October 02, 2008

10/2: The Expectations Game

Conservative bloggers continue to launch accusations of bias at the moderator of tonight's VP debate, PBS' Gwen Ifill, whose upcoming book is titled The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama. Righty bloggers believe that Ifill has "a financial incentive...to harm the [John] McCain campaign in order to help Barack Obama" and they're furious that she "did not tell the Commission on Presidential Debates about the book". They're urging Ifill to recuse herself from tonight's debate (which does not appear likely at this late hour), and some are even calling on PBS to fire her for her "ethical breach". As we said yesterday, it's clear that righty bloggers will protest mightily if they perceive Ifill as asking tougher questions of Palin than she does of Joe Biden.

Meanwhile, liberal bloggers are buzzing about the latest excerpt from Katie Couric's interview with Sarah Palin, in which Palin appears unable to name a Supreme Court decision (other than Roe v. Wade) that she disagrees with. This is the latest in a string of shaky answers that have made Palin an object of ridicule in the liberal blogosphere. Lefty bloggers already had doubts about Palin's understanding of domestic and foreign affairs, but the Couric interview has absolutely convinced them that Palin is unprepared to be VP.

That said, most lefty bloggers expect Palin to give a winning performance at tonight's debate. Why? First of all, they believe that her shaky interview with Couric will help her by significantly lowering the media's expectations. Second, they believe that Palin will benefit from the debate format, since "she won't be answering tough questions as much as she will be re-heating the slams against Obama she's spent time memorizing all week". Third, lefty bloggers believe that Ifill "is now in a situation where she'll bend over backwards to avoid appearing too hard on Palin".

PALIN DEBATE: Should Ifill Recuse Herself?

Conservative bloggers continue to argue that Ifill is biased in favor of Obama and that she should not moderate tonight's VP debate:

• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "With a financial stake in the election's outcome, Ifill shouldn't even be conducting interviews of the candidates, let alone moderating a debate."
• RedState's Erick Erickson: "Ms. Ifill did not disclose her book deal to the McCain campaign before the campaign approved her selection as a debate moderator. Obviously this situation is unacceptable. Ms. Ifill has a financial incentive to do no harm to the Obama campaign and has an incentive to harm the McCain campaign in order to help Barack Obama. If you are as concerned about this as I am, you can call Paula Kerger, the CEO of PBS at (703) 739-8619 and Sharon Rockefeller, the CEO of WETA in Washington, D.C. at (703) 998-2089 and ask them to have Ms. Ifill recuse herself or, if they refuse, insist that Ms. Ifill fully disclose her conflict of interest."
• Right Wing News' John Hawkins: "It's painfully obvious that someone who's writing a book called, 'The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama,' especially one that is supposed to come out on inauguration day, has no business moderating a Vice-Presidential debate. Moreover, the fact that she didn't 'tell the Commission on Presidential Debates about the book', tells you everything you need to know about Gwen Ifill's ethics or more aptly, her lack of ethics. [...] Know what I find curious? That Ifill is still being allowed to moderate the debate -- and for that matter, that she still has a job at PBS after this. Quite frankly, she deserves to be fired for this kind of ethical breach."
• Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "If Obama wins, [Ifill's] book has a good chance to sell lots of copies; if he loses, sales will probably be low to non-existent. Ifill's position is untenable. She will almost certainly be accused of (a) being unfair to Palin in order to sell her book, (b) being unfair to Biden in order to prevent accusation 'a' or (c) both. Either the first of the second accusation will be quite plausible."
• Townhall's Matt Lewis: "I'm much more concerned about [Ifill's] conflict of interest than about her otherwise liberal bias. Conservatives can almost always assume they will be debating both their opponent and the moderator -- so having a liberal moderator doesn't really surprise me. More concerning, however, is the fact that she stands to gain financially by Obama winning. Perhaps Ifill should have passed on this opportunity? This is utterly ridiculous -- and would not be tolerated if the situation were reversed and a conservative moderator (yeah, right!) had been booked..."
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "The fact that Ifill wrote the book about Obama is not automatically disqualifying. But the fact that she didn't tell the Commission on Presidential Debates about her book, and that she doesn't see what the fuss is about, does. [...] She says we can judge her tomorrow. But if her questions are, 'Joe, how did you get so smart?' and 'Sarah, how do you live with yourself, knowing all the terrible things you've done', there's no method of recourse. The debate will already be done. McCain and Palin ought to demand a new moderator."
• RedState's Jed Babbin: "We are used to liberal bias in the media, and it's questionable if PBS can even find among its journalists someone who approaches an unbiased point of view. Nevertheless, Ifill has a financial interest in the outcome of the election. If Obama loses, her book will be DOA. If Obama wins, she wins greater book sales and thus far greater income from royalties. This, by any standard, is a disqualifying conflict of interest. Ifill must be removed from the moderator's slot -- today -- and replaced by someone who at the very least does not have a financial interest in the outcome of tomorrow night's debate."
• Glenn Reynolds: "If, say, John Stossel or Bill O'Reilly were the moderator, I suspect that we'd be getting a lot of squawking from the same journalistic 'watchdog' types who think there's no problem with Gwen Ifill. And that double standard -- and the departure from the neutrality ideal that it exemplifies -- is a bigger problem than any conflict of interest on Ifill's part."
• NRO's Mark Steyn: "Gwen Ifill is writing a book about one of the candidates. What, just a run-of-the-mill biography, no big deal, merely an unfortunate scheduling coincidence? No, it's a book on the profound historical significance of one of the two candidates, and it's due to be released on Inauguration Day. Anybody's Inauguration Day in particular? Miss Ifill has an explicit commercial stake in an Obama victory. Even the time-serving squishes on the Debates Commission should had been able to do ten minutes of due diligence on this. Otherwise, what's the point of a Debates Commission?"

Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau thinks the revelation about Ifill's upcoming book is "good news" for the GOP: "I'm glad to learn about Gwen Ifill's forthcoming book. [...] Why's it good news? First, Ifill understands that her every movement, word, statement and attitude is going to be subjected to even closer scrutiny than might otherwise have been the case. Oddly, she will actually have to be more even-handed because she knows that everyone understands where her bias lies. Second, this is a high-profile example of the systemic pro-Obama bias in the MSM. It allows those who otherwise might not have been aware of the Barack-worship in the press to hear about it in a way that drives the point home."

Hawkins agrees: "The only bright side to this is that the McCain campaign can now use Ifill's obvious bias as a talking point after the debate. If Palin does well, it's even more impressive since the moderator was obviously favoring Biden. If she doesn't do well, what can you expect with Gwenn Ifill trying to help Biden?"

Meanwhile, The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan is disgusted by the whole controversy: "The Ifill attack [is] straight out of [Karl] Rove. Attack the debate moderator. The best that can happen from the Rove-[Steve] Schmidt point of view is that Ifill softens her questions to Palin out of fear of being smeared by the McCain camp, as they have tried to smear me and any other journalist doing their job. The worst is that Ifill does not get intimidated, asks tough questions, and then gets the post-debate spin by the GOP focused on her, not Palin. It helps too that Ifill is black: it shores up the racist vote McCain needs to win."

PALIN DEBATE II: Why She'll Do Fine Tonight

Liberal bloggers are arguing that Palin's shaky interview with Couric should not be seen as an indication that she'll give a poor performance at tonight's VP debate:

• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "In order to surpass expectations, all Palin has to do is show up and demonstrate that she can speak English."
• TAPPED's Adam Serwer: "It's sort of funny to watch liberals get all excited about the idea that the VP debate will be some kind of train wreck for Sarah Palin. It won't, because VP debates aren't really about finding out which candidate is more qualified, but framing the candidate at the top of the ticket. [...] Sarah Palin has been at her most effective delivering scripted attack lines, and the debate won't be an interview. She won't be answering tough questions as much as she will be re-heating the slams against Obama she's spent time memorizing all week. All indications are that Palin is actually very good at 'the nonanswer.' Whether she comes across as knowledgable doesn't matter if she manages to reopen doubts about Obama's ability to be president. Expect her to turn questions about her qualifications into questions about Obama's, and inquiries about her religion into arguments about Rev. Jeremiah Wright. All she has to do to reignite that conversation is frame herself as a victim of a double-standard -- and that's the other thing she seems to be great at. The media will do the rest."
• TAPPED's Mori Dinauer: "There seems to be a consensus growing that Palin may come away from tomorrow's debate victorious, although it's unclear whether this will be because of her folksy style, her commanding performance at the 2006 gubernatorial debates, her stunning ability to consistently give non-answers or because expectations have been set so, so low. I think Adam has the right take when he observes that Palin will use every opportunity to attack the top of the Democratic ticket, and for that all she needs are well-scripted zingers aimed at Barack Obama. It will seem as though Joe Biden isn't even there. Of course Palin will look a bit clueless on substantive policy questions, but what will count is that she shifted the focus back to Obama."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "If I may state the obvious, the fact that Gwen Ifill apparently has a forthcoming book titled Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama is a huge advantage for Sarah Palin. [...] Because of the book, and because Ifill has a reputation as a professional to maintain, she's now in a situation where she'll bend over backwards to avoid appearing too hard on Palin. Meanwhile, if you watch Palin's interviews you'll see that she's perfectly capable of parrying an initial question with some nonsense and then shifting to her pre-prepared talking points. What was so devastating about the Katie Couric interview is that Couric would gently -- very gently -- prod Palin with follow-ups that revealed she doesn't know anything about anything. But with this cloud of suspicion hanging over her, Ifill will probably treat Palin with kid gloves and she'll be able to turn in the sort of competent performances she offered on the Hugh Hewitt and Sean Hannity shows."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "At this point, if Palin shows up and speaks in complete sentences, I fully expect the media to lavish her with high praise. It's probably too late to change those expectations, but I've had a chance to watch a fair amount of Palin's debate performances, and I have to say, anyone hoping to see Palin embarrass herself in St. Louis is going to be very disappointed. [...] She evaded questions well, she filibustered effectively, and she'd prepared a series of superficial quips that seemed to connect with her audience. If she can do this again tomorrow, Palin will probably do just fine."
• Daily Kos' Kagro X: "Interview answers are open ended, and can be followed-up with more precise questioning if warranted. That means Palin has to think on her feet while she's answering, and that seems to be where her weaknesses are most readily exposed. Debate answers are finite, capped in this case at 90 seconds, and follow-up opportunities will be severely curtailed. The rules of the debate prohibit Biden from doing it, and the McCain camp is already aggressively 'working the refs' to try to make sure that debate moderator Gwen Ifill feels constrained from doing so, too. Without the twin pressures of open ended and follow-up questioning, Palin is free to execute her game plan: filling the air with the squid ink of buzzwords and whatever pre-planned and focus group-tested soundbites she's able to bring to mind and thinks bear at least some tangential relation to the question asked."

Sullivan: "Look: she may get through this debate on Thursday. Biden may well help her. That's why I want a press conference to really find out what her actual expertise is. Only a robust give-and-take and follow-ups can prove anything. She can follow a script, she can repeat canned answers. We know that. What we need to find out is if she knows anything about national and international policy issues. Only a press conference will do that."

Meanwhile, Daily Kos' MissLaura unloads on Palin: "Sarah Palin has had the benefit of a month of coaching and prep from political and policy professionals, and she can't put together a coherent sentence in response to questioning from Katie Couric. I would expect her to do better in the debate, if only because anything short of drooling on herself would look better. But even if she manages to exceed the lowest expectations for any vice-presidential candidate ever, McCain's attempt to pass her off on the country is insulting, not just to women but to all voters."

PALIN DEBATE III: Advice From The Rightroots

Several conservative bloggers are offering Palin advice in preparation for her debate tonight:

• Morrissey: "She has to stay aggressive with both Joe Biden and moderator Gwen Ifill. She has to attack the assumptions behind the questions, as Ifill will attempt to box her into desired responses. Biden will damn her with faint praise, being condescending while on the surface seeming courtly. She needs to push back against that. Most importantly, she needs to stop worrying about details and speak to themes and concepts, similar to what Barack Obama needed to do in his debate, and mostly failed. Best attack point: Biden's pork. [...] Palin has the most to gain and the most to lose in this debate. Biden is a known quantity and even a poor debate showing won't hurt Barack Obama, but a disaster from Palin will provide a drag on the ticket that only clear wins in the coming debates by John McCain can reverse."
• NRO's Rich Lowry: "Palin has a lot to bone up on, and there will probably be, even in the best of circumstances, a few things she doesn't know. That's why she needs a straight-forward and/or self-deprecating way to occasionally say, 'I don't know.' People will be much more forgiving of that than round-about and very transparent attempts to try to talk her way through it, which are much more discrediting. Her potential ace-in-the-hole, of course, is Joe Biden. He'll very likely find a way to be an ass, whether he's confronting her or deferring to her."
• Lewis: "For crying out loud, learn to parry a question. When Katie Couric asked Sarah Palin which Supreme Court decisions other than Roe she would overturn, Palin's response made it obvious she couldn't think of any. This could have been avoided by instead saying: 'Look, I'm not going to get into the situation of second guessing other court cases. I know how the game is played. Whatever I say will become the headline tomorrow, and that would be unfortunate because the real issue is...' [...] If 'experience' comes up (and it will), contrast your experience with Obama's. Don't fall into the trap of comparing yourself to JFK (we all know how that worked for Dan Quayle)."

Mirengoff doesn't completely agree with Lewis's suggestion that Palin should contrast her experience with Obama's: "Sarah Palin's fans have had a ready response to those who criticize her addition to the ticket on grounds of inexperience: she has, they say, as much or more relevant experience as Barack Obama. This argument has considerable merit. However, it overlooks the fact that over the past year and a half Obama the candidate has been thinking and talking about the full range of policy issues that are expected to confront the next president. Palin, by virtue of her status as a new governor and non-candidate, has not been doing this. It's extremely doubtful that thinking and talking about a wide range of issues counts as experience that will materially assist Obama if he is elected president. But it does give him at least one significant advantage in his electoral quest -- it enables to come across as knowledgeable during debates. Tonight we'll see if Sarah Palin, without the assistance of thinking and talking about the full range of issues for an extended period of time, can come across as knowledgeable during a debate. I offer no predictions about this. But I do predict that if Palin fails to come across that way, voters will be understandably reluctant to forgive John McCain for putting her on the ticket."

Meanwhile, Geraghty offers his thoughts: "Joe Biden may completely screw up Thursday night. But if he doesn't, and he just comes across as a blowhard, he'll probably be perceived as the winner. Americans, I suspect, will decide that they can live with an insufferable know-it-all if he seems to actually know something, as opposed to the nice woman who seems like she could be living next door. Maybe I'm wrong. I strongly suspect that Americans will go into this debate liking Palin a lot more than they like Biden. But do they trust her to lead the country during a time of crisis? Palin is going to have to demonstrate A) knowledge of her familiar topics (energy, social issues, etc.) and B) at least some unexpected knowledge of her unfamiliar topics. If she came out and explained the revised rescue bill in the Senate, and why she and McCain support or oppose it, it would be a terrific start."

PALIN: There's, Of Course In The Great History Of America There Have Been Rulings...

Liberal bloggers are buzzing about the following exchange between Couric and Palin, in which Palin appears unable to name a Supreme Court decision (other than Roe v. Wade) that she disagrees with:

Couric: What other Supreme Court decisions do you disagree with?
Palin: Well, let's see. There's, of course in the great history of America there have been rulings, that's never going to be absolute consensus by every American. And there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So you know, going through the history of America, there would be others but...
Couric: Can you think of any?
Palin: Well, I could think of...any again, that could be best dealt with on a more local level. Maybe I would take issue with. But, you know, as mayor, and then as governor and even as a vice president, if I'm so privileged to serve, wouldn't be in a position of changing those things but in supporting the law of the land as it reads today.

