US Elections - Times Online - WBLG

Is Obama eyeing McCain as energy secretary?

Hannah Strange — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:28:42 +0000

The plot of the West Wing has been invoked more than a few times during Barack Obama’s ascent to the Oval Office, most recently with the appointment of the chief-of-staff who inspired the acerbic character of Josh Lyman. Now, it seems life could imitate art once more as rumours begin to fly that the president-elect could make the ultimate bipartisan gesture of offering his Republican presidential rival a post in his Cabinet.

As Mr Obama prepared to meet with John McCain today to discuss future cooperation, there was speculation on a number of respected blogs that the Democrat could be considering offering his former opponent the post of Energy Secretary.

It would certainly be a neat end to a contest that has cleaved so faithfully to the storyline of the award-winning show that its writers could do well to consider careers as political oracles: in the final series, a presidential showdown between little-known Latino Democrat Matt Santos – based on Mr Obama – and ageing maverick Republican Arnold Vinick – inspired by Mr McCain – ends with the former becoming America’s first Hispanic president before offering his former rival the plum job of Secretary of State.

The two men’s well-known differences on foreign policy would rule out that particular position but on energy, the (admittedly pale) green credentials of Mr McCain – McCain the senator, that is, as opposed to McCain the base-pandering candidate – make him worthy of serious consideration.

But is it true?

On the first question, pundits are divided. Some, like Jonathan Martin at Politico, seem fairly certain the only alliance being considered is an informal one, of cooperation between a president and powerful Senate player on issues of national importance. A plan for energy independence would certainly be close to the top of that list. Others, such as Paul Abrams at Huffington Post, believe a Cabinet post is not unlikely.

Aides to both Mr Obama and Mr McCain have said they do not expect such an offer. However language is key here. They have not ruled it out – as they likely would if there was no such possibility. This might seem like semantic hair-splitting but political operatives weigh their words carefully; this playing down could just be calculated to avoid runaway speculation - and the inevitable questions should Mr Obama decide against the move.

Abrams argues that despite some obvious differences – such as Mr McCain’s aversion to federal spending of any kind and Mr Obama’s intention to spend $15 billion every year for the next decade on an American energy plan – appointing the Arizona senator would be a “wise political strategy”.

Mr McCain remains a key player in the Senate and could help rally Republicans behind an Obama plan; it would also lay the groundwork for bipartisan cooperation throughout Mr Obama’s presidency. Like the increasingly likely appointment of Hillary Clinton to State, it would have the additional advantage of keeping a potentially damaging critic off the battlefield in the run-up to 2012.

And it must be remembered that before “Drill baby, drill” became the McCain-Palin mantra, the veteran lawmaker was reasonably respected by environmentalists for his opposition to opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, sponsorship of cap and trade legislation, support for mandatory efficiency standards and early recognition of manmade global warming.

It is true that there are qualified Democrats of a deeper green tint – but do they have the influence in the GOP that Mr McCain has? The senator will also be working hard to restore the reputation as a moderate and independent-minded Republican that he and Sarah Palin so comprehensively trashed during the campaign, so if anything is likely to move left over the coming years.

And would he be interested? With said legacy considerations and a likely 2010 challenge to his Senate seat from popular governor Janet Napolitano, a role in an Administration which could transform the energy game and tackle global warming might be a very appealing prospect indeed.

Lies and more lies: the 10 dirtiest tricks in US electoral history

Hannah Strange — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:41:51 +0100

An already nasty race is getting even nastier with both parties trading allegations of voting irregularities and underhand tactics. Here, I take a look at the 10 dirtiest incidents in US electoral history - in no particular order.

Thomas Jefferson and James Callender

The long and inglorious history of dirty tricks in US electoral politics stretches right back to 1800, in what was only the second contested presidential election. Vice-President Thomas Jefferson hired Scottish-born journalist and pamphleteer James Thomas Callender to slander his opponent, the incumbent president and formerly great friend, John Adams. In published writings, Callender accused Adams of being a “repulsive pedant” and “a hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman”. In return, Adams' camp called Vice President Jefferson "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father." The attacks sunk ever lower with Adams being labelled a criminal and Jefferson an atheist, but Jefferson’s smears-by-proxy were ultimately more successful with Callender convincing most Americans that Adams was set on attacking France, clinching the election for him.

However the tactics later backfired as Callender, after serving jail time for the slander of Adams, turned on Jefferson and began to train his attacks on him. Callender wrote in a series of articles that Jefferson had fathered children by his slave, Sally Hemings, and later, after that scandal ran its course, eventually blew over, exposed the President's attempt to seduce a married neighbor years earlier.

