Presidential election may be up for grabs

[Kirkhill]

Cougardaddy:

I don't find Paul Begala to be a particularly useful source of info on any subject in this campaign as he is a very committed and highly partisan Democrat, guaranteed to provide pro-Obama, and before him pro-Clinton soundl-bites.

You may as well ask Rush Limbaugh for his opinion.  You know hwat you are going to get in advance.

 

[CougarKing]

And McCain steps up to the debate challenge. 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080926/ap_on_el_pr/candidates_debate

McCain agrees to attend debate in Mississippi
By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer
26 minutes ago

Republican John McCain agreed to attend the first presidential debate Friday night even though Congress doesn't have a bailout deal, reversing an earlier decision to delay the event until Washington had taken action to address the crisis.

With less than 10 hours until the debate was scheduled to start, the McCain campaign announced that the Arizona senator would travel to the University of Mississippi. The campaign said that afterward McCain would return to Washington to continue working on the financial crisis.

Obama had always planned to attend the debate and was aboard his plane preparing to take off when McCain's announcement was made. McCain quickly moved to his own private aircraft and headed South with his wife and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his wife, Judith, on board.

The action contradicted the position McCain had taken Wednesday, when he announced, "I'm directing my campaign to work with the Obama campaign and the Commission on Presidential Debates to delay Friday night's debate until we have taken action to address this crisis."

McCain had also said he would suspend all campaign activities, but in reality the campaign just shifted to Washington while the work of trying to win the election went on.

McCain had taken a gamble with the move, trying to appear above politics and as a leader on an issue that had overshadowed the presidential campaign and given him trouble. But Democratic rival Barack Obama had not bowed to McCain's challenge, and instead questioned why the Republican nominee couldn't handle two things at once — the debate and involvement in the bailout negotiations.

An Associated Press-Knowledge Networks poll out Friday just before McCain's announcement showed the public overwhelmingly wanted the candidates to debate, 60 percent to 22 percent, with the rest undecided.

By Friday morning, it appeared McCain was looking for a face-saving way to get to the debate even though a deal had not been reached. He met with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, before heading to his campaign headquarters and issuing a statement that blamed others in Washington for the failure to reach an agreement.

"John McCain's decision to suspend his campaign was made in the hopes that politics could be set aside to address our economic crisis," the statement said. "In response, Americans saw a familiar spectacle in Washington. At a moment of crisis that threatened the economic security of American families, Washington played the blame game rather than work together to find a solution that would avert a collapse of financial markets without squandering hundreds of billions of taxpayers' money to bail out bankers and brokers who bet their fortunes on unsafe lending practices."

Just before McCain's announcement, Obama told reporters that he had spent Friday morning on the phone with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and congressional leaders and he was optimistic that progress was being made toward a bailout deal.

"At this point, my strong sense is that the best thing that I can do, rather than to inject presidential politics into these delicate negotiations, is to go down to Mississippi and explain to the American people what is going on and my vision for leading the country over the next four years," Obama told reporters aboard his campaign plane as they prepared to travel to Mississippi.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a McCain supporter, said the Republican made a "huge mistake" by even discussing canceling the debate.

"You can't just say, 'World, stop for a moment. I'm going to cancel everything,'" Huckabee told reporters Thursday night in Alabama before attending a benefit for the University of Mobile. He said it's more important for voters to hear from the presidential candidates than for them to huddle with fellow senators in Washington.

Both McCain and Obama had returned to Washington on Thursday at the urging of President Bush, who invited them to a meeting with congressional leaders at the White House. But a session aimed at showing unity in resolving the financial crisis broke up with conflicts in plain view.

McCain's campaign said the meeting "devolved into a contentious shouting match" and implied Obama was at fault — on a day when McCain said he was putting politics aside to focus on the nation's financial problems.

Democrats differed, saying the refusal of McCain and other Republicans to support the plan worked out by congressional negotiators was creating a road block.

"The insertion of presidential politics has not been helpful," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Friday.

When asked whether the meeting was a mistake, Obama replied, "I'm not sure it was as productive as it could have been. I think at this point it's important to just move forward."

___

Associated Press Writer Christopher Wills contributed to this report.

