar neighborhoods around Pittsburgh and Philadelphia may be more uncomfortable voting for an African American than pollsters realize.

(The McCain campaign has downplayed race as a factor and says the Republican's appeal in Philadelphia hinges on his "maverick" image.)

According to the Times, Obama has no plans to return to Pennsylvania before Election Day. If those plans change, it could be a sign that he's feeling McCain's pressure.

McHugh and the new GOP

I took part in last night's debate between Rep. John McHugh (R) and challenger Mike Oot (D), hosted by Mountain Lake PBS. (Broadcast scheduled for Oct. 30, 8pm).

I asked McHugh to comment on the future of the GOP, which took a drubbing in 2006 and faces the likelihood of more setbacks in November -- particularly here in New York state.

McHugh essentially passed on the question, suggesting that the picture would be clearer after November 4th.

He was careful to distance himself from President George Bush and spoke frequently about his independence.

However, the Congressman offered no new ideas for his party's future policies or directions.

Assuming he's re-elected (a strong likelihood) it will be interesting to see if he takes a more pro-active leadership role.

McHugh is one of the most senior members of his party and has spent nearly two decades in Washington.

Americans seem open to the more centrist brand of Republicanism that he represents. But it's open to question whether moderates of his stripe will fight to reshape their party.

Treadwell-Gillibrand debate live on web tonight

The belated debate season gets underway today for Congressional incumbents Kirsten Gillibrand (D) and John McHugh (R) and their challengers Mike Oot (D), and Sandy Treadwell (R).

Gillibrand and Treadwell face off in a mash-up debate tonight in Poughkeepsie that also includes two other congressional districts.

You can hear the Poughkeepsie Journal's live webcast beginning tonight at 6pm here:

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

McHugh and Oot also face off today in a debate sponsored by Mountain Lake PBS in Plattsburgh.
The full program won't air live until next week but you can hear excerpts tomorrow morning during the 8 O'clock Hour on NCPR.

McCain's challenge in a nutshell

With two weeks to go, John McCain has to accomplish two enormous tasks:

1. Hold all the half-dozen GOP battleground states (including Florida and Ohio) that are now basically Obama-McCain toss-ups.

2. Flip BOTH Colorado and Virginia from the Obama column back to the McCain column. One isn't enough. To win, McCain needs both. That means closing a 5-8% gap in two states.

Which means that McCain can't simply slog it out in the trenches. Ethical or no, robo-calls aren't going to cut it.

He needs a big national game-changer, something that pulls down Obama's numbers significantly across the board.

Is there an October surprise still lurking out there? If so, it's time for the GOP to pull the trigger.

Feuding in the big tent

Conservative reaction to Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama has been fierce.

Columnist Robert Novak opines this morning that Powell is "much more of a liberal in his ideology."

The headline for the column: "Powell was never much of a Republican."

Others on the right (Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan) have dismissed Powell's decision as a race-based move -- a case of one man of color supporting another.

But Powell's not the only Republican pariah.

Conservatives have excoriated other right-leaning commentators and activists (Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Buckley, Kathleen Parker, David Brooks and David Frum, to name a few) who raised doubts about the McCain-Palin ticket.

At the core of this feud is a defining rift between Republican moderates -- also known as "pragmatists" -- and more ideologically driven conservatives.

For a couple of decades, centrist Republicans have been on the receiving end, facing scorn and attacks from within their own party.

This year, at a time when the GOP needed all the unity it could get, hard-right conservatives once again mounted successful primary challenges against several incumbent Republican moderates.

Powell's criticism of his own party suggest that "his" wing of the GOP is no longer willing to play silent partner to the Gingrich-DeLay-Palin faction.

Here's what Powell had to say:

[T]he [Republican] party has moved even further to the right, and Governor Palin has indicated a further rightward shift. I would have difficulty with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, but that’s what we’d be looking at in a McCain administration.

I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, “Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.” Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian.

But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?

Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, “He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.” This is not the way we should be doing it in America...

Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourself in this way. And John McCain is as nondiscriminatory as anyone I know. But I’m troubled about the fact that, within the party, we have these kinds of expressions.

Saranac Lake's Trudeau riffs on Palin, small towns

Cartoonist and Saranac Lake native Garry Trudeau is riffing this week on Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's dislike for reporters and their questions.

In the strip, Zipper -- a college student -- is declining to answer his biology professor's "gotcha" questions. Why?

"Asking some random questions about cell theory isn't fair -- at least where I come from!"

Where is Zipper from?

"Places like Barnwell, Beaver Falls, Lake Placid, Middlebury, Cape May and Sayre...Each one smaller than the next. It's why I'm so real!"

The awesome power of rural voters

A new chart compiled by Bill Bishop and Tim Murphy captures brilliantly the lingering power of rural and exurban voters.

The chart looks at the 2004 presidential elections and shows that unified voting and massive turnout in rural communities can swamp more divided urban and suburban communities.

Read in full here:

http://www.dailyyonder.com/past-prologue-looking-2004-rural-urban-and-exurban-vote

Highlights:

In Ohio, the 29% of residents who live in small towns and exurbs racked up an astonishing 311,000 net Republican votes for George Bush. (That's the margin of Bush over Kerry.)

Urban communities -- which make up 70% of Ohio's population -- went Democratic, but by narrower margins, chipping in a net tally for John Kerry of only 182,000 votes.

In Virginia, Bush and Kerry effectively tied in urban communities (Bush eked out a 3,000 vote advantage).

But the Republican blew Kerry away in low population counties, racking up net vote advantages of more than 250,000.

In New York, the game played out in the opposite direction. The 15% of New Yorkers who live in rural and exurban communities gave a net advantage of 90,000 votes to Bush.

But they were overwhelmed by Democratic urban voters, who netted 1.4 million votes for Kerry.

Is past prologue? Will rural voters once again sweep aside urban-based Democrats in key states such as Colorado, Ohio, and Virginia?

We'll know in two weeks.

Struggling with the Ortloff story

NOTE: This blog entry includes material that some readers may find disturbing or offensive.

The memo issued by Federal prosecutors in an effort to keep former North Country Assemblyman Chris Ortloff behind bars while he awaits trial included some explicit details about his alleged attempts to arrange a sexual encounter with two pre-teen girls.

Various news organizations have offered their audiences greater or lesser amounts of detail from those public documents.

Some are anxious that Mr. Ortloff still hasn't yet told his side of the story. (NCPR, like other news organizations, is attempting to interview his attorney.)

Others feel that the material is simply too horrifying.

Editors at the Schenectady Daily Gazette ran an op-ed on Sunday explaining their reluctance to post public documents about the Ortloff case on their website.

Here's a descriptions of a discussion at the Gazette about whether or not to include the material.