• Daily Kos' Kagro X: "This tape is stunning. She can't name another Supreme Court case that she disagrees with (or likely one she agrees with, either, let's be honest). But notice what she does. Can't think of one, so she instead makes two mentions of the 'great history of America,' launches into some sort of half-assed states rights screed, throws in -- yet again -- a plea to be 'so privileged' to be elected with John McCain, and tries to assert that she'd then be in a position to change the decisions she doesn't know about and can't name. Word spray. Squid ink. Gibberish."
• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "This is just embarrassing. Isn't Dred Scott just a gimme answer for anyone in that situation?"
• Oliver Willis: "The McCain camp is trying to spin this as a 'quiz'. But a candidate -- at any level -- should know more than one supreme court case. This is stuff we all learn in elementary school. [...] Palin's biggest mistake is when she doesn’t know the answer she talks more and more nonsense."
• MyDD's Todd Beeton: "The part where she's struggling to name another Supreme Court case is unwatchable, far exceeding in my mind, her Bush Doctrine moment. Moose in the headlights indeed."
• Obsidian Wings' hilzoy: "First, I cannot imagine a conservative watching this video without wincing. I just can't. Even if I didn't agree with Joe Biden on anything, even if I thought he was all kinds of wrong for the country, he plainly has some idea what he's talking about. The contrast is just painful. Second, just to repeat what a whole lot of other people have said: not being able to come up with a single Supreme Court case you disagree with is really pretty staggering. There are the cases most people retain some dim memory of from high school: Marbury v. Madison, Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, etc. [...] This isn't about being a legal scholar. It's about being able to come up with one single example, when there are a lot of separate reasons why you ought to be able to."
• The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates: "Joe Biden answers the same questions right before her, and the difference is, frankly, enraging. I hear a lot about disrespect of Palin by the liberal media. But Palin's entire participation in this process has been an exercise in disrespect for government and the presidency."

Ezra Klein: "I can't decide if CBS's decision to release Palin's Roe v. Wade response on the eve of the vice-presidential debate is meant to deliver a deathblow to her candidacy or give her a handicap in the debate. On the one hand, it's hard to imagine anyone coming off worse than Palin does here. [...] On the other hand, at this point, expectations for her debate performance are so low that demonstrating a functioning cardiovascular system will be heralded as a glittering triumph."

PALIN II: She Opposes Roe, But She Believes In A Constitutional Right To Privacy?

Liberal bloggers are also buzzing about the fact that Palin said that she opposes Roe v. Wade but believes in a Constitutional "right to privacy" (which was one of the cornerstones of the Roe v. Wade decision):

Couric: Why, in your view, is Roe v. Wade a bad decision?
Palin: I think it should be a states' issue not a federal government-mandated, mandating yes or no on such an important issue. I'm, in that sense, a federalist, where I believe that states should have more say in the laws of their lands and individual areas. Now, foundationally, also, though, it's no secret that I'm pro-life that I believe in a culture of life is very important for this country. Personally that's what I would like to see, um, further embraced by America.
Couric: Do you think there's an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution?
Palin: I do. Yeah, I do.
Couric: The cornerstone of Roe v. Wade.
Palin: I do. And I believe that individual states can best handle what the people within the different constituencies in the 50 states would like to see their will ushered in an issue like that.

• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "She's a blithering idiot. She just contradicted every conservative in the country and overruled her own views on abortion."
• dday: "I don't know if she believes in the right to privacy or if she believes in the words 'right' and 'privacy' and saw them together and took a stab at it. But this is a major, MAJOR no-no for the fundies and the wingnuts. She undermined the entire intellectual argument against Roe without even recognizing it. Taking her logic (if it can be called that), if there's a Constitutional right to privacy then there's a right to keep medical decisions confidential, not a state's right but a fundamental Constitutional right. This is about 35 years' worth of arguments crashing down right now. If any backlash could cost her the nomination it would be over this. This reaches into Harriet Miers territory."
• Klein: "Just to get this straight. Sarah Palin believes in an individual right to privacy, which is the basis for the Roe decision. But she disagrees with the decision. Because she thinks individual states should be able to abrogate a Constitutional right if they so choose. We've left the realm where the failure rests with Sarah Palin's experience or prep staff and entered the realm where her high school civics teacher should be fired, or dragged out of retirement and shamed."
• hilzoy: "If there is a right to privacy in the US Constitution, then protecting it is a federal issue. It has to be. You just cannot say that there is a right to privacy in the US Constitution, but that what to do about that fact should be up to the states. Not if you understand what the Constitution is, and how our system of government works."
• TPM's Josh Marshall: "Narrowly speaking, you can believe in a constitutional right to privacy and also oppose Roe. But the right to privacy, as Couric says in the interview, is one of the cornerstones of Roe. And in the public debate yes or no on the right to privacy is something pretty close to a proxy for your position on abortion rights. The bottom line is that among conservatives opposition to a constitutional 'right to privacy' is a straight-up litmus test issue. Palin not only didn't have the right answer on the right to privacy. It was pretty clear she'd never even heard of it before."
• Mother Jones' Kevin Drum: "This is decidedly not the opinion of most conservatives, is it? Privacy is mentioned nowhere in the constitution, but in 1965 Justice William O. Douglas wrote in Griswold v. Connecticut that 'specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees' -- and that the right of privacy was one of them. This has since become a much mocked phrase among conservatives, an archetype of the kind of 'judicial activism' that they loathe. But Palin says she supports it. Hmmm."