___

On the Net:

University of Mississippi: http://www.olemiss.edu/debate

McCain: http://www.johnmccain.com

Obama: http://www.barackobama.com

 

[CougarKing]

I thought that both held their own when it came to tonight's debate, though  obviously McCain had a lot of anecdotes to throw in from his long experience in order to shore up the position that he was the better candidate when it came to foreign policy. Still, Obama had an edge when it came to US domestic economic issues and when it came to his emphasis on winning the war where it started- the war in Afghanistan and the need to eliminate Al Qaeda- as well the as the need for America to restore its image to the rest of the world.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/26/debate.friday/index.html

McCain: 'New 9/11' less likely now than after attacks
Story Highlights
Barack Obama says John McCain wrong about Iraq

McCain, Obama differ over spending freeze

Candidates debate earmarks, taxes, economic plans

Status of debate was in limbo until Friday afternoon

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. John McCain said Friday that another attack on the scale of the September 11 hijackings is "much less likely" now than it was the day after the terrorist attacks.

"America is safer now than it was on 9/11," he said, "But we have a long way to go before we can declare America safe."

Sen. Barack Obama, his Democratic rival for the White House, agreed that the United States is "safer in some ways" but said the country needed to focus more on issues such as nuclear non-proliferation and restoring America's image in the world.

Earlier, Obama called for a re-evaluation of the United States' approach to Russia in light of the country's recent military action in the Caucasus.

"You cannot be a 21st-century superpower and act like a 20th-century dictatorship," he said at the first presidential debate of the election season.

McCain accused Obama of responding naively to Russia's invasion of neighboring Georgia last month by calling on both sides to exercise restraint.

McCain said he would support the inclusion of Georgia and Ukraine in NATO.

He also said Iranian nuclear weapons would be an "existential threat to the state of Israel" and would encourage other countries in the Middle East to seek nuclear weapons as well.

"We cannot allow another Holocaust," he said.

Obama agreed that the United States "cannot tolerate a nuclear Iran," calling for tougher sanctions from a range of countries including Russia and China.

McCain called for a new "league of democracies" to stand firm against Iran.

He said the next president will have to decide when and how to leave Iraq and what the United States will leave behind.

The Republican candidate said that the war had been badly managed at the beginning but that the United States was now winning, thanks to a "great general and a strategy that succeeded."

"Sen. Obama refuses to acknowledge that we are winning in Iraq," McCain said.

Obama responded, "That's not true; that's not true."

He blasted McCain as having been wrong about the war at the start, saying McCain had failed to anticipate the uprising against U.S. forces and violence between rival religious groups in the country.

"At the time when the war started, you said it was quick and easy. You said we knew where the weapons of mass destruction were," Obama said, citing the key White House policy justifying the 2003 invasion.

"You were wrong. You said that we were going to be greeted as liberators. You were wrong," he said.

Before moving into foreign policy, the candidates focused on the economy.

McCain said he would consider a spending freeze on everything but defense, veterans affairs and entitlement programs in order to cut back on government spending.

Obama disagreed, saying, "The problem is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel.

"There are some programs that are very important that are currently underfunded," Obama said.

He agreed that the government needs to cut spending in some areas, but he said other areas, such as early childhood education, need more funding.

McCain repeated his call to veto every bill with earmarks.

Obama said the country "absolutely" needs earmark reform but said, "the fact is, eliminating earmarks alone is not a recipe for how we are going to get the middle class back on track."

McCain and Obama also tangled over who would cut taxes more.

McCain said he would lower business taxes in order to encourage job growth in the United States, and Obama said he would cut taxes for 95 percent of American families. Watch McCain outline differences between him and Obama »

Obama also said that the United States was facing its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

McCain said he was encouraged that Republicans and Democrats were working together to solve the crisis.

The first 30 minutes of the debate focused on the economy, even though the debate was supposed to be centered on foreign policy. The economy has dominated the campaign trail for the past two weeks.

Obama refused to be pinned down on whether he would support a $700 billion plan proposed by President Bush's top economic advisers, saying the final details of the proposal were not yet known.

McCain said he hoped to be able to vote for it.

Just hours ago, the fate of the debate was in limbo because it was unclear whether McCain would show up.

The Republican presidential candidate announced Wednesday that he was suspending his campaign to help forge legislation to save crippled U.S. financial markets.

McCain said he would not attend the debate unless Congress reached an agreement on the bailout package.

McCain said Friday that enough progress has been made for him to attend the debate, even though Congress has not made a deal.

In the final hours before the debate, McCain and Obama separately checked out the stage at the debate site on the University of Mississippi campus.

Outside the debate site, students and residents in Oxford said they were thrilled -- and relieved -- to find out that the debate was still on. The University of Mississippi said it invested $5.5 million in Friday night's event.

McCain's campaign said the Arizona senator would return to Washington after the debate. Obama issued a statement saying he plans to return, also. Full coverage of the debates

There's a lot on the line for both sides. The election is just weeks away, and polls show Obama and McCain in a tight race.

