Huffington Post

Christina Bellantoni

Posted August 31, 2008 | 05:50 PM (EST)

TOLEDO, Ohio — Sen. Joe Biden is apparently getting used to traveling with Sen. Barack Obama, who regularly is interrupted with shouts of “I love you Barack!”

(The Democratic nominee will say, “I love you back.”)

But this afternoon during an economic town hall forum with a few hundred voters on the lovely rooftop of a public library, Biden, 65, got the Obama treatment when talking about how he’s sure he will have differences with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. John McCain’s vice presidential pick. Source Article

Huffington Post

Thomas B. Edsall

August 31, 2008 04:29 PM

The McCain campaign’s desperate gamble on Sarah Palin, aimed at reversing the Arizona senator’s downward spiral, has met with decidedly mixed reaction from a key target constituency: conservatives.

Much of the commentary on the right has run from the favorable to the ecstatic.

“Republicans were demoralized,” wrote the Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes. “Sarah Palin changed all that. She was not only a surprise choice but also an electrifying one, and her selection has far-reaching implications. Her entry will change the nature of the presidential race. And if the McCain-Palin ticket wins, it has the potential to carry Republicans through a rough patch and even ensure conservative dominance of the party–for years to come.” Source Article

The New Yorker

by Philip Gourevitch

September 8, 2008

Before she was running against him, Sarah Palin—the governor of Alaska and now the Republican candidate for Vice-President of the United States—thought it was pretty neat that Barack Obama was edging ahead of John McCain in her usually solidly red state. After all, she said, Obama’s campaign was using the same sort of language that she had in her gubernatorial race. “The theme of our campaign was ‘new energy,’ ” she said recently. “It was no more status quo, no more politics as usual, it was all about change. So then to see that Obama—literally, part of his campaign uses those themes, even, new energy, change, all that, I think, O.K., well, we were a little bit ahead on that.” She also noted, “Something’s kind of changing here in Alaska, too, for being such a red state on the Presidential level. Obama’s doing just fine in polls up here, which is kind of wigging people out, because they’re saying, ‘This hasn’t happened for decades that in polls the D’ ”—the Democratic candidate—“ ‘is doing just fine.’ To me, that’s indicative, too. It’s the no-more-status-quo, it’s change.” Source Article

Huffington Post

Marc Cooper

Posted August 31, 2008 | 03:32 PM (EST)

When the post-mortems are written on the now diseased McCain campaign and — more generally– on the demise of the Reagan Era, the three top contributing factors of death will be listed as Katrina, Sarah, and Gustav.

As I wrote at the time, the ebbing flood waters of New Orleans exactly three years ago were a grim, but rather lyrical symbol of the evaporation of the Reagan Era. All the national mythologies of the previous twenty years were breached and flushed when the 17th Street levee cracked and FEMA fumbled.

Since then, it’s been only deepening waters for the conservative movement, and with rather perfect timing, comes the rise of one Barack Obama. Source Article

Andrew Sullivan/The Daily Dish

31 Aug 2008 01:21 pm

Among the tiny number of occasions on which Sarah Palin has expressed even an opinion on foreign policy, one of the most recent bears putting out there one more time. It’s from a critical moment in the war in Iraq, December 2006, which John McCain has made the centerpiece of his campaign. In fact, his support for a double-down strategy in Iraq in the winter of 2006 and early 2007 is one central argument he has made for his candidacy. He has now chosen as the person who would replace him instantly if, at any time bgetween the ages of 72 and 76, he might be incapacitated or die, a person whose view of the situation was as follows: Source Article

NY Times/The Caucus

August 31, 2008, 12:57 pm

Updated TOLEDO, Ohio – Senator Barack Obama said Sunday that his campaign would mobilize its giant e-mail list of supporters – to volunteer or send contributions – as soon as the impact of Hurricane Gustav becomes known in the Gulf Coast.

“We can activate an e-mail list of a couple million people who want to give back,” Mr. Obama told reporters after leaving services at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in Lima. “I think we can get tons of volunteers to travel down there if it becomes necessary.”

Mr. Obama has made no plans to travel to the Gulf Coast, saying he does not want to get in the way of emergency efforts there, but he has spoken by telephone to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.

Mr. Obama conducted telephone interviews with four TV stations and a news-talk radio station in New Orleans, aides said, amplifying the warning for any remaining residents to follow the evacuation order and leave the city. Source Article

Huffington Post

Nico Pitney

August 31, 2008 12:00 PM

Early this year, an op-ed in the Anchorage Daily News ripped into Gov. Sarah Palin’s appearance on a morning “shock jock” radio show as “plain and simple one of the most unprofessional, childish and inexcusable performances I’ve ever seen from a politician.”

So what happened? Palin has repeatedly feuded with the state’s Senate president, Lyda Green, over a wide range of legislation. Last January, Palin appeared on “The Bob and Mark Show,” whose host Bob Lester despises Green. That’s when the trouble started: Source Article

The Hill
Posted: 08/31/08 11:52 AM [ET]

John McCain senior advisor Carly Fiorina dismissed suggestions Sunday that women supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (R-N.Y.) will turn away from Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) because of her anti-abortion rights views.

“The Democratic party has done a disservice to women by trying to hold women hostage to the issue of Roe v. Wade,” Fiorina said on CBS’s Face the Nation. “The truth is the most important issue to women, all the polls say this, is the economy. Women are not single issue voters.” Source Article

Huffington Post

August 31, 2008 11:34 AM

In an ad airing in Northeast Pennsylvania, Joe Biden tries to make Barack Obama more familiar to working-class voters. He compares Obama’s childhood to his hardscrabble upbringing in Scranton, saying they both learned the same values. “So it’s good to be coming home, and bringing home a friend,” Biden concludes. The vice presidential nominee will visit Scranton on Monday. Watch:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e8InFGihHg]

Source Article

TPM Talking Points Memo