10/29/08 - The Wizard of Odds   10/28/08 - Rain or Shine, the Campaign Must Go On Barack Obama spent part of Tuesday outside in the rain in Chester, PA, while John McCain postponed his outside rally in nearby Quakertown. Dressed in sneakers and jeans, the rain pouring down as he spoke, Obama addressed the 9,000 who turned out. ""Let me just begin by saying that a little bit of rain never hurt anybody."   10/26/08 - Obama, 100,000 Supporters Take Aim at McCain in Denver Back in the city where he claimed history, Barack Obama presided Sunday over a Colorado rally so enormous and energetic that even he seemed surprised at his following. "Goodness gracious," Obama said as he took the stage and peered at the human mass in Civic Center Park. People packed in all the way up the steps of the Capitol, off in the distance. Denver Police estimated his crowd at well over 100,000, as people stretched as far as the eye could see, breaking Obama's previous domestic record crowd, also of 100,000 in St. Louis, Missouri earlier this month.   10/22/08 - Obama Campaigns in the "Real" Virginia US Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama meets with the National Security working group after their foreign policy meeting in Richmond, Virginia October 22, 2008. Senator Obama also held two large campaign rallies -- one in Gainesville, Florida earlier today and the other in Leesburg, Virginia this evening, which was attended by 30,000 supporters. Photo by Reuters Pictures.   10/21/08 - Obama's Grandmother Fights to See Him Elected If Michelle Obama is her husband's "rock," his grandmother is a big part of the ground beneath it. Madelyn Payne Dunham gave young Barack Obama a place to call home while his mother traveled the world. When he needed money for school, she went without new clothes to help pay his tuition. And when the Illinois Senator decided to seek the Democratic presidential nomination, Dunham provided the "Kansas heartland" pedigree he needed to appeal to conservative white voters — and a personal anecdote about racial prejudice that helped the man with the foreign name and Ivy League resume connect with the African-American experience. The 85-year-old former bank executive is said to be "gravely ill" after falling and breaking her hip, and some reports suggest she might not live to see the results of the Nov. 4 election. Whatever happens, she's already lived long enough to see her "Barry" achieve what she'd wanted for him, her brother says. Charles Payne (Barack's uncle) said his sister's reaction to being made a campaign issue was "no more than just sort of raised eyebrows." Although she was too ill to travel for the campaign, she followed it closely on television — even undergoing a corneal transplant earlier this year so she could watch the coverage. "She was almost totally blind," Payne said. "She's not physically able to" campaign, he said, "but it doesn't mean her interest has flagged." Obama's campaign announced that he had canceled events later this week to spend some time with his grandmother. Payne said his sister was hospitalized briefly but is back home in her Honolulu apartment, where Obama's sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, cares for her. -- excerpted from an AP story by Allen G. Breed   10-19-08 - Newspaper Endorsement Landslide for Obama Barack Obama's smashing lead over John McCain in newspaper endorsements could prove significant. He leads by a better than 3 to 1 margin. What's startling is when you look at that list of large papers that have backed Obama. It's a who's who of the dominant papers in nearly every giant metro: Boston, New York, both papers in Chicago, Cleveland, Philly, Pittsburgh, D.C., San Francisco, Sacramento, Atlanta, both papers in L.A., Detroit, both papers in Seattle, Portland, Miami, Orlando, Raleigh, Buffalo and more. McCain's only clear wins are in Columbus and San Diego, and barely managing a split in Texas, of all places. It's a veritable landslide. Of particular interest are the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times who have never endorsed a Democrat for president. Salt Lake (Utah) Tribune endorsed Obama on Oct. 17: "Out of nowhere, and without proper vetting, the impetuous McCain picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. She quickly proved grievously underequipped to step into the presidency should McCain, at 72 and with a history of health problems, die in office. More than any single factor, McCain's bad judgment in choosing the inarticulate, insular and ethically challenged Palin disqualifies him for the presidency. ... The country desperately needs a new and well-defined road map for the 21st century and leadership that can unite the country behind it. We believe that Barack Obama can give us both." The Miami Herald endorsed Obama on Oct. 18: "The way the two candidates responded to the economic meltdown offers a lesson in contrasting styles of leadership. Both have put forth a series of worthwhile policy