According to CNN's average of national polls, Obama holds a 5-point lead over McCain, 48 percent to 43 percent. The 9 percent of respondents who are undecided could swing the election either way.

The candidates' running mates are not in Mississippi to watch the debates.

Sen. Joe Biden, Obama's VP pick, is watching the debate from his hotel room in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Biden told firefighters and their families at a fish fry in Cudahy, Wisconsin, on Friday that the debate is a "big deal" because it will illustrate a fundamental national security difference between the candidates.

"The fundamental difference between John and Barack and me and John is this: If you're talking about security, it starts at home in addition to protecting our troops abroad and giving them everything they need."

McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, is watching the debate from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she is preparing for her debate with Biden on October 2 with a cadre of domestic and foreign policy advisers.

 

[GAP]

Even though I support McCain, I really wanted to hear something solid from Obama tonight. We may have to live with him in the White House for the next 4 years, and I wanted to hear something, anything that would make it less palatable.....I heard a lot of standard lines, stroking of the voter, but little tangible......

McCain won the foreign policy, the rest is a toss up.

 

[stryte]

I agree with you GAP. A great deal of the debate was about the state of the American economy which I felt neither candidate won outright. McCain was definitely stronger on the foreign policy aspects.

 

[tomahawk6]

Obama didnt hurt himself in the debate and so I dont see much of a bounce for McCain. Next week is the VP debate which will probably be entertaining. In the economic debate between McCain and Obama Mav needs to point out Obama's socialist tendencies. Ultimately people will make their decision based on how comfortable they are with either McCain or Obama.

 

[JackD]

Not perhaps overtly relative, but these are the issues the next President of the USA must deal with - according to these two individuals:
Opinion
A conversation with Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft
Two former national security advisors look at how the world has changed.

September 28, 2008

This spring, two of the most respected figures in American foreign policy sat down to talk about the United States and its place in the world. Zbigniew Brzezinski served as national security advisor to President Carter. Brent Scowcroft was national security advisor to presidents George H.W. Bush and Gerald R. Ford. Their conversation was moderated by David Ignatius, a columnist for the Washington Post. The following are edited excerpts:the most respected figures in American foreign policy sat down to talk about the United States and its place in the world. Zbigniew Brzezinski served as national security advisor to President Carter. Brent Scowcroft was national security advisor to presidents George H.W. Bush and Gerald R. Ford. Their conversation was moderated by David Ignatius, a columnist for the Washington Post. The following are edited excerpts: *

Zbigniew Brzezinski: I was struck the other day that the president, in his State of the Union message, said the war on terror is the defining ideological challenge of the century. And I said to myself, "Isn't that a little arrogant?" This is the year 2008, and here we are being told what the defining ideological challenge of the century is. Suppose in 1908 we were asked to define the ideological challenge of the 20th century. Would many people say right-wing and left-wing, red and brown totalitarianism? Or in 1808, the challenge of the 19th century, how many people would say on the eve of the Congress of Vienna, a conservative triumph, that the 19th century would be dominated by nationalist passions in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and throughout much of Europe?

It's not going to be the war on terror that defines the ideological challenge of our century. It's something more elusive. I think it involves three grand changes.

One is what I call the global political awakening. For the first time, all of humanity is politically active. That's a very, very dramatic change. Second, there's a shift in the global center of power from the Atlantic world to the Far East. Not the collapse of the Atlantic world, but the loss of the domination it's had for 500 years. And the third is the surfacing of common global problems that we have to address, lest we all suffer grievously. I mean climate and environment, but also poverty and injustice.

David Ignatius: Zbig, just to complete that thought, what in our ability to deal with those changes today has broken?

Brzezinski: If I had to reduce it to one factor, I would say it is the loss of American confidence. My experience as an adult has been wrapped up in a big global struggle, the Cold War. But we waged it with confidence. What I find dismaying these days is this culture of fear that one encounters everywhere.

It's wrapped up with the shock of 9/11, clearly. The fact that the whole country watched it on television shook American confidence. And sad to say, I think fear has also been propagated. That has not been helpful. The kind of issues we have to address are not going to be addressed well if the country is driven by fear.

Ignatius: Brent, how would you lead off in assessing the nature of our problem? What's broken in our ability to respond?

Brent Scowcroft: I look at the world in much the same way Zbig does. But let me start from a more historical background. I think the end of the Cold War marked a historical discontinuity in the world environment.