This one was fairly brief, with editors who read the document agreeing that its level of detail crossed the line, particularly because children were involved. We kept the document off our Web page. We were concerned both by the explicitness of some of the passages, as well as some potentially identifying information about alleged real-life victims.

I've read the Federal document closely and I think it's a fair call. It's awful stuff.

Read the Gazette's full editorial here:

http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2008/oct/19/1019_judypatrick/

Trouble spreading for GOP?

First, Republicans lost the urban core. Then America's suburbs blue-shifted into the Democratic column.

Now the Washington Post is reporting on Democratic inroads into the "exurbs" -- those rural-like outer-ring bastions of conservatism that fueled the Bush revolution.

Here's a key passage from the article:

In 2004, Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry managed to narrowly win Fairfax County, the largest suburb in Northern Virginia, but Bush still carried fast-growing Prince William and Loudoun on his way to an eight-point victory. But over the next two years, [Democratic] Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and Sen. James Webb expanded the Democratic line outward, carrying the two exurban counties in winning their races.

If Obama and the Democrats can continue to expand that ring, they win - simple as that.

Unless, of course, the GOP finds a message that can once again make them competitive in the urban and suburban geography that they've largely conceded.

Read the full article here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/19/AR2008101901697.html?hpid=topnews

Powell weighs in on urban-rural clash

Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama today -- and as part of his praise for the Democrat he pointed out the Republican Party's small-town-vs.-big-city rhetoric.

[Barack Obama] is thinking about all villages have values, all towns have values, not just small towns have values.

For GOP, the "real" America is rural America

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has made a lot of her small-town roots. This week, the Republican veep nominee turned it up another notch, declaring that she was happy to visit what she called:

"...these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation."

Democrats fired back, with Democratic veep candidate Joe Biden denouncing what he called "this policy of division."

"We are one nation, under God, indivisible. We are all patriotic. We all love our country in every part of this country. And I'm tired. I am tired, tired, tired, tired of the implications about patriotism.”

The moment might be written off as another "gotcha" exchange on the campaign trail, except for the fact that Republicans themselves are declaring their geographic preferences.

Speaking this week on CNN, McCain adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer dismissed Virginia's northern counties as less real and authentic than the state's southern, rural and exurban counties.

"The Democrats have just come in from the District of Columbia and moved into northern Virginia," she said. "And that's what you see there."

"But the rest of the state -- real Virginia, if you will -- I think will be very responsive to Senator McCain's message."

Pfotenhauer went on to identify rural parts of other states as key Republican constituencies -- suggesting that they, too, are more legitimately American.

"You've got places in other states like northern Winsconsnin, the Iron Range of Minnesota, south central and southeastern Pennsylvania, the St. Louis suburbs, and the rural area of Missouri, that are very responsive to our message."

CNN's interviewer offered Pfotenhauer a chance to "climb back off the ledge," asking, "Nancy, did you say the 'real' Virginia?" Her response:

"Real Virginia, I take to be this part of the state that is more Southern in nature, if you will. Northern Virginia is really metro DC."

Part of this alienation is understandable. From Long Island to the northern Virginia suburbs, Republicans have been losing suburban and urban voters for a decade.

The GOP hasn't yet found a formula to recover that lost appeal. But it seems unlikely that this kind of rhetoric will help.

As America's urban majority grows in number, Republicans run the risk of representing a dwindling minority of white, rural voters.

Whether they're "real" or not, those small-town folks aren't a big enough base to win national elections.

Esquire magazine weighs in on Treadwell-Gillibrand

The much-touted race between Republican Sandy Treadwell and Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand for the 20th CD House Seat has mostly dropped off the national radar screen.

But Esquire magazine saw fit to weigh in on the race, giving a brief, one line endorsement.

They chose...Gillibrand.

Here's their conclusion:

More or less a libertarian, Gillibrand joined the Blue Dogs because of their stance against deficit spending but, unlike them, is a strict opponent of the Iraq war.

A close presidential race down the stretch?

Conservative-leaning blogger Matt Drudge pulled out the red ink and the big headlines this morning to highlight a national poll that puts John McCain within 2% (Gallup) of Barack Obama.

Is the race really that close?

Bluntly, no. And the reason is simple: Americans don't elect their presidents by a popular vote.

We use a system of Electoral College votes, with most states giving their EC tally to one or the other candidate on a winner-take-all basis.

Which means that McCain is in big trouble.

In order to win enough EC votes, McCain has to capture all the battleground states, from Nevada in the West to Ohio or Pennsylvania in the East.

But even as the national polls have tightened somewhat (most pollsters put Obama ahead by 5-6%), the Democrat has actually solidified or extended his lead in many of the must-win states.

Here are McCain's problem-states, using poll numbers from RealClearPolitics.com:

Colorado - Obama +5.8%
Florida - Obama +4.8%
Missouri - Obama +2.5%
Nevada - Obama +3%
North Carolina - Obama +1.2%
Ohio - Obama +2.3%
Virginia - Obama +8.1%

I think the Republicans will push hard enough before election day to recapture Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio.

But Colorado, Florida, and Virginia appear to be slipping away for McCain. And if he loses any one of those, the game is up.

Treadwell spends $4.4 million of his own money

The race for the 20th Congressional district was always slated to be costly. But who would have predicted that Essex County Republican Sandy Treadwell would shell out this much of his own cash?

According to reports published this morning, Treadwell has spent upwards of $4 million from his personal fortune, trying to unseat Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand.

He also raised about $1 million from individual donors.

Gillibrand and Treadwell both have plenty of money going into the final stretch: Her filing reports show roughly $1.5 million cash-on-hand. Treadwell's reports show about $855,000 still in the war chest.

Look for a heavy final barrage of TV ads in the final week -- and maybe some excitement triggered by the head-to-head debates.

McCain faces two typically Democratic problems

John McCain was much, much stronger in last night's debate -- attacking Barack Obama whenever opportunities arose. But the cracks and the strain were visible and it's hard to argue that he landed a knockout punch.

Meanwhile, McCain faces two nasty headwinds, strategic problems that usually plague Democratic presidential candidates.

1. The Image Problem.

Democrats are typically the stiff ones, the awkward ones. Think Michael Dukakis in the tank helmet or John Kerry saluting at the Democratic National Convention.

But this year, John McCain is the one who suffers from a pantheon of visual and verbal tics that diffuse his message.

The "my friends"-style rhetorical phrases, the tongue-bites, the blinking, the nervous grins -- Republicans haven't had such an awkward performer since Richard Nixon.

In other contexts, Barack Obama's unflappable style might look cold or elitist. But this year, he just looks steadier and more at ease. One might almost say more Presidential.

This kind of thing drives wonks like me crazy.

We want voters to think about issues, not TV style points. But the reality is that humans are influenced in their decisions by a wide array of subtle visual clues.

