Senator John Ensign of Nevada is coming to northwest Iowa today for stops at Trans Ova Genetics in Sioux Center and the famous ice cream shop in Le Mars before he delivers a speech in Sioux City.

The American Future Fund invited Ensign as part of a lecture series, and American Future Fund spokesman Tim Albrecht spoke to Radio Iowa about him:

Albrecht describes the 51-year-old Ensign as a “strong” conservative.

“I think that Senator Ensign will be able to introduce himself to a group of active conservatives who are thirsty for a new voice, a new person, to really pick up the banner and carry it on their behalf,” Albrecht says.

Are conservatives “thirsty for a new voice,” as in someone who hasn’t already run for president? The Republican Party has a history of nominating presidential candidates on their second or third try: Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain.

Ensign looks like a fairly generic Republican to me. He would need to do something to distinguish himself in the next few years to avoid becoming the Sam Brownback or Tommy Thompson of 2012.

UPDATE: Ensign gave Iowa Politics an interview:

“I’m not running for president,” said Ensign, who’s chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “What I’m doing is raising my profile. I believe we need new voices and fresh voices in the Republican Party who can articulate a message of our core Republican principles.”

More thoughts on likely Republican presidential candidates are after the jump.

It’s easy to complain about “wasteful government spending” in the stimulus bill when you’re in the Congressional minority. Voting against the stimulus may even be a smart political play for Congressional Republicans.

However, Republican governors who have to balance state budgets in this shrinking economy view the prospect of massive federal government spending differently:

Most Republican governors have broken with their GOP colleagues in Congress and are pushing for passage of President Barack Obama’s economic aid plan that would send billions to states for education, public works and health care.

Their state treasuries drained by the financial crisis, governors would welcome the money from Capitol Hill, where GOP lawmakers are more skeptical of Obama’s spending priorities.

The 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, planned to meet in Washington this weekend with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and other senators to press for her state’s share of the package.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist worked the phones last week with members of his state’s congressional delegation, including House Republicans. Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas, the Republican vice chairman of the National Governors Association, planned to be in Washington on Monday to urge the Senate to approve the plan. […]

This past week the bipartisan National Governors Association called on Congress to quickly pass the plan.

“States are facing fiscal conditions not seen since the Great Depression _ anticipated budget shortfalls are expected in excess of $200 billion,” the NGA statement said. “Governors … support several key elements of the bill critical to states-increased federal support for Medicaid and K-12 and higher education; investment in the nation’s infrastructure; and tax provisions to spur investment.”

Will the GOP base become disenchanted with Alaska Governor Sarah Palin because of her public support for the stimulus? I suspect Markos is right:

It complicates matters for the anti-stimulus ideologues who see starbursts in the presence of Palin.

Then again, Palin had no trouble lying about her support for the Bridge to Nowhere. Nothing will stop her from trying to rewrite history three years from now.

Speaking of Palin, I learned from Jeff Angelo that she’s created SarahPAC. Something tells me that a lot of Iowa Republican candidates in will receive generous contributions from this political action committee during the next two election cycles.

Last year at this time I was scrambling to make as many phone calls and knock on as many doors as I could before the Iowa caucuses on January 3.

This week I had a little more time to reflect on the year that just ended.

After the jump I’ve linked to Bleeding Heartland highlights in 2008. Most of the links relate to Iowa politics, but some also covered issues or strategy of national importance.

I only linked to a few posts about the presidential race. I’ll do a review of Bleeding Heartland’s 2008 presidential election coverage later this month.

You can use the search engine on the left side of the screen to look for past Bleeding Heartland diaries about any person or issue.

Your laugh for the day comes from the Huffington Post, which wrote up an interview right-wing loudmouth Glenn Beck did with Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher.

John McCain made Joe the Plumber famous by dropping his name more than 20 times during the third presidential debate. Although Wurzelbacher is not licensed as a plumber, McCain and Sarah Palin continued to mention Joe the Plumber at rallies, and the campaign even had “I’m voting for Joe the Plumber” printed up on bumper stickers.

Now Wurzelbacher is cashing in with a new book called “Joe the Plumber: Fighting for the American Dream.” Here’s the thanks McCain gets for making this guy a household name:

I honestly felt even more dirty after I had been on the campaign trail and seen some things that take place. It was scary, man […] When I was on the bus with him, I asked him a lot of questions about the bailout because most Americans did not want that to happen. Yet he voted for it. … And I asked him some pretty direct questions. Some of the answers you guys are gonna receive – they appalled me, absolutely. I was angry. In fact I wanted to get off the bus after I talked to him.

Wurzelbacher thinks Palin is “the real deal,” though:

[…] she definitely had energy and she definitely went to work for American people, and it disgusts me on how often they try to bash her just for her sincerity. It’s just, you know, she really wants to work for America and I mean, I wish people would listen to her and let them, and let her work for us. You know, she wants to serve us. She’s not looking for power.

Sounds like somebody would love to be part of Palin’s 2012 presidential campaign.

Huffington Post has a link to the full text of the interview (scroll down the page to find it).

It’s time for a new thread on the Congressional races across the country.

First, I need to make two corrections. I reported late Tuesday night that Tom Harkin had won all of Iowa’s 99 counties. That was based on a map on the election results page of the Des Moines Register’s website, which showed all of Iowa’s 99 counties in blue. However, the Daily Kos election scoreboard shows the true picture (click on “Senate,” then on Iowa). Harkin won “only” 94 Iowa counties. He lost Page County in southwest Iowa as well as Sioux, Lyon, O’Brien and Osceola in the northwest corner.

Second, I have reported that EMILY’s List provided no financial support to Becky Greenwald’s campaign in the fourth Congressional district. However, Bleeding Heartland commenter Bill Spencer pointed out that Greenwald’s third quarter FEC filing shows a $5,000 contribution from EMILY’s List on September 22 (a few days after the group endorsed Greenwald).

It’s worth noting that when EMILY’s List strongly commits to a race, they invest considerably more than $5,000 in the candidate.

Earlier this year, EMILY’s List backed Nikki Tinker in the Democratic primary in Tennessee’s ninth district against Steve Cohen, who had a perfect pro-choice voting record. I have not been able to confirm a number, but EMILY’s list was reported to have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars advocating for Tinker.

James L. of Swing State Project compiled this comprehensive chart showing independent expenditures in House races across the country. Look at how much EMILY’s List spent in some other districts: more than $160,000 in IL-11, nearly $150,000 in CO-04, nearly $60,000 in OH-15, more than $30,000 in NH-01, $19,000 in FL-13, $16,500 in NY-26.

That only counts the money EMILY’s List itself spends on behalf of Congressional candidates. The group can also raise substantial funds for candidates through their mailing list. Donors to EMILY’s List receive direct-mail and e-mail appeals regularly, asking them to contribute directly to key candidates from around the country. These letters contain short bios of the candidates EMILY’s List is backing. I have confirmed from more than one source that EMILY’s List did not send out any direct-mail or e-amil appeals urging members to contribute to Greenwald’s campaign.

So, while I was wrong to write that EMILY’s List provided no financial support to Greenwald, it is accurate to say that they did little to help her beyond issuing a press release very late in the game.

Getting to the big picture, Democrats have picked up six U.S. Senate seats: Colorado, Oregon, New Mexico, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Virginia. Three races have yet to be called. Norm Coleman leads Al Franken in Minnesota by 236 votes (out of more than 2.5 million cast) at the latest count. There will be a mandatory recount in this race once the initial count has been completed. I read last night that Franken can win if even one extra vote for him is found in every eight Minnesota precincts.

We may be headed for a recount in Alaska, although it seems unlikely that Mark Begich can overcome convicted felon Ted Stevens’ narrow lead. There is some speculation that Stevens will resign or be expelled from the Senate, in which case a different Republican (Sarah Palin?) could take the seat.

By the way, the election results in Alaska diverged from pre-election polling in an almost unprecedented way, not only in the Senate race but also in the presidential voting and in the race for Alaska’s at-large seat in the House. Further investigation is needed to figure out whether all polls in Alaska (and Alaska alone) were way off, or whether there was any tampering with the vote counting.

Georgia will hold a runoff in December between Jim Martin and the Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss. I don’t have high hopes for this one, since Georgia is a Republican state to begin with and I think the GOP base will be motivated to reduce President Obama’s working majority in the Senate. However, anything can happen. On a related note, there are some anomalies in the turnout figures in Georgia that will require further analysis.

As for the U.S. House, Democrats picked up 23 seats on Tuesday and lost four for a net gain of 19 and a total of 255. Seven races have not been called, all of them in Republican-held districts. Democratic candidates are leading in only two of those (MD-01 and VA-05). Republican leads are extremely small in OH-15 and CA-04, but the picture looks more discouraging for our side in CA-44 (a real under-the-radar race), WA-08 and Alaska’s at-large seat.

If all the candidates currently leading are eventually declared the winners, Democrats would hold 257 House seats and Republicans 181. Crisitunity posted these charts showing Republicans in blue districts and vice versa. Note that the partisan voting index for every Congressional district will have to be recalculated, tossing the 2000 presidential voting and adding the 2008 presidential voting. But using the current partisan voting index numbers (which are based on the 2000 and 2004 presidential voting), only nine Republicans in the whole country represent districts with any Democratic lean at all. One of them is Iowa’s own Tom Latham.

In contrast, at least nine Democrats represent deep-red Congressional districts with a partisan index of at least R+10 (for perspective, Iowa’s fifth district is R+8). Many more Democrats represent districts with only a slightly less Republican lean. We lost incumbent Nancy Boyda in KS-02 (R+7) but picked up Betsy Markey in CO-04 (R+9).

What does Crisitunity’s post mean for Iowans? I take away two lessons.

First, there’s no question that Latham will be tough to beat in 2010, but if he vacates the seat IA-04 becomes a top pickup opportunity for Democrats. I would be very surprised to see him run for governor, but if Chuck Grassley were to retire for any reason I think Latham would take a shot at the Senate race.

Second, looking at the nationwide picture, Democrats are far more competitive in red Congressional districts than Republicans are in blue districts. I am confident that the Republicans have very little chance of recapturing IA-01 and IA-02.

Also, a new Democratic candidate will be favored to hold IA-03 whenever Leonard Boswell retires, even if redistricting after the 2010 census somewhat reduces the Democratic lean in this district.

This is an open thread for any commentary on any of the U.S. House or Senate races.

Jeff Merkley pulled ahead in the Oregon Senate race, which brings the Democrats a sixth seat gained in the upper chamber. (The others were in New Hampshire, North Carolina, Virginia, New Mexico, and Colorado.)

We are headed for a recount in Minnesota, where Norm Coleman leads Al Franken by 0.03 percent of the vote. What is wrong with the 400,000+ people who voted for independent candidate Dean Barkley?

Absentee and provisional ballots are still being counted in Alaska, where seven-time convicted felon Ted Stevens has a narrow lead over Mark Begich. They sure like their Republicans in Alaska.

The Georgia Senate race will go to a runoff in December, but Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss has to be heavily favored over Jim Martin.

If I could choose only one of the late-to-be-determined races to win, I would pick Oregon. Merkley has been very effective in the Oregon legislature and is going to be a huge asset to progressives in the Senate. Also, he is likely to have an easier time holding this seat than our candidates would in AK, MN or GA.

There are still a few U.S. House races to be determined. It looks as if Democrats will end up with a net gain of about 19 or 20 seats, which gives them a solid majority of about 250 (there are 435 seats in the House of Representatives).

However, there’s no getting around the fact that many analysts were forecasting Democratic gains of 25 to 30 seats before the election. Republicans have to feel good about protecting most of their incumbents from the Obama wave. The Democrats did not make enough of a case for why a Democratic Congress would be a force for good, and the Republicans may have energized their base with warnings about one-party rule.