The Cold War was an intense concentration on a single problem. It mobilized us. It mobilized our friends and allies against a single bloc. It affected our thought processes. It affected our institutions, everything we did. I don't know if there's ever been a time we were more concentrated.

And suddenly, historically in the blink of an eye, that world came to an end, and it was replaced by a world without the existential threat of the Cold War. If we made a mistake, we might blow up the planet -- that was gone. Instead, there were 100 pinprick problems. Instead of looking through one end of the telescope, at Moscow, we were looking through the other end at this myriad of little problems. And we were dealing with them with thought processes and institutions geared for that one end of the telescope.

*

Ignatius: What was it like to sit in the White House in a world where the great fear was nuclear annihilation?

Scowcroft: There was the ever-present thought that if either side made a serious mistake, it could be catastrophic for humanity. Did we spend all our waking moments thinking about that? No. But it was a combination of that and a struggle to understand what the Soviets were up to, and what was their capability of, for example, a technological development that could suddenly make us vulnerable, and change this standoff to an asymmetry.

Ignatius: Zbig, what did it feel like for you to be in the cockpit?

Brzezinski: Well, one of my jobs was to coordinate the president's response in the event of a nuclear attack. I'm not revealing any secrets, but it was something like this: We would have initial warning of an attack within one minute of a large-scale launch by the Soviet Union. Roughly by the second minute we'd have a pretty good notion of the scale and the likely targets. By the third minute, we would know more or less when to anticipate impact and so forth. By the third minute, the job of the national security advisor was to alert the president that this was ongoing, that we have this information. And the president then decides how to respond.

It begins to get complicated immediately. If it's an all-out attack, the response is presumably easier. You just react in total. But suppose it's a more selective attack. There are choices to be made. The president is supposed to weigh the options. How will he react? There's an element of uncertainty here. In any case, the process is to be completed roughly by the seventh minute. By which time -- I assume this was roughly the same with you guys, right?

Scowcroft: So far, uh-huh.

Brzezinski: By the seventh minute, the order to execute had to be transmitted and whatever we decided had to be carried out. Roughly by the 28th minute, there's impact. That is to say, you and your family are dead. Washington's gone. A lot of our military assets are destroyed. But presumably, the president has calmly made the decision how to respond. We're already firing back. Six hours later, 150 million Americans and Soviets are dead. That is the reality we lived with. And we did everything we could to make it as stable, as subject to rational control, as possible. To be nonprovocative but also to be very alert and determined so that no one on the other side could think they could pull it off and survive.

It's very different now. I think Brent has described it very well -- 100 pinpricks. The new reality is a kind of dispersed turbulence. And that requires, I think, a different mind-set, a more sophisticated understanding of the complexity of global change.

*

Ignatius: I want you to talk a bit more about the nature of American leadership in this very complicated world. First, is American leadership necessary?

Brzezinski: It can be a catalyst. Not for actions directed by the United States but for actions that the local community -- maybe we can call them stakeholders in a global system -- is prepared collectively to embrace. That kind of leadership is needed. But for that kind of leadership to emerge in America, we not only need very special people as leaders -- and they do come up occasionally -- but we need a far more enlightened society than we have.

I think Americans are curiously, paradoxically, simultaneously very well-educated and amazingly ignorant. We are a society that lives within itself. We're not interested in the history of other countries.

Today we have a problem with Iran. How many Americans know anything about Iranian history? Do they know that it is a bifurcated history? There have been two Irans. And those two different periods, pre-Islamic and post-Islamic, dialectically define the tensions and the realities of Iran today. [Americans] know nothing about it.

Quite a few Americans entering college could not locate Great Britain on the map. They couldn't locate Iraq on the map after five years of war. Thirty percent couldn't identify the Pacific Ocean. We don't teach global history; we don't teach global geography. I think most Americans don't have the kind of sophistication that an America that inspires, and thereby leads, will have to have if it is to do what this 21st century really will demand of us.

Scowcroft: I could easily just say amen. But again, this is a part of who we are and from where we have arisen. For most of our history, we've been secure behind two oceans, with weak neighbors on each side. Americans don't have to learn foreign languages. They can travel as widely as most of them want and never leave the United States. So most Americans instinctively just want to be left alone. I don't think they want to mess with the problems of the world.

Brzezinski: They want to enjoy the good life.

Scowcroft: They want to enjoy the good life.

And our political structure seems more and more to cater to the narrow interests of Americans rather than their broader interests. Only in time of peril do our leaders really focus decisively on the international scene -- the beginning of the Cold War, for example, or when Roosevelt tried to steer us in the right direction in the prelude to World War II, or when Eisenhower reached out to Europe to form NATO. It takes that kind of leadership.