2. Money.

In last night's debate, John McCain tried to make Barack Obama's vast money-advantage a campaign issue.

But the fact is that Republicans usually enter presidential campaigns with a massive money advantage. An avalanche of GOP cash helped to bury Al Gore and John Kerry.

Last night's debate was freighted with importance in part because McCain doesn't have a war chest big enough to flood the airwaves with campaign ads in the final weeks.

On the contrary. The Obama campaign is reportedly trying to buy 1/2 hour TV blocks on all the major networks for a massive P-R blitz.

Conclusion? John McCain's road to the White House is a lot harder and steeper today than it was yesterday.

Gillibrand and big tobacco

The Albany Times-Union is reporting this week on Democratic Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand's ties to tobacco company Phillip Morris.

As an attorney, Gillibrand represented the firm for five years as the company fought civil and criminal legal battles against its critics.

According to the T-U, those connections continue to pay dividends for Gillibrand:

Today, the company and its executives continue to count her as a friend, donating at least $23,200 to her current campaign, public records show.

The revelations were first reported in a conservative on-line blog.

Other Democrats, including Rep. Mike McNulty (D-Green Island), said they would be uncomfortable taking tobacco contributions.

In contrast, her neighbor, Congressman Michael McNulty, D-Green Island, received just one $500 check from the company during his 20-year career. He sent the money back.

"I didn't want to take money from a tobacco company,'' McNulty said.

But the Times-Union also reports that Gillibrand voted against big tobacco on every piece of legislation that she's faced.

Gillibrand "voted in favor of all three bills pushed by anti-tobacco lobbyists and passed by the House of Representatives."

Gillibrand receives high marks from anti-tobacco activists.

Read the full write-up here:

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=729940

Ortloff allegations grow more troubling

The Albany Times-Union and the Plattsburgh Press-Republican have mined a bail-hearing memo compiled by Federal prosecutors.

The allegations are so disturbing that the P-R had to place a reader warning on its front page. The T-U has posted long excerpts of the Federal allegations here:

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=729873

Below are the key revelations from the last 24 hours. First a couple of caveats:

1. Chris Ortloff is innocent until proven guilty. 2. So far, several key facts have been misreported (and then promptly corrected) by various news organizations.

Our understanding of this case may well change.

Here's what we know so far:

1. Former Assemblyman Chris Ortloff began communicating over the internet with an undercover State Police officer in June. He allegedly thought he was emailing with a parent willing to arrange a sexual tryst with two pre-teen girls.

2. Ortloff allegedly met with this undercover officer on the day of his arrest. They allegedly looked at child pornography together. During their conversation, Ortloff is quoted as telling the cop that he had previous sexual encounters with underaged girls.

3. In transcripts provided by State Police, Ortloff allegedly acknowledged that his actions were criminal, but he denied that they were immoral.

I always ask myself when I am doing something new...Is this right or wrong? Do I have a moral problem with this? And honestly I don't have a moral problem with this because I started when I was young and you started when you were young and here we are. It didn't ruin us, or maybe it did (laugh)...

4. Ortloff allegedly spoke at length about his sexual plans for the upcoming sexual encounter. "I want to teach them," he reportedly said. "I want them to be very well balanced."

5. Ortloff allegedly took a number of actions to avoid being caught and told the undercover officer that he feared discovery. "[W]e dont want to leave a trail for people with bad intent to do us harm," he allegedly wrote in an email.

6. According to the T-U, Ortloff was "buck naked" when he was apprehended in a Colonie hotel room. He allegedly had a number of sexual toys in his possession, which he planned to give to the girls for "homework."

7. On Wednesday, Ortloff resigned from the state Parole Board, a post that had carried a $100,000 salary.

8. Ortloff remains behind bars and Federal prosecutors are hoping to deny his release on bail pending trial.

Telling Chris Ortloff's story

Reaction to the Chris Ortloff revelation has been intense: curiosity, horror, deep regret, and shock.

Traffic to NCPR's website doubled.

Some NCPR listeners have reacted with anger to our coverage of allegations that the former North Country Assemblyman attempted to stage a sexual encounter with two young girls.

Understandably. Chris Ortloff is a local, a friend to many, a man deeply rooted in the North Country.

I've known him personally for ten years.

Our relationship is largely professional: politician to journalist. But ours is a small-town culture. Chris Ortloff and I have eaten together, drank together.

We share a fascination with and a love for politics. He can read the tea leaves of an election as well as anyone I've ever met.

And it's important to remember that Ortloff is innocent until proven guilty. We can still hope that some new revelation will exonerate him, or at least mitigate the viciousness of his alleged crime.

Behind that hope, however, lurks the painful bafflement, the dismaying questions:

Why do men self-destruct like this? How can they rationalize their public identities with their private corruption?

What temptation would be powerful enough to risk the well-being of their wives, their children?

What could lead a man to victimize (or attempt to victimize) children in such an apparently calculated fashion?

Journalism can't answer these questions. We can only report the facts of the case as clearly and factually as possible.

But if reporters write the first draft of history, it's also our responsibility to sketch the first portraits of human nature, with all its shades of good and evil.

In the days ahead, we'll work to do that as responsibly and fairly as we can.

Clinton "zeroes" out chances of another White House bid

Here's the AP's treatment, quoting a Clinton appearance on the Fox program "Fox & Friends."

The chance of her running again for President:

"Oh, probably zero," she said. "I'm not seeking any other position than to be the best senator from New York that I can be."

Being nominated to the Supreme Court?

"Zero," Clinton said. "I have no interest in doing that."

Running for president again?

"Probably close to zero," she said. "There's an old saying: Bloom where you're planted."

Conservatives launch McCain deathwatch

Conservatives were never deeply comfortable with John McCain as their standard-bearer. As his campaign falters, their rhetoric has turned fiercely hostile.

Most still prefer a McCain-Palin victory over an Obama-Biden administration, but the right-of-center backlash certainly isn't the tone the GOP wanted going into the final weeks of the election.

Oddly, a lot of the vitriol seems to be centering on Palin -- first the darling and now the butt of many conservatives.

Here's a sampling:

William Kristol, of the Weekly Standard and a Fox News regular, called the McCain campaign "pathetic" and described their efforts as political "malpractice."

David Brooks, the NYTimes conservative columnist, called Sarah Palin a "fatal cancer to the Republican party."

Michelle Laxalt, GOP consultant, blasted McCain's campaign ("the good old boys") for bringing "a young governor into the national scene and tossing her into the deep end five weeks before November."

According to Laxalt, speaking with Larry King on CNN, Palin "is essentially being treated like a secretary."

She went on to call Palin "young" and "naive," and said, "I think they should be ashamed of themselves."

Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker, speaking of Palin, put it this way: "My cringe reflex is exhausted. "

More?

