HOPE IN THE RUINS: Obama in West Philly, Saturday
ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION: Democratic Sen. Barack Obama has nearly closed the deal in Pennsylvania, as anxiety over the economy overcomes lingering concerns about his inexperience and qualms about his race, according to more than three dozen political operatives, pollsters and analysts across the state. A surge in Democratic voter registration is also helping. Some Republicans in the state say privately it is all but impossible for Republican Sen. John McCain to win Pennsylvania. Others are hopeful but nervous. Still many remain optimistic, noting that the race has been marked by wild swings in the polls. Internal campaign polls show McCain trailing by 
only single digits here and the GOP continues to pound away at questions of character to argue that Obama is a risky choice. Nonetheless, independent Pennsylvania polls have picked up sharp movement in Obama’s direction since the financial crisis rocked the country. Obama had a lead of 13.8 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics average of state polls as of Friday, up from 2 points in mid-September. MORE
CBS NEWS: Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is entering the third and final presidential debate Wednesday with a wide lead over Republican rival John McCain nationally, a new CBS News/New York Times poll shows. The Obama-Biden ticket now leads the McCain-Palin ticket 53 percent to 39 percent among likely voters, a 14-point margin. One week ago, prior to the Town Hall debate that uncommitted voters saw as a win for Obama, that margin was just three points. MORE
NEWSWEEK: The global financial meltdown has caused a dramatic shift in the 2008 presidential race, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll. With four weeks left in the presidential campaign, now leads by double digits, 52 percent to 41 percent among registered voters—a marked shift from the last NEWSWEEK poll, conducted one month ago, when the two candidates were tied at 46 percent. Underlying Obama’s surge in support: An historic boiling over of dissatisfaction with the status quo. An astounding 86 percent of voters now say they are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States, while a mere 10 percent say they are satisfied. That’s the highest wrong track/right track ratio ever recorded in the NEWSWEEK poll. MORE
CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS: I’m the Out of State Volunteer Coordinator for this office — which funnels volunteers from out of state throughout Delaware County, PA. John McCain pulled out of Michigan, and all those resources are going to….Pennsylvania! He really wants to win the state and he’s fighting real dirty here. It’s very easy to get to the Media field office on public transportation. I can find a place for you to stay, if you want to stay overnight. It’s very fun and exciting to work here, and you can be a part of something historic. It will make you feel really, really good. If you can come down for election day, or the weekend before election day, or the week before election day, that’s when we really need some serious help! We’ve registered over 1 million new voters in PA, and want to make sure they all go to the polls. If you can come, think you might come, or want more information, send me an email at: eaudley@voteforchangepa.com
CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY (SON OF WILLIAM F.): Within hours of my endorsement [of Obama] appearing in The Daily Beast it became clear that
National Review had a serious problem on its hands. So the next morning, I thought the only decent thing to do would be to offer to resign my column there. This offer was accepted–rather briskly!–by Rich Lowry, NR’s editor, and its publisher, the superb and able and fine Jack Fowler. I retain the fondest feelings for the magazine that my father founded, but I will admit to a certain sadness that an act of publishing a reasoned argument for the opposition should result in acrimony and disavowal. So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me. While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case. So, to paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan: I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me. MORE
POLITICAL WIRE: It appears Sen. John McCain will take Sen. Barack Obama up on his challenge. In an interview on a St. Louis radio station, McCain said Obama’s comments that “I didn’t have the guts” to talk about William Ayers in the last presidential debate have “probably ensured” that the former 1960s radical will come up in Wednesday’s debate. MORE
HUFFINGTON POST: William Timmons, the Washington lobbyist who John McCain has named to head his presidential transition team, aided an influence effort on behalf of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to ease international sanctions against his regime. The two lobbyists who Timmons worked closely with over a five year period on the lobbying campaign later either pleaded guilty to or were convicted of federal criminal charges that they had acted as unregistered agents of Saddam Hussein’s government. During the same period beginning in 1992, Timmons worked closely with the two lobbyists, Samir Vincent and Tongsun Park, on a previously unreported prospective deal with the Iraqis in which they hoped to be awarded a contract to purchase and resell Iraqi oil. Timmons, Vincent, and Park stood to share at least $45 million if the business deal went through. Timmons’ activities occurred in the years following the first Gulf War, when Washington considered Iraq to be a rogue enemy state and a sponsor of terrorism. MORE
Let Us Not Count Our Chickens Before They Hatch