When Americans can be stimulated, I think we're good-hearted. We're not narrow and avaricious. But our political structure doesn't seem to play to that. And as I said before, in the world as it is now, only the United States can exercise enlightened leadership. Not direct people what to do. But say, "Gather round. This is the way the world community needs to go."

Brzezinski: Amen.

Scowcroft: We're the only ones who can be the guiding light.

The Brzezinski-Scowcroft conversation has been gathered into a book, "America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy," published by Basic Books and the New America Foundation and available this month.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-brzezinski28-2008sep28,0,5471933,print.story

 

[GAP]

ACORN, Obama, and the Mortgage Mess
By Mona Charen September 30, 2008
Article Link

The financial markets were teetering on the edge of an abyss last week. The secretary of the Treasury was literally on his knees begging the speaker of the House not to sabotage the bailout bill. The crash of falling banks made the earth tremble. The Republican presidential candidate suspended his campaign to deal with the crisis. And amid all this, the Democrats in Congress managed to find time to slip language into the bailout legislation that would provide a dandy little slush fund for ACORN.

ACORN stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a busy hive of left-wing agitation and "direct action" that claims chapters in 50 cities and 100,000 dues-paying members. ACORN is where Sixties leftovers who couldn't get tenure at universities wound up. That the bill-writing Democrats remembered their pet clients during such an emergency speaks volumes. This attempted gift to ACORN (stripped out of the bill after outraged howls from Republicans) demonstrates how little Democrats understand about what caused the mess we're in.

  ACORN does many things under the umbrella of "community organizing." They agitate for higher minimum wages, attempt to thwart school reform, try to unionize welfare workers (that is, those welfare recipients who are obliged to work in exchange for benefits) and organize voter registration efforts (always for Democrats, of course). Because they are on the side of righteousness and justice, they aren't especially fastidious about their methods. In 2006, for example, ACORN registered 1,800 new voters in Washington. The only trouble was, with the exception of six, all of the names submitted were fake. The secretary of state called it the "worst case of election fraud in our state's history." As Fox News reported:

"The ACORN workers told state investigators that they went to the Seattle public library, sat at a table and filled out the voter registration forms. They made up names, addresses, and Social Security numbers and in some cases plucked names from the phone book. One worker said it was a lot of hard work making up all those names and another said he would sit at home, smoke marijuana and fill out the forms."

ACORN explained that this was an "isolated" incident, yet similar stories have been reported in Missouri, Michigan, Ohio, and Colorado -- all swing states, by the way. ACORN members have been prosecuted for voter fraud in a number of states. (See www.rottenacorn.com.) Their philosophy seems to be that everyone deserves the right to vote, whether legal or illegal, living or dead.
More on link

 

[tomahawk6]

ACORN voter fraud,intimidation by unions pretty much anything goes if you are a democrat running for office. In Ohio the democrat Sec of State has launched a 1 week open registration/absentee voter on college campus'. This affects maybe 500,000 college students who the dem's feel will vote for Obama or else they wouldnt be doing it. Very sad.

 

[a_majoor]

Some more details about the links between Senator Obama and Freddie and Fannie. If this sort of information makes it out to the MSM it will seriously damage the Democrat's credibility and possibly their hold on the House and Senate as well:

http://strongconservative.blogspot.com/2008/09/acorn-obama-and-financial-mess.html

Acorn, Obama and the Financial Mess

In my past posts, I've attempted to demonstrate the current financial crisis is not a result of deregulation, but rather of government interference in the free market through the GSE's Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It is interesting to note that the radical organization, Acorn, has been a major proponent of sub-prime lending and the CRA which punished lenders who did not offer risky loans to questionable borrowers. More interesting is that Barack Obama has strong ties to Acorn, and it is no surprise that the original bailout bill had earmarks to Acorn and similar groups. Those earmarks were eventually removed by GOP lawmakers after much wrangling, but the bailout still failed.

The National Review has revealed the Obama-Acorn connections and how the two are tied up in the current financial mess:

What deserves closer scrutiny is Barack Obama’s history with ACORN. Obama cites Saul Alinsky, a self-acknowledged radical who advocated extreme acts to achieve social goals, as one of his inspirations. ACORN follows the Saul Alinsky model. After Obama graduated from Harvard, he went to work for ACORN in Chicago. Mr. Obama then became a trainer for ACORN, teaching others how to employ ACORN tactics in voter registration drives. This ACORN involvement coincides with the increasing partisanship of this situation.