Conservative David Frum opined that Palin Sarah Palin "cannot speak three coherent consecutive words about finance or economics..."

Even conservative actor Dennis Hopper -- a long-time vocal Bush supporter -- is piling on.

"I voted for Bush, father and son, but this time I'll vote for Obama. I pray God, Barack Obama is elected."

And here's Christopher Hitchens, the former liberal and prominent anti-terror hawk:

It therefore seems to me that the Republican Party has invited not just defeat but discredit this year, and that both its nominees for the highest offices in the land should be decisively repudiated, along with any senators, congressmen, and governors who endorse them.

Some conservatives are simply furious with McCain for not attacking Barack Obama hard enough, using language that borders on the unacceptable.

Here's columnist and former GOP presidential candidate Pat Buchanan:

McCain seems ambivalent to the point of being bipolar on whether he wants to take responsibility for peeling the hide off Barack Obama.

With all of the other hurdles McCain faces over these final weeks, this kind of sidebar criticism can be crippling, adding credence to attacks being hurled by the Democrats.

Ortloff accused of soliciting child sex

This story is moving quickly today. Here's the latest from the New York Post:

A former assemblyman and current parole-board member was busted last night on child-pornography and soliciting charges, officials said.

Chris Ortloff, 61, was arrested in a Plattsburgh-area motel room in a State Police sting at about 5 p.m.

According to the newspaper, Ortloff was attempting to arrange a date via the internet with a person he believed was underage.

Sources told the Post that Ortloff "had child porn and what was described
as 'sex paraphernalia' in his possession."

Ortloff, 61, served in the legislature for twenty years. He works currently as a member of the State Parole Board. He was appointed by former Governor George Pataki to a term that expires in 2012.

He's married with two sons.

Apparently, Ortloff's arrest came as part of a police sting. His home and business were searched by state police.

The Parole Board has announced that it will release a statement later today.

Ortloff arrested

Two North Country news organizations are reporting that former Assemblyman Chris Ortloff has been arrested in Albany.

A Federal probe is apparently underway, but no details have been released. Some kind of court hearing is expected today in Albany.

Here's what NCPR has been able to learn so far:

ORTLOFF ARRESTED SCRIPT

Two news organizations are reporting this morning that former North Country Assemblyman Chris Ortloff has been arrested in Albany and faces a probe by Federal prosecutors.

WPTZ – a television news station – cited information from Assistant US Attorney Thomas Spina (SPEE-na).

Spina said that Ortloff was being held in Albany County Jail and will appear in Federal Court today.

He wouldn’t disclose the charges.

According to WPTZ, New York state police searched Ortloff’s home in Plattsburgh last night.

The Plattsburgh Press-Republican is also reporting this morning that investigators visited a business in Lake Placid and apparently seized a computer.

Neither news organization was able to cite a reason for Ortloff’s arrest, or for the Federal probe.

Ortloff began his career in the North Country as a broadcaster and master of ceremonies for the Lake Placid Winter Olympics.

He later served as a Republican Assemblyman from Plattsburgh for twenty years and chaired the Clinton County GOP.

Before leaving office, Governor George Pataki appointed Ortloff to a paid position on the State Board of Parole – a term that expires in 2012.

We’ll have more on this story as information becomes available.

### ### ### ### ###

Voting for "Osama" in Upstate New York

The Rensselaer County legislature is trying to figure out why absentee ballots were sent to voters in five towns with the Democratic presidential candidate named as "Barack Osama."

Here's the money quote from the Albany Times-Union write-up:

"We need to review the procedures to make sure there are better checks and balances,'' said Minority Leader Virginia O'Brien, D-East Greenbush.

O'Brien said she would speak to Legislature Chairman Neil Kelleher, R-Troy, about undertaking a substantial review of the incident.

"It's unfortunate that it happened. The Obama campaign was certainly very understanding,'' said O'Brien, who spoke at an Obama rally Saturday morning in Albany.

Another Sunday brings silence on Gillibrand-Treadwell

Scanning the region's newspapers, I find almost nothing on this Sunday morning about the Treadwell-Gillibrand race.

The 20th CD battle has been expensive, but all the dollars spent have generated very little heat.

The lack of excitement would seem to be an advantage for incumbent Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, but without poll numbers it's hard to know.

Republican challenger Sandy Treadwell is running in a district with a huge GOP advantage in terms of voter enrollment.

Could he be slowly building a "silent majority" for a November surprise?

What's certain is that Gillibrand and her party's leaders are taking Treadwell seriously.

I received a glossy mailing, paid for by the Democratic Party, last week supporting her bid for a second term.

The two are preparing to square off in a series of three debates over the next couple of weeks. Maybe the final days of the campaign will produce some drama...

Who is legitimate?

The last couple of weeks, Republicans have raised one big question about Barack Obama: Who is he?

Governor Sarah Palin has pushed the point, saying bluntly that the Democratic presidential candidate has palled around with terrorists.

The pushback has been fierce, with some civil rights leaders accusing the Republican ticket of "playing with fire."

It's perfectly appropriate, of course, to ask questions about Obama's experience and his plans for America, should he win office.

But this looks more like tribal politics. and Americans should reject it forcefully.

Which isn't to say that Obama is the better candidate, or should win.

Perhaps McCain is more qualified, or has better ideas for leading the nation -- or seems more sympathetic to the country's pressing needs.

But whenever one politician tries to delegitimize another, it should raise alarms.

It's one thing to out-argue, or out-think. But to suggest that another candidate is somehow dangerous or suspect -- that's simple demagoguery.

When participants at Republican rallies accuse Obama of "treason," or pray for a "Christian" victory over the Democrat, or accuse him of being a terrorist, McCain and Palin had a choice.

They could repudiate that kind of rhetoric, in blunt terms; or they could listen and nod, suggesting a silent complicity. Too often, they chose the latter course.

Whether he likes it or not, John McCain is fighting for the presidency at a historic time.

First, America faces a monumental crisis, economically and in our civic institutions. We simply cannot tolerate more divisiveness.

Second, McCain faces the first African American candidate with a significant chance of winning the White House.

In a society where race has divided us for centuries -- and where many of the great black leaders have been murdered -- that raises the bar dramatically.

In the end, Senator McCain -- an honorable man, who has served his country for decades -- should keep one thought in mind.

If he and his proxies continue their attempts to disqualify Barack Obama, he may find his own legitimacy in tatters.

Voter fraud or voter suppression - an online discussion

A debate has erupted in the blogosphere -- and on the campaign trail -- over Democratic efforts to register and mobilize a vast new army of voters.

