Which Battleground States Must McCain Win?

Looking at all the polls out there, the general consensus is that Sen. Barack Obama has more than the 270 electoral votes he needs to become the next president of the United States.

So, what does Sen. John McCain have to do in order to win?

There are 20 states in which McCain is safely ahead. They are Alabama (9 electoral votes), Alaska (3), Arizona (10), Arkansas (6), Georgia (15), Idaho (4), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (9), Mississippi (6), Nebraska (5), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (8), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (34), Utah (5), West Virginia (5) and Wyoming (3).

Some polls have Arizona, North Dakota and Georgia in play. Matter of fact, Obama is making a huge media buy in Arizona during the final hours of the race. But the bottom line is that McCain cannot afford to lose any of these states. They account for 160 electoral votes, which is 90 short of what he needs.

The toss-up states are Indiana (11), Missouri (11), Montana (3), North Carolina (15), Nevada (5), and Ohio (20). George Bush won all those states in 2004, and they account for 65 electoral votes. Polls in these states are to close to call, and McCain has to win them all. But even then, he's 45 electoral votes short.

That means he needs a few states that are leaning toward Obama in the polls. The most likely candidates are Florida (27), North Carolina (13) and Colorado (9), where polls have Obama up by three to five percentage points. Winning all of them would put him over the top at 274, but he would have to come from behind to grab them.

McCain is pushing hard in Pennsylvania (21). There must be internal polls telling his campaign that it is possible for him to win there, but the external public polls all have Obama with strong leads. Some even say Obama is up by as much as 14 percentage points in Pennsylvania. If he did snag the Keystone state, it would give him some breathing room elsewhere in the country.

Still, all in all, a tall order for the Arizona senator in the coming days.

Obama's White House Staff Almost Set

UPDATE: This posting was made weeks before president-elect Barack Obama started to make his appointments. An updated list of Cabinet officials and White House staff with their bios is here.

Based on interviews with campaign insiders, Mike Allen of Politico has complied this list of people who are likely to serve in Obama's White House. Multiple names indicate candidates for the positions:

White House chief of staff: Former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.); Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.); or dark horse candidate Bill Daley, Commerce secretary under President Bill Clinton and now an executive with JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Deputy chief of staff: Pete Rouse, chief of staff in Obama Senate office; Ron Klain, former chief of staff to Vice President Al Gore; longtime Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett; Jim Messina, campaign chief of staff

Senior adviser: David Plouffe, David Axelrod, Steve Hildebrand

Outside adviser: Abner Mikva

Ambassador at large on climate change: former Vice President Al Gore

National security adviser: Jim Steinberg, the deputy under Clinton; Gregory Craig, special counsel to Clinton; Susan Rice; retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni; Samantha Power of Harvard’s Kennedy School

White House counsel: Bob Bauer, campaign counsel; Chris Lu, Obama legislative director and member of transition staff; Heather Higginbottom, campaign senior policy strategist and longtime aide to Sen. John F. Kerry; Mike Strautmanis, congressional affairs for campaign and former chief counsel in Senate office

Chief of staff to the vice president: Tony Blinken, chief of staff, Senate Foreign Relations Committee (Biden is chairman) and senior campaign adviser for Biden; Stephanie Cutter; former Biden aides Mark Gittenstein, Alan Hoffman and Ted Kaufman.

Chief of staff to first lady Michelle Obama: Alyssa Mastromonaco, campaign director of scheduling and advance; Melissa Winter; Linda Douglass, senior spokeswoman for campaign

Counselor: Robert Gibbs; Anita Dunn; Valerie Jarrett; Jon Favreau

Communications director: Robert Gibbs; Dan Pfeiffer, who has that post in the campaign

Deputy Communications Director: Josh Earnest

Press secretary: Robert Gibbs, Linda Douglass, Bill Burton, Stephanie Cutter

Director of media affairs (regional and specialty media): Blake Zeff

Speechwriting director: Jon Favreau; Jeff Nussbaum

Deputy press secretary: Karen Dunn, currently Axelrod’s deputy

Press staff morale chief: Tommy Vietor

Assistant press secretary: Isaac Baker, Reid Cherlin, Ben LaBolt, Moira Mack, Hari Sevugan, Nick Shapiro

Press secretary to the first lady: Katie McCormick Lelyveld

White House economic adviser: Austan Goolsbee, senior policy adviser to campaign and University of Chicago economics professor; Jason Furman, director of economic policy for the campaign; Michael Froman, former Treasury chief of staff, Citigroup executive and Harvard Law classmate with Obama

Domestic policy adviser: Heather Higginbottom, Jason Furman, Neera Tanden

Director of scheduling: Marvin Nicholson

Personal aide: Reggie Love

Cabinet secretary: Christine Varney, who held that post under Clinton

White House staff secretary: Cassandra Butts

Director of legislative affairs: Chris Lu; Mike Strautmanis

Political director: Erik Smith

Defense secretary : Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.); Richard Danzig, Navy secretary under Clinton; John Hamre, president and CEO of CSIS and former deputy secretary of Defense; President Bush’s incumbent, Robert Gates — would be for at least a year so he wasn’t a lame duck.

