Desperate In Broward - Sign compares Obama to Hitler

This is becoming a daily occurrence. I've lost track of the many vile acts of desperation since this campaign started. 

The poster you see here was hanging on the wall inside McCain's Broward County office (story). The Chair of the Republican party there quickly condemned the comparison and said he would have the poster removed. But how did it get on the wall without someone seeing it to begin with?

h/t: Pam's House Blend

More Palin Video: New Hampshire Interview

WMUR in New Hampshire has another interview of Sarah Palin on their website. In the interview, Palin continues to deny any wrong with regards to troopergate and blamed Democrats for starting the investigation.

Insisting that she and John McCain have ran a positive campaign, in the same breath she says:

"I do not think it's negative or mean-spirited at all, not whatsoever when you call someone out on their record.  And of course when you talk about Barack Obama's associations that he's had in the past and maybe has today.  When you talk about ACORN and you talk about Bill Ayers. Those things are fair game."

Maybe has today??

Speaking of Ayers, she also seems to imply that McCain will indeed say it to Obama's face in tonight's debate. 

Here's the video.

Obama Acknowledges McCain for Drawing the Line

Barack Obama this morning in Pennsylvania acknowledged Senator McCain for taking a stand against a few of his disrespectful supporters.

"I want to acknowledge that Senator McCain tried to tone down the rhetoric at his town hall meeting yesterday," Obama said, referring to a raucous gathering where voters urged McCain to get tough on Obama. "I appreciated his reminder that we can disagree while still being respectful of each other."

The New York Times has the story today.

Video: McCain Supporter Refers To Obama as 'Arab.' McCain Booed

McCain/Palin laid this egg. Now they gotta' hatch it.

Electoral Update - McCain 100% Negative 100% Desperate

Election Day can't come soon enough for Democrats, and Republicans are wishing they had more time. 

Despite the catastrophic downturn in the American economy, John McCain isn't talking about it. Instead, his campaign has turned nearly 100% negative. Barack Obama and Joe Biden on the other hand have kept their focus on the economy. Speaking at a rally in Chillicothe, Ohio just moments ago, Obama declared:

“This is not a time for ideology–- it’s a time for common sense and a politics of pragmatism…. I believe that we can steer ourselves out of this crisis because I believe in this country.” While Obama continues addressing the concerns of the nation, McCain keeps playing a guilt by association game of politics. 

One week ago we asked whether or not the slow motion collapse of John McCain's campaign would accelerate, slow down or stop. As you can tell from the electoral map, nothing has improved for John McCain. In fact, in this week's electoral projection Ohio shifts from tossup to leans Obama. Five of the last six polls show Obama leading in Ohio including the last three consecutive. With Ohio's 20 electoral votes now in the Obama column, he now leads John McCain 353 - 174. The  lone tossup state in this week's projection is Missouri.

The decision to leave North Carolina in the Obama column this week was a tough one. Some projections have put the Tar Heel state back into the tossup column because of a Survey USA poll released this week. CNN also shows the race as tied; however, three polls in the last week show Obama leading. Two of them have Obama leading by five or six points. We will move North Carolina to tossup status if other polls show McCain leading. If McCain is indeed bouncing back in North Carolina, the question to be answered is why.

Obama's Ceiling

Obama is approaching his electoral ceiling, which we put at 365  electoral votes (add Missouri plus one EC vote from Nebraska).  To get beyond the 365 mark, Obama will have to steal Indiana and Georgia, no easy task. If the rapid decline in McCain's national numbers extends into next week, Indiana very well could fall back into the tossup column too. McCain's double digit margins are gone in Georgia and they continue to fall. Some are already talking about an Obama upset in Georgia because of an expected surge in African-American voters. 

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Nate Silver examines both candidate's favorable and unfavorable ratings since the Ayers attacks began. His analysis:

OBAMA

Pollster             Favorable      Unfavorable
Rasmussen     10/3     57              42
Rasmussen     10/8     56 (-1)         42 (n/c)

Pollster             Favorable      Unfavorable
Research 2K   10/3     59              32
Research 2K   10/8     57 (-2)         33 (+1)

Pollster             Favorable      Unfavorable
Hotline       10/3     58              36
Hotline       10/8     56 (-2)         39 (+3)

Pollster             Favorable     Unfavorable
Average       10/3     58.0            36.7
Average       10/8     56.3 (-1.7)     38.0 (+1.3)