The ACORN group, which works nationally to bring low-income and homeless people to the polls, faces growing criticism and a criminal probe in Nevada.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hvb0LfZQ5mY-X8PYSvYxTe3QGgdgD93LVDS80

There are also reports of voting irregularities popping up from watchdog groups on-line.

http://www.texaswatchdog.org/2008/10/dead-voters-still-registered-in-harris-county/

The issue is drawing attention from John McCain, Sarah Palin -- and from House Minority leader John Boehner.

The latest allegations of voter registration fraud by ACORN, Boehner said in a statement, are further evidence that this group cannot be trusted with another dollar of the taxpayers’ money.

The New York Times reported recently on new voter disqualification efforts nationwide -- which appear to be illegal.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/us/politics/09voting.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Progressives are outraged over what they describe as efforts to disenfranchise eligible voters and suppress the Democratic turnout.

Here's a treatment by The American Prospect:

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_republican_war_on_voting

Ultimately, impartial assessments of voter-registration drives have generally found very little evidence of systemic voter fraud.

And broadly speaking, the surge in new voters appears to legitimately favor Barack Obama.

Here's the AP's summary:

The surge in new voters that helped propel Barack Obama to his party's presidential nomination is carrying over to the general election — 9 million newly registered voters who are overwhelmingly Democratic and could add up to a big victory on Election Day.

Brooks laments urban-rural "class warfare"

Here's the money quote from David Brooks' latest New York Times essay:

[O]ver the past few decades, the Republican Party has driven away people who live in cities, in highly educated regions and on the coasts. This expulsion has had many causes. But the big one is this: Republican political tacticians decided to mobilize their coalition with a form of social class warfare.

The political implications, Brooks argues, are increasingly apparent:

Republicans have alienated the highly educated regions — Silicon Valley, northern Virginia, the suburbs outside of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Raleigh-Durham. The West Coast and the Northeast are mostly gone.

The Republicans have alienated whole professions. Lawyers now donate to the Democratic Party over the Republican Party at 4-to-1 rates. With doctors, it’s 2-to-1. With tech executives, it’s 5-to-1. With investment bankers, it’s 2-to-1. It took talent for Republicans to lose the banking community.

Read the entire column here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/opinion/10brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

McCain and the Hispanic vote

It's not good. Here's the money quote from this morning's Politico analysis

"I feel bad for McCain," said Sam Rodriguez, the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and a prominent supporter of George W. Bush in 2004, who is neutral this year. "We find ourselves between the proverbial rock and the hard place. We really like John McCain. We really don't like the Republican Party."

This is the trend-line that could tip Colorado and Nevada into the "D" column -- just as it's already tipped California and New Mexico.

Read the whole article here:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14444.html

The "exurban" fight for Colorado's EC votes

Timothy Egan has an interesting essay up on the NYTimes website about the battle for Colorado. There, he says, the rural-exurban battleground is shifting in ways that are Dangerous for McCain.

McCain won't win that part of the country, Egan writes, "But if Obama gets 40 percent – which is what Democrats expect based on the surge of newly registered voters and independents who are following Jan Martin’s path – he will win this state, and the election.

Read the entire essay here:

http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/my-own-private-focus-group/

Charting a future for a crippled GOP

Let's assume, for the moment, the worst for the Republican Party. (Which I view as one of the five or six most important civic institutions in America.)

It's November 5th. Barack Obama -- a man described by his enemies as the most liberal man in the Senate -- is president-elect.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, from dreaded San Francisco, presides over a Democratic majority of nearly a hundred seats.

Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid has captured a filibuster-proof sixty-vote majority in the U.S. Senate.

All three outcomes, while far from certain, have entered the realm of the plausible. After a generation of dominance, the GOP finds itself utterly marginalized.

The question on that morning will be, what next? How do Republicans rebuild?

Mainstream journalists will likely compare the event to the 1994 Republican Revolution -- suggesting that the GOP can simply follow the Democratic model to fashion a resurgence.

But the truth is that even at their peak Republicans managed only a narrow majority in both houses of Congress.

Democrats will have achieved a level of supremacy not seen for decades in American politics.

Which means that Republicans have a far bigger job ahead. And their cautionary example should be Britain's Conservatives.

When Labor finally swept aside the Thatcher Tories, in 1997, they ushered in an era of irrelevance for Conservatives that has continued for eleven long years.

To avoid that fate, America's conservatives will be forced to consider some of the basic assumptions of their movement. These include:

1. A cultural loyalty to traditional, rural values -- a tough sell in America's increasingly urban culture.

2. A half-hearted interest in appealing to racial and ethnic groups. As the U.S. emerges as a white-minority society, the GOP has some soul searching to do.

3. A focus on sexual and bedroom issues, ranging from opposition to homosexual marriage to discomfort with sex education and fierce hostility to abortion. (Yes, these issues matter - but should they be a chief preoccupation of our politicians?)

4. A relative disinterest in the environment. "Drill-baby-drill" might work with the Republican base, but polls show that a growing numbers of Americans want to live and vote green. It's an economic issue, but it's also a moral one.

5. Moderates are quislings. Newt Gingrich reserved his angriest rhetoric for centrists within his own party. Tom DeLay was known as the Hammer for the way he treated his own rank-and-file members. But maybe those Rockefeller Republicans have something to teach their party?

Maybe in the new America and the new GOP, the Patakis and the Schwarzeneggers have a brighter future than the ideological firebrands?

The urban-rural war for Pennsylvania's EC votes

Salon has a nice write-up of the ground game in Pennsylvania, making it clear why Sarah Palin matters in this race.

The way Democrats typically win statewide elections in Pennsylvania is pretty simple to describe, even if it’s not always easy to pull off:

Rack up a big margin in Philadelphia, a smaller margin in Pittsburgh and the Philly suburbs, win an even smaller margin near Scranton, and hold on for dear life when the votes come in from the rural parts of the state, which James Carville once described as "Alabama in between."

Four years ago, John Kerry was beating George W. Bush by 412,000 votes after ballots were counted in Philadelphia. He went on to win the state by only 144,000, or about 2.5 percent of the 5.8 million votes cast.

Read the full article here:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/10/09/philly/

Sarah Palin and the urban backlash

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has some political assets, and some political liabilities.

For a small but important slice of American voters -- say 25-30% -- her assets seem huge. She's folksy, authentic, a member of their own tribe.

In my book a couple of years ago, I called her small-town base "the Homeland." Pundits these days are simply calling it "Palinland."

But polls suggest that a growing number of Americans, more than half already, are more concerned with her political liabilities.

Palin lacks experience and occasionally seems incapable of answering fairly straightforward questions. (What newspapers do you read? What Supreme Court rulings haven't you liked?)

But a small slice of the electorate (maybe 20-25%, I'm guessing here) also seems distinctly put-off by Palin's "rural" affect.

Her Fargo-style accent, her "you betchas" and her winks. It seems that what sells in Peoria doesn't have the same appeal inside the urban beltway.