Benjamin Harrison and the Murchison letter

Historian Rick Shenkman claims that the first election in which the outcome was definitively altered by dirty tricks was in 1888, when Republican Benjamin Harrison launched a series of efforts to discredit incumbent President Grover Cleveland in the eyes of the all-important Irish community by painting him as in step with the hated British empire. After a failed attempt to force Cleveland to defend a treaty which would have defused a trading war but angered Irish voters, Republicans arranged for a party official in California to write to the British ambassador to the US in the guise of an Englishman, "Charles F. Murchison", inquiring as to London's preferred candidate. The ambassador, Sir Lionel Sackville-West, wrote back indiscreetly suggesting that Cleveland would probably be the best option. The Republicans published the letter two weeks before the vote and Cleveland duly lost the Irish vote, the state of New York and the election.

JFK and the Cook County controversy

The 1960 was one of the first in which allegations of voter fraud seriously marred the election. Advisers to Richard Nixon challenged John F. Kennedy's victories in a number of states including Illinois - and thus in the whole election - claiming that in Cook County, the populous area including the city of Chicago, the polls were rigged to ensure a win for the Democrat. Investigations and recounts ensued in 11 states, continuing into the summer of 1961, but only resulted in the state of Hawaii being stripped from Nixon and awarded to Kennedy. To this day, there is no universally accepted version of the affair.

Lyndon B. Johnson and Barry Goldwater

In what has been described as one of the most corrupt elections in US history, Democratic incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson launched a series of corrosive attacks on his opponent, Barry Goldwater, setting up a group of political operatives named the "five o' clock club" to smear him ahead of the 1964 vote. The group distributed a Goldwater joke book, a children's colouring book featuring the Republican dressed in the robes of the Ku Klux Klan, fed misinformation to the press and wrote letters to columnists purporting to be from citizens terrified of a Goldwater presidency. They also sent a CIA agent, Edward E. Hunt, to infiltrate Goldwater's campaign as a volunteer and fed his plans and initiatives back to the White House, enabling it to preempt his every move.

Richard Nixon and the CRP

In the run-up to the election of 1972, the Republican incumbent established the Committee to Re-elect the President, a group which was ostensibly a fundraising outfit but was later found to have been involved in numerous shadowy and criminal activities including the Watergate scandal. In order to uncover incriminating material on Nixon's opponents, the organisation conducted a number of burglaries and illegal wiretapping operations, including the break-in at the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate building which ultimately led to the unravelling of the Nixon presidency.

Lee Atwater, x2

As campaign consultant to Republican incumbent Floyd Spence in the 1980 congressional elections, Atwater instigated push polling in which fake pollsters claimed in calls to white voters that his Democratic challenger Tom Turnipseed was a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People and had been hooked up to “jumper cables” as a teenager undergoing electroshock therapy for depression. Later in a career founded on dirty electoral practices, he encouraged ads on behalf of 1988 Republican presidential candidate George H.W. Bush which linked Democratic opponent Michael Dukakis to the case of Willie Horton, a convicted murderer in Massachusetts who committed a rape while on weekend release, a policy supported by then-governor Dukakis - but in fact initiated by his Republican predecessor.

After being diagnosed with a brain tumour in 1990 Atwater converted to Catholicism and in an act of repentance wrote a number of public letters apologising to former opponents including Dukakis and Turnipseed. Writing to the latter, he expressed deep regret for the jumper cable incident in particular, saying it remained one of the low points of his life.

George W. Bush and McCain’s “lovechild"

In the 2000 Republican primary campaign, then-governor of Texas George W. Bush hired Warren Tompkins to wipe out his opponent, John McCain. Tompkins and his team spread race-baiting rumours in South Carolina that McCain had secretly fathered a black lovechild (in fact his adopted Bangladeshi daughter Bridget). Bush also brought in Jeff Larson and his firm FLS-Connect to conduct robo-calls highlighting McCain’s "interracial child" and his wife Cindy’s addiction to prescription drugs.

At the time, McCain said of Larson and Tompkins that “there is a special place in hell for people like these.” He has since had a change of heart and hired Larson to run similar robo-calls against current presidential opponent Barack Obama, accusing the Democrat of “close” ties to former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, of having an “extreme leftist” agenda and not sharing American values. Last week McCain brought in Tompkins to advise him on tactics in the battleground state of North Carolina in the final days of the campaign.

Florida and the Supreme Court

The month-long dispute which blighted the 2000 election began on election night, when confusion erupted among news networks over who had won the state of Florida. Initially, the state was declared for Gore before the strongly Republican panhandle, one hour behind the eastern counties, had released its results. When the mistake was realised, the networks retracted that call before calling the state for Bush, but then retracted it again, declaring it too close to call. Gore then made a concession call to Bush, but rescinded it after learning just how close the vote was.