As for the presidential race, some of John McCain’s staffers and conservative talking heads are already trying to blame Sarah Palin for dragging down the Republican ticket. They are complaining about her clothes shopping spree and her refusal to accept preparation for her interview with Katie Couric. I agree that Palin hurt McCain, but get real: whose fault is it that such an uninformed, unprepared candidate was on the ticket?

If Fox News goes along with the effort to discredit Palin (and judging from this clip, they will), it will be interesting to see if the network’s ratings decline. Palin now has a loyal following among ideological conservatives who are the core viewers for Fox. If you watch Fox or listen to any right-wing talk radio, post a comment or write a diary about how the various hosts are explaining McCain’s loss. I am curious to see how many parts of the right-wing noise machine try to undermine Palin, and how many will keep encouraging her to run for president in 2012.

Also, if you know Republicans who were active in supporting a presidential candidate this past year, do you think they would stick with that candidate in 2012, or might they prefer Palin?

Looking to the future on the Democratic side, Clinton White House staffer Mike Lux explains what’s wrong with the conventional wisdom about Clinton’s so-called “overreaching” in 1993 and 1994.

Early analysis of the presidential voting is already appearing. Obama did better than Al Gore or John Kerry among protestants and evangelicals, including frequent church-goers.

At Swing State Project, Crisitunity has already calculated the new partisan voting indices for all 50 states, taking into account the 2008 election results. The partisan voting index looks at the popular vote in each state from the last two presidential elections, and compares that to the nationwide popular vote. So, in a state that is R+5, the share of the vote garnered by Bush in 2004 and McCain this year is about five percent higher than the share of the national popular vote Bush and McCain received.

Although Obama did substantially better than Al Gore and John Kerry in many states, he also outperformed those candidates in the national popular vote. The result is that the change in partisan voting index is minimal for most states. Crisitunity explains,

In most people’s minds, this was a sea change election, a total map-changer… but if you look closely at the underlying data and not just the colors on the TV screen, it wasn’t. Most of the states behaved exactly as you’d expect them to, coming in a few points more Democratic in a year where the Democratic candidate performed a few points better than the previous few Democratic candidates. In other words, most states’ boats were lifted the same amount by the one overall rising blue tide.

There were some big shifts and drops, though; where were they? The states where the PVI most notably shifted to the Democrats were Colorado (+3), Hawaii (+6), Indiana (+3), Montana (+4), Nevada (+3), New Mexico (+3), North Dakota (+3), South Dakota (+3), and Vermont (+5). With the exception of Hawaii (favorite son effect) and Vermont (large 2000 Nader effect falling out of the equation), the explanation for these states seems to be a combination of two factors: Obama’s greater appeal (maybe personality-wise more so than policy-wise) to midwestern and western states, and the fact that the Obama campaign actually put a lot of ground game effort into these states instead of treating them as an afterthought.

Based on the 2000 and 2004 presidential election results, Iowa had a partisan voting index of D+0, meaning the state as a whole closely mirrored nationwide popular voting for president. Dropping the 2000 numbers and adding the 2008 results, Crisitunity calculated a PVI of D+1 for Iowa, meaning our state has a very slight Democratic tilt compared to the national electorate.

This is an open thread for any thoughts you have about the election or anything interesting you’ve read lately about the results.

Keeping in mind Mark Blumenthal’s cautionary note about exit polls, I am trying not to get too excited about these early exit poll numbers that point to a massive landslide win for Barack Obama in Iowa and elsewhere.

What are you doing tonight? Are you going to an election night party or watching the returns come in at home? I am making one of my favorite dishes for dinner, which I haven’t cooked in many months.

I’ll update periodically tonight as results come in.

Note: David Yepsen thinks McCain should have picked Mike Huckabee for vice president. I think that would have been a less-bad choice than Sarah Palin, but McCain still would have faced an enormous gender gap and problem with suburban moderates.

I still think the Republicans would have done better to nominate Mitt Romney, and that Romney must be kicking himself for not knocking out McCain earlier this year.

UPDATE: At around 6:30 pm I got a robocall from Barack Obama, reminding me that I still have a few hours to vote in this historic election, and asking me to go out and vote. A different voice then reminded me that polls are open until 9 pm and gave me a toll-free number that I could call to find my polling place.

Best. GOTV. ever.

UPDATE 2: Obama is only down a few points in Indiana, and several Democratic strongholds (like Gary and Indianapolis) have not reported. Also, exit polls suggest Obama is only losing white voters in Indiana by about 3 percent, which would be groundbreaking if true.

UPDATE 3: Doors are closing for McCain. Pennsylvania has been called for Obama, and he still looks like he has a chance to win Indiana and North Carolina. Ohio also seems to be turning blue.

In the Senate races, we have picked up seats in New Hampshire, Virginia and North Carolina. We probably are going to lose Kentucky. Looks like I was wrong about Georgia being the closest U.S. Senate race–Republican Saxby Chambliss seems to be leading there.

My husband got tired of the talking heads and switched over to the BBC America channel. It brought back too many traumatic memories for me–I stayed up all night in England watching the 2000 election returns on the BBC. It was around 3 am when they announced Florida was no longer in the Gore column, but was “too close to call.”

UPDATE 4: That’s all she wrote. Fox News just called Ohio for Obama. There is no mathematical way for McCain to get 270 electoral votes.

To put some icing on the cake, Obama leads in Florida with half the votes counted. McCain clings to narrow leads in Indiana and Virginia, with some heavily Democratic areas not counted yet.

Also, we picked up a fourth U.S. Senate seat (in New Mexico). Minnesota has been called for Obama, but that Senate race is too close to call.

UPDATE 5: No one is calling Florida yet, but things sure look good for Obama if you compare his share of the vote in the counties that are in to what John Kerry received four years ago.

We picked up at least one House seat in Florida and lost FL-16, but good riddance to him as far as I’m concerned. Let the record reflect that even though I am a yellow dog Democrat, I would not have voted for that creep Tim Mahoney in FL-16.

Virginia and North Carolina both appear within reach, but still too close to call.

CBS is showing an incredible celebratory scene at Howard University (a black college) in Washington.

UPDATE 6: I was putting my son to sleep and missed McCain’s concession speech. Mr. desmoinesdem said it was gracious.

Florida, Colorado and Virginia have been called for Obama. Only North Carolina, Indiana, Missouri and Montana haven’t been called yet, as far as I can tell.

UPDATE 7: Nice victory speech by Obama. He’s not going to rub it in the Republicans’ faces. He will reach out to them. I predict more than a token Republican or two will be in his cabinet–perhaps even Colin Powell.

North Carolina has been called for Obama.

I feel bad that Obama’s grandmother did not live to see this moment. However, he did get back to see her a couple of weeks ago, and she did cast an absentee ballot before she died. I’m sure she must have known that he was going to win.

Apparently Obama has offered Rahm Emanuel the job of White House chief of staff. That’s got to be a tempting offer, but if Emanuel stays in the House of Representatives he might become speaker someday.

Later this afternoon vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin will headline a Republican rally in Dubuque (why I don’t know).

If you’re watching on television or following the coverage online, post your thoughts and comments here. I will update this post later as well.

I’m curious to see whether state senator and first district Congressional candidate Dave Hartsuch will get to speak today, or at least be acknowledged from the stage. As John Deeth reported, Hartsuch was entirely left out of John McCain’s recent rally in Davenport.

Iowa may be a lost cause for the Republican ticket, but I predict Palin will draw a larger crowd in Dubuque than the approximately 1,100 people who came to hear John McCain in Tampa, Florida this morning. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank called that “a disastrous showing for an election-eve event in this big, Republican town.”

After the election it will be entertaining to watch the pro-Palin and anti-Palin camps in the Republican Party blame each other for the loss.

UPDATE: I forgot to update this post yesterday. Chuck Grassley went a bit far in defending Palin’s qualifications while warming up the crowd:

“You know from watching television and the debates that no one is more qualified to vice president of the United States,” [Grassley] said. “All you got to think about is the governors that have gone to Washington to be the chief executive. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind about her qualifications.”

She’s halfway through her first term and already has been found to have abused her authority, but I guess to a Republican that makes her highly qualified to be president.

The Des Moines Register reported that more than 5,000 people came to see Palin in Dubuque. Some of them are already looking forward to her return to Iowa as a presidential candidate someday.

If this poll of Republicans is accurate, Palin trails Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee in the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

Getting back to the current election, Palin declined to say whether she voted for convicted felon and Republican incumbent Ted Stevens in the U.S. Senate election today:

I am also exercising my right to privacy and I don’t have to tell anybody who I vote for. Nobody does, and that’s really cool about America also.

The Des Moines Register reported that Sarah Palin will headline a rally in Dubuque on Monday (click the link for details about the event, including how to get tickets).

Why would John McCain’s campaign send her to Iowa the day before the election? He’s trailing badly in all the recent polls, and Iowa Democrats have a big advantage in early voting.

Also, why would she go to Dubuque, which isn’t in a competitive Congressional district and isn’t close to most of the competitive Iowa House and Senate districts?

I posted a diary about this at MyDD last night, and several theories were suggested in the comments:

1. She is laying the groundwork for her 2012 presidential campaign. I don’t buy this, because I don’t think she is in control of her travel schedule. Presumably senior strategists in the McCain campaign are making those calls.

2. They are still making a play for Iowa’s seven electoral votes. I doubt they really think they have a chance here, but maybe they are that deluded. Anyway, there are a lot of anti-abortion Democrats in the Dubuque area, and maybe they think Palin will play well with them.

3. She will try to reduce Obama’s margin of victory in Iowa by going to the eastern part of the state, where he is especially strong.

4. She is trying to fire up Republican supporters for down-ticket candidates or ballot initiatives. If that were the case, I don’t see why Dubuque would be the venue. Anyway, we don’t have any controversial referendum at stake next Tuesday (just the initiative to remove “idiot” and “insane person” from the Iowa Constitution).

5. Palin is hurting McCain in the swing states, so they are trying to minimize the damage by sending her to states he’s already lost. That makes some sense to me.

6. High-ranking McCain advisers who are close to Mitt Romney are trying to damage Palin’s reputation by sending her to states McCain will lose big. That will undermine any possible claims about her broad appeal in the 2012 nominating contest. Supporting this hypothesis, people close to McCain have been blaming Palin for dragging down the ticket. Within the past week, unnamed McCain advisers have described Palin as a “diva” and a “whack job.”

What do you think?

Survey USA released a new Iowa poll today, conducted for WHO-TV in Des Moines and KAAL-TV in Mason City. Barack Obama leads John McCain 55 percent to 40 percent. The poll reveals a massive gender gap. Among men, Obama leads 48-46, and among women he leads 61-34. Perhaps most significant,

Among the 32% of respondents who tell SurveyUSA they have already cast ballots, Obama leads by 40 points […].

Tom Harkin leads Christopher Reed by 61 percent to 35 percent.

We ought to be able to elect a lot of down-ticket Democrats in this kind of environment. The election in Iowa is a lost cause for John McCain, and that may depress Republican turnout on Tuesday (despite Sarah Palin’s planned rally in Dubuque on Monday).

Give what you can to Becky Greenwald and Rob Hubler so they can run ads on tv and radio during the final stretch. The biggest hurdle for a challenger is almost always name recognition.

People across the country are noticing that these races are winnable. Here’s a post from the Down With Tyranny blog, and here’s one from Open Left.

On a related note, you can replay a live chat the Des Moines Register hosted with Hubler yesterday by clicking here.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention that you can view Greenwald’s final ad here and read the script here. Hubler’s tv ad is here (scroll down past the text of the Des Moines Register’s endorsement editorial).

The Ames Progressive blog recently featured these races too.

I’m interested in your theories about why John McCain and Sarah Palin visited Iowa yet again this weekend.