options, but where Sen. Obama was calm, Sen. McCain was frantic. He first put his campaign "on hold" and suggested he would cancel the first debate, and then suddenly decided to take part even as the first bailout deal cratered. He said the fundamentals of the economy were strong, then a few days later vowed to "name the names" of those responsible for the financial crisis. In other elections, voters have complained of having to make a choice between two bad candidates. That is not the case this time. The nation is fortunate to have good candidates and a clear choice. Sen. Obama represents the best chance for America to make a clean break with the culture wars and failed policies of the past, and begin to restore the hope and promise of America as the world's greatest democracy."   10/19/08 - Obama Raises $150 Million in September, Shatters Old Record Barack Obama raised more than $150 million in September, a stunning and unprecedented eruption of political giving that has given him a wide spending advantage over rival John McCain. The campaign added 632,000 new donors in September, for a total of 3.1 million contributors to the campaign. The average donation was $86. Obama's monthly figure pushed his total fundraising to $605 million. No presidential candidate has ever run such an expensive campaign. His campaign raised $65 million in August, his previous best.   10/18/08 - 100,000 at Obama Rally in St Louis Barack Obama attracted 100,000 people at a Saturday rally here, his biggest crowd ever at a U.S. event. The crowd assembled under the Gateway Arch on a sunny Saturday afternoon to hear Obama speak about taxes and slam the Republicans on economic issues. Lt. Samuel Dotson of the St. Louis Police Department confirmed the number of attendees piled into the grassy lawn by the Mississippi River. To be sure, big crowds don't always signal a big turnout on Election Day. But Obama's ability to draw his largest audience yet in a typically red state that just weeks ago looked out of reach, could signal a changing electoral map. For months Missouri polls put Obama as much as ten percentage points behind Republican John McCain. It was widely believed that McCain's pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate would have won over the state's conservatives and boosted his chances there. So far, that hasn't happened. A Rasmussen poll released on Friday shows Obama leading in Missouri 52% to 46% for McCain.   10/17/08 - McCain Robocalls Smearing Obama Sweep Swing States Desperate, McCain campaign blankets swing states with automated calls attempting to link Obama to terrorism. So much for John McCain's self-declared honor.   10/16/08 - McCain Fails in Last Debate Someone should have told John McCain that presidential debates are not only — or even mainly — about substance. They’re about tone and affect and body language. From the beginning of the debate to end, McCain was about McCain, wrestling with his anger, dumfounded that he was losing to what he considers to be an unworthy opponent, slinging sarcasm, and clinging to his honor. He was definitely at his most agitated, offering voters a glimpse of his legendary temper in the Senate. McCain interrupted Obama repeatedly, grimaced through clenched teeth, smiled irritably, an blinked rapidly. He was shadow boxing, and losing.   10/12/08 - Sarah "Pinocchio" Palin Gets a Time Out for Roll in Troopergate "I'm very, very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing, any hint of any kind of unethical activity there. Very pleased to be cleared of any of that." -- Sarah Palin ;) Nice quote, but the problem is the actual findings of the investigation -- "For the reasons explained in section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act." The report report concludes that Palin "knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired." It adds that she and her husband Todd attempted "to get Trooper Wooten fired for personal family related reasons." Subordinates were placed in the situation where they had to choose whether to "please a superior or run the risk of facing that superior's displeasure," a clear conflict of interest. -- Report to the Alaska Legislative Council.   10/8/08 - McCain Turns Negative. Loses Second Debate, Own Integrity Somewhere between last night's debate, which Barack Obama won by at least 6 points, and today John McCain calling Americans "my fellow prisoners," the good ship McCain-Palin hit a rock and sank. McCain is now an empty shell of what he once decribed himself as - a maverick, able to work on a bipartisan basis to solve the important problems of the day. Desperately trying to gain ground on the growing Obama lead, the McCain campaign has resorted to running 100% negative ads, using Cindy McCain as an attack dog, and turning Sarah Palin into a Joe McCarthy-style domestic terrorist hunter. Surrogates for the McCain campaign are injecting Obama's race into the campaign narrative by invoking his middle name or referring to him as a terrorist. In their previous debate, McCain wouldn't even look at Obama. This time, he was friendlier, but also at times seemed to convey barely concealed disdain for his younger rival. At one point in the debate he simply referred to Obama as "that one." John McCain is torn between wanting to succeed and serving a higher cause. Right now, the drive to succeed is trumping any loftier aspirations.   