"If you, out of nowhere, are going to grab a woman out of the woods and make her your vice presidential candidate," opined Daily Show host Jon Stewart, "what can I do?"

Sarah Palin is like Jodie Foster in the movie 'Nell.' They just found her, and she was speaking her own special language.

Ouch. The fact is that Palin talks a lot like a couple of people in my own family.

But Stewart's not alone.

New York Times columnist David Brooks, as urban a conservative as you can find, lamented what he describes as Palin's anti-intellectualism, long a code for bumpkinism.

Sarah Palin represents a fatal cancer on the Republican Party...there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices.

The contrast between Palin's world of Joe Sixpacks and America's urban voters feels razor sharp this election cycle -- in part because urbanites are angry.

To them, she looks like the outsider, the book-burner, the homophobe, the bumpkin.

But it's also true that Palin herself is contributing to the divide.

Her stump speech is an openly us-against-them rallying of an embattled faithful -- read, small town "normal" folks -- with Barack Obama cast as the dangerous interloper.

“This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America,” she said, of the Democratic candidate.

The problem long-term for Republicans -- especially Republicans who would use Palin-like populist figures to rally their crucial rural base -- is that Barack Obama is the future.

I don't mean him individually. I mean people like him.

For something like 75% of Americans, the multicultural, multi-racial, urban experience IS the American experience.

And the trend is accelerating. By mid-century, we're almost certain to be a white-minority nation, with 90% of voters living in cities and suburbs.

That's a problem the GOP has to solve.

When Palin says Obama doesn't see America in a normal or patriotic way, she may be channeling the fears of one community -- but she's also delivering a nasty kick to the hopes and aspirations of another (much larger) community.

All of which doesn't mean that Republicans can't nominate rural-friendly candidates.

But it does mean that they might consider choosing candidates who have more appeal across the cultural battle line.

How McCain wins, Part 2

I noted in my last post that McCain has to win eight key states to win the presidency.

Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Nevada, Indiana, and Missouri.

The Republican is currently trailing in five of those states, according to recent polls.

Now Politico.com is reporting some troubling news for McCain:

He's being outspent in every single state, sometimes by nearly 10-to-1 margins.

In Florida, Barack Obama is spending three dollars for every one spent by McCain.

In North Carolina, the Democrat spent $1.2 million on TV advertising during the measured period.

McCain? $148,000.

Spending by outside groups could make up some of the gap for McCain, but those numbers stink.

One other bit of dire news for McCain: He spent a ton of scarce cash on states that now look out of reach - including $1.2 million in Michigan.

How McCain wins

Earlier this morning I posted on McCain's narrowing path to the White House. Here's one plausible scenario for a Republican win:

McCain holds onto Florida, Indiana, Missouri and North Carolina. In some of these states, he trails by a few points -- but these are voters who have a tradition of swinging to the GOP in the final days of a presidential race.

So that's the "easy" part.

The Republican then has to win Colorado and Nevada - victories that will require a mini-surge in the West. A bit more challenging, but doable.

Finally, McCain has to capture both Ohio and Virginia, bringing him to a squeaky-narrow 279 Electoral College Vote victory.

In football terms, John McCain has to run the field, picking off eight very tough states.

How tough? In five of those must-win states, Obama currently leads by 3-5%.

In two others (Missouri and North Carolina) it's a dead tie.

Only in Indiana does McCain hold a slender, 2.5% advantage.

By contrast, Barack Obama only needs to pick off one -- or at most two -- of the battleground states to win the Presidency.

Which means that in the final days, if Obama starts to sag in one of the battlegrounds, he can simply shift his resources to lock in a different state.

McCain doesn't have that luxury.

He and Sarah Palin have to swing the national mood far enough by November 4th that they can go eight-for-eight.

Have a different scenario in mind? Leave a comment...

McCain's gauntlet

This race isn't nearly as close as it looks.

According to Pollster.com -- one of the most respected poll compilers -- Democrat Barack Obama holds a fairly narrow 6% national lead.

That fact alone gives Republican John McCain a tough assignment in the closing weeks. But his road to the White House is made tougher by five factors.

1. The economy. Republicans have said openly (for reasons that I don't quite understand) that they can't compete on economic issues. They pushed hard to change the subject. The world economy didn't cooperate. McCain has to figure out how to fight his way back to parity on this issue.

2. President Bush. There's been a lot of talk about George Bush's legacy. John McCain is living it. Bush's approval numbers are in the toilet and that has rubbed off on McCain. The joke going around is that Bush beat McCain in 2000 and he may just beat him again in 2008.


3. Money. Obama has more. Which means that McCain can't use TV ads to redefine the debate in the final weeks. Even if conservatives unleash a Swiftboat-style attack on Obama, he should be able to counter-message effectively.

4. The battleground. National polls matter, but state-by-state polls matter more. McCain has already forfeited Michigan. Rasmussen reports this morning that Obama is up by double digits in Wisconsin. Pennsylvania now looks solid for Obama. McCain's opportunities are dwindling.

5. The clock. John McCain is nearly out of time. As Politico reported this week, he's been taking weekends off, even in these closing weeks. If he sticks to that schedule, he'll have 19 campaigning days (including today) before November 4th.

In a blog later today, I'll opine about the narrow road that McCain might follow to a win.

My take on the debate? Tie goes to Obama

I watched the debate at the Rusty Nail, a no-nonsense joint in Saranac Lake.

My first take-away was that every drinker in the bar - including one very serious drinker - was watching intently.

What does that say about this election, when a Tuesday night debate takes top billing at the Rusty Nail. People are dialed in.

My second take-away? It was a tie. The victory on points could go to either side, depending on your partisan leanings.

Unfortunately for McCain, a tie probably goes to Obama. Obama owns the momentum currently and I saw nothing tonight that would change that.

John McCain threatened to take the gloves off and I didn't see that happen. Some cross words were spoken.

Ultimately, it was pretty dull. Which Obama has to love.

Think I missed something? Leave a comment.

Now for some fine point stuff:

McCain has a very 19th century debating style. Formal postures, zingers, repeats phrases like "My friends."

Obama is more post-Clinton, a kind of practiced naturalism. His speaking is stiff, professorial at times, but his body language is relaxed -- more dinner party than soapbox.

On the issues, I felt like there was zero new ground covered here. Pretty similar talking points and narratives.

Weakest moments:

Obama talking about Russia and the crisis in Georgia - he sounded muddled, as if rifling through cue cards in his mind.

McCain talking about healthcare. His plan is complicated -- and he hasn't found a way to talk about it yet.

Blurring the line in the Treadwell-Gillibrand race

The National Rifle Association is endorsing Democratic Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand in the 20th congressional district race.