The latest Iowa poll, from Lee Enterprises and the Quad-City Times, shows Barack Obama leading by 54 percent to 39 percent. The most recent one before that was from Rasmussen (which usually is more favorable to McCain), and it showed Obama ahead 52-44 in Iowa. In fact, Obama now leads McCain by nearly 12 points in the Iowa polling average.

So, what was Palin doing in Sioux City and Des Moines yesterday, and what was McCain doing in  

Cedar Falls today?

The Des Moines Register recently noted that many Republican political strategists are baffled by McCain’s many Iowa visits (four trips in the past five weeks).

McCain appeared before an “embarrassingly small crowd” in New Mexico yesterday, the same day an Obama rally in Albuquerque drew about 45,000 people. Obama has had a solid lead in New Mexico for some time now.

What is going on with McCain’s travel schedule? Why is he going to states he doesn’t need to win instead of spending all of his time in must-win states like Florida, Ohio, Missouri, Virginia and North Carolina?  

Only two explanations make sense to me.

First, he may recognize that he is going to lose the presidential race. He could be holding events in places near competitive House and Senate races, to try to generate free media coverage for Republican candidates and limit the party’s losses down-ticket.

Or, his strategists may have figured out that his campaign rallies have not been helping him in the swing states. Perhaps these trips have even have backfired. If that is true, then McCain may as well spend time in states he knows he’s going to lose instead of in states that are still close, like Ohio and Florida.

What do you think?  

Good advice from George W. Bush in this sketch from Saturday Night Live’s election special a couple of nights ago.

This is an open thread for anything related to the upcoming election.

If you were out volunteering today for a candidate, share your story in the comments or post a diary.

I forgot to put Sarah Palin’s Iowa visit on my calendar of events coming up this weekend. Fortunately, I received this e-mail from the Polk County Democrats to remind me:

My Fellow Americans,

As the Iowa Chair of Veterans for Obama, I was thinking of ways to best welcome Sarah Palin when she visits Des Moines this Saturday. Knowing that jobless rates are up and temperatures are going down, I heard about Sarah Palin needing extra help with clothing recently and thought there might be others who really need the help. So, I thought we might do a clothing drive across the street from her event and donate to the Disabled American Veterans. (By the way, they rate Obama’s voting record at 90% and McCain’s at 20%.)

Here is what is going on Saturday in brief:

First of all, Polk County volunteers are going to knock on over 10,000 doors in a canvas this Saturday, so contact your local organizer to get involved in that.

Secondly, there will be a greeting party across the street from Hy-Vee Hall at 777 Third Street (corner of 3rd and Center). We’ll be visible, vocal and starting about 10:30.

We’ll be taking donations for the clothing drive in the parking lot at 777 Third Street, so stop by with your donations (tax deductible) and maybe knock on some doors or make some phone calls too. I’ll be standing next to my truck with the American Flag, Airborne and Obama stickers to take your donation.

Contact me with any questions or if you’d like to help. Tell your friends.

Best,

Marc

I’ve got clothes I can give to this drive on Saturday. Disabled Veterans of America is a group worth supporting. Note from the above e-mail that Obama rates higher on their scorecard than McCain.

Speaking of scorecards, the non-partisan Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America released their own scorecards for members of Congress recently.

John McCain earned a D, because he did not co-sponsor the post-9/11 GI bill and voted for only three of the nine bills supported by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. McCain missed more than half of the Senate votes this year.

Barack Obama earned a B for co-sponsoring the GI Bill and voting with veterans five out of nine times. Obama has also missed quite a few votes, though not as many as McCain.

(Side note: If you’re curious about the Iowa scores, Tom Harkin, Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack received perfect A+ scores from Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Leonard Boswell and Tom Latham got As, Steve King got a B and Chuck Grassley got a C.)

Getting back to the Polk County Democrats’ clothing drive this Saturday, what a great idea for a visibility event. Not only will the crowd attract attention, the clothing drive will spur more media commentary about Sarah Palin’s $150,000 designer wardrobe.

I haven’t piled on to this story, because what is there to say? Every aspect of her image has been so stage-managed and phony. I already found it amusing that she panders to “Joe Six-pack” while owning multiple pairs of designer eyeglasses (the ones she’s made famous cost at least $900, not including the lenses).

Weeks ago, I read a comment on some blog by a wardrobe consultant who said Palin’s suits were not only expensive high-couture items, but also very “current,” and so couldn’t have been clothing she owned before McCain put her on the ticket. This commenter estimated that Palin’s wardrobe for the general election campaign would have cost $200,000 (which turned out to be a pretty good guess).

The other thing I’m enjoying about the Palin story is the outraged comments from major donors to the Republican National Committee. They are angry that their money was used in such an extravagant (and incompetent) way. With any luck they will hesitate to give at the same level next election cycle.

Speaking of sleaze, why was I not surprised to learn that the Republican operative who went shopping for Palin is also the McCain campaign’s main robocaller?

You cannot make this stuff up.

UPDATE: Saw on Ben Smith’s blog at Politico that the watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed an FEC complaint relating to the Republican National Committee’s clothing purchases for Palin.

Two websites are keeping comprehensive lists of newspaper endorsements for Barack Obama and John McCain:

Editor and Publisher:

The Obama-Biden ticket maintains its strong lead in the race for daily newspaper endorsements, by 105 to 33, a better than 3-1 margin, […]

In a real shocker, two solid Bush papers in 2004, the Houston Chronicle and Austin American-Statesman, also came out for Obama today. So did the more traditionally Democratic the News & Obsever in Raleigh and the Orlando Sentinel, both in key battleground states.

Obama’s lopsided margin, including most of the major papers that have decided so far, is in stark contrast to John Kerry barely edging George W. Bush in endorsements in 2004 by 213 to 205.

Cheers to the Mason City Globe-Gazette, one of more than two dozen newspapers that endorsed Obama despite backing Bush four years ago.

DemConWatch’s newspaper endorsement list is particularly helpful because they indicate which party the newspaper favored in 2004, and they have a separate column listing all the newspapers in the top 100 by circulation that have not yet endorsed a presidential candidate.

Many newspapers have cited McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as a reason for endorsing Obama. That includes Republican papers like the Houston Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune, which is endorsing a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time in 161 years.

I wouldn’t exaggerate the importance of newspaper endorsements, but this trend underscores how many Republicans have lost confidence in the McCain/Palin ticket.

I was shocked when an old family friend told me over the weekend that he’d voted for Obama. He caucused for McCain in January, and he doesn’t think Obama will do a very good job, but he didn’t want to take the chance of Palin ever becoming president.

This is a devastating blow to John McCain’s candidacy. Watch Colin Powell explain his reasoning at length here:

He is impressed by Obama’s style and substance, by Obama’s choice of running mate, and by the way Obama has handled himself during the economic crisis. He admires McCain but is disturbed by the choice of Sarah Palin (whom Powell does not consider ready to be president) and the way McCain and senior Republicans have tried to attack Obama this fall.

Powell is not my favorite person, but the media love him, and millions of Americans admire him. I’d been hearing rumors for months that Powell might endorse Obama, but I was skeptical.

Also in the news this weekend, Obama’s campaign announced that they raised $150 million in September, and Obama drew crowds of 100,000 in St. Louis and 75,000 in Kansas City yesterday.

Time is running out for McCain. I don’t see how he changes the dynamic.

UPDATE: So I took the kids to “sample Sunday” at Picket Fence Creamery in Woodward today, and there was a car parked in the lot with a bumper sticker I’d never seen. It asked, “Who will be your commander in chief?” On the left side, there was a head shot of McCain with an American flag backdrop, and on the right was that photo of Obama in Muslim garb when he visited Africa. A woman was sitting in the car talking to some people standing next to it. As I walked by, I said, “Colin Powell doesn’t agree with your bumper sticker.”

They looked confused, so I said, “Colin Powell said this morning that he’s voting for Obama. I guess he knows what it takes to be commander in chief.”

That felt good.

When John McCain won the Florida primary, putting him well on the way to sealing the Republican nomination, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. I had been hoping the GOP would nominate Mitt Romney. Not only did many religious conservatives deeply distrust Romney, I felt he would be easy to expose as a phony say-anything-to-win kind of politician. In contrast, McCain was a media darling with a “maverick” image, even though he also flip-flopped on many issues while seeking the presidency.

Many factors favored the Democrats this year, in particular George W. Bush’s rock-bottom approval ratings and the lopsided right direction/wrong track numbers every pollster has found. But it seemed to me in February that the Republicans had nominated their strongest general-election candidate, while our two remaining primary contenders seemed to me to have big hurdles to overcome in the general.

When McCain frittered away the spring and early summer, reshuffling his campaign staff several times, I started to realize he was a weaker candidate than I’d previously believed. Watching McCain’s excrutiatingly long non-answer on whether insurance companies that cover Viagra should also cover birth control pills, I remember thinking that Romney would never have fumbled that question so badly. He would have had a slick reply along safe Republican lines, such as, “I don’t think the government should be in the business of telling private insurers what to cover.”

After Obama picked Joe Biden as a running mate, Republican talking heads were all over the lack of executive experience on the Democratic ticket. Of course McCain doesn’t have any either, and his running mate was mayor of a small town (where the city manager did most of the work) and then a governor who abused her power less than halfway through her first term. Romney had a legitimate claim to executive experience, having run a large company and then a state government. Would he have made as dumb a VP pick as McCain did? I doubt it.

Each time McCain loses a debate to Obama, I’ve thought that Romney would have done better on the stage. Sure, he was a big phony, but he carried himself with more confidence and spoke with more authority in his voice. Perhaps Obama would have won all the post-debate polls anyway, but I think Romney would have made it closer.

I also think Romney would have been a stronger voice for Republicans on economic policy in light of this fall’s meltdown in the banking sector and stock market. Here’s the Republican National Committee’s latest ad, pounding Obama on his inexperience in connection with the current financial crisis:

Obama’s relative inexperience is a vulnerability, but he has handled himself well this fall and done a good job answering the economic questions in all three debates. McCain has seemed erratic by comparison. Romney would have been able to play his “I know the business sector” card, and I doubt he would have tried to get the first debate delayed, which looked like an odd stunt from McCain.

Along the same lines, watch this brand-new ad from McCain and try to tell me Romney wouldn’t have been more credible delivering this message:

Romney would have looked more confident and sounded more polished. Also, Romney’s biography would make it easier to believe he had a plan to restore people’s savings, jobs and financial security.

Most important, Romney has not been in Congress for the last eight years, voting with President Bush more than 90 percent of the time. McCain has, which is the focus of this brand-new ad from Obama:

By the way, the Service Employees International Union put together a very clever ad on the theme of McCain being the same as Bush (or worse).

I acknowledge that Romney probably would have lost the general election. The economic indicators and trends in voter registration point to a Democratic wave. Romney’s past history of supporting abortion rights and even gay rights would have created major problems with part of the Republican base. Also, perhaps there would have been great resistance to electing a Mormon president. (For what it’s worth, I think Romney would be the GOP nominee if not for his religion.)

But McCain is just not running a good campaign, and the economic issues, where McCain is weak, have more salience now than the military and security issues that are allegedly McCain’s strengths. It’s hard for me to believe that Romney would have done worse against Obama.

What do you think?

UPDATE: The emergence of “Joe the Plumber” strengthens my case. McCain mentioned him about 20 times during last night’s debate, apparently without sufficient vetting. It turns out that Joe the Plumber is not a licensed plumber, owes back taxes, and is a registered Republican (not an independent). Oh yeah, and he’s also related to Charles Keating’s son-in-law (as in “Keating Five” Charles Keating).

Would the Romney campaign have staked so much on “Joe the Plumber” without doing due diligence? I don’t think so.