MCCAIN

Pollster             Favorable   Unfavorable
Rasmussen     10/3     52          45
Rasmussen     10/8     52 (n/c)    46 (+1)

Pollster             Favorable   Unfavorable
Research 2K   10/3     41          45
Research 2K   10/8     44 (+3)     49 (+4)

Pollster             Favorable   Unfavorable
Hotline       10/3     53          40
Hotline       10/8     53 (n/c)    41 (+1)

Pollster             Favorable      Unfavorable
Average       10/3     48.7            43.3
Average       10/8     49.7 (+1.0)     45.3 (+2.0)

Obama's unfavorable number has ticked up a point or so, but so has McCain's. The strategy to preempt the Ayers attack by airing the Keating ads may have paid off. It's unlikely that John McCain will get anywhere without some kind of proof that Ayers or Rezko somehow influenced Obama's political career. While the attacks have rallied a few radicals (see video one and two) who hate Obama, McCain could alienate himself from moderates and independents with unsubstantiated claims.

The verdict is still out on McCain's strategy to go 100% negative. Without a smoking gun as it relates to Ayers, the best John McCain can hope for is to remain competitive in places like NC, OH, MO, and NV. A worse scenario is the one laid out above where he begins losing ground in Indiana and Georgia. It is worth mentioning that McCain gained five points in Indiana in the latest Rasmussen poll.

Virginia and Florida are McCain's nightmares right now. Obama has led in the last four consecutive polls in Virginia by an average of eight points. It's been 44 years since a Democrat carried Virginia. Florida is also becoming an increasing problem for McCain as Obama has now led in every poll this month including a Strategic Vision poll released yesterday which puts him ahead by eight.

Our next update will be on Tuesday when we will examine these questions.

1. Will McCain's negative campaign work or will it backfire? Virginia and Florida haven't budged. 

2. Will polling in North Carolina show a trend back toward John McCain?

3. How long will the negative campaign go on? Will members of his own party begin calling him out for crossing the line?

Dangerous Campaign

There's a difference between a negative campaign and a dangerous one. McCain and Palin are inciting hatred at their rallies by suggesting that Obama has associated himself with terrorists. Bob Cesca writes:

"I think we can conclude that the McCain-Palin ticket is inciting a violent attack on Senator Obama and his family. Here's the reasoning: they say Senator Obama hangs around with terrorists. Therefore he supports terrorists. We're fighting a war against terrorism. So let's fight a war on that one.

I don't think we've ever seen this level of potentially violent form of campaigning in our lifetime, and someone needs to seriously call out McCain on this one."

"Someone needs to step up to McCain -- and especially Palin -- and put a stop to this before someone gets hurt. I can't be more serious about this. McCain and Palin are treading on dangerous ground here."

First Lie, Now Cheat. What's next? Steal?

Guardian editor, Michael Tomasky calls John McCain, "The biggest liar in modern political history."  The numerous lies that John McCain has told in this campaign are beginning to catch up with him. In one month, McCain has lied over and over again about Obama's tax proposals, and McCain's appalling claim that Obama supported comprehensive sex education for five year olds made us all wonder just how sick someone has to be to actually say, "..and I approved this message." 

Palin quickly fell in line with her, "I told Congress, 'Thanks but no thanks' on that Bridge To Nowhere...," and then, there was the fib about selling the state plane on Ebay.

 

The McCain campaign doesn't appear to be lying much these days.  Sadly, their reasons for shutting down the lie factory have very little to do with morality and everything to do with getting caught. McCain's fellow Republicans are even taking notice. Now when Karl Rove thinks your lies have gone too far, you know you've got a very evil heart.

So when lying won't get you elected.  Try legal loopholes cheating.

From the Washington Post:

"Senator Obama's [fundraising] advantage is not emerging as people thought," said Lawrence M. Noble, a former Federal Election Commission general counsel and an Obama supporter.

The reason has less to do with Obama's fundraising -- he has now raised $440 million, more than any presidential candidate in history -- than it does with McCain's ability to maneuver within the confines of the Watergate-era funding program, Noble said.

With backing from the Republican National Committee, McCain has taken advantage of loopholes such as "hybrid" television advertisements and joint fundraising committees that may keep him close to financial parity with Obama.

and from the New York Times yesterday...