10/4/08 - Seniors for Obama Hear about why American seniors are excited to support Barack Obama. Video is 11 min, 25 sec.   10/3/08 - Say It Ain't So, Sarah During the first and only V.P. debate Senator Joe Biden chuckles as Governor Sarah Palin describes John McCain's healthcare plan to give every family $5,000 to purchase their own medical insurance. Biden responded with a fact check, stating that McCain's plan would be paid for by taxing -- as regular income -- the health benefits people get from their employers. He called the plan "the ultimate bridge to nowhere." At one point in the "debate" Governor Palin suggested that the constitution may give the vice president more power than it has in the past. To many this interpretation is disturbing in light of the vast new powers George W Bush has given himself through executive orders. He claims that the president and vice president are not limited to those powers that are specifically enumerated in the Constitution, but include the broad and unlimited power to take any action whatsoever that the Executive Branch deems necessary to protect the United States. A CBS poll of 473 uncommitted voters suggests that more voters responded favorably to the Democratic candidate. Forty-six percent of the uncommitted voters surveyed say Democrat Joe Biden won the debate, compared to 21 percent for Republican Sarah Palin. Thirty-three percent said it was a tie.   10/2/08 - Obama Fires Up Michigan as McCain Abandons State Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) waves on stage at the end of his campaign rally at Michigan State University in East Lansing. The Michigan State stop followed a morning rally in Grand Rapids, where an equal number -- 16,000 people -- turned out to see Obama. The McCain campaign has rather abruptly abandoned the state, slipping out the back door and taking its staff and ads with it. The margin for error will be very small if he continues to cross states off the map. (Photo from Reuters)   Grandparents Everywhere Will Be Smiling   9/30/08 - Palin Believes Dinosaurs and Men Once Coexisted I'm not making this up. The Los Angeles Times is reporting that vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin apparently believes dinosaurs and men once walked the earth at the same time. This being reported after the revelation that she took center stage at her church with a Kenyan Witch Doctor doing a hands-on protection of Palin from witches and witchcraft. After conducting a college band and watching Palin deliver a commencement address to a small group of home-schooled students in June 1997, Wasilla resident Philip Munger said, he asked the young mayor about her religious beliefs. Palin told him that "dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time," Munger said. That would be about 6,000 years ago -- about 65 million years after scientists say most dinosaurs became extinct. Most Americans are religious, but they are not crazy, and they don't want their religion determining their politics, much less the end of their world. But Palin is not just deeply religious; she is far way out of the mainstream. She is nuttier than a fruitcake, one who would have no qualms about quickening the demise of the planet in order to make the prophecies come true and, in the process, be saved--in the end, pun intended, a very selfish act. We need to say that she believes in all this baloney; we need to say that every day; we need to say that in a matter of fact way; we need to say that as if it is common knowledge because we need to make it common knowledge, since the media seems to be cowed.   9/30/08 - More than 10,000 at Obama Speech in Reno Barack Obama greets supporters during a campaign rally at the University of Nevada in Reno. Obama used his speech to urge Republicans and Democrats alike to get behind attempts to salvage a $700 billion rescue plan for the financial sector, saying that if Wall Street fails ordinary people also will be hurt. His prepared text made no specific reference to Nevada, but he departed from it several times, including referring to how the state leads the nation in home foreclosure rates. "Because of the housing crisis—and nobody has been hit harder by mortgage foreclosures than Nevada—we are now in a very dangerous situation where financial institutions across this country are afraid to lend money," Obama said. Several times the crowd of mostly college students broke into chants of "Obama, Obama," and let loose with a loud "boo" when he said the economic crisis stemmed from a philosophy that "says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else." He