Tonight Barack Obama and John McCain will debate for the second time. If you were frustrated over the summer that Obama always seemed to be in reaction mode against Republican smears, you’ve got to be happy about the way the campaign is going now.

McCain isn’t leading Obama in a single state that went for John Kerry in 2004, and he has trailed in multiple polls in Virginia, Colorado, North Carolina, Florida, and Ohio. Obama is making it close in Missouri and Indiana as well. McCain and the Republican National Committee are working frantically to build up field operations in states where Obama’s staff and volunteers have worked for months. For instance, as McCain moves staff into Virginia, Obama has approximately 40 field offices open there.

Also in the swing states, the Obama campaign is sending out direct-mail pieces that attack McCain’s health care plan. That dovetails with television commercials and volunteer canvasses that focus voters’ attention on the health care issue.

On Monday, Obama’s campaign opened a new front of a attack by releasing a short documentary about “Keating Economics,” which recounts McCain’s role in the Keating Five scandal of the 1980s. You can watch it here or at www.keatingeconomics.com:

I am old enough to remember the Keating Five scandal. It was a big deal.

The mainstream media have been strangely quiet about that part of McCain’s biography, given the banking sector’s current problems.

Will the Keating Five come up in tonight’s debate? I have no idea. McCain and Sarah Palin have been trying to change the subject, taking Obama’s words out of context and falsely accusing him of “palling around with terrorists.”

Trivia question: without using google or wikipedia, can anyone tell me who the judge was in the Keating Five trial? (CORRECTION: I meant to write “the trial of Charles Keating.” The Keating Five senators were never tried.)

I will give the answer tomorrow.

UPDATE: Josh Marshall posted an amusing note from a reader regarding the mainstream media’s handling of the Keating Five:

I saw this on CNN early this morning. John Roberts was talking about the smear campaign, trying to do the equivalency dance, and actually said (I’m paraphrasing) “Obama is trying to tie McCain to the Keating Five”. Now, maybe I’m wrong, but isn’t that like saying John Lennon was “tied” to the Beatles? He was a Beatle! John McCain WAS one of the Keating Five.

I’m seeing other reporters do this too.

If you can pick up WHO radio on 1040 AM, tune in tonight (October 6) from 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm to hear Representative Tom Latham debate Democratic challenger Becky Greenwald.

I will be curious to see how much the discussion focuses on local versus national issues.

Earlier this year, the National Republican Congressional Committee advised Republican incumbents in the U.S. House to make their campaigns about local issues and personal qualities. Latham’s first radio advertisement was about national energy policy, but his two television commercials have had more of a local focus on Iowa’s nursing shortage and Iowa’s small businesses. (I will have more to say on the latest ad in the next couple of days.)

It is looking more and more like a big Democratic year, so it’s in Greenwald’s interest to show how Latham has consistently backed the failed policies of the Bush administration and the Republican leadership in Congress. Latham avoids mentioning his own political party in his advertising and on his website.

I’ll also be listening to see how well the moderator keeps Latham and Greenwald on topic. Jim Lehrer mostly did a good job moderating the first debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, but Gwen Ifill was a disaster during the vice-presidential debate last Thursday.

Ifill went on Meet the Press this morning and complained about Sarah Palin blowing her off, but what did she expect? She showed poor judgment by agreeing to moderate this debate without revealing that she was writing a book about Obama (to be released on Inauguration Day in January). Naturally, Republicans spent much of the last week warning that Ifill would be biased against Palin, since her book sales are likely to be better if Obama wins the election.

As a result, Ifill had to bend over backwards NOT to appear to be picking on Palin. And that played right into Palin’s strategy of ignoring the questions and reciting her prepared talking points.

Ifill should never have been in that chair on Thursday, because she was not able to do her job properly.

I sincerely hope that WHO Radio forces Latham and Greenwald to answer the questions asked, following up if and when the candidates are evasive.

Here’s the rest of Greenwald’s public schedule for Monday:

Fort Dodge Rotary Club

12 PM – 1 PM

Starlight Village Hotel

Highway 169 and Highway 7

Fort Dodge, Iowa

Mac’s World Interview

3 PM

98.3 WOW-FM

WHO Radio Debate with Tom Latham

7 PM – 8 PM

WHO 1040 AM

Courtesy of Daily Kos user kdoug:

Barack Obama’s campaign is already running television ads that make the case against John McCain on health care.

Today they will send volunteers out knocking on doors in ten Iowa cities to “talk about the differences between the Obama plan to make health care affordable and the McCain plan to tax employees’ health benefits.”

SUNDAY: Obama Iowa Campaign for Change to Hold “Health Care Canvasses” Across Iowa

Des Moines, Iowa – On Sunday, October 5th, 2008, the Obama Iowa Campaign for Change will hold “health care canvasses” across the state to talk directly to Iowans about the choice they face this election when it comes to health care.  Senator Obama has outlined a detailed plan to stand up to the big drug and insurance companies and make quality, affordable health care available to every American. His plan lowers premiums by up to $2,500 per family per year and reduces costs for business and their workers.

In contrast, Senator McCain’s plan will tax the health benefits that workers receive from their employers for the first time in history.  His plan will make it more likely that your employer drops your health care plan because of rising costs. Independent analyses show that employers will drop at least 20 million people from coverage and force them to seek insurance in the individual market, where costs are higher, quality is lower, and coverage more uncertain.

“Affordable health care is one of the most important issues facing Iowa working families,” said Jackie Norris, Iowa State Director for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.  “There is an enormous difference between the two candidates when it comes to health care.  Senator Obama has a detailed plan to cover every American and lower costs for families by $2,500.  This is in stark contrast to Senator McCain’s radical plan, which will do nothing to reduce the number of uninsured and will tax health care benefits for the first time in history. Iowans can’t afford four more years of health care policies that leave families at the mercy of insurance companies.”

The details of the canvasses are after the jump.

I think it’s smart for the Obama campaign to be pushing this point about McCain wanting to tax health care benefits, but don’t imagine that this is the only thing wrong with McCain’s health care plan.

Elizabeth Edwards made a strong case against other aspects of McCain’s plan this spring (see also this article about her speech to the annual meeting of the Association of Health Care Journalists). One of the biggest problems with McCain’s plan is that insurers could continue to exclude people with pre-existing conditions, including cancer survivors like McCain and Elizabeth Edwards.

Whether or not you canvass today, you may want to bring up these points as well as the tax issue if you talk with undecided voters about the difference between Obama and McCain on health care reform.

UPDATE: We were out today, but the Obama volunteers in Windsor Heights left a “vote early for change” door-hanger at our house. Thanks, I will!

The snap polls suggested Joe Biden won last night’s debate with Sarah Palin (which hasn’t stopped conservative swooning over the winking governor).

In less than 24 hours, the Obama campaign had a television commercial ready that featured one of my favorite moments from the debate:

A simple explanation and great one-liner from Biden on an important issue.

Meanwhile, John McCain’s campaign today contradicted Palin’s statement on bankruptcy law changes–among very few comments she made about bankruptcy before changing the subject to her record on energy policy.

Your Palin comedy of the day is adennak’s Sarah Palin debate flow chart.

UPDATE: The Obama campaign released a second ad on the same theme today.

I don’t know whether I’ll be online later this evening, but use this thread to discuss tonight’s big debate.

It seems that expectations for Sarah Palin couldn’t possibly be lower. How do you think Joe Biden should handle this? I think he needs to ignore any gaffes she makes. Let the media handle that. Biden should focus on promoting Obama’s policies and attacking John McCain.

Note to conspiracy theorists: this diary by ipsos suggests it would not be easy for Palin to get away with wearing an earpiece during tonight’s debate.

I still believe George Bush was wired during his first debate with John Kerry in 2004.

UPDATE: For entertainment value, it’s hard to beat TPM’S Ultimate Sarah Palin Video Guide.

POST-DEBATE THOUGHTS; Palin was smart to look right into the camera almost the whole time she was speaking. There weren’t any deer in the headlights moments, but on several occasions she transparently sidestepped the question and plugged into some programmed response full of buzzwords. I have no idea how it’s going to play with relatively uninformed voters, but I would hope that they could see past her repetition of certain phrases. I also couldn’t believe she kept winking at the camera!

Biden didn’t make any mistakes as far as I could see, other than looking too much at Gwen Ifill and not enough at the camera. However, he did look at the camera more during the second half of the debate, which was good.

On several answers he was devastating, pointing out the contrasts between Obama and McCain. I liked that he kept bringing the focus back to economic issues. I liked how he repeated that McCain was wrong about the war in Iraq being easy. I loved how he repeated that we spend more every three weeks on combat operations in Iraq than we have in six and a half years in Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden has been. It was great the way he put the lie to McCain’s “maverick” image, showing that he hasn’t been a maverick on any of the issues important to Americans, like health care and education.

Although Biden’s not flashy, I felt he turned in a very solid performance tonight. I would be surprised if the snap polls show Palin winning. I know I’m not her target audience, but I felt she looked and sounded programmed. It seems like the people already supporting McCain would love her, but I’m not sure how she played with undecided voters and independents.

What was your favorite Biden moment? I loved when he talked about McCain’s flawed health care plan being “the ultimate bridge to nowhere.”

The Obama campaign in Iowa has organized 36 vice presidential debate-watching parties around the state.

I've posted all the event details after the jump. The debate is tonight at 8 pm central time. 

By now we’ve had a month to be scared by Sarah Palin’s ignorance and unpreparedness for the vice presidency. For instance, did you know that this person who could be appointing Supreme Court judges as early as next year is unable to name a single Supreme Court ruling other than Roe v Wade?

Fortunately, Palin provides some comic relief from time to time. I’m not talking about Tina Fey’s impressions on Saturday Night Live, I’m talking about the unintentional comedy that emerges when Palin goes off script.

Here’s Palin answering Katie Couric’s question about which newspapers or magazines she has read regularly in the past (hat tip to Hilzoy at the Political Animal blog):

Comedy gold. The Saturday Night Live writing team couldn’t top that.

Steve Benen, who also blogs at Political Animal, highlighted this gem. Apparently Palin got a big laugh from a Republican crowd in Ohio by saying that she’s been hearing about Joe Biden’s speeches since she was in the second grade. After the event, this exchange between Couric and Palin took place:

   Couric: You made a funny comment, you’ve said you have been listening to Joe Biden’s speeches since you were in second grade.

   Palin: It’s been since like ’72, yah.

   Couric: You have a 72-year-old running mate, is that kind of a risky thing to say, insinuating that Joe Biden’s been around awhile?

   Palin: Oh no, it’s nothing negative at all. He’s got a lot of experience and just stating the fact there, that we’ve been hearing his speeches for all these years. So he’s got a tremendous amount of experience and, you know, I’m the new energy, the new face, the new ideas and he’s got the experience based on many many years in the Senate and voters are gonna have a choice there of what it is that they want in these next four years.

Benen points out the obvious:

New energy and new ideas vs. many years in the Senate. Voters, Palin said, are going to have to choose between the two.

She is aware of the dynamic surrounding the two presidential candidates, isn’t she?

I always thought Palin was a poor choice of running mate for McCain, but she is turning out to be even worse than I expected.

By the way, Democracy for America is organizing debate-watching parties for the Palin-Biden matchup tomorrow night. Click here to find one in your area.

Lots happening this week, culminating in the Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner featuring Al Gore in Des Moines on Saturday

Tuesday, September 30:

Today is the last day of the current FEC reporting period. Give money to good Democrats before midnight!