Though Bush won the initial count in Florida by some 2,000 votes, state law required a recount for such a close result, which reduced the Republican's margin to just 537 votes. A lengthy legal wrangle ensued and a manual recount ordered, but, amid time restrictions and disputes over methods of counting ballots, the case ultimately ended up in the Supreme Court. The court voted to halt the recount, allowing Florida's Republican Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, who had been Bush's campaign chair in the state, to certify the results in his favour.

A number of related controversies also tainted the Florida vote, including disputes over ballots on which chads had not been punched out correctly due to machine faults or confusing layouts. Hundreds of thousands of African-Americans - who tend to vote Democrat - were wrongly purged from the electoral roll as felons, and accusations of legal strong-arming and conflicts of interests abounded. To this day, many Democrats believe that the election was stolen from Al Gore.

John Kerry and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

As the 2004 election approached, incumbent George W. Bush was struggling to fend off attacks on his weak military record from his Democratic opponent John Kerry, a recipient of numerous military honours for his service in Vietnam. But it was not long before a 527 group named the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth swept to the rescue. The organisation, formed specifically to oppose Kerry's candidacy, released a letter signed by some 250 Swift boat veterans claiming the Democrat had lied about his acts of heroism and taking issue with statements he had made in support of the anti-war movement following his return from the conflict. It also ran a series of ads and released a book labelling Kerry a liar and coward. It later emerged that only 16 of the veterans had ever served in the same division as Kerry and only one had been present during an incident for which he was decorated. That veteran, Larry Clayton Lee, said Kerry had earned his Silver Star but that based on conversations with other SBVT members had come to question his awards for other incidents. Some members later acknowledged that their motivation was less Kerry's record but his later statements against the war, while the Democrat's actual crew members dismissed their claims outright, but by that time, the damage had been done. So successfully, in fact, that the term "swiftboating" has entered the US political lexicon as a synonym for dirty tricks and smears.

2008 - the dirtiest campaign yet?

Well perhaps not. But according to historian and author Joseph Cummins, it is certainly a contender. Allegations of underhand tactics have proliferated since the start of the primary race, with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton exchanging allegations of racial smears and voting irregularities. Since Obama's nomination the contest has taken an even more vicious turn, with ongoing internet rumours that the African-American candidate is a secret Muslim, associates with terrorists and plans to push an extremist agenda from the White House. As detailed above, robo-calls are again being deployed to make the case, while McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, regularly paints Obama as anti-American, foreign and unpatriotic. In turn, the Democrat has accused his rival of being old, out-of-touch and erratic and raised questions about Palin's lack of experience, while liberal bloggers have accused the Alaskan governor of trying to ban books, having an affair with her husband's friend and lying about the parentage of her son. And as the election draws nearer, the familiar legal dance around voting registration and methods is once again in full swing. With two weeks to go, this already nasty contest could still get a great deal nastier.

Not so secret anymore...

Matt Spence — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:42:21 +0100

The St. Petersburg Times reports today that the Florida Republican Party "hastily convened a top-secret meeting" this week to address John McCain's apparent free-fall in the battleground state's recent polls.

The last four major polls out of Florida show Barack Obama leading McCain by anywhere from 3 to 8 points. A loss in Florida, which has 27 electoral votes, would, of course, be catastrophic to Mr McCain's chances at winning the presidency in November.

Among the other concerns expressed at the meeting was a growing concern that the McCain campaign staff weren't fully utilising grassroots volunteers. The St. Petersburg Times quotes former Florida GOP Chairman Tom Slade as saying, "I get the sense that on the statewide basis, the grassroots Republicans don't quite feel like they have a natural fit within the McCain organization."

However you interpret the reasons for the meeting, it can't be a good sign for McCain that top GOP officials in this must-win state felt the need to call for such a gathering in the first place.

Hat Tip to Ben Smith for pointing out the story.

Across the Pond, the album: The best unofficial campaign songs #1

Hannah Strange — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 01:00:00 +0100

So B-Rock has released an album eh? Here at Across the Pond, we reckon we can do better than that silver-tongued smoothie with all his celebrity pals, so we've put together a compilation of the best unofficial campaign songs, posted by you the people on YouTube. We'll be releasing one each weekday for the next two weeks (in no particular order).

CAUTION: These videos contain extreme lightheartedness, infantile humour and gratuitous silliness. We apologise for any offence caused.

First up, it's the Obama baby...