Attorney general: Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine; Eric Holder, who was deputy AG under Clinton and is now with Covington & Burling and led Obama’s vice presidential search; Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick; Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano.

Supreme Court nominee: Washington superlawyer Robert Barnett; legal scholar Cass Sunstein; Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick; 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor of New York; Elena Kagan, dean of Harvard Law School. Consensus is it would most likely be a woman.

Secretary of State: New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson; Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.); Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.)

Deputy secretary of state: Gregory Craig

Director of State Department policy planning (internal think tank): Samantha Power

U.S. ambassador to the United Nations: Susan Rice, senior campaign national security adviser and State Department and National Security Council official under Clinton; Caroline Kennedy

Treasury secretary: former Clinton treasury secretaries Larry Summers and Robert Rubin; FDIC Chairman Sheila C. Blair; New York Fed President Timothy Geithner, former Treasury under secretary and Assistant Secretary; former Federal Reserve hairman Paul Volcker.

Deputy Treasury secretary: Jake Siewert.

Secretary of Health and Human Services: Tom Daschle; Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, a physician; John Kitzhaber, medical doctor and former Oregon governor.

Health care czar in White House: Tom Daschle.

Education secretary: David Boren, president of the University of Oklahoma and former U.S. senator and former Sooner State governor; Former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean (R), who was chairman of the 9/11 commission; Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.)

Environmental Protection Agency administrator: Former Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.); Kathleen McGinty, former head of the Pennsylvania Environmental Protection Agency

Commerce secretary: Penny Pritzker; Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius; Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine).

Homeland Security secretary: Former Sen. Gary Hart (D-Col.); William Bratton, Los Angeles police chief and former New York police commissioner; former Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.), a member of the 9/11 Commission; Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.); Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine)

CIA director: Former Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.); Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.)

Director of National Intelligence: Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.)

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: Longtime Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett; Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.)

Secretary of Veterans Affairs: Former Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.); Tammy Duckworth, the director of Illinois Veterans’ Affairs, Iraq veteran and former Democratic House candidate; Bush’s incumbent, James Peake

Secretary of the Interior: Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.); Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Secretary of Energy: California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R); Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.)

Secretary of Transportation: Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.); Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.)

Secretary of Labor: Former Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.); Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union; Kay Hagan of North Carolina (if she loses her challenge to U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole); Jeanne Shaheen, former New Hampshire governor (if she loses her challenge to U.S. Sen. John Sununu)

Secretary of Agriculture: Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack; Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.)

Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy: William Bratton

Director, Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (Obama's renamed faith-based office): Josh DuBois, campaign's director of religious affairs

Studs Terkel, Chicago Journalism Icon, Dead at 96

Author-radio host-actor-activist and Chicago symbol Louis "Studs" Terkel died at his home on the North Side today. He was 96.

Terkel's health took a turn for the worse when he suffered a fall in his home two weeks ago. He had been in declining health for a long time.

Here is a link to coverage in the Chicago Tribune.

Here is a link to his web site, which chronicles his life. The world is a poorer place without him tonight.

Studs Terkel, prize-winning author and radio broadcast personality was born Louis Terkel in New York on May 16, 1912. His father, Samuel, was a tailor and his mother, Anna (Finkel) was a seamstress. He had three brothers. The family moved to Chicago in 1922 and opened a rooming house at Ashland and Flournoy on the near West side. From 1926 to 1936 they ran another rooming house, the Wells-Grand Hotel at Wells Street and Grand Avenue. Terkel credits his knowledge of the world to the tenants who gathered in the lobby of the hotel and the people who congregated in nearby Bughouse Square, a meeting place for workers, labor organizers, dissidents, the unemployed, and religious fanatics of many persuasions. In 1939 he married Ida Goldberg and had one son.

Terkel attended University of Chicago and received a law degree in 1934. He chose not to pursue a career in law. After a brief stint with the civil service in Washington D.C., he returned to Chicago and worked with the WPA Writers Project in the radio division. One day he was asked to read a script and soon found himself in radio soap operas, in other stage performances, and on a WAIT news show. After a year in the Air Force, he returned to writing radio shows and ads. He was on a sports show on WBBM and then, in 1944, he landed his own show on WENR. This was called the Wax Museum show that allowed him to express his own personality and play recordings he liked from folk music, opera, jazz, or blues. A year later he had his own television show called Stud's Place and started asking people the kind of questions that marked his later work as an interviewer.