From the Obama campaign in Iowa:

Des Moines, Iowa – Today, at 2:45 PM CDT, Governor Chet Culver will respond to Senator John McCain’s attack on ethanol during his event in Des Moines and discuss why Senator McCain is wrong for Iowa’s economy. During Friday’s debate, and again today during a roundtable in Des Moines, Senator McCain expressed his strong opposition to ethanol subsidies. The details are:

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30TH, 2008

2:45 PM CDT

Governor Chet Culver to Respond to Senator John McCain’s Attack on Ethanol and Discuss Why Senator McCain is Wrong for Iowa’s Economy

Obama Iowa Campaign for Change office

1408 Locust St.

Des Moines, Iowa  

Des Moines, Iowa – On Tuesday, September 30th, 2008, Iowa First Lady Mari Culver will hold roundtable discussions in Fort Dodge and Carroll to discuss John McCain’s radical health care plan and Barack Obama’s plan to fix America’s broken health care system.

“Affordable health care is one of the most important issues facing Iowa working families, and we are thrilled to have First Lady Culver talk about Barack Obama’s plan to fix our broken health care system,” said Jackie Norris, Iowa State Director for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.  “There is an enormous difference between the two candidates when it comes to health care.  Senator Obama has a detailed plan to cover every American and lower costs for every family by $2,500.  This is in stark contrast to Senator McCain, who will do nothing to reduce the number of uninsured.”

First Lady Culver will be talking about health care and other issues important in this election, as well as encouraging Obama supporters to vote early so they can volunteer on Election Day.

Early voting in Iowa has begun and the Obama campaign has set up a voter information hotline, 877 – IA08VOTE, for Iowans to call to get information on how they can vote. Iowans can also visit iowa.barackobama.com for more information.

The details of the events are:

TUSEDAY, SEPTEMBER 30TH, 2008

10:30 AM

Roundtable Discussion with First Lady Mari Culver

Bloomer’s

900 Central Ave #10

(in the Trolley Station)

Fort Dodge, Iowa

1:30 PM

Roundtable Discussion with First Lady Mari Culver

Coffee World/Crossroads Bar and Grill

1012 N US Highway 71 (corner of Highways 30 and 71)

Carroll, Iowa

The Iowa Citizen Action Network is organizing another “listening post” event on health care:

Iowa Citizen Action Network (ICAN) is proud to take a lead role in the “Health

Care for America Now” campaign and we hope you will join us and all the coalition partners in Iowa to make our voices heard!

Health Care for America Now is all about raising this very important question in the minds of the public and in decision makers: Do we want a health care system where everyone has responsibility to ensure access for all Americans – individuals, employers, our communities, and our government?  Or do we want to continue with a system that says – “You’re all on your own to deal with insurance companies.”

We’ve been doing just that this summer, and we’re excited to bring this campaign to cities all around Iowa.  Take a look and see where you can join us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HEALTH CARE COVERAGE LISTENING POSTS

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Have you been struggling with your health insurance coverage?  Do you find yourself paying more for less coverage every year?  Have you been denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions?  Have you been dropped from your coverage and aren’t sure how to fight back?  Do you have a family member or neighbor who is struggling?

Here’s your chance to let your elected representatives know what you’re going through, and what you think they should do about it.

September 30th, 6:30-7:30

Cedar Rapids, IA

LODGE 831 MACHINISTS UNION HALL

222 PROSPECT PLACE SW

From the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation:

Please attend forums on

Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund

The Sustainable Funding Coalition, a diverse group of Iowa organizations (including INHF) that works for sustainable conservation funding, is sponsoring a series of candidate forums on the proposed Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund.

So you can make your voice heard on this important issue, this e-mail provides background information on the forums, a list of forum dates & locations, and pre-registration instructions.

About the Fund: The proposed Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund would provide a permanent funding source to support efforts to improve and preserve Iowa’s water quality, soils, wildlife habitat, and outdoor recreation opportunities.

To create the fund, proposed legislation mandates that 3/8ths of a cent from state sales tax revenue will be appropriated for the Trust Fund the next time the Iowa legislature approves a sales tax increase. The Sustainable Funding Coalition hopes to pass Trust Fund legislation during Iowa’s 2009 legislative session.  NOTE: This bill does not raise taxes, nor does it give voters the ability to raise the sales tax-only the legislature can do that.

About the forums

Ten candidate forums scattered throughout the state provide a chance for citizens and legislators/candidates to discuss this legislation together. Please consider attending the forum nearest you to learn more about this proposal, show your legislators/candidates that Iowans care about conservation funding, and promote passing the needed legislation for this fund during Iowa’s 2009 legislative session.

How to pre-register & attend: Find the forum nearest you in the list below and then pre-register at http://conservation-candidate-… NOTE: Pre-registration is critical because individual events may be canceled if pre-registration numbers are low.

Schedule of Forums

Ames, 9/30/2008 @ 6:30 PM

Ames Public Library (515 Douglas Ave)

Fort Dodge, 10/1/2008 @ 7 PM

Iowa Central Community College (One Triton Circle)

Muscatine, 10/4/2008 @ 9AM

the Student Center at Muscatine Community College, (152 Colorado St)

Mason City, 10/6/2008 @ 6:30 PM

Mason City Library (225 Second St. SE)

Wednesday, October 1:

There’s a candidate forum on the sustainable funding initiative at Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge at 7 pm (see above for details)

Thursday, October 2:

Gwen Ifill moderates the vice-presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, which will start at 8 pm central time. Pop some popcorn and enjoy the show!

Friday, October 3:

From One Iowa:

  Pappajohn Center

1200 Locust

Des Moines, IA 50309

515-288-8586

Date:   10/3/2008 from 5:30 pm – 8:00 pm (Central Time)

Hosted By:   One Iowa

RSVP by:   October 3, 2008 at 5:30 pm (Central Time)

Join Us For The First Annual Sweet Equality

Join us for the First Annual Sweet Equality! Professional chefs, local celebrities, and businesses will come together to show off their skills in the name of Equality! To celebrate Iowa’s rich history of equality, you are invited to a fun-filled evening of dessert competition, wine tasting, friends and music!

Amateur Sweet Equality competitors include local celebrities such as First Lady Christie Vilsack, Tracy Levine, Christine Hensley, and a special treat from Meredith test kitchen.

Wine tasting from local Iowa Wineries and live entertainment, from local artists will round out the festivities.

The event costs $35. RSVP to Scott@oneiowa.org or call 515-288-4019 extension 207

Saturday, October 4:

The Iowa Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner will be held in Des Moines. Al Gore will be the featured speaker. Tickets are available at www.iowademocrats.org or by calling (515) 974-1691. You can also get tickets that do not include dinner.

There’s a candidate forum on the sustainable funding initiative in Muscatine at 9 am at the Student Center at Muscatine Community College, (152 Colorado St). See above for details.

Capital City Pride events will be held on October 4 and 5 in Des Moines. For details about the schedule and volunteer opportunities, go to www.oneiowa.org.

There will be a Prairie Seed Harvest at Marietta Sand Prairie State Preserve, near Albion in Marshall County, Oct 4, beginning at 1 p.m. All ages are welcome to help hand-harvest native prairie seeds on the preserve, to be planted on a recently-acquired addition.  Learn about prairie from your fellow volunteers, many of whom will be prairie experts. This is a casual day: drop in and stay as long as you like. For more details, contact the Marshall County Conservation Board at 641-752-5490.

Sunday, October 5:

Capital City Pride events continue in Des Moines.

From the Iowa Environmental Council’s calendar or events:

 Farm Crawl 2008

October 5, Central Iowa

Enjoy a leisurely autumn day, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., “crawling” between six unique small-family farms in south-central Iowa – one hour south of DM Tour the farms, visit the animals, meet the farmers, sample the goodies, purchase locally grown products and have fun in the beautiful Iowa countryside. While at the farms, enter to win a basket of goodies assembled with wonderful items from each farm. Visit the Farm Crawl 2008 website at http://www.farmcrawl.com to learn more about the farms.  A map can be found at http://www.farmcrawl.com/maps….

Submitted by Matt Russell

* * * * * * * * * *

Bike Ride and Trail Celebration

Celebrate a new trail segment: Join us on Sunday, Oct. 5 for a bike ride and celebration of progress being made on the Ankeny-Woodward Trail. Riders should gather at the Ankeny trailhead at 11:30 a.m. The free, 12-mile ride (one way) begins in Ankeny at noon and ends at the Heart of Iowa trailhead in Slater.  There, at 2 p.m., riders and others can enjoy a program, entertainment, refreshments and door prizes. Riders should gather in at the Ankeny trailhead at 11:30 a.m. This ride covers part of 18 miles of newly paved trail between Ankeny and Madrid. If another $1 million can be raised in time, partners can complete the final four miles to Woodward (including a spectacular ½-mile bridge) by 2010. For details or directions, visit www.inhf.org.

Submitted by Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation

Tuesday, October 7:

From Becky Greenwald’s campaign:

Please join First Lady Mari Culver & Rep. Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin (SD-at large) for a Women’s Reception to benefit Becky Greenwald, Democratic Candidate for Congress (IA-04)

Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

5:30 PM Pre-Reception

6:00 PM General Reception

at the home of Toni Urban, 214 Foster Drive, Des Moines, IA

Contribution Levels:

Host:  $1,000  Sponsor:  $500    Friend:  $250    Supporter:  $100

(Host, Sponsor and Friend levels include admission to pre-reception and photo opportunity with Rep. Herseth-Sandlin)

General Admission: $30

To RSVP or for further information, please contact Eric Dillon at (515) 987-2800 or dillon@beckygreenwald.com.  

Join Whiterock Conservancy’s land stewardship crew in collecting prairie and savanna seeds for use in restoration projects. Learn to identify grassland plant species, learn their habitats, and assist in collecting the seeds for the future. Join the collection crew just east of Coon Rapids on: October 7 and October 12. Help collect today so that we may plant tomorrow. Contact WRC’s ecologist, Elizabeth Hill to sign up for prairie seed collection forays: elizabeth@whiterockconservancy.org.

Otherwise she would not be able to make a fool of herself like this on national television:

It’s incredible that so few Republicans have called her out for being totally unprepared and unqualified.

Josh Marshall has the punch line: as governor, Palin hasn’t shown much interest in ties with Russia, according to the Seattle Times.

Opportunities abound for Alaska governors to engage in Russian diplomacy, with the state host to several organizations focusing on Arctic issues. Anchorage is the seat of the Northern Forum, an 18-year-old organization that represents the leaders of regional governments in Russia, as well as Finland, Iceland and Canada, Japan, China and South Korea.

Yet under Palin, the state government – without consultation – reduced its annual financial support to the Northern Forum to $15,000 from $75,000, according to Priscilla Wohl, the group’s executive director. That forced the forum’s Anchorage office to go without pay for two months.

Palin – unlike the previous administrations of Gov. Frank Murkowski and Gov. Tony Knowles – also stopped sending representatives to Northern Forum’s annual meetings, including one last year for regional governors held in the heart of Russia’s oil territory.

“It was an opportunity for the Alaska governor to take a delegation of business leaders to the largest oil-producing region in Russia, and she would have been shaking hands with major leaders in Russia,” Wohl said.

UPDATE: Rumor is that CBS has even more devastating footage they have not released yet.

The McCain campaign is said to be very worried about the VP debate, since practice sessions have been “disastrous.”

Palin has now lost conservative columnist Kathleen Parker:

Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there. Here’s but one example of many from her interview with Hannity: “Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we’re talking about today. And that’s something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.”

When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obama’s numbers, Palin blustered wordily: “I’m not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who’s more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who’s actually done it?”

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

For more reviews of Palin’s interview with Couric, click here.  

Or does Sarah Palin sound like a high-school student using big words to fake her way through a college interview?

Remember, this is supposed to be her strong area. According to John McCain, Palin “knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America.”

When you think of the competent Republican women (like former New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman or Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas) whom McCain passed over to pick Palin, it is quite amazing.

John McCain and Sarah Palin will hold a rally at the Eastern Iowa Airport outside Cedar Rapids this morning at 10:00 am.

Somehow I doubt they will address any of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius’s five questions for McCain.