MCCAIN: Pants On Fire?

Liberal bloggers are accusing McCain of lying after he told NPR that he "turned to [Palin's] advice many times in the past":

NPR: Given what you've said, Senator, is there an occasion where you could imagine turning to Gov. Palin for advice in a foreign policy crisis?
MCCAIN: I've turned to her advice many times in the past. I can't imagine turning to Sen. Obama or Sen. Biden, because they've been wrong. They were wrong about Iraq, they were wrong about Russia. [...]

• Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas: "McCain is such a liar."
• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "McCain has turned to [Palin] for sage foreign policy advice 'many times in the past'? He's known her a month. Please do tell, what areas, plural, of foreign policy expertise did John McCain get schooling in the past month from Sarah Palin? McCain said it's happened 'many times' -- so give us two examples please. [...] She just got her passport last year -- what areas of the world is she an expert on, and more of an expert than John McCain? The great threat from radical Canadian extremism? Once again the question arises: lying McCain or demented McCain?"
• Yglesias: "My guess is that McCain is lying here and comes by his wrongheaded ideas about national security policy all on his own. Still, it does make you wonder."
• Benen: "The campaign argument has been that voters can support the Republican ticket, knowing that McCain will be calling the shots, especially in his area of expertise. Indeed, a month ago, one of McCain's top advisors announced, '[Palin is] going to learn national security at the foot of the master for the next four years, and most doctors think that he'll be around at least that long.' But this morning, McCain argued the exact opposite, insisting he's turned to her for advice. This, despite the fact that, according to Palin, her most notable foreign policy experience is living in a state near other countries. What is McCain thinking?"

Sullivan: "He'd met her once before asking her to be veep a month ago. So 'the past' must mean the last month, right? Can someone ask him to elaborate on what he sought her foreign policy advice on exactly?"

MCCAIN II: What's Up With His Face?

Many liberal bloggers are buzzing about the facial tic that McCain demonstrated during his speech yesterday in MO:

• Aravosis: "At some point, the corporate media needs to do its job and stop being a bunch of politically correct wimps. We just saw -- AGAIN -- something go physically wrong with McCain's face. It's not the first time it's happened, we documented it before. But the media refuses to ask McCain what is wrong with him because, well, it's not clear why. McCain is 72 years old, was tortured for five years (which couldn't have done wonders to his health), and then had 4 bouts of serious melanoma. His health is an issue, and he has never fully released his medical records in a way that permits anyone to actually peruse them correctly -- he only permitted reports to look at each page of his medical records for about 10 seconds before switching to another page. And no one was permitted to copy or take with any of the records. They're now back under lock and key."
• Atrios: "Plenty of people have odd facial tics and otherwise there are potential nonserious explanations for the weirdness with the left side of McCain's face. Still it's reasonable to ask for an explanation."
• Open Left's Matt Stoller: "McCain needs to come clean on his health records."
• Moulitsas: "What the heck happened to McCain on stage? It was a facial convulsion of some sort, then, he gets completely lost on stage. Weird."