In 1952 Terkel began working for WFMT, first with the "Studs Terkel Almanac" and the "Studs Terkel Show," primarily to play music. The interviewing came along by accident. This later became the award-winning, "The Studs Terkel Program." His first book, Giants of Jazz, was published in 1956. Ten years later his first book of oral history interviews, Division Street : America, came out. It was followed by a succession of oral history books on the 1930s Depression, World War Two, race relations, working, the American dream, and aging. His latest book, Will the Circle Be Unbroken : Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith, was published in 2001. Terkel continues to interview people, work on his books, and make public appearances. He is Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the Chicago Historical Society.

Obama Camp: 'The Dye Is Being Cast;' We've Won

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe told reporters via a conference call today that Democrats are encouraged by results of massive get-out-the-vote efforts in early-voting states. The campaign's inference is that victory is at hand.

Plouffe said the campaign is pleased that a large part of the early vote so far is coming from sporadic and new voters, most of whom they believe are voting for Obama.

"We're out of the land of theory here in a lot of these states. You're beginning to see how this election is likely to unfold," he said. "The dye is being cast even as we speak."

"We're always looking for opportunities to expand the map, and these three states are close enough," Plouffe said. "It's enough in the realm of possibility that we want to put a little extra effort here at the end."

The three states he was referring to are Arizona, North Dakota, and Georgia.

Richardson: Obama's Tax Cut Limit Is Really $120,000

How low can you go?

Gov. Bill Richardson, a supporter of Sen. Barack Obama, said in a recently radio interview that when Obama becomes president, he would cut taxes for people earning less than $120,000 a year.

Obama's official position is that the cutoff is at $250,000. But he once said on the stump that the figure is $200,000. Sen. Joe Biden then lowered the bar to $150,000.

Obama: If You Don't Want Higher Taxes You're Selfish

Sen. Barack Obama, in responding to the spreading the wealth attacks from the McCain campaign, may have not chosen his words wisely while on the stump in Sarasota, Fla., yesterday.

The reason that we want to do this, change our tax code, is not because I have anything against the rich. I love rich people! I want all of you to be rich. Go for it. That’s the America dream, that’s the American way, that’s terrific.

The point is, though, that -- and it’s not just charity, it’s not just that I want to help the middle class and working people who are trying to get in the middle class -- it’s that when we actually make sure that everybody’s got a shot – when young people can all go to college, when everybody’s got decent health care, when everybody’s got a little more money at the end of the month – then guess what? Everybody starts spending that money, they decide maybe I can afford a new car, maybe I can afford a computer for my child. They can buy the products and services that businesses are selling and everybody is better off. All boats rise. That’s what happened in the 1990s, that’s what we need to restore. And that’s what I’m gonna do as president of the United States of America.

John McCain and Sarah Palin they call this socialistic. You know I don’t know when, when they decided they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness.

Of course, the logic in that statement is that you're selfish if you don't want higher taxes, which would play into McCain's argument. Selfish people are those who do not give because they decide not to. One is charitable out of their own free will. It's dangerous territory when government decides for you whether you are too selfish.

Live From New York, It's McCain on 'SNL'

Sen. Barack Obama had his infomerical, now Sen. John McCain is countering with a last-minute appearance on "Saturday Night Live," The Associated Press reports this morning.

Aides to the Republican presidential candidate said Friday that McCain will make a detour from battleground states to appear on "Saturday Night Live," the late-night show that has been a must-watch for many during the political season.

Hosting the show this Saturday is actor Ben Affleck, a supporter of Democratic candidate Barack Obama. The musical guest is singer David Cook.

When McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, appeared on the show Oct. 18, "Saturday Night Live" earned its best ratings in 14 years. Former star and head writer Tina Fey, a Palin lookalike, has been at the center of the show's recent parodies of the campaign.

"SNL" regular Darrell Hammond impersonates McCain on the late-night show, now in its 34th season.

McCain last appeared on "Saturday Night Live" in May, after clinching the nomination and while the Democratic primary continued. The 72-year-old Arizona senator joked about his age, saying: "I ask you, what should we be looking for in our next president? Certainly, someone who is very, very, very old."

Obama Kicks Reporters Off Plane

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign officials have told reporters from The Washington Times, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Post that they no longer can travel on the candidate's plane as of Sunday.

All three newspapers have endorsed Sen. John McCain.

"We're trying to reach as many swing voters that we can and unfortunately had to make some tough choices. but we are accommodating these folks in every way possible," Obama spokesman Bill Burton told Politico's Ben Smith. He said the move was to get reporters on the plane who can reach undecided voters in battleground states. New York and Texas are not battleground areas, but northern Virginia, where the Washington Times circulates, is.

Their seats are being used by correspondents from Ebony and Jet magazines.

In the past, McCain had barred liberal columnists Maureen Dowd of The New York Times and Joe Klein from Time magazine from his campaign plane. The difference is that McCain did not eject the reporters from those news organizations. Columnists are paid to express their opinions, and are generally managed outside the news department. They do not report the news. Reporters are bound ethically to report the news without opinions, and generally have no input into a news organization's editorial page policy.