Apparently the Q&A didn’t go too well at a McCain/Palin town hall meeting yesterday:

Asked for “specific skills” she could cite to rebut critics who question her grasp of international affairs, she replied, “I am prepared.”

“I have that confidence. I have that readiness,” Palin said. “And if you want specifics with specific policies or countries, you can go ahead and ask me. You can play ‘stump the candidate’ if you want to. But we are ready to serve.”

GOP presidential nominee John McCain stepped in, pointing out that as governor of a state that is oil and gas plentiful, Palin was familiar with energy. She knows it to be “one of our great national security challenges,” he said.

He also cited her nearly two years as commander of Alaska’s National Guard. “I believe she is absolutely, totally qualified to address every challenge as the next vice president of the United States,” McCain said.

McCain frequently says Palin knows more about energy than anyone else in America, even though she has falsely claimed many times that Alaska provides 20 percent of the energy produced in the U.S. In fact, Alaska doesn’t even provide 20 percent of U.S. oil.

This is an open thread for discussing the Cedar Rapids rally or any other McCain/Palin related news.

UPDATE: The Des Moines Register is carrying the live video here.

After the jump you can read a statement from Jan Laue, Executive Vice-President of the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO.

SECOND UPDATE: I only caught bits and pieces, but apparently McCain and Palin were hammering Joe Biden for supposedly saying that raising taxes is patriotic. Not surprisingly, they distort what he really said, which is that it would be patriotic for the wealthiest Americans to do their part by paying more taxes:

“We want to take money and put it back in the pocket of middle-class people,” Biden said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Noting that wealthier Americans would indeed pay more, Biden said: “It’s time to be patriotic … time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut.”

On a trivial note, I was pretty sure I heard the Boy Scout leader or whoever he was flub the Pledge of Allegiance toward the beginning of the rally (I think he said “one nation, under God, individual”). If that happened at an Obama rally it would be the day’s top scandal on right-wing talk radio: Democrats don’t know the pledge!!

I’ve never understood why Republicans think this country is worth dying for, but it’s not worth raising taxes on the wealthiest 1 percent.

THIRD UPDATE: I highly recommend John Deeth’s liveblog of this event, which includes lots of photos.

I also enjoyed Radio Iowa’s write-up, especially this passage:

I look up, about five minutes into McCain’s address and see a steady stream of people walking out of the rally.  They just came to see Palin apparently.

Since late August, Republicans have been trying to appropriate Barack Obama’s change and reform message, branding the John McCain/Sarah Palin ticket as a team of “mavericks” out to fix Washington’s bad ways.

During the past week, the Obama campaign has stepped up its efforts to highlight McCain’s ties to powerful lobbyists, in order to show that he would implement “more of the same” policies as president.

The first ad, which you can view here, begins with a clip from McCain on September 4, telling the GOP convention crowd, “It’s over! It’s over for the special interests!”

An announcer then says,

“Wait a second. John McCain’s chief adviser lobbies for oil companies, even from Russia and China. His campaign manager lobbies for corporations outsourcing American jobs. The campaign chairman he picked last year — a bank lobbyist. If seven of McCain’s top advisers are lobbyists, who do you think will run his White House? John McCain. We just can’t afford more of the same.”

The Obama campaign just launched a new ad this week focusing on lobbyists as they related to failed economic policies:

BARACK: I’m Barack Obama and I approved this message.

ANNCR: His campaign is run by lobbyists.

Now we find out McCain’s White House will be lobbyist-run too.

McCain just picked a Washington super lobbyist to plan his administration.

A “consummate insider” who lobbies for oil companies. The credit card industry.

Special interests rigging the system

Pushing Bush economics

Corporate special interests rigging the system against hard working Americans…pushing failed Bush economics. Does that sound like change

to you?

We just can’t afford more of the same.

Here in Iowa, State Senator Steve Warnstadt released a report today on McCain doing the bidding of oil industry lobbyists instead of supporting policies to promote renewable energy production in our state:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 17, 2008                                                                

Contact: Brooke Borkenhagen

507-317-4104

SEN. STEVE WARNSTADT RELEASES REPORT ON JOHN MCCAIN’S TIES TO WASHINGTON LOBBYISTS

McCain Puts Lobbyists Ahead of Iowa-Grown Renewable Energy

Sioux City,  IA – On the eve of Sen. John McCain’s visit to  Iowa , State Sen. Steve Warnstadt held a press conference in  Sioux City to release a new report on Sen. McCain’s ties to  Washington lobbyists.  Sen. Warnstadt discussed how McCain’s close ties to oil company lobbyists come at the expense of Iowa-grown renewable energy and hardworking  Iowa families who are struggling with record prices at the pump.

John McCain doesn’t understand that  Iowa is leading our way to energy independence.  Just yesterday, a new blade plant for wind turbines opened in  Newton , creating 500 good-paying jobs in our state. Iowa-produced renewable energy is critical to  Iowa ‘s economy, producing $1,000 of income per  Iowa household, and has created nearly 100,000 jobs throughout the state. John McCain has opposed tax credits to boost the wind energy industry in our state and he has even called  Iowa ethanol “highway robbery.”

This report entitled “No Reformer: McCain Puts Lobbyists First While Americans Struggle,” illustrates that after 26 years in Washington, John McCain means more of the same failed Bush policies that put Exxon Mobil ahead of Iowa-produced renewable energy. John McCain says that he’ll take on the special interests and lobbyists, but eight of his closest advisors and aides are former lobbyists.

“Iowans are struggling with record gas prices and Sen. McCain’s solution is to slash all investment in Iowa-grown ethanol and give $4 billion in tax giveaways to big oil companies,” said State Sen. Steve Warnstadt.  ”  Iowa has seen nearly 1,000 wind energy jobs created in the last year, but McCain has opposed the renewable energy tax credits that helped create them.  That’s not the change we want and deserve.  Iowans can’t afford more of the same.”

To view the full report, click on the following link: http://www.democrats.org/page/…

I find this line of attack easy to grasp, but somewhere I read a piece arguing that low-information voters don’t know what a lobbyist is or what a lobbyist does.

Do you think undecided voters will be swayed by this line of attack against McCain? Or do we need to talk more about the bills he has voted for rather than whom he employs on his campaign?

I forgot to put up a thread this afternoon for people who braved the chilly weather to show up at the Indianola balloon field.

If you were there, tell us what you thought of Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, or any other interesting thing you heard today.

Iowa Independent has a few stories and lots of photos from the event.

UPDATE: I’m not the biggest fan of Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge, but Council Bluffian wrote that she had the quote of the day at the steak fry, drawing a standing ovation:

“Sarah knows how to field dress a moose, but I know how to castrate a calf. The thing is, neither of those things have anything to do with this election.”

Lt. Governor Judge mentioned that despite the fact she has more practical animal husbandry credentials than Palin and more elected office experience, Senator Obama didn’t call her to be VP.

Senator Harkin came on stage and noted he was going to watch himself around Lt. Governor Judge from now on.

Hilarious.

The Des Moines Register features its latest Iowa poll in the Sunday edition, showing Barack Obama leading John McCain 52 percent to 40 percent among likely voters. The poll surveyed 801 Iowans by telephone, including 616 who said they would definitely vote in November.

If you click the link you can read the exact wording of questions asked, but it’s not clear whether the likely voter screen involved anything other than whether a person said he or she would definitely vote.

It’s the second poll in a row to show Obama above 50 percent in Iowa, with a double-digit lead. A Time/CNN poll taken after McCain selected Sarah Palin but before Palin and McCain spoke at the Republican convention showed Obama beating McCain 55-40 in Iowa, leading in every region of the state and even among rural voters.

Other findings from the Des Moines Register’s new Iowa poll:

Just 18 percent of respondents think the country is headed in the right direction, while 74 percent say it is on the wrong track.

George Bush is at 25 percent approval, 71 percent disapproval. Repeat after me: most unpopular president in history!

Tom Harkin leads Christopher Reed in the U.S. Senate race by 53 percent to 34 percent.

Chuck Grassley’s approval rating is still high at 69 percent. Democrats’ only hope is to pick up so many Senate seats this year that Grassley decides to throw in the towel before the 2010 election. He hasn’t been getting along too well with Iowa Republicans lately, and it’s never fun serving in the minority in Congress.

I love that McCain and Sarah Palin will waste part of this Thursday campaigning at the Eastern Iowa Airport outside Cedar Rapids. Sorry, but Iowa is not really a swing state in this year’s presidential race.

I’m not watching live, but apparently the Nation of Service forum, featuring John McCain and then Barack Obama, is on PBS and the cable networks now.

Daily Kos has a liveblog here.

Anyone feeling safer now that Sarah Palin told ABC’s Charlie Gibson that war with Russia may be necessary if Russia invades a country?

Josh Marshall captured this “awkward moment” when it’s obvious Palin has no idea what Gibson means by the “Bush doctrine.”

Count on the Republicans to cry “elitism” if Democrats suggest that the vice-presidential nominee should know something about foreign policy.

Sometimes it’s amazing how many lies and misleading statements Republicans can fit into one 30-second television commercial:

This statement from Barack Obama’s spokesman, Bill Burton, is right on:

“Despite being discredited over and over again by numerous news organizations, the McCain campaign continues to repeat the lie that Sarah Palin stopped the Bridge to Nowhere.  John McCain has voted with George Bush 90% of the time and he and Sarah Palin will continue Bush’s economic policies, his health care policy, his education policy, his energy policy, and his foreign policy.  McCain and Palin will say or do anything to make people believe that they will change something besides the person sitting in the Oval Office.  That’s the kind of politics people are tired of, and it’s anything but change,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

The Obama campaign has also released an extensive fact check debunking almost every claim this ad makes. You can read it here:

http://blogs.creativeloafing.c…

It shows that contrary to the impression the commercial gives viewers:

-Senator McCain supported almost the entire George Bush agenda

-McCain voted for plenty of earmarks

-Governor Palin was originally for the Bridge to Nowhere

-Palin has been very close to the oil industry

and much more.

Regrettably, Obama did not do enough this summer to brand McCain as Bush’s third term as well as a liar who will say anything to win. Better late than never, though.

UPDATE: Excellent rapid response from the Obama campaign:

Hits McCain on the Washington lobbyists running his campaign and on voting with Bush more than 90 percent of the time. Hits Palin on being for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it. Great closer:

“Politicians lying about their records–you don’t call that ‘maverick.’ You call it more of the same.”

Obama simply cannot allow McCain to brand himself as the reform candidate who will bring change to Washington. He would bring more of the same failed Bush policies and corruption.

Over the weekend numerous media reported that Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin did not plan to take questions from journalists before the election. Either those reports were inaccurate or John McCain’s campaign felt compelled to backpedal, because ABC’s Charlie Gibson will interview Palin later this week:

The McCain camp did not say why it chose Mr. Gibson, but it had selected him last week as the only major journalist to interview Mr. McCain himself during the Republican convention in St. Paul.

After his interview with Mr. McCain had aired, Mr. Gibson posted on his blog that he had “fretted” about how to approach the many personal issues that had come up about Ms. Palin and decided to ignore them.

“The major development in his campaign obviously is his surprise choice of Sarah Palin,” Mr. Gibson wrote. “It took some time in thinking about it, but I finally decided not to even bring up the issues with her family, for they are issues of family and should remain so. […]

“The relevant questions about Governor Palin, the questions that go to her suitability to serve as vice president, all relate to her experience, or lack thereof, and her policy positions as a mayor and governor in Alaska. Once I decided to restrict the Palin questions to those areas, the interview kind of formed itself,” Mr. Gibson wrote.

It’s not yet clear whether Palin will agree to a press conference, where she would have to face many reporters at the same time.