Those who want to save Fannie and Freddie appear to be those who are receiving the most from these pathetic entities:

You can also see where Fannie and Freddie look for protection by where they direct their money. Public records show that the top two recipients of Fannie/Freddie campaign contributions are Sens. Chris Dodd and Barack Obama, taking $165,000 and $126,000, respectively. Dodd, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, and Mr. Obama, who says he’s going to remedy the whole situation.

...But here, the Democrats are squarely to blame. They have resisted all attempts at reforming Fannie and Freddie, and pushed those organizations to become ever more reckless in their policies. This made the investments on Wall Street carrying those tainted mortgages go from bad to worse, and now we’re in a crisis and on the verge of a meltdown.

This is inexcusable. And if independent voters figure this out, their outrage over this situation will suddenly be directed against the party that pushed these disastrous policies. So Democrats want ACORN to get as much funding as possible, because they might need some new votes in their column on Election Day.

The eagerness of the Democrats to pass this bailout makes it stink to high heaven. More than that, their eagerness to work with President Bush to pass a bailout conjures thoughts of corruption and malfeasance at the highest levels of government and industry. Investigations, both criminal and congressional, are needed to ensure that justice is done. The American people deserve better than they're getting, and certainly deserve better than Acorn's biggest cheerleader: Obama.

 

[CougarKing]

Some more details about the links between Senator Obama and Freddie and Fannie. If this sort of information makes it out to the MSM it will seriously damage the Democrat's credibility and possibly their hold on the House and Senate as well:

http://strongconservative.blogspot.com/2008/09/acorn-obama-and-financial-mess.html

and something to balance out the spin:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/30/bailout.candidates/index.html

McCain takes hit from bailout collapse
Story Highlights
NEW: Sen. John McCain says Congress has put the economy "at the gravest risk"

A majority of House Republicans voted against the bailout package

McCain says bill failed because people didn't understand how it helped Main Street

Sen. Barack Obama has largely stayed out of the bailout negotiations

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The House's failure to pass a $700 billion bailout package Monday not only held back billions for Wall Street, but also was a major blow to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign.

The Republican presidential nominee raised the stakes for himself last week when he suspended his campaign and returned to Washington for negotiations over a solution to the financial crisis.

"Even before the House vote, voters blamed Republicans more than Democrats for the crisis. Then McCain suspended his campaign to come back to Washington to rally support for a rescue plan," said Bill Schneider, a CNN political analyst. "He failed, so he gets blamed by both supporters and opponents of the rescue plan."

During a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa, on Tuesday, McCain appeared to distance himself from Monday's House vote, saying the congressional inaction had "every American and the entire economy at the gravest risk."

"Yesterday, the country and the world looked to Washington for leadership, and Congress once again came up empty-handed," he said.

But over the weekend, McCain had involved himself in the efforts to get the bailout package to the president's desk. iReport: Do you support the bailout?

Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the top Republican in the House, said that McCain was actively involved in lobbying Republican House members Sunday to line up behind the bailout.

"He has been making calls to members in support of this bill ... and I'm grateful for his support," Boehner said.

But it was a majority of McCain's own Republicans in the House who voted against the bailout by a 2-1 ratio Monday afternoon, leaving the outcome of the bailout in doubt and sending the stock market diving 778 points. Despite McCain's lobbying efforts, 133 House Republicans voted against the bill. Watch the candidates' reaction to the bailout's failure »

After the vote, McCain was defensive, accusing his Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, of just wanting to "phone it in" when it came to the bailout and introducing partisanship into the process.

"Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unnecessary partisanship into the process. Now is not the time to fix the blame. It's time to fix the problem," the Arizona Republican said after the vote. Watch politicians point fingers after the vote »

But on Tuesday morning, McCain said the bill failed "because we haven't convinced people that this is a rescue effort, not just for Wall Street, but for Main Street America, for working families, for small businesses, for the heartland of America.

"I may fail a first or second or third time, but we have to get this job done for America. And I have a plan to restore our economy," McCain added. Watch McCain say he has a plan »

Before the House vote, McCain was losing ground to Obama because of the increasingly bad economic news. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll conducted September 19-21 found that Obama was leading McCain 51 percent to 46 percent. Earlier, after the Republican convention, the two had been tied in the polls.

And the CNN poll found that Obama leads McCain 49 percent to 43 percent among those surveyed when asked who had showed better judgment in the economic crisis.

Terry Jeffries, a Republican strategist and CNN contributor, also said McCain may have hurt himself among conservatives by losing sight of his party's free-market principles.