"This feels like the journalistic equivalent of redistributing the wealth, we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars covering Senator Obama's campaign, traveling on his plane, and taking our turn in the reporter's pool, only to have our seat given away to someone else in the last days of the campaign," said Washington Times Executive Editor John Solomon in his newspaper. "I hope the candidate that promises to unite America isn't using a litmus test to determine who gets to cover his campaign."

Rasmussen: Obama's National Lead Grows to Five Points

Rasmussen Reports' daily tracking poll showed a bounce for Sen. Barack Obama as the frontrunner extended his lead to five percentage points. The poll had shown some tightening in the race until this morning.

After showing the candidates just three points apart yesterday, the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll on Thursday returns to the range that has defined the race for over a month. It’s Obama by five, 51% to 46%.

This is the 35th straight day that Obama’s support has been between 50% and 52%. With the exception of yesterday, McCain’s support has stayed between 44% and 46% during that stretch.

Rasmussen also released a poll this morning that indicates that people now trust Sen. John McCain more than Obama on the issue of taxes and the economy.

After several weeks of John McCain’s campaign attacks on Barack Obama’s tax plan and idea of “spreading the wealth around”, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds voters trust McCain more than Obama on taxes, 47% to 45%.

Two weeks ago, Obama had a one point-advantage on the issue of taxes and a month ago, he had a three-point edge. The last time McCain had the advantage on this issue was September 14, just before the collapse of Lehman Brothers started the meltdown on Wall Street (see trends).

Men favor McCain by a 51% to 43% margin when it comes to taxes, while women still trust Obama more, 48% to 43%.

Mason-Dixon Poll: Tight Races in Virginia and Florida

Mason-Dixon has released new polls this morning for the battlegrounds of Florida and Virginia that show those two states are tightening up. Both results are within the margin of error, which indicate a statistical dead heat.

In Florida, Sen. John McCain holds only a one percentage-point lead over Sen. Barack Obama, 46 percent to 45 percent. Earlier this month, another Mason-Dixon poll showed Obama with a two percentage-point advantage in the Sunshine State, 48 percent to 46 percent.

And in Virginia, Obama is up by two percentage points, 47 percent to 45 percent; earlier this month, McCain was ahead by three in the state, 48 percent to 45 percent.

The polls were conducted in each state from Oct. 20-21, and they both have margin of errors of plus-minus 4 percent.

Obama's Infomercial Video

For those who missed it last night, or just want to re-watch parts of it, here is Sen. Barack Obama's half-hour infomercial that was aired on seven networks. It's broken up into four parts.

Here's Part 1:



Here's Part 2:



Here's Part 3:



Here's Part 4:



The general consensus in the media is that the $4 million buy was well done, but probably failed to sway anyone at this late point who has decided to vote for Sen. John McCain. Basically he was preaching to the choir.

Jessica Heslam of the Boston Hearld wrote that the production showed off Obama's dull side, and noted that most likely people would not have watched the full 30 minutes.

The Democratic contender had better be elected president, because he wouldn’t make a great late-night infomercial pitchman.

His 30-minute TV special was aimed at the middle class and depicted a few Americans struggling with finances and health care that left you with a feeling of depression rather than hope.

Those vingettes were far more engaging than the prerecorded segments of Obama speaking in a room that looked an awful lot like the Oval Office, and the pitches by business execs and politicians, including Gov. Deval Patrick.

Fed Cuts Key Interest Rate to 1 Percent

Saying the economy had slowed markedly, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues cut their target for a key short-term interest rate to 1 percent this afternoon, the lowest it had been since June 2004. Before then, rates had not been that low since 1958.

Here is the text of the Fed's Statement:

The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to lower its target for the federal funds rate 50 basis points to 1%.

The pace of economic activity appears to have slowed markedly, owing importantly to a decline in consumer expenditures. Business equipment spending and industrial production have weakened in recent months, and slowing economic activity in many foreign economies is damping the prospects for U.S. exports. Moreover, the intensification of financial market turmoil is likely to exert additional restraint on spending, partly by further reducing the ability of households and businesses to obtain credit.

In light of the declines in the prices of energy and other commodities and the weaker prospects for economic activity, the Committee expects inflation to moderate in coming quarters to levels consistent with price stability.

Recent policy actions, including today's rate reduction, coordinated interest rate cuts by central banks, extraordinary liquidity measures, and official steps to strengthen financial systems, should help over time to improve credit conditions and promote a return to moderate economic growth. Nevertheless, downside risks to growth remain. The Committee will monitor economic and financial developments carefully and will act as needed to promote sustainable economic growth and price stability.

Voting for the FOMC monetary policy action were: Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman; Timothy F. Geithner, Vice Chairman; Elizabeth A. Duke; Richard W. Fisher; Donald L. Kohn; Randall S. Kroszner; Sandra Pianalto; Charles I. Plosser; Gary H. Stern; and Kevin M. Warsh.