HORSERACE: Don't Get Too Excited, Obama Fans

While liberal bloggers are excited about Obama's recent polling surge, some are cautioning their readers not to get irrationally exuberant:

• TPM's David Kurtz: "This shift has happened fairly quickly, over a matter of just two weeks. The election is still five weeks away. As a leading union backer of Obama points out in an interview we just posted at TPM Election Central, there remains a great deal of volatility in this race, with a larger than usual pool of what he calls 'persuadable' voters in battleground states. The two most likely outcomes as I see it are either a narrow McCain win or a decisive Obama win, which is predicated on the assumption that the undecideds/persuadables will break one way or the other en masse. Then again, I have to confess that virtually nothing about this election cycle has gone as I expected."
• MyDD's Jerome Armstrong: "The past three weeks have clobbered McCain's chances in his targeted blue states, of PA, WI, MI, MN, and the red states of IA and NM are also far away in Obama's column. Only in Colorado, has McCain inched a bit closer the past week, and is now trailing Obama by 3.6 percent. It comes down to McCain having to win every state that's within 2% at the moment, including New Hampshire, for a tie; or win them all w/o NH, and take a state like Colorado, for the win. That shouldn't come off as a huge lead for Obama, because its not, and neither is it insurmountable. These are all red states in 2004, and there's a possibility of conservative fatigue playing out with the polls, if the lack of Republicans being polled doesn't translate into a similar lack of Republicans voting. The polls can be wrong, but that's what we've got, and it shows Obama with the much stronger edge right now."
• Peter Feld: "Some may reasonably think McCain has already permanently branded himself as a desperate, washed-up gambler holding his campaign together with flypaper and selfishly disrupting delicate negotiations at the exact moment when Americans are begging for a rational grown-up who'll take charge. If that's so, look for Obama's numbers to tip above 50 and stay there -- which will mean that McCain has run out of road. Until that happens, I'd keep the irrational exuberance in check. For the time being, I would mentally spot McCain 46% in any poll. Assume that the remaining undecideds could break two to one in his favor (yes, racism's a factor), do the math, and see if that still leaves Obama ahead. Right now, it looks like that's the case."

Moulitsas expects the McCain camp to start getting nastier: "The GOP is desperate. Expect the worst of the worst to start hitting here soon. Jeremiah Wright is overdue for his second act, as well as [William] Ayers, the Muslim crap, and anything else desperate Republicans can fabricate. At this point, they literally have nothing to lose."

AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay agrees with Moulitsas: "We've seen the McCain campaign lie repeatedly. They've got no shame and McCain has no honor. McCain and his fellow Republicans will say anything to win. In fact, Republicans are clamoring for McCain to get even uglier."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: A Legitimate Complaint, Or A Sideshow?

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder criticizes "the anti-Ifill sideshow":

"Come one, come all, as the media chases this story down the rabbit hole. It's a little bit depressing. And predictable. Smearing a journalist for the sake of smearing a journalist. Guilt-by-racial association. Gwen Ifill seems to be writing a legit book...its title reflects an undeniable truth: Obama heralds -- and represents -- the new black political power structure.

Covering this as a 'Republicans worry that' versus 'media defends' story isn't intellectually honest. Republicans aren't actually worrying. They're pretending to worry in order to divert attention from the content of tomorrow night's debate. The proper response of Ifill's friends should be eye-rolling, not defensive-crouching, as the latter just feeds the conflict even more.

And it's kind of insulting to Gov. Palin...as if she's going to crumple in the face of a moderator who might not be sympathetic. I've been watching previous debates. Palin can handle a tough moderator.

Democrats can be guilty of this sort of thing too -- in a way, the Ifill-mania is just a more egregious version of working the refs, but Republicans have patented this art."

LEST WE FORGET: Area Man Pretty Sure It's Not Broken

From The Onion:

"YOUNGSTOWN, OH -- Despite coming down on it pretty hard, area man Doug Grissett maintained his position Thursday that it is not broken. 'I didn't hear a pop,' said Grissett, claiming that it only hurts a little when you push it right here. Grissett also confirmed that he can move it like this, and like this, but when he tries to move it like this, ah fuck. He added, 'This happened once last August, the same thing. It's probably nothing.' At press time, it has swelled up to the size of a cantaloupe."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at October 2, 2008 01:41 PM