I have little sense of Gibson’s style as an interviewer, but I do think it’s right to focus on Palin’s inexperience and stands on the issues as opposed to her family matters.

Think Progress published a good summary of “What Conservatives Ignored” at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. Click over for all the analysis and supporting links. Key excerpts:

THE ECONOMY: The American public views the struggling economy as the most important issue facing the country. But as AFP observed, “The economy may be the number one issue in the White House race, but the Republican National Convention has yet to dwell on the troubles of Americans trying to make ends meet.” On Wednesday, CNBC said its reporters were “darned to find much at all” about the economy in the convention speeches. In fact, housing was mentioned just once and the term “middle-class” was used only twice. […]

HEALTH CARE: At a town hall event last month, McCain declared, “There is a health care crisis in America. We would be, if it were not for the energy crisis, we’d be talking a lot more about health care issues.” But despite skyrocketing health care costs and millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans, nearly every prominent speaker at the Republican National Convention ignored this crisis. […]

GLOBAL WARMING: […] Republicans also ignored the obvious link between global warming and the increasing intensity of storms: the terms “global warming” and “climate change” were each mentioned just once. A new study published in the journal Nature this week found that “the strongest of hurricanes and typhoons have become even stronger over the past two and a half decades.” […] Despite McCain’s claims that he believes global warming is real, the GOP platform — which McCain has promised to run on — is loaded with caveats about the uncertainty of science and the need to ‘resist no-growth radicalism’ in taking on climate change.” […]

Speaking of what the Republicans didn’t talk about, watch this fantastic clip from a Joe Biden event yesterday. Partial transcript for those who don’t click over:

But, I’ll tell you, it’s not so much of what I heard in the Republican convention. When you heard John speak last night.  It’s not so much what I heard, when I heard part of what the Governor had to say, the vice presidential candidate.  It’s what I didn’t hear.

(Applause)

THE SILENCE – THE SILENCE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY WAS DEAFENING.  IT WAS DEAFENING.  ON JOBS, ON HEALTH CARE, ON ENVIRONMENT, ON ALL THE THINGS THAT MATTER TO THE PEOPLE IN THE NEIGHBORHOODS I GREW UP IN.  DEAFENING!

(Standing Ovation)

Ladies and gentlemen, THEIR AMERICA IS NOT THE AMERICA I LIVE IN. THEY SEE SOMETHING DIFFERENT THAN I SEE.

Ladies and gentlemen, literally, those of you, I can’t swear to this because I didn’t see every bit of every speech. But I asked my staff to check. Do any of you recall either candidate on the Republican ticket utter the phrase, middle class?

Crowd: No!

Biden: Did any of you hear them utter the phrase, health care and how we’re going to help?

Crowd: No!

Biden: Did you hear them talk about aid to get kids to college?

Crowd: No!

Biden: Did you hear them talk about aid to education?

Crowd: No!

Biden: Did you hear them putting more cops on the street to make us safer?

Crowd: No!

Biden: I didn’t hear a thing, a thing, about any of the things that matter to the lives of the people of my hometown of Scranton….

Rick Davis, John’s campaign manager, said two days into the convention, he said “this election is not about issues.”  That’s what he said.  And everything I saw at the convention demonstrated that.

It was about how well placed — and boy she is good — how a left jab can be stuck pretty nice.  It’s about how Barack Obama is such a bad guy.

It’s about how in fact, how in fact, they got great quips.  Man, they’re like the kids you know when you went to school and you were very proud of the new belt or the shoes you had, and there was always one kid in the class who said, “oh, are they your brother’s?”

Crowd: Yeah.

Remember that kid?  That’s what this is reminding me of.  “Oh, I love your dress, was that your mother’s?”

You know what I’m talking about.

What do you talk about, when you have nothing to say?!

What do you talk about when you CANNOT EXPLAIN THE LAST EIGHT YEARS OF FAILURE?!

(Standing Ovation)

What do you talk about?!  What do you talk about?!

You talk about the other guy.

Speaking of McCain’s acceptance speech (transcript here), I didn’t think it was well-written. If there are any aspiring speechwriters out there, you want to avoid drafting passages like this:

I will keep taxes low and cut them where I can. My opponent will raise them. I will open new markets to our goods and services. My opponent will close them. I will cut government spending. He will increase it.

My tax cuts will create jobs. His tax increases will eliminate them. My health care plan will make it easier for more Americans to find and keep good health care insurance. His plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor.

The crowd kept interrupting with boos after McCain’s description of what Obama would do. It came across as very negative.

These contrasts should have been flipped around so that the crowd kept interrupting McCain with applause after he compared his opponent’s plans with his own ideas. You want television viewers to see the audience repeatedly cheering the nominee.

A whole lot of television viewers saw McCain: Nielsen estimates that he drew a slightly bigger television audience than Obama did when speaking at Invesco field in Denver. Sarah Palin’s speech on Wednesday was watched by almost as many people.

NCDem Amy brings you the video of Rachel Maddow daring to call Republican lying what it is.

Speaking of lying, a new ad from McCain and the Republican National Committee says Obama is the candidate who would bring you “more of the same.”

If you were wondering why McCain started talking in front of a green screen on Thursday night, it’s because he was standing in front the grass at the bottom of a huge photo. It turned out to be Walter Reed Middle School in California (presumably they had intended to use Walter Reed Medical Center, where wounded soldiers are treated, as a backdrop).

Anne Kilkenny, a Wasilla resident who knows Palin well, wrote this piece about her that has become a viral e-mail.

Here’s another piece about Palin by a longtime resident of Alaska.

I’m with this guy: when it comes to Palins, I’ll take Michael Palin of Monty Python. (No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!)

UPDATE: Reacting to McCain’s repeated promises to “fight” in his acceptance speech, Senator Barbara Boxer of California notes that she has seen McCain fight many times: against raising the minimum wage, against equal pay for equal work, against access to birth control …

Details to follow from the Obama campaign. It will be Biden’s first Iowa visit since the caucuses. Expect a very big crowd.

Here’s a good diary about a Biden town-hall meeting in Sarasota this week, with video. He still answers questions for an hour or more at his campaign stops.

Speaking of which, John McCain’s campaign has announced that vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin will not take questions from journalists before the election. No press conferences, no Sunday-morning talk shows. Will this force journalists to drop their questioning of Palin’s record in Alaska and familiarity with basic matters of domestic and foreign policy?

Palin won’t be in seclusion–she’ll be doing about 30 fundraisers in the next 60 days.

UPDATE: Enjoy this post by Al Rodgers about a Biden event on Friday. Click the link to watch a short video clip or read the transcript.

SECOND UPDATE: Here are the details about the Biden event:

Rally with Joe Biden

Paul R. Knapp Animal Learning Center

Iowa State Fairgrounds

East University Ave. and East 30th St.

Des Moines, IA 50317

Monday, September 8th

Doors Open: 2:15 p.m.

Program Time: 3:15 p.m.

RSVP

http://iowa.barackobama.com/bi…

The event is free and open to the public; tickets are not required but an RSVP is encouraged. Space is available on a first come, first served basis.

For security reasons, do not bring bags. Please limit personal items. No signs or banners allowed.

Watch this fantastic answer by Barack Obama when asked on Thursday why being a community organizer is relevant experience for the presidency:

Greg Sargent posted the video of the entire brief press conference here. I agree with Sargent on Obama’s response to Sarah Palin’s criticism of him:

Great line at the end: “I’ve been called worse on the basketball court. It’s not that big of a deal.”

Dismissive, contemptuous, and perpetually bemused by the new lows of buffoonery and pettiness that the GOP sinks to on a now-daily basis. Keep that tone going.

Obama is really good at staying cool and not rising to the bait. In contrast, John McCain is a hothead, and I expect that comparison to work in our favor as the campaign progresses.

I was less impressed by Obama spokesman Bill Burton’s response to McCain’s speech tonight. It sounds less natural, more like canned talking points.

As McCain was wrapping up his speech, Hillary Clinton released this statement:

“The two party conventions showcased vastly different directions for our country. Senator Obama and Senator Biden offered the new ideas and positive change America needs and deserves after eight years of failed Republican leadership. Senator McCain and Governor Palin did not.

“After listening to all of the speeches this week, I heard nothing that suggests the Republicans are ready to fix the economy for middle class families, provide quality affordable health care for all Americans, guarantee equal pay for equal work for women, restore our nation’s leadership in a complex world or tackle the myriad of challenges our country faces.

“So, to slightly amend my comments from Denver: NO WAY, NO HOW, NO McCAIN-PALIN.”

Great stuff, and I hear she will take this message to Florida on Monday.

By the way, Joe Biden has been campaigning in Florida this week, and here’s a good write-up of a town-hall meeting in Sarasota, with video.

I’ve been saying for months that Obama has no chance of beating McCain in Florida, but I am revising that opinion. Obama’s choice of Biden will serve him well among Jews and voters over 60, while Palin will alienate Jews and probably won’t help McCain with seniors.

Put Biden and Clinton to work in Florida, and Obama has an outside shot at this state with a solid GOTV effort. At the very least, McCain will have to work to hold this state.

After the jump I’ve posted a fundraising e-mail from Obama in response to the way “the Republicans mocked, dismissed, and actually laughed out loud at Americans who engage in community service and organizing.”

The schedule for the evening is here. They will show the Sarah Palin biographical video during prime time, after Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and before former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, the video about John McCain, and Cindy McCain’s introduction of her husband.

It won’t have the same impact as if they had shown it before Palin introduced herself to 37 million viewers. We owe Rudy Giuliani and the chanting crowd a big thank you for running late last night.

Palin’s speech seems to have fired up the Democratic base as well as the Republicans. Barack Obama is rumored have raised nearly $10 million in the past 24 hours.

Chatter away. I’ll be watching the repeat of the proceedings later tonight and will post updates then.

UPDATE: Talking Points Memo has the full text of McCain’s speech.

Also at TPM, Josh Marshall’s liveblog of McCain’s speech is hilarious.

Shamelessly, the producers of tonight’s events thought it was a good idea to show a “9/11 tribute video” with graphic footage. You can watch the video here if you have the stomach for it.

Also, McCain started speaking at exactly 9:11 pm central time.

Blogger plf515, who survived the World Trade Center attack, posted his outraged commentary here.

I’m not a big fan of Keith Olbermann, but this time he got it exactly right:

“If at this late date any television networt had of its own accord showed that much video tape and that much graphic video tape of 911, and I speak as somebody who lost a few friends there, it, we, would be rightly eviscerated at all quarters perhaps by the Republican party itself for exploiting the memories of the dead and perhaps even for trying to evoke that pain again. If you reacted to that video tape the way I did, I apologize. It is a subject of great pain for many of us still and was probably not appropriate to be shown.”

SECOND UPDATE: I saw most of McCain’s speech on the repeat. He never said “George Bush”–just one reference to “the president,” “Laura Bush,” and “the 41st president.” Will people buy the way he is running away from the Republican Party’s record of failure? I have no idea.

A few things toward the end struck me as odd. Here is the last part of his speech:

I’m not running for president because I think I’m blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save our country in its hour of need. My country saved me. My country saved me, and I cannot forget it. And I will fight for her for as long as I draw breath, so help me God.

If you find faults with our country, make it a better one. If you’re disappointed with the mistakes of government, join its ranks and work to correct them. Enlist in our Armed Forces. Become a teacher. Enter the ministry. Run for public office. Feed a hungry child. Teach an illiterate adult to read. Comfort the afflicted. Defend the rights of the oppressed. Our country will be the better, and you will be the happier. Because nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself.

I’m going to fight for my cause every day as your President. I’m going to fight to make sure every American has every reason to thank God, as I thank Him: that I’m an American, a proud citizen of the greatest country on earth, and with hard work, strong faith and a little courage, great things are always within our reach. Fight with me. Fight with me.

Fight for what’s right for our country.