LA Times Holds Video of Obama Praising PLO's Rashid Khalidi

The Los Angeles Times, which endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president, is refusing to release a video it says it has of Obama praising Rashid Khalidi.

Peter Wallsten of the Times wrote in April that Obama was a "friend and frequent dinner companion" of Khalidi, who from 1976 to 1982 was reportedly a director of the official Palestinian press agency, WAFA, which was operating in exile from Beirut with the PLO.

In the article -- based on the videotape obtained by the Times -- Wallsten said Obama addressed an audience during a 2003 farewell dinner for Khalidi, who was Obama's colleague at the University of Chicago, before his departure for Columbia University in New York. Obama said his many talks with Khalidi and his wife Mona stood as "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases."

The headline for the article was "Allies of Palestinians see a friend in Barack Obama".

A special tribute came from Khalidi's friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking.

His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world."

Today, five years later, Obama is a U.S. senator from Illinois who expresses a firmly pro-Israel view of Middle East politics, pleasing many of the Jewish leaders and advocates for Israel whom he is courting in his presidential campaign. The dinner conversations he had envisioned with his Palestinian American friend have ended. He and Khalidi have seen each other only fleetingly in recent years.

And yet the warm embrace Obama gave to Khalidi, and words like those at the professor's going-away party, have left some Palestinian American leaders believing that Obama is more receptive to their viewpoint than he is willing to say.

Their belief is not drawn from Obama's speeches or campaign literature, but from comments that some say Obama made in private and from his association with the Palestinian American community in his hometown of Chicago, including his presence at events where anger at Israeli and U.S. Middle East policy was freely expressed.

At Khalidi's 2003 farewell party, for example, a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, "then you will never see a day of peace."

One speaker likened "Zionist settlers on the West Bank" to Osama bin Laden, saying both had been "blinded by ideology."

Obama adopted a different tone in his comments and called for finding common ground. But his presence at such events, as he worked to build a political base in Chicago, has led some Palestinian leaders to believe that he might deal differently with the Middle East than either of his opponents for the White House.

"I am confident that Barack Obama is more sympathetic to the position of ending the occupation than either of the other candidates," said Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow for the American Task Force on Palestine, referring to the Israeli presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that began after the 1967 war. More than his rivals for the White House, Ibish said, Obama sees a "moral imperative" in resolving the conflict and is most likely to apply pressure to both sides to make concessions.

"That's my personal opinion," Ibish said, "and I think it for a very large number of circumstantial reasons, and what he's said."

Campaign officials for Sen. John McCain have jumped on this. "A major news organization is intentionally suppressing information that could provide a clearer link between Barack Obama and Rashid Khalidi," said McCain campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb. " . . . The election is one week away, and it's unfortunate that the press so obviously favors Barack Obama that this campaign must publicly request that the Los Angeles Times do its job -- make information public."

The Times offered this statement:

"The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it," said the newspaper's editor, Russ Stanton. "The Times keeps its promises to sources."

Jamie Gold, the newspaper's readers' representative, said in a statement: "More than six months ago the Los Angeles Times published a detailed account of the events shown on the videotape. The Times is not suppressing anything. Just the opposite -- the L.A. Times brought the matter to light."

Of course, the obvious question from conservatives is if it had been McCain toasting a PLO mouthpiece, how fast do you think it would have been posted on YouTube? Newspapers treat their sources like gold, and if that was a stipulation placed by the source for this information, the paper isn't going to disregard that. There isn't a journalist on the planet who would release the tape under those circumstances.

Obama's Infomercial Focuses on Families' Stories

Sen. Barack Obama half-hour infomerical tonight will be his closing argument to the "everyman" as he spends 30 minutes speaking to the public about his campaign, and his vision for the future.

Jim Rutenberg writes about tonight's presentation in The New York Times:

The trailer is heavy in strings, flags, presidential imagery and some Americana filmed by Davis Guggenheim, whose father was the campaign documentarian of Robert F. Kennedy. As the screen flashes scenes of suburban lawns, a freight train and Mr. Obama seated at a kitchen table with a group of white, apparently working-class voters, Mr. Obama says: “We’ve seen over the last eight years how decisions by a president can have a profound effect on the course of history and on American lives; much that’s wrong with our country goes back even farther than that.”

Then, while standing before a stately desk and an American flag, Mr. Obama, in a suit, says: “We’ve been talking about the same problems for decades and nothing is ever done to solve them. For the past 20 months, I’ve traveled the length of this country, and Michelle and I have met so many Americans who are looking for real and lasting change that makes a difference in their lives.”