got another loud cheer when he mentioned he had discussed the rescue plan earlier in the day with President Bush and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "Oh yeah, I forgot. He happens to come from Nevada," he joked. Later, Obama outlined his plan to spend $150 billion over the next decade to develop affordable renewable energy. "Not only can we end our dependence on Middle Eastern oil in 10 years, but we can also finally deal with the critical issue of global warming. Because Nevada you are hot enough, you don't want to be hotter," Obama said. He also said that if critics claim "we can't afford to rebuild America and put people back to work, you remind them we are spending $10 billion a month in Iraq.   9/28/08 - Obama's and Biden's in Detroit Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, his wife Michelle Obama, his vice-presidential running mate Sen. Joseph Biden, and Biden's wife Jill attend a rally in Detroit, Michigan. After participating in the first of three presidential debates Obama is campaigning in Michigan with a focus on his strategy for the recent national financial turmoil.   9/27/08 - McCain Can't Look at Obama, Falls Short in Debate Republican presidential nominee John McCain (L) shakes hands with Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama (R) at the close of the first debate of the 2008 elections at the University of Mississippi on September 26, 2008 in Oxford, MS. As the spin of Friday night's debate settled in and both sides staked a claim to victory, one media narrative began to take hold: while Obama may have been over-complimentary of McCain, the GOP nominee was grumpy, mean, and downright contemptuous of Obama, much to his detriment. A clip circulated by Democrats showed McCain demonstrating all of those traits: smirking when Obama gave his answers, eyes blinking, unwilling to even look at his opponent. It was a small visual, but one that seemed to be getting traction among the punditry. Charlie Gibson on ABC and David Brooks on PBS both noted that McCain didn't look at Obama once. The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder wrote that McCain sounded "angry and passionate"; MSNBC's Chris Matthews described the GOP nominee as "troll-like" and "grouchy." GOP aides giddily highlighted the several instances where Obama said he agreed with McCain. But Democrats warned that the move would backfire: while Obama appeared like a statesman, noting both when they agreed and disagreed, McCain refused to even look Obama in the eye. Certainly the immediate, post-debate focus polls suggested that voters had soured on the Republican nominee's performance. And both in private and in public, aides to Obama thought that tics and smirks could resonate. CNN's post-debate poll of those that watched the debate showed 51% said Obama "did better", 28% McCain "did better." While various polls differ, most gave the edge to Obama.   9/25/08 - At White House, McCain Plays Bailout Spoiler Inside an intense White House meeting over the financial crisis on Thursday, where nearly every key player came to an agreement on the outlines of the bailout package, Sen. John McCain stuck out. The Republican candidate, according to sources with direct knowledge, sat quiet through most of the meeting, never offered specifics, and spoke only at the end to raise doubts about the rough compromise that the White House and congressional leaders were nearing. McCain's reluctance to jump on board the bailout agreement could throw the entire week-long negotiation into a tailspin. Sen. Chris Dodd, after leaving the White House, suggested on CNN that the tenuous process could be derailed by what he viewed as McCain's political motives. According to the source with knowledge of the White House gathering -- which featured both presidential candidates, congressional leaders and the President -- virtually every key figure in the room, save McCain and GOP Sen. Richard Shelby, were in agreement over a revised version of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's plan. Toward the end, McCain finally spoke up, mentioning a counter-proposal that had been offered by some conservative House Republicans, which would suspend the capital gains tax for two years and provide tax incentives to encourage firms that buy up bad debt. McCain did not discuss specifics of the plan, though, and was non-committal about supporting it. Paulson, however, argued directly against the conservative proposal. "He said that he did not think it would work," according to the source. At another point in the meeting, President Bush chimed in, "If money isn't loosened, this sucker could go down" -- and by sucker he meant economy. (from an article by Nico Pitney and Sam Stein for the Huffington Post)   9/24/08 - "We Are At a Defining Moment in Our History", Obama Tells Florida Crowd Democratic Presidential nominee U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) speaks to an estimated crowed of 11,000 at Knology Park in Dunedin, Florida. Obama is staying in Clearwater Florida this week as he prepares for Fridays debate with John McCain.   