The NRA's praise for Gillibrand drew this response from challenger Sandy Treadwell, the Essex County Republican:

Kirsten Gillibrand and I obviously don’t agree on much, but I am glad that after failing to even answer the NRA survey in 2006 she submitted it this year and is now 100 percent with the NRA. I congratulate her for being a staunch ally of President Bush and Vice President Cheney on this issue, learning the importance of gun ownership to upstate New Yorkers, and obtaining the NRA’s endorsement.

It's a tough bit of political gymnastics for Treadwell, who also received a high rating from the NRA.

He seems to want to tar Gillibrand for her association with an unpopular president and vice-president, who happen to be the leaders of Treadwell's GOP.

Gillibrand's response to the NRA endorsement:

As a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, it is a privilege to have the endorsement of the NRA and the support of Upstate New York’s gun owners and hunters.

The trick for Treadwell throughout this race has been finding issues and talking points that separate him sharply from Gillibrand.

That's what challengers have to do -- convince voters to do something different.

But in this race both candidates are pro-choice; they both opposed the Wall Street bailout; both describe themselves as centrists; and now both are favored by the NRA.

And the lines just get fuzzier.

In an interview with the Albany Times-Union, Treadwell talked passionately about "the greatest man he ever met" and "my hero."

Ronald Reagan? Nelson Rockefeller?

Nope - Martin Luther King Jr.

"His other hero," writes the T-U's Irene Jay Liu, was "Democratic President John F. Kennedy."

Centrism is well and good, but it's unclear whether this kind of post-partisanship is giving voters reason enough to change horses.

The bottom line? Without any kind of public polling, no one really knows how close this race remains - less than a month before the election.

Paterson signs up for another term

Governor David Paterson chose an interesting venue to make formal his interest in a second term. Interviewed by the liberal HuffingtonPost on-line newsletter, Paterson said the following:

I'd like to run for reelection and serve as governor as a full term, have an actual transition period and a real inauguration.

I see this as an immense challenge, and one that most people think is insurmountable with the number of people leaving New York state.

And if in any way it would have been viewed that I did something to ameliorate the problems...and brought people back, I would think that would be a satisfaction that I carried with me for the rest of my life.

For McCain, a make-or-break debate

The Palin-Biden debate drew huge television audiences, but in many ways tonight's town-hall style debate (you can listen on NCPR at 9pm) has far more potential for drama.

John McCain has very few opportunities to turn this race around. Poll numbers are grim for the Republican.

The latest surveys suggest that he's flat-out losing Florida and Virginia. If those trends hold, the game's over.

The Republican absolutely needs both of those states to win.

Which means that McCain needs to force a big moment tonight. He's already begun a new onslaught on Barack Obama's character, hoping to convince Americans that the Democrat is untested and, well, a little scary.

It's a dangerous strategy.

McCain himself has already changed gears so many times (promising a clean, high-road campaign, for example, then going "street") that he runs the risk of sounding hysterical.

There's also the risk of tipping over into racially tinged language. The Associated Press has already dinged Sarah Palin for scuffing that line.

And when you try to force big, game-changing moments at debates, it's possible to flop hard.

But theoretically the town-hall style format is a good one for McCain. And playing it safe just doesn't seem to be an option anymore.

So...tune in tonight at 9pm and send your comments to let me know if you think the debate lived up to the hype...

Dems winning the registration fight

As the campaigns slouch into mid-October, one factor is emerging that could shake up the entire race: voter registration.

Everyone talks about the damaged Republican brand and possible GOP-voter apathy. John McCain seems to have solidified his base nicely with the Sarah Palin veep pick.

But still looming is the massive effort to recruit and register new Democrats. This line jumped out at me from a Washington Post story this weekend:

Recent polls showed Obama forging a clear lead in [Pennsylvania], and Obama advisers think they will benefit from the surge in Democratic registration there this year. There are now about 1.1 million more Democrats registered in the state than Republicans.

Even when you guess that most of those newcomers won't actually vote -- maybe the vast majority won't actually vote -- the impact is potentially huge.

When you look at below-the-fold details like this one, you see how much grassroots rebuilding the Republican Party has ahead.

The good news for the GOP is that the Democrats were in a similar spot just a few short years ago. When the pendulum swings, it can swing fast.

Treadwell to announce GOP support in Essex County

Republican challenger Sandy Treadwell, who has deep roots in Essex County, says he'll draw a fresh round of endorsements on Monday.

Here's a statement released today:

A group of 19 Essex County supervisors and various elected officials will hold a press conference on Monday, October 6, 2008, at 11 a.m. (after the county supervisors’ meeting) in Elizabethtown to announce their support for Sandy Treadwell, the Republican, Independence and Conservative Party candidate in the 20^th Congressional District.

GOP runs against the issues and out of steam

One of the more compelling aspects of the 2008 campaign has been the Republican Party's up-front assertion that issues don't (or shouldn't) matter.

"This election is not about issues," declared McCain campaign chairman Rick Davis. "This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."

This theme resurfaced again today as Republicans struggled to push the economic crisis aside as a campaign issue.

Here's a telling passage from a Politico.com report today.

"We need to get it back to the middle pages of the Wall Street Journal instead of on the front page of every paper every day," Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt, a host here, said of the economic crisis.

This view of politics -- call it Rovian civics -- has done wonders for the GOP. Personalities and images are powerful things.

Earlier in the campaign, voters seemed to identify more with McCain even when they agreed with Obama on things like the war, healthcare, and the economy.

Broad ideological themes, small-government, tax cuts, family values, etc., seemed to trump the devil-in-the-details elements of policy.

But could it be that the GOP has reached the point where they'll have to wade back into thorny debates over governance?

The voters seem to be saying Yes.

Republicans face the likelihood of a serious drubbing in November, in congressional and gubernatorial races, if not in the presidential contest.

It's likely that the McCain camp will give the Rove Method one last try, launching a fresh round of personal attack ads in the final weeks.

If that fails, the GOP will have to craft a new political agenda that wins voter-approval on its merits. That process will be painful -- but not as painful as losing elections.

Gillibrand again votes no on Wall Street bailout; yes from McHugh

A few moments ago, North Country congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand repeated her No vote on the $700 billion bailout.

The Democrat was one of only three New York representatives (all Democrats, interestingly enough) to reject the plan.

Republican John McHugh, from Pierrepont, and Democrat Mike Arcuri from the Mohawk Valley voted Yes on the package.

Gillibrand was joined by Democrats Maurice Hinchey and Jose Serrano.

Her stance -- while apparently popular with most constituents -- has drawn at least some implied criticism.

The Plattsburgh Press-Republican published a lead editorial this morning questioning the political motives of naysayers.