Jim Margolis, Mr. Obama’s senior advertising strategist, told Jim Rutenberg of the Times that the program would then go on to feature “the stories of four different Americans, or American families, and kind of what they’re confronting.” It will highlight “the challenges people are facing and what we should do in terms of solutions.” Rutenberg reports that Margolis said Obama would also share the story of his mother, “who struggled through her bout with breast cancer and the difficulty she had with her insurance company, to help viewers understand why his health care reform program is what it is.”

It will also have a live component, featuring Obama at a rally in Florida. The infomercial has been under production for weeks in the Virginia office of Mark Putnam, whose firm, Murphy-Putnam, is part of the Obama advertising team.

The $3 million media buy is scheduled for 8 p.m. Eastern, and will be seen on NBC, CBS and Fox, along with a number of smaller cable networks. ABC said it decided not to run the infomerical because of the problem of filling the second half-hour of the 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. time period -- and not for political reasons.

Sign of the Times: Christian Science Monitor to Eliminate Daily Paper in Favor of Online Production

The Christian Science Monitor, a 100-year-old institution, has announced that next April it will eliminate its print edition in favor of becoming a web-based newspaper that is updated continuously each day.

The changes at the Monitor will include enhancing the content on CSMonitor.com, starting weekly print and daily e-mail editions, and discontinuing the current daily print format.

This new, multiplatform strategy for the Monitor will "secure and enlarge the Monitor's role in its second century," said Mary Trammell, editor in chief of The Christian Science Publishing Society and a member of the Christian Science Board of Directors. Mrs. Trammell said that "journalism that seeks to bless humanity, not injure, and that shines light on the world's challenges in an effort to seek solutions, is at the center of Mary Baker Eddy's vision for the Monitor. The method of delivery and format are secondary" and need to be adjusted, given Mrs. Eddy's call to keep the Monitor "abreast of the times."

While the Monitor's print circulation, which is primarily delivered by US mail, has trended downward for nearly 40 years, "looking forward, the Monitor's Web readership clearly shows promise," said Judy Wolff, chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Christian Science Publishing Society. "We plan to take advantage of the Internet in order to deliver the Monitor's journalism more quickly, to improve the Monitor's timeliness and relevance, and to increase revenue and reduce costs. We can do this by changing the way the Monitor reaches its readers."

This is a smart move on their part. The great fear in journalism is that newspapers are going to die to be replaced by TV. But the reality is that news organizations will thrive if they get rid of 20th century technology and reach their audiences in a manner that suits the 21st century reader. Consumers want quality reporting and editing. They don't necessarily want newsprint piling up in their homes. The only newspapers that are going to die are the papers that cling to the past.

Rasmussen, Gallup Show McCain Gaining as Polls Tighten

Both Rasmussen Reports and Gallup have reported in the past 24 hours tighter national daily tracking polls.

This morning, Rasmussen Reports said that Sen. Barack Obama's national lead is down to three percentage points, 50 percent to 47 percent.

It is the first time in more than a month that Sen. John McCain has been so close.

Prior to today’s update, Obama had been ahead by four-to-eight points every single day for 33 straight days. During that 33-day stretch, Obama’s voter support had stayed between 50% and 52% every day while McCain was in the 44% to 46% range. It will take another day or so to determine whether today’s numbers reflect a lasting change or statistical noise. Two of the last three nights of polling show a closer race than was found in the previous month.

Of course, the problem for McCain is that it is not a national race, rather 51 individual contests for electoral votes. Rasmussen says Obama's electoral lead, when leaning states are included, is 313-174. Pure toss-up states account for the other 51 electoral votes. That is well above the 270 he needs to become the next president of the United States.

Gallup reported yesterday that Obama had a two percentage-point lead, 49-47, among likely voters using its traditional model. Gallup's "traditional" likely voter model, which Gallup has employed for past elections, factors in prior voting behavior as well as current voting intention. This has generally shown a closer contest, reflecting the fact that Republicans have typically been more likely to vote than Democrats in previous elections.

In other polls released yesterday, GWU/Battleground had Obama up nationally by three percentage points, 49-46; Reuters/CSPAN/Zogby had Obama up by five percentage points, 49-44; and Diego/Hothline had Obama up by seven percentage points, 49-42.

Fed to Consider Dropping Key Interest Rate to 1 Percent

The Federal Reserve may lower its benchmark interest rate to 1 percent today and one expert said eventually, zero percent is not out of the question.

Steve Matthews of Bloomberg writes:

Tumbling commodities prices and weaker consumer spending are slowing inflation, which officials described as a ``significant concern'' at their last scheduled meeting in September. Tomorrow, the Commerce Department will probably report that the economy shrank at a 0.5 percent annual rate in the third quarter, the most since the 2001 recession, economists predict.

The Fed ``will be very aggressive,'' said Mark Gertler, a New York University economist and research co-author with Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke. ``Inflation risks are off the table'' and ``the issue now is how bad the recession will be.''