“There are very, very few lawyers in the country that are better at exploiting campaign finance loopholes than Trevor Potter,” said Bradley A. Smith, a former Republican chairman of the Federal Election Commission. “Of course, that’s one of the odd things about the McCain campaign: ‘Here’s the rules we want, but we’ll play by the rules that are here.’ ”

But now, as Mr. McCain’s top legal adviser, Mr. Potter, a former F.E.C. chairman, and his team have been helping the campaign finesse the strict spending limits it faces under public financing. Although Mr. McCain is supposed to be out of the business of private fund-raising after he received his $84 million infusion from the Treasury this month, it is sometimes difficult to tell.

This month, the McCain campaign began running banner Web advertisements asking for donations to the McCain-Palin Compliance Fund, a fund-raising vehicle rooted in a 1980s F.E.C. ruling that candidates who accept public financing can still collect private donations for legal and accounting costs for complying with campaign finance laws.

Only a careful observer, however, would have noticed the advertisements’ fine print, which said donations to the fund would be used to pay for “a portion of the cost of broadcast advertising,” as well as other expenses.

The McCain campaign declined to make Mr. Potter available for an interview.

Six years after McCain's bipartisan achievement in campaign finance reform, he's already looking for ways to beat the system. The law that bears his name is now one in which he's making a mockery of.

Gordon Smith's Sleazy Campaign

The Wall Street Journal Blog yesterday gives us an update on the U.S. Senate race in Oregon.

It appears Republican Gordon Smith is getting very desperate in his attempt to win reelection. In a new ad, Smith distorts Jeff Merkley's voting record by claiming Merkley "voted to protect rapists."

Disgracefully stupid.

"This is the worst kind of Washington politics from a desperate politician, who will do whatever it takes to get reelected."

Merkley, who was recently endorsed by the Oregon State Police Officers Association, has two children of his own and calls the ad "outrageous." President of the OSPOA, Jeff Leighty had this to say about Merkley's record in the state legislature.

"Jeff Merkley has always fought to keep our children and families safe from crime by ensuring that law enforcement have the resources they need to do their job," said Jeff Leighty, President of the OSPOA. "After riding along with our troopers, Jeff led the charge to help law enforcement patrol roads and highways 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Oregon needs a proven public safety leader to change the way things work in Washington D.C. Jeff Merkley will fight hard every single day in the U.S. Senate to ensure that Oregon law enforcement have the tools they need to do their job."

Since it's unlikely that the OSPOA would endorse a candidate who would want to protect rapists, we have to assume that Smith is either: A: playing revenge politics or B: he's seriously delusional.

We'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Choose "A."

Maybe this has something to do with Smith foaming at the mouth.

Just last week, an expose from an online weekly revealed that half of the work force at Smith's Frozen Foods, a company owned by Gordon Smith, is made up of illegal immigrants.

"The workers at Smith Frozen Foods, who clean the machinery, monitor production and pack upward of 50 million pounds of produce each year, earn about $80 a day, four or five days a week, 10 months a year—if they’re lucky.

One other thing—some of them appear to be illegal immigrants.

WW recently spent several days in Weston, and the nearby cities of Milton-Freewater and Walla Walla, Wash., where most of Smith’s employees live. WW spoke to dozens of current and former Smith workers, Latino advocates, court personnel, public defenders, educators, police administrators, church officials, social service agents and business owners and determined that some portion of Smith’s workforce comprises undocumented immigrants.

It’s a revelation that may not be newsworthy around Weston, where most people this reporter interviewed knew, or assumed, that the agricultural processing plant hired illegal immigrants.

But it is news to Oregon’s Republican foot soldiers, the Smith loyalists currently knocking on doors and raising money to support the two-term incumbent’s upcoming election."

Gordon Smith characterized the article as a "politically motivated hit piece." Meanwhile, Merkley has asked Smith to set the record straight by disclosing business documents.

"This would allow a thorough review into very serious allegations about hiring undocumented workers and mistreating his workforce," said Smith.

We won't hold our breath for any disclosures. We will however expect more distortions and lies from Smith's negative ad campaign. With a 60% disapproval rating in Oregon, there's no other strategy left. Not unless you count Smith's attempt to make us believe that Barack Obama is actually supporting his reelection bid.

Yesterday, Smith's Frozen Foods was fined $3900 for discharging waste water into a nearby creek. According to the Oregonian, this is the plant's sixth water quality penalty since 1992.

Please help Jeff Merkley defeat Gordon Smith and his sleazy campaign today!