"I think that John McCain failed to lead," Jeffries said. "He should be right there pushing the principles, and the conservatives in the House are doing that right now."

While Obama and McCain have mostly agreed on the principles of the bailout, Obama has mostly stayed out of negotiations and has used the financial crisis to attack the economic policies of the Bush administration and tie McCain to the unpopular President Bush. Watch Obama call for calm »

"He didn't put himself in that process. He was smart enough to realize he couldn't control the House Republicans or Democrats," said Ed Rollins, another Republican strategist and CNN contributor.

But McCain's allies still said McCain made the right move when he inserted himself into the talks.

"He wanted to come back to Washington and to help with the crisis. And the fact it didn't work out, it's not on his shoulders," said Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist. "Frankly, it's on the Democrats' shoulders, they're the ones who run Congress."

And Bill Clinton stars in a McCain ad?

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/30/bill-clinton-the-star-of-new-mccain-ad/

September 30, 2008
Bill Clinton the star of new McCain ad
Posted: 01:40 PM ET

From CNN Ticker Producer Alexander Mooney


The McCain campaign is highlighting a recent Clinton interview in a new ad.
(CNN) — As he gears up to hit the campaign trail on behalf of Barack Obama later this week, former President Bill Clinton is the star of a new television ad — for John McCain.

The Arizona senator's campaign is highlighting Clinton's remarks in an interview with ABC News last week during which he appeared to lay some of the blame of the current economic crisis on congressional Democrats.

"I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was president to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," Clinton said in the ABC News interview that is highlighted in the new McCain ad.

The announcer of the one-minute spot called "Rein" cites McCain's call for more regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two years ago and said "Democrats blocked the reforms."

"Loans soared. Then, the bubble burst. And, taxpayers are on the hook for billions. Bill Clinton knows who is responsible," the announcer also says.

But in the same interview with ABC, Clinton also said it is important not to assign blame at this time for the current state of the economy: "We are where we are. I think the most important thing is we got two candidates for president saying 'lets try to minimize the partisan differences,'" he said. "We will have plenty of time later to look at who caused this and what mistakes were made."

Those comments did not make it into the McCain ad.

The ad comes days after some Democrats grumbled the former president appeared to be overly praiseworthy of the Arizona senator as the final stretch of the heated presidential campaign gets under way. In the same interview with ABC News, Clinton defended McCain's call to possibly push back the first debate, saying it was a pledge made in "good faith." He also later said the Arizona senator had taken the lead in his party when it comes to climate change.

 

[GAP]

I was curious about how the Electoral College functions and how they arrive at the decision of who will be president...here's some of what I found..

How the Electoral College Functions
03 September 2008
Article Link

The Constitutional Basis

Excerpt from Article II, Section 1.

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

• The Electoral College is not a place. It is a process that began as part of the original design of the U.S. Constitution. The Electoral College was established by the Founding Fathers of the United States as a compromise between election of the president by Congress and election by direct popular vote. The people of the United States vote for electors, who then vote for the president. The National Archives is the federal government agency that oversees the process.

• Each state is allocated a number of electors equal to the number of its U.S. senators (always two) plus the number of its U.S. representatives, which is based on the census of population conducted every 10 years.  Currently, the populous state of California has 55 electors, while a state with fewer residents, such as North Dakota, might have only three or four.

• The Electoral College now consists of 538 electors (one for each of 435 members of the House of Representatives and 100 senators, plus 3 for the District of Columbia, the national capital, Washington). A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the president and vice president.

• The U.S. Constitution contains very few provisions relating to the qualifications of electors. Article II provides that no member of Congress “or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States” shall be appointed an elector.

• The process for selecting electors varies state by state. Generally, state political party leaders nominate electors at their state party conventions or by a vote of the state party's central committee. Electors are often selected to recognize their service and dedication to their political party. They may be state-elected officials, party leaders, or persons who have an affiliation with the presidential candidate.

The voters in each state choose the electors pledged to a presidential candidate on the day of the general election -- the Tuesday after the first Monday in November (November 4 in 2008). The electors' names may or may not appear on the ballot below the name of the candidates running for president, depending on the procedure in each state.

• The electors in each state meet on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December (December 15 in 2008) to select the president and vice president of the United States.

• No constitutional provision or federal law requires electors to vote in accordance with the popular vote in their state. But some state laws provide that so-called faithless electors be subject to fines or be disqualified for casting an invalid vote and be replaced by a substitute elector. The U.S. Supreme Court has not specifically ruled on the question of whether pledges and penalties for failure to vote as pledged may be enforced under the Constitution. No elector has ever been prosecuted for failing to vote as pledged.