He predicted the benchmark rate will be cut by half a point today, matching the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Bernanke and his team could push borrowing costs to zero by June if the credit crunch intensifies, Gertler said.

``The predominant concern will be inadequate growth,'' said former Fed Governor Lyle Gramley, now a Washington-based senior economic adviser for Stanford Group Co., a wealth-management firm. ``If the economy shows additional signs of a deepening recession, I think the Fed will decide that the floor is not 1 percent.''

Gramley predicts that policy makers will again cut the main rate by 0.5 percentage point at their next scheduled meeting in December, pushing it toward levels last seen in 1958. ``Zero is a possibility,'' he said.

The dollar fell for a second day against the euro on bets the Fed will lower interest rates more than economists predict. Futures on the Chicago Board of Trade show a 38 percent chance the benchmark rate will be cut to 0.75 percent from 1.5 percent. The odds increased from 34 percent a day before.

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said Oct. 27 he may reduce interest rates next week, citing ebbing inflation and ``weakening demand.'' The ECB, Fed and four other central banks trimmed rates by a half point on Oct. 8 in an unprecedented coordinated move.

After the emergency cut, the Fed signaled it may ease again, citing ``weakening of economic activity and a reduction in inflationary pressures.''

The Fed's announcement is scheduled to come at 2:15 p.m. Eastern today.

Balanced Media? Pew Center Funded Study Say No Way This Election Year

The perception in the real world is that the mainstream media has been overly kind to Sen. Barack Obama and unduly harsh on Sen. John McCain this election year. Now there is a study by the The Project for Excellence in Journalism, funded by the Pew Research Center, that seems to back that up.

The study reports:

Press treatment of Obama has been somewhat more positive than negative, but not markedly so.

But coverage of McCain has been heavily unfavorable—and has become more so over time. In the six weeks following the conventions through the final debate, unfavorable stories about McCain outweighed favorable ones by a factor of more than three to one—the most unfavorable of all four candidates—according to the study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

For Obama during this period, just over a third of the stories were clearly positive in tone (36%), while a similar number (35%) were neutral or mixed. A smaller number (29%) were negative.

For McCain, by comparison, nearly six in ten of the stories studied were decidedly negative in nature (57%), while fewer than two in ten (14%) were positive.

John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei wrote in Politico today about their personal observations:

Politico political editor Charles Mahtesian was e-mailing the other day with a Republican lobbyist who signed off with a plea that sounded more like a taunt: “Keep it balanced.”

A reader e-mailed us with the same sentiment in different language. “Are you f***ing joking! Your bias has stooped to an all-time low. Wait, it will probably get worse as election day nears.” Those asterisks, by the way, are hers, not ours.

And get a load of this one, from someone in Rochester, N.Y., who did not like our analysis of the final presidential debate. “You guys are awfully tough on McCain. There may be some legitimacy to the claim of press bias. Mom.”

We were all set to dismiss Harris’ mother as a crank. Same for VandeHei’s: a conservative dismayed by what she sees as kid-glove treatment of Barack Obama. Then along came a study — funded by the prestigious Pew Research Center, no less — suggesting at first blush, at least, that they may be on to something.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism’s researchers found that John McCain, over the six weeks since the Republican convention, got four times as many negative stories as positive ones. The study found six out of 10 McCain stories were negative.

What’s more, Obama had more than twice as many positive stories (36 percent) as McCain — and just half the percentage of negative (29 percent).

You call that balanced?

Later in the story, the writers justify Politico's reporting by saying that Obama is doing better, so he should be getting better coverage.

There have been moments in the general election when the one-sidedness of our site — when nearly every story was some variation on how poorly McCain was doing or how well Barack Obama was faring — has made us cringe.

As it happens, McCain’s campaign is going quite poorly and Obama’s is going well. Imposing artificial balance on this reality would be a bias of its own.

Politico was not included in the Pew study. But our researcher Alex Burns pulled out his highlighter pen and did his own study of Politico's October stories last week: 110 stories advanced a narrative that was more favorable to Obama than McCain. Sixty-nine did the opposite.

But isn't that a chicken-and-the-egg argument? Did Obama rise in the polls in October because of all the positive press or did he get all the positive press because of his rise in the polls?

Obama Urges Supporters to Skip School or Work on Election Day

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign has released an online commercial that urges students to skip classes and others to take a day off from work on Election Day.

We can't win this election unless every Obama supporter gets out and votes on November 4th. To do that, we need a massive team of volunteers helping us.

Can you take next Tuesday off from work, join the final push, and make sure that everyone who supports Barack turns out to vote?

This ad was just released. There are not many employers who allow workers to take a day on such short notice unless it's a medical emergency. So the the effectiveness of the ad is questionable. But the effort is to get volunteers to help get out the vote, even if it means for them to travel to a battleground state.