Support falters as bailout bombs

Times Online — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:46:02 +0100

As Capitol Hill goes into meltdown, the media appears to have abandoned all support for the $700 billion bailout package just as it becomes the major campaign issue. John McCain is under attack for his posturing but could his opposition prove extremely popular?

Obama Needs to Lead, Not Be One of the Bailout Bipartisan Musketeer
Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again: bipartisanship in service of bad legislation is not a good thing.

"And, make no mistake, this bailout bill -- at least if the details that are trickling out are accurate -- is going to be very bad legislation indeed."

Public isn't buying Wall Street bailout
Ken Bensinger, Los Angeles Times

"Angry protesters mobbed Wall Street, telephones rang off the hook in House and Senate offices and a group of prominent economists sent off e-mail blasts critiquing the proposal.

"The increasingly loud roar coming from all corners of the nation shows that the idea of a bailout has touched a particularly sensitive nerve among the public."

A Pledge to Help That Hurts
Floyd Norris, New York Times

"Healthy banks may be unwilling to surrender equity, or agree to limits on executive pay.

"If that happened, this bailout plan, like those before it, could be perverse even if it is adopted. If your institution takes the help, that means it needed it. Customers may flee."

The post-bailout agenda
Leader in the Christian Science Monitor

"For Congress, spending billions to buy up Wall Street's dodgy mortgages may be the easy part. The next act requires lawmakers to respond to public anger and prevent America's economy from falling into another giant credit hole. Where to start?

"If taxpayers must now rescue Wall Street, they expect Congress to admit its own mistakes and correct them."

A Bailout for All Our Bad Decisions?
Mark Sanford, Washington Post

"I am worried for our country - not so much because of the tumult in the financial markets but because of the federal government's response and its implications. It seems that each new crisis is met with a new answer from the government.

"An ever-expanding scope of federal commitment and power is not what made this country great."

Bailout plays into Bernanke's deflation fighting theory
John Crudele, New York Post

"Is Ben Bernanke deviously planning to run the nation's printing presses overtime in order to get out of the jam caused by Wall Street?

"Let's say the government takes over all troubled mortgages, pays for them essentially with an electronic entry in its books [ie by effectively printing more money] and then just waits for everyone to forget about the whole mess.

"We'd be bailing out the banks with Monopoly money."

Save the world? Hank just didn't have a clue
Anatole Kaletsky, The Times

"The Emperor has no clothes. If you want to know why American capitalism is on the brink of disaster, but also want to understand what will save it, then log on to the C-Span congressional website and watch the interrogations of Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, by the Senate and House banking committees.

"Mr Paulson outdid even [the] Rumsfeldian achievements, when he demanded $700 billion from Congress for a "comprehensive and fundamental" solution to the global financial crisis, without apparently having any idea of what he would actually do."

State of the race: an electoral college map

Hannah Strange — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:52:59 +0100

Two maps, in fact. The first uses the latest poll in each state to determine whether that state is a battleground (if it is tied, or one candidate is leading by six points or less) or if it is a solid state for the Republicans or Democrats (if one candidate has a lead of seven points or more). In this scenario, Barack Obama has a clear lead though there is a great deal still to play for.

In the second map, there are no battleground states. It is assumed that if a candidate has a lead of any size, the state will fall to that candidate. If the state is tied in the latest poll, I have taken into account the previous poll in order to break the tie. This map shows just how agonisingly tight the race really is - the two candidates are tied, both one point away from the magic number of 270.

I have listed the results of the latest polls for all states below the jump. A couple of notes: the result given is from the latest poll, or if multiple polls are submitted on the same day, an average is taken. Most of the polls were concluded in the past week, though in some cases the most recent data available is from the previous week. Results are collated from Real Clear Politics and USA Election Polls.

Hat tip to the Washington Post for the map - click on the link to the side of the map to create your own.