9/24/08 - McCain Tries to Bail on Debate John McCain, losing ground as the economic crisis deepens, sought today to beat Barack Obama to the punch by suspending his campaign, postponing Friday's presidential debate, and calling for an emergency meeting between the President, congressional leaders and both nominees to produce legislation addressing the threat of a Wall Street collapse and a dangerous recession. McCain's abrupt announcement, in an email sent out at 2:56 PM Wednesday, appeared designed to pre-empt Obama, who, according to aides, had already initiated efforts to seek a bipartisan solution. Obama rejected McCain's proposal to postpone the first debate. "This is exactly the time the American people need to hear from the person who in approximately 40 days will be responsible for dealing with this mess," Obama said. "What I've told the leadership in Congress is that if I can be helpful, then I am prepared to be anywhere, anytime. What I think is important is that we don't suddenly infuse Capitol Hill with presidential politics."   9/23/08 - McCain's Numbers Head South   9/22/08 - Meet the Real Elitists, The McCains   9/21/08 - Palin Greets Wrong City at Fumbled Rally, Becoming Liability The opening was superbly choreographed. To the sound of thundering rock music blaring from speakers, several thousand people watched as John McCain's campaign plane swooped out of the sparkling blue Iowa skies. The plane taxied to a halt only 100 metres away from the crowd gathered at an airport outside the city of Cedar Rapids. They cheered wildly as McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, descended from the aircraft and trooped through the throng, smiling and shaking hands. Then things started to go wrong. 'Thank you so much, Iowa. It's great to be here in Grand Rapids,' Palin said as she took the stage, naming a completely different city in the far-off state of Michigan. 'CEDAR Rapids!' came shouts from the crowd. Palin ignored her gaffe and ploughed on with a speech that was quickly interrupted by anti-war protesters. For several minutes the hangar was filled with shouts and chants, drowning out the Alaska governor's words. Then McCain took the stage, and the same thing happened to him, forcing him off his script to address an unruly scrimmage as security hauled out the shouting demonstrators.   9/21/08 - ABC's 'This Week' Panel Tears Into John McCain For John McCain, the panel discussion on This Week with George Stephanopoulos could not have been more brutal. Minutes after conservative columnist George Will declared that the Senator was decidedly un-presidential is his unexpected call for the firing of SEC Chairman Chris Cox, Sam Donaldson, the long-time ABC hand, said that McCain's erratic message on the economy again raised questions about his age adding: "It was two days after the he said the fundamentals of the economy were strong. His talking points have gotten all mixed up. And I think the question of age is back on the table." The discussion crested with Will leveling an even harsher blow: "John McCain showed his personality this week," said the writer and pundit, "and made some of us fearful."   9/19/08 - McCain Tries To Defend Privatizing Social Security As Market Tanks Wall Street turmoil left John McCain scrambling to defend his strong support for privately investing Social Security money – a position that looks even more embarrassing today than a few weeks or months ago. Interestingly, McCain is trying to revise his own history and pretend that he “never” supported privatization. Democrat Barack Obama opposes the accounts and has warned they could be a precursor to eliminating the Social Security program. Critics also note that McCain's top economic adviser is former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, a free-marketeer who pushed the idea of a privatized retirement system as far back as 1988. Gramm, who eight years ago, as part of a decades-long anti-regulatory crusade, authored the Commodity Futures Modernization Act that greased the way to the multibillion-dollar subprime meltdown and today's mess on Wall Street. It has been widely rumored that Gramm is in line for cabinet position in a McCain administration.   