CBS Evening News Spikes Obama 'Redistributive' Audio

Brent Baker, editor of NewsBusters, goes through a line-by-line examination into how the big three networks handled the story concerning Sen. Barack Obama's 2001 radio interview, and found that CBS offered very little except for an Obama spokesman who was given ample time to downplay the report.

CBS Evening News offered nothing more than a McCain soundbite surrounded by reporter Chip Reid discrediting the criticism as he relayed the Obama campaign's charge McCain had made a “false, desperate attack” and Reid bemoaned: “If the events of today are any guide, this is a campaign that is taking an increasingly negative tone in the last week.”

In contrast, the NBC Nightly News at least ran a short audio clip of Obama from 2001: “The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth.” ABC's World News, in a piece by Ron Claiborne, aired a much longer audio soundbite from Obama.

On the print side, Peter Baker and Michael Cooper of The New York Times found only paragraphs of space in the middle of its campaign trail story to devote to the matter:

Mr. McCain seized on a radio interview Mr. Obama gave seven years ago to reinforce the argument that Mr. Obama wants to “spread the wealth,” as the Democrat put it on the campaign trail recently.

Mr. McCain read aloud part of the radio interview in Dayton, Ohio, in a speech to supporters, who booed the notion of “redistributive change,” as Mr. Obama put it. “That’s what change means for the Obama administration — the Redistributor,” Mr. McCain said. “It means taking your money and giving it to someone else. He believes in redistributing wealth, not in policies that grow our economy and create jobs.”

But Mr. McCain mangled his script in Ohio, garbling a line about “Barack the Redistributor.” Later, at a feisty rally in Pottsville, Pa., he suggested incorrectly that Mr. Obama’s comments had come “in a radio interview today,” though they were actually made in 2001. But he nailed his new applause line: “Senator Obama is running to be redistributionist in chief. I’m running to be commander in chief.”

Just Like Orlando, Biden Spars With CBS Affiliate in Philadelphia; Reportedly Bans Further Interviews

Sen. Joe Biden has reportedly banned CBS Channel 3 in Philadelphia after its news anchors asked him questions concerning payments made with campaign funds to relatives for consulting fees.

The anchors were asking questions off a recent Washington Times story by Jim McElhatton that reported that Biden has paid more than $2 million in campaign cash to his family members, their businesses and employers over the years, a practice that watchdogs criticize as rife with potential conflicts of interest. McElhatton's report stated:

The money largely flowed from the coffers of Mr. Biden's failed presidential campaign during the past two years to a company that employs his sister and longtime campaign manager, Valerie Biden Owens, according to campaign disclosure filings.

The senator from Delaware also directed campaign legal work to a Washington lobbying and law firm founded by his son R. Hunter Biden, the disclosures show.

Putting family members and their companies on the political payroll is legal if the work is legitimate and charged at market rates, according to the Federal Election Commission. Still, public watchdog groups have long criticized such arrangements.

This comes on the heels of a similar episode where Biden had the campaign cut off access for an Orlando, Fla., television station after its anchor quoted Karl Marx when she asked Biden about Obama's "spreading the wealth" remarks.

Audio: Obama Called for Redistribution of Wealth Via Legislative Action

Sen. Barack Obama said during a 2001 call-in radio interview on WBEZ in Chicago that he wasn't "optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts." Instead he wants to redistribute the wealth legislatively. Conservatives are reading Marxist or Socialist overtones into his call for "redistributive change."

The interview, first reported by the Drudge Report, was with a Chicago radio station while he was an Illinois state senator on Sept. 6, 2001, just days before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Obama, while discussing the victories of the civil rights movement, says:

"You know if you look at the victories and the failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples so that I would now have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I would be OK. But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. ... And one of the -- I think the -- tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change and in some ways we still suffer from that."

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Sen. John McCain's senior policy advisor, released this statement this afternoon on the comments:

"The American people continue to learn more about Barack Obama. Now we know that the slogans 'change you can believe in' and 'change we need' are code words for Barack Obama's ultimate goal: 'redistributive change.' In a previously uncovered interview from September 6, 2001, Barack Obama expressed his regret that the Supreme Court hadn't been more 'radical' and described as a 'tragedy' the Court's refusal to take up 'the issues of redistribution of wealth.' No wonder he wants to appoint judges that legislate from the bench – as insurance in case a unified Democratic government under his control fails to meet his basic goal: taking money away from people who work for it and giving it to people who Barack Obama believes deserve it. Europeans call it socialism, Americans call it welfare, and Barack Obama calls it change."

Cass Sunstein, a Harvard law professor who is advising Obama, downplays the remarks in a report by Ben Smith of Politico:

"What the critics are missing is that the term 'redistribution' didn’t man in the Constitutional context equalized wealth or anything like that. It meant some positive rights, most prominently the right to education, and also the right to a lawyer. What he’s saying – this is the irony of it – he’s basically taking the side of the conservatives then and now against the liberals."