This is not to say that every member who voted against the bailout did so only to get re-elected. That rescue plan was an enormous commitment of taxpayer money to right a wrong committed by people who hardly deserve such largesse. There is plenty of reason to oppose the action besides getting re-elected.

But the suspicion is strong that some who voted that way did so with personal interests in mind.

Gillibrand has insisted that her stance is one of principle, not political expedience.

Is the door closing for McCain in the Northeast?

Rasmussen has a new poll out today showing Barack Obama up by 10% in New Hampshire.

If journalism is the first draft of history, polls are history written in etch-a-sketch.

But John McCain NEEDS New Hampshire. His path to the White House had already thinned to a razor's edge, especially with his reported capitulation in Michigan.

Without New Hampshire, the math for the GOP gets really sketchy.

By the way, according to Rasmussen, Obama now leads by 21% among women in New Hampshire but trails by 2% among men.

Palin performs

Whatever people may say about the performance of Governor Sarah Palin, it's clear that she exceeded expectations.

The last week -- two weeks? -- have been as bad for the Republican veep choice as they could be.

Verbal gaffes, awkward body language, scandal, the works.

But this debate, combined with word that the Republican National Committee has barnstormed up another $60-plus million dollars (largely on her appeal) stops the bleeding.

It's a fair question whether she was good enough to reverse the current pro-Obama trend. It's even a fair question whether she was better than Democrat Joe Biden.

But on night when her critics were hoping for a meltdown, Palin performed.

If she can maintain this stride, and this small-town tone, through Election Day, then she will arguably have been a political asset for McCain, rather than a liability.

(Again, I think that's a separate question than whether or not she's qualified for the Veep job , or the Presidency.)

It's Alaska Day -- for political wonks

I grew up in Alaska and follow politics Way Up North with some fascination. Today, a state with fewer people than Newark, New Jersey, has pushed its way into America's consciousness.

Exhibit A, of course, is Gov. Sarah Palin -- the small-town mayor from Wasilla whose meteoric rise will either prove one of the great success stories in political history...or it'll prove a catastrophic flame-out.

Tonight, she faces off in a debate against Joe Biden, the veteran Senator from Delaware. Bring your popcorn and your caribou jerky.

Exhibit B is Alaska Senator Ted Stevens. Two weeks ago, the Republican looked downright terminal, as he defended himself against federal charges that he failed to disclose gifts from a big oil-field services company.

Stevens -- whose long career as U.S. Senator has made him into an Alaska institution -- was looking old, doddery, and politically vulnerable.

But now the prosecution's case seems to be falling apart, on charges that government attorneys failed to disclose evidence that weakens their case.

The most recent poll - taken in mid-September - put Democratic challenger Mark Begich ahead of Stevens by six points (50-44%).

But if Stevens prevails in court, look for an October surge.

Renzi says Watertown report part of "whisper campaign of negative attacks"

The Watertown Daily Times reports this morning that Republican state Senate candidate David Renzi may have improperly received retirement credits under the state pension system.

According to the article, Renzi hasn't yet received financial benefits, because he hasn't retired.

Still, the Times' conclusion is blunt:

Attorney David A. Renzi accrued state retirement credits for the past four years that he was not entitled to while serving as counsel for the town of Pamelia.

The matter is under review by the state Comptroller's office.

The newspaper acknowledged that it had received the information from the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, which hopes to defeat Renzi in November's election.

In a statement, Renzi said the article reflects a "whisper campaign of negative, personal attacks."

I have always held myself to highest ethical standards. My opponent wants to avoid having to answer legitimate questions that have been raised about his own unethical and illegal behavior, and misuse of taxpayer money while in office, and so has raised these issues as part of his increasingly negative campaign.

Incumbent Democrat Darrel Aubertine has drawn fire for hiring his sister to work as a constituent liaison in his Senate office.

His sister later left the post.

The Times report follows on a patch of tough news for Renzi -- chiefly, a Siena poll that showed him 20 points behind in the highly touted race.

Tipping point or pendulum swing?

An explosion of poll numbers in the last 48 hours show Barack Obama surging across the battleground states.

From Florida to Ohio, the Democrat has made what appear to be sizable gains.

John McCain's team issued a statement calling the polls laughable, but conceded that most polls "have us down 2 percent, some 4, some as high as 6."

They're right that poll numbers can be ephemeral and misleading. Only a couple of weeks ago, Obama's team looked fragile.

But McCain has a real problem here -- really two problems.

1. The clock is running down. McCain needs a game-changer quick. Unfortunately, he's already whipped out so many game-changers (Palin and suspending his campaign being the biggies) that he needs something really monumental to shake things up.

2. The battleground map has always been ugly for McCain and now it's worse. Various reputable pundits and poll-aggregators give Obama a pretty firm grip on between 220 and 250 Electoral College votes.

Put bluntly, Obama is almost at the 270 EC Vote finish line and just needs to pick up one or two battle ground victories to seal the deal.

McCain, meanwhile, has to score some serious upsets to pull it out.

So. Expect the pendulum to swing a couple more times before election day, but the burden is on McCain to find a way to swing it fast and far enough.

One final thought: If Obama does begin to break away, Republicans will have to work doubly hard to keep their Senate and House races competitive.

The GOP is already seeing surprising weakness in the US Senate, with an astonishing ten Republican-held seats now seen as seriously vulnerable.

Pundit Stuart Rothenberg predicts that Democrats will gain between 5 and 8 seats, putting them within spitting distance of a filibuster proof super-majority.

Anything resembling a collapse at the top of the ticket would make the GOP fight that much harder.

A lot of illustrious careers rest on Governor Sarah Palin's performance Thursday night.

A nearly tied vote in November could trigger a landslide

I hate the Electoral College system that we use to elect our presidents. It's unfair, antiquated, and doesn't accurately reflect the will of Americans.

In really bad years, you can get a result like the one in 2000. Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote and lost the election. In a democracy, that should be a wake-up call.

This year, Republicans could well get a taste of that same bitter medicine.

Polls show that Barak Obama and John McCain are effectively tied in opinion polls -- with one or the other taking a 5% point lead on any given day.

Even the wildest swings barely bring us to a 50-40% split (one poll currently has Obama up by a 51-41 margin).

But it's increasingly possible that Barak Obama could win the Electoral College tally by a landslide.

If Obama squeaks out wins in the battleground states of Colorado, Florida, Ohio, and Virginia, he could walk away with 333 Electoral College votes -- to McCain's 205.

One problem is the winner-take-all nature of most state contests. States that are essentially evenly divided give ALL their votes to one or the other candidate.

That's as inaccurate in Texas (where 38% of voters prefer Obama) as it is in New York (where roughly 40% of voters prefer McCain).

The bottom line? An election should serve as a kind of mirror to a community, reflecting its values, its demographics, its ambitions.

But the Electoral College is, at best, a funhouse mirror.