9/18/08 - Obama Retakes Lead Barack Obama speaks during a rally at Cashman Field in Las Vegas, Nevada yesterday. Released today, CNN's "poll of polls" consisting of four surveys: CBS/NYT (Sept. 12-16), Gallup (Sept. 15-17), Diageo/Hotline (Sept. 14-16) and American Research Group (Sept. 13-15) has Barack Obama now leading John McCain 47% to 44%. (Photo by Getty Images)   9/17/08 - New Ad, "Sold Us Out"   9/17/08 - "Plan for Change": New 2 Minute Ad on the Economy Among the many provisions of the Obama plan: * Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Obama and Biden will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they need. Obama and Biden will create a new "Making Work Pay" tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family. The "Making Work Pay" tax credit will completely eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans. * Eliminate Income Taxes for Seniors Making Less than $50,000: Barack Obama will eliminate all income taxation of seniors making less than $50,000 per year. This proposal will eliminate income taxes for 7 million seniors and provide these seniors with an average savings of $1,400 each year. Under the Obama-Biden plan, 27 million American seniors will also not need to file an income tax return. * Simplify Tax Filings for Middle Class Americans: Obama and Biden will dramatically simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans will be able to do their taxes in less than five minutes. Obama and Biden will ensure that the IRS uses the information it already gets from banks and employers to give taxpayers the option of pre-filled tax forms to verify, sign and return. Experts estimate that the Obama-Biden proposal will save Americans up to 200 million total hours of work and aggravation and up to $2 billion in tax preparer fees.   9/17/08 - Obama Event Sets All-Time Record for Fund Raising Former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan, a Republican, tells the press he is attending the $28,500 per person dinner for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) at Greystone Estate, in the background, in support of the Democrat for president on September 16, 2008 in Beverly Hills, California. Tightening presidential polls enabled Obama to set a single-day fundraising record with two Beverly Hills fundraising events that raised more than $9 million for his campaign. (Photo: Getty Images)   9/17/08 - McCain Proposes Big Tax Hike on Workers Health Benefits Sen. McCain, who constantly repeats his no-new-taxes promise on the campaign trail, proposes a big tax hike as the solution to our health-care crisis. His plan would raise taxes on workers who receive health benefits, with the idea of encouraging their employers to drop coverage. A study conducted by University of Michigan economist Tom Buchmueller and colleagues published in the journal Health Affairs suggests that the McCain tax hike will lead employers to drop coverage for over 20 million Americans. What would happen to these people? Mr. McCain will give them a small tax credit, $5,000 for a family and $2,500 for an individual, and tell them to navigate the individual insurance market on their own. For middle- and lower-income people, the credits are way too small. They are less than half the cost of policies today ($12,000 on average for a family), and are far below the 75% that most employers offering coverage contribute. Further, their value would erode over time, as the credit increases less rapidly than average premiums. Those already sick are completely out of luck, as individual insurers are free to deny coverage due to pre-existing conditions. Mr. McCain has proposed a high-risk pool for the very sick, but has not put forward the money to make it work.   9/16/08 - Sarah Palin's Shocking Animal Cruelty By Michael Markarian, Humane Society Legislative Fund GOP conventioneers were officially introduced to their vice presidential candidate who is, as Fred Thompson said, "the only nominee in the history of either party who knows how to properly field dress a moose." But it's not Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's personal love of hunting or appetite for moose venison that should strike fear in the heart of every animal advocate in the nation--it's her retrograde policies on animal welfare and conservation that have led to an all-out war on the state's wolves and other creatures. Her record is so extreme that she has perhaps done more harm to animals than any other current governor in the United States -- and that's a difficult distinction to achieve among our 22 Republican and 28 Democratic chief executives. Voters of both political parties who care about the humane treatment of animals must unite to make sure that the nation's worst governor doesn't end up just a heartbeat away from the nation's most important job. Palin is not only a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association, but is also a close ally of Safari Club International. These radical groups don't represent rank-and-file hunters, but instead lobby on behalf of their elitist, wealthy members to defend despicable and unsporting practices such as captive trophy hunts, bear baiting, and steel-jawed legold traps -- practices that real hunters agree are inhumane and unacceptable. And the Palin Administration, in lock-step with these extreme anti-conservationists, has waged an all-out war on Alaska's predators to artificially boost the populations of moose and caribou for trophy hunters. Palin has tried to pass legislation making it easier for state officials to gun down wolves and bears from the sky, and