Fight for the ideals and character of a free people.

Fight for our children’s future.

Fight for justice and opportunity for all.

Stand up to defend our country from its enemies.

Stand up for each other; for beautiful, blessed, bountiful America.

Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. Nothing is inevitable here. We’re Americans, and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history.

Thank you, and God Bless you.

When McCain started talking about being grateful to his country for “saving” him, I was taken aback, because I thought that might offend Christians who think only Jesus saves. But McCain got around to thanking God a minute later, so I don’t think that was a gaffe.

To my ear there was a bit of a sneer in his voice as he delivered the line about not running for president “because I think I’m blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save our country in its hour of need.” I also sensed a rebuke to Obama in McCain’s line about how “nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself.”

McCain spent a large part of this speech defining himself as a servant to his country. Although he nodded to Obama’s achievement at one point, it seems clear that he will continue to depict Obama as a celebrity whose campaign is all about himself.

But look what he said at the very end:

Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. Nothing is inevitable here. We’re Americans, and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history.

Sounds like McCain is worried about Republicans resigning themselves to Obama’s inevitable history-making victory. It was strange to hear him acknowledge that pessimism about his chances at what should have been the climax of his speech.

THIRD UPDATE: This part of the speech was drafted poorly:

I will keep taxes low and cut them where I can. My opponent will raise them. I will open new markets to our goods and services. My opponent will close them. I will cut government spending. He will increase it.

My tax cuts will create jobs. His tax increases will eliminate them. My health care plan will make it easier for more Americans to find and keep good health care insurance. His plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor.

The crowd kept interrupting with boos after McCain’s description of what Obama would do. It came across as very negative.

These contrasts should have been flipped around so that the crowd kept interrupting McCain with applause after he contrasted his opponent’s plans with his own ideas. You want television viewers to see the audience repeatedly cheering the nominee.

I really have no idea how Alaska Governor Sarah Palin went over last night with voters who are not already strongly committed Republicans. I will reserve judgment until we see the next round of polls from must-hold states for John McCain, such as Ohio, Virginia and Colorado.

Huffington Post reported on the reaction from focus groups of married and unmarried supporters of Hillary Clinton. I recommend reading the whole article, but here’s an excerpt:

First, women in both groups were impressed with Palin’s speaking ability and poise. But they were hardly convinced that she was qualified to be vice president, or that she truly represented the “change” they were looking for, especially in light of what was deemed an overly harsh “sarcasm” pervading her address. […]

In the “married” group, when one attendee kicked off the discussion by saying “she’s a good speaker, and a crowd pleaser,” the rest of the room articulated their agreement. “I didn’t expect to be as impressed as I was,” said another respondent. But then another woman added: “Once she started mudslinging, I thought, it’s the same old crap as other politicians. McCain used her to get the women’s vote. And she’s using McCain.”

“Thank you,” another woman responded. “That really upset me; there was no need for that. It was snippy.”

The unmarried group also voiced similar objections to the harsh, partisan edge of Palin’s remarks. “I’m not impressed with her at all as a person,” one said, citing her “finger pointing” and general sarcasm after the group had generally agreed that she was a talented public speaker.

Natasha Chart, who grew up in a conservative, religious family, posted a fascinating commentary on last night’s proceedings at MyDD, complete with King James Bible quotations. She notes that

Jesus didn’t ask the faithful to give good speeches. He didn’t ask of them that they should be from small towns, or some certain geographic region. He asked that they do something real, something material, to lighten the loads of their fellow travelers in this life.

Marc Ambinder thinks Palin may have just made Barack Obama “yesterday’s news”:

Sarah Palin is, quite simply, the celebrity of September. Interest in her will be enormous. Just as Democrats painted on Barack Obama’s blank canvass in January and February of 2007, Republicans and independents will get the chance to fill in their view of Gov. Palin. She’s the new thing. The object of curiosity. The press and the larger media will obsess over her and her family and her life.

TruthMatters thinks the Republicans lost a huge opportunity when they cut the biographical video on Palin out of last night’s program:

First they lead into her with Romney and Rudy, basically putting the country on notice, We Are Republicans And We Mean Business.

They GOP is basically telling us now, that the culture wars are back and they mean it.

Then they go into the prime time hour, the thing millions of American’s are going to see, is nothing but Rudy and Palin non-stop attacking democrats and anyone who is NOT a Republican.

And Rudy really screwed it up, because he ran long and they didn’t play her video. Her Video was suppose to make America fall in love with her, anyone remember, Michelle’s, Hillary’s, Joes, and Obama’s from last week? They NEEDED that video tonight to introduce her, espeically if this was how she was going to come out. She gave no substance, nothing but attacks, she showed us she was a hard right Republican, and she means business.

Now her base loved it. she is getting rave reviews from the right. This from redstate.com says it all “Sarah Palin. An Amazing, Historic, Epic Win.” but here is the problem. In their sheer hubris is all I can say, they seem to think that they are still the majority in this country. What they are ignoring is they are turning off every non-republican in this country. Since the convention and Sarah’s introduction, Obama has taken the lead in independents and increased his Democratic numbers.

The GOP has seem to have forgotten that Sarah was suppose to reach out to independents and the frustrated Hillary supporters, because there aren’t enough GOP voters anymore their party numbers are down. but instead they are now stuck with the 2004 strategy of excite the base and get out to vote.

For a “real vetting roundup” on Palin, read this post by georgia10.

Kos notes that the Republican convention is drawing fewer television viewers than the GOP convention four years ago and a far smaller audience than the Democratic convention drew last week. CORRECTION: the latest ratings show Palin drew almost as large an audience last night as Obama did last Thursday.

I still think selecting Palin was a huge mistake for McCain, whose main talking point against Obama was that he lacked sufficient experience to lead.

Also, give me a break from the talking point about Palin having “more executive experience than Obama and Biden combined,” as if Obama and Biden’s in-depth knowledge and experience crafting federal policy is worth less than being a small-town mayor and serving half a term as governor.

Watch this great clip from last night’s Daily Show, which juxtaposes Karl Rove on Palin’s tremendous experience with what Rove said about Virginia Governor Tim Kaine a few weeks ago. Kaine has served as governor for longer than Palin, managing a state much larger than Alaska. Before that Kaine was lieutenant governor of Virginia, and before that he was mayor of Richmond, a much larger city than Wasilla, Alaska. Jon Stewart noted that “Karl Rove is bitterly divided on the experience issue.”

After the jump I have posted the text of a mass e-mail from Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe. He specifically takes Palin and Rudy Giuliani to task for mocking Obama’s experience as a community organizer. That was certainly one of the low points of Palin’s speech, in my opinion. At least George H.W. Bush pretended to value community activists (“1000 points of light”) twenty years ago.

UPDATE: For the full text of Palin’s speech, click here.

Small-town native Mike Lux had this reaction:

while I appreciated Sarah Palin’s tribute to small-town values at one point in her speech, the values she exhibited in the rest of the speech were not the ones I recognized from the small towns I know. […]

The Sarah Palin I saw last night had a mean streak a mile wide. If me or my brothers and sisters would have been as sarcastic and demeaning to someone as Sarah Palin was last night, my mom would have sent us to our room. I know that Palin was just trying to be funny when she compared herself to a pit bull, but she was just about as nasty as one, and in the dog-loving families I know from small-town America, people generally prefer dogs that will play well with kids and neighbors. And the community organizers that Palin made so much fun of [are] the folks who organized the potluck suppers at church and the Lions Club charities, the ones who really made those small towns go.

Lux should understand that when Palin made fun of community organizers, she wasn’t talking about people who run church potlucks in small towns. I tend to agree with billmon:

Used the way the GOP speakers used the words tonight (i.e. with a sneer), community = ghetto and organizer = activist.

It essentially was a coded way of pointing out Obama’s work in, with and for the black community (see? even I’m doing it) on the South Side of Chicago. Also the fact that his work involved helping low-income people stand up for their legal rights, as opposed to a GOP-sanctioned “real” job like business owner or career military officer (or moose hunter.) They were trying to put Obama back on the same level as Jesse Jackson — i.e., the black protest candidate — and mocking him for it.

I won’t be watching in prime time, but I plan to watch the repeat of Sarah Palin’s speech on C-SPAN later. I expect her to bring the house down in St. Paul. Those delegates are her kind of Republican.

Chatter away about what you’ve seen and heard today. I will update later.

UPDATE: I hope John McCain runs his new Obama/Palin comparison ad in every swing state:

MSNBC’s First Read has already fact-checked this ad:

It’s important to note that there are a few misleading assertions in the ad. For one, the “Journal” that’s cited is the conservative and partisan Wall Street Journal editorial page. Two, to call Obama the Senate’s most liberal senator is dubious. (The charge comes from the National Journal ranking Obama as having the most liberal Senate voting record of 2007, but he was nowhere near the top in 2005 and 2006; it’s also worth noting that Obama missed many Senate votes in 2007, so that ranking is a bit skewed.) And three, the charge that Obama “gave big oil billions in subsidies and giveaways” is misleading. (According to nonpartisan fact-checkers, the 2005 energy bill the McCain camp is referring to actual resulted in a net tax INCREASE on oil companies.)

Speaking of fact checks, First Read notes that Mike Huckabee was wrong to assert in his RNC speech that Sarah Palin received more votes running for mayor of Wasilla than Joe Biden received running for president. First Read says nearly 80,000 Americans voted for Biden for president.

I suspect that estimate is low. Probably somewhere between 5 and 10 percent of Iowa Democrats stood up for Biden at their precinct caucuses, although he only ended up with 1 percent of the delegates because of the 15 percent viability threshold. Also, Biden was not on the ballot in Michigan, but presumably some of those “uncommitted” voters preferred him.

The Democratic National Committee launched a fun website called JustMoreoftheSame.com. Check it out.

SECOND UPDATE: Democratic bloggers seem divided on whether Palin gave a great speech (to the audience she was trying to reach) or whether she was boring.

Josh Marshall had this to say about Rudy:

You’ll notice that Rudy Giuliani apparently ran too long and they had to drop the Palin mini-movie that was supposed to introduce her speech. Normally people get fired for goofs like that. They didn’t want Rudy’s blood and iron speech the day after Gustav so they bumped it until tonight. Big mistake. He positively dripped with a kind of curdled anger, the origin of which is difficult to grasp. But he actually seemed to get angrier and angrier as the speech progressed — off chopping his hands around, baring his teeth. I know the people in the hall loved it. But I think a lot of people will see it as whacked. Rancid. Curdled. Palin’s speech ended up being much more partisan than I expected. But that was added to by the fact that she had to start her speech while the auditorium was still awash in the teeth-gnashing froth ginned up by Rudy’s speech.

THIRD UPDATE: I caught most of the repeat of Rudy’s speech. I cannot imagine that helped McCain with anyone but the most hard-core Republicans. Talk about mean-spirited. All those loud “boos” from the audience made the crowd seem mean as well. And it was surreal to see Hizzoner from New York make fun of Obama for being too cosmopolitan. I agree with RF–if millions of Americans caught that speech while tuning in to see Palin, Obama will benefit.

Also, it was bizarre to have the camera cutting to Cindy McCain holding baby Trig during Rudy’s speech. Most young infants don’t like being passed around and held by total strangers.

FOURTH UPDATE: Mr. desmoinesdem and I watched the repeat of Palin. She did a lot better than Rudy, obviously. I’m sure she generated a lot of enthusiasm among the GOP base. We have no idea how that speech sounded to a typical undecided voter. Some of her culture war language and criticism of Obama sounded a little petty to me, but I’m obviously not the target audience. She lied again about opposing the Bridge to Nowhere, but will she get called on that? The visuals at the end of her holding baby Trig with the rest of her family on stage were great.

I think Obama and Biden should ignore her and focus their fire on McCain.