• Today it is rare for electors to disregard the popular vote by casting their electoral vote for someone other than their party's candidate. Electors generally hold a leadership position in their party or were chosen to recognize years of loyal service to the party. Throughout U.S. history, more than 99 percent of electors have voted as pledged.

• The Electoral College vote totals determine the president and vice president, not the statistical plurality or majority a candidate may have in the nationwide popular vote totals. Four times in U.S. history -- 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000 -- the candidate who collected the most popular votes nationwide failed to win the majority of electoral votes.

• In 2008, 48 out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia award electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis. For example, all 55 of California's electoral votes go to the winner of that state’s popular vote, even if the margin of victory is only 50.1 percent to 49.9 percent. Only two states, Nebraska and Maine, do not follow the winner-take-all rule. In those states, there could be a split of electoral votes among candidates through a proportional allocation of votes.

• Congress meets in joint session in January of the year following the presidential election to count the electoral votes.

• If no presidential candidate wins a majority of electoral votes, the 12th Amendment to the Constitution provides for the presidential election to be decided by the House of Representatives. The House would select the president by majority vote, choosing from the three candidates who received the greatest number of electoral votes. The vote would be taken by state, with each state delegation having one vote. If no vice presidential candidate wins a majority of electoral votes, the Senate would select the vice president by majority vote, with each senator choosing from the two candidates who received the greatest number of electoral votes.

• The House has selected the president twice, in 1800 and 1824. The Senate has selected the vice president once, in 1836.

• Reference sources indicate that over the past 200 years, more than 700 proposals have been introduced in Congress to reform or eliminate the Electoral College. There have been more proposals for constitutional amendments on changing the Electoral College than on any other subject.

• Opinions on the viability of the Electoral College system may be affected by attitudes toward third parties -- ones other than the Democratic and Republican parties. Third parties have not fared well in the Electoral College system. In 1948 and 1968, third-party candidates with regional appeal won blocs of electoral votes in the South, which may have affected the outcome but did not come close to seriously challenging the major party winner. The last third-party candidate to make a strong showing was former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. He finished a distant second in electoral and popular votes (taking 88 of the 266 electoral votes then needed to win). Although Ross Perot won 19 percent of the popular vote nationwide in 1992, he did not win any electoral votes since he was not particularly strong in any state.

Source: The National Archives
End of Article

 

[tomahawk6]

Here's an interactive map depicting how many electors per state.What determines the winner is a minimum of 270 electoral votes no matter how many popular votes. The winner of each state earns that state's electoral votes. Its a nice check and balance by our prescient founding fathers.

http://www.270towin.com/

 

[GAP]

Here's an interactive map depicting how many electors per state.What determines the winner is a minimum of 270 electoral votes no matter how many popular votes. The winner of each state earns that state's electoral votes. Its a nice check and balance by our prescient founding fathers.

http://www.270towin.com/

I see the Democrats have dropped from a high of 248 electoral votes to 202...The republicans have dropped some, but not as much...

 

[tomahawk6]

Its interactive so you can play with it. The polls vary per state. A recent poll showed Florida,Ohio and Pennsylvania with a strong Obama showing. I wont trust the polls until the weekend before the election.I just dont see Obama winning in Florida. Its quite possible that he could take Ohio and Pennsylvania as he should do well in the cities. The democrats run both states so I dont doubt that they will try to tilt things in favor of Obama. We are already seeing this in Ohio. Alot of time left.

 

[CougarKing]

Here's an interactive map depicting how many electors per state.What determines the winner is a minimum of 270 electoral votes no matter how many popular votes. The winner of each state earns that state's electoral votes. Its a nice check and balance by our prescient founding fathers.

http://www.270towin.com/

Sir,

You thinking of watching the Palin-Biden VP debate this Thursday night- 9 PM ET on many networks including CNN?

 

[muskrat89]

I think it was very nice of the VP Debate Moderator to take time away from her book release to perform moderation duties....

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/01/vp-debate-moderator-pens-pro-obama-book/

 

[tomahawk6]

Yes Cougar I will be watching,probably FOX News.

 

[observor 69]

I think it was very nice of the VP Debate Moderator to take time away from her book release to perform moderation duties....

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/01/vp-debate-moderator-pens-pro-obama-book/

Seeing as how the book won't even hit print until Jan.20 2009 it could be hard for her "to take time away from her book release ."

http://www.amazon.com/Breakthrough-Politics-Race-Age-Obama/dp/038552501X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222969770&sr=8-1

 

[muskrat89]

I was being rhetorical