even offered a $150 bounty for the left foreleg of each dead wolf as an economic incentive for pilots and aerial gunners to kill more of the animals. Leading up to the recent statewide vote on Measure 2 to stop the aerial shooting of wolves and bears, Palin's Board of Game spent $400,000 of public money on brochures and radio ads to influence the election. She not only took an inhumane and unsporting position at odds with the principles of wildlife management and fair chase, but did it in an undemocratic and underhanded way. Palin may have criticized "the old politics as usual" and "the culture of self-dealing" in her speech last night, but that's a pretty good description of her dealings with the NRA and Safari Club. Since Alaska is not protecting its wolves from aerial hunting, the U.S. Congress has stepped in and is now considering the Protect America's Wildlife (PAW) Act, which would close a loophole in federal law that allows the shooting of animals from airplanes and helicopters. But Gov. Palin has attacked that effort, too, and used her office to criticize the federal legislation. She wrote in a press release that the bill's author "doesn't understand rural Alaska" and "doesn't comprehend wildlife management in the North." But that's only one part of the story. It's not just wolves, of course, who have been the targets of Palin's outdated policies, but also the Arctic region's iconic polar bears, the 21st Century's canaries in the mineshaft who are teetering on the brink of extinction. Despite the effects of climate change on the bear's vanishing habitat and shrinking ice floes, Gov. Palin penned an op-ed in The New York Times earlier this year arguing that it was the "wrong move" to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act. Later, when the Bush Administration announced its listing of the polar bear as a threatened species, she filed a lawsuit seeking to reverse the decision. Environmentalists fired back over Palin's lawsuit and said "her head-in-the-sand approach to global warming only helps oil companies, certainly not Alaska or the polar bear." For those who don't believe that the number two spot on the ticket matters much at all, consider this: fourteen vice presidents in American history eventually climbed to the top job, eight of them because their predecessors died in office. If Sarah Palin were to be propelled into the presidency and given the opportunity to run the United States like she has run Alaska--controlling the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce, with wide-ranging authority over issues affecting pets, wildlife, farm animals, marine mammals, animals in research, and public lands--it would indeed be a terrible day for animals and for the country.   9/15/08 - I Just Read The Speeches You have to wonder if one reason the McCain campiagn "hired" Sarah Palin for the part of vice president is because she reads from a teleprompter really well. Did they want an "empty skirt" who never questions what is written for her to read? In her acceptance speech - written for her by Matthew Sculley, senior speech writer for George W Bush - she approvingly quoted Fascist writer and rabid McCarthyite Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist, for the moral superiority of small town values. This author once expressed his fervent hope about Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that "some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies." Was Palin's use of of this Pegler quote in her speech intended to send a subtle but unmistakable signal to far right wing supporters? Or did she even know what she was reading?   9/15/08 - Obama Raises Record $66 Million in One Month Barack Obama disembarks from his campaign plane upon landing in Grand Junction, Colorado. In August his campaign raised more money than any presidential candidate has ever recorded in a one-month period, reporting it collected $66 million and drew 500,000 new first-time donors. Obama is the first major party candidate to forgo public financing for the general election since it was created 32 years ago. Further, Obama has announced that he will refuse contributions from federally registered lobbyists and PACs.   9/14/08 - "Alaska Women Reject Palin" Rally Largest in State's History People had never seen anything like it in Anchorage. The organizers had someone walk the rally with a counter, and they clicked off well over 1400 people. This was the biggest political rally ever, in the history of the state. The second most amazing thing is how many people honked and gave the thumbs up as they drove by. And even those that didn’t honk looked wide-eyed and awe-struck at the huge crowd that was growing by the minute. This just doesn’t happen in Alaska. So, if you’ve been doing the math… Yes. The Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was significantly bigger than Palin’s rally that got all the national media coverage! Sarah Palin most definitely does not speak for all Alaskans.