Map one: Electoral college including battleground states

Map two: Electoral college, no battleground states

Click below to keep reading for a breakdown of polling data

Ohio - Tie

North Carolina -Tie

Nevada - McCain +1

New Hampshire - McCain +2

Indiana - McCain +2

Minnesota - Obama +2

Pennsylvania - Obama +3

Virginia - McCain +3

Missouri - McCain +4

West Virginia - McCain +4

Maine - Obama +4

Oregon - Obama +4

Washington State - Obama +5

Florida - McCain +5

Colorado - Obama +5.5

Michigan - Obama +5.5

South Carolina - McCain +6

Wisconsin - Obama +7

Louisiana - McCain +7

Georgia - McCain +8

New Jersey - Obama +9

Delaware - Obama +9

North Dakota - McCain +10

New Mexico - Obama +11

Iowa - Obama +11

Montana - McCain +11

Arkansas - McCain +12

Maryland - Obama +15

Connecticut - Obama +15

South Dakota - McCain +16

Mississippi - McCain +16

Massachussetts - Obama +16

New York - Obama +17

California - Obama +17

Arizona - McCain +17

Alaska - McCain +`17

Vermont - Obama +18

Kentucky - McCain +19

Kansas - McCain +20

Illinois - Obama +20

Texas - McCain +21

Rhode Island - Obama +22.5

Tennessee - McCain +23

Nebraska - McCain +26

Oklahoma - McCain +27

Alabama - McCain +30

Hawaii - Obama +31

Utah - McCain +36

Wyoming - McCain +38

Idaho - McCain +42

District of Columbia - Obama +79

Zucker: Republican is the new gay

Hannah Strange — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:18:41 +0100

Poor David Zucker. Being a Republican in Hollywood is so tough, apparently, that he has likened it to being gay - back in the days when being gay in showbiz wasn't a good career move, presumably.

In an interview with EW.com (via United Press International) the award-winning director of Airplane! and The Naked Gun laments: "You sort of feel like you have to hide it.

"When you meet, you give each other a secret look, 'Are you a Republican, too?' It's the new gay."

But now, no longer content with suppressing his conservative urges in public, Zucker is coming out - on screen. He is collaborating with fellow Hollywood Republicans - including Kelsey Grammar, Jon Voight and Dennis Hopper on what EW.com calls "Hollywood's first unabashedly right-wing comedy."

"Most political comedies say both sides are bad," Zucker said "We're saying, '(Expletive) it.' We're taking a side."

Written by Zucker, Myrna Sokoloff and Lewis Friedman, the film, "An American Carol" is the story of an anti-American filmmaker who attempts to abolish the July 4th holiday, and is visited by the ghosts of famous Americans who try to convince him of its importance.

Zucker, take heart. If being Republican is the new gay, in a couple of decades you'll be the most popular man on Hollywood Boulevard ...

Polls: Obama closes gap on McCain

Hannah Strange — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:36:45 +0100

Barack Obama has all but eroded John McCain's poll lead as the Palin effect begins to wear off, according to the latest polls.

The Republican nominee had established a four to five point lead over his rival following the St Paul convention - and in particular Sarah Palin's introduction to the country as his vice-presidential pick.

But Obama has now pegged him back to just a one point edge, according to an average of the latest polling data by Real Clear Politics. The pair are now virtually tied at 46.1 to 45.1 per cent.

Meanwhile some surveys, including the Hotline/FD Tracking poll released today, show the Democratic nominee in the lead by 2 to 3 points. A round-up of four daily tracking polls by MyDD gives Obama a 1.5 point lead, but with margins of error typically around 3 points the overall impression is of a dead heat.

The data may reflect Obama's success in painting his rival as out of touch with economic concerns aas he contrasts McCain's previously upbeat assessment of the economy with the current turmoil on Wall Street. The Hotline/FD poll shows McCain's approval ratings on the economy sinking from 43 to 36 per cent in just four days.

The Obama camp has also been fighting back hard against a series of negative ads by McCain, accusing him of running a dishonest campaign based on smears and distortions.

But perhaps the most significant factor in Obama's resurgence may be that the conservative euphoria surrounding the young governor of Alaska is beginning to wane. This view is borne out in poll data cited by Newsweek, which shows Palin's favourability ratings dropping by 10 points in just three days as a series of unhelpful stories and a questionable performance in her interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson reinforce doubts over her experience and past political judgments.

Obama ad hits McCain "smears"; Karl Rove joins in

Hannah Strange — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:49:36 +0100

Barack Obama's latest ad takes John McCain to task over his campaign tactics, contrasting the Republican nominee's previous pledge to leave gutter politics out of the race with damning verdicts on his conduct from major US news publications. It's a slick, elegant offering which manages to land a neat blow against McCain without giving the impression of Obama ever having thrown it.

But what makes this ad so convincing for some is what may discredit it in the eyes of others - that the attacks come from the very same "liberal mainstream media" that many conservatives believe is so biased against the Republicans anyway.

Interestingly, however, backing for this assessment has emerged from the most unlikely of sources - the man whose name has become a byword for political skulduggery, Karl Rove.

In an interview with Fox News yesterday, Rove criticised McCain for going "too far" in his latest ads.

"McCain has gone in some of his ads - similarly gone one step too far," he said, "and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the '100 percent truth' test."

The Obama campaign immediately leapt on the quote.

"In case anyone was still wondering whether John McCain is running the sleaziest, most dishonest campaign in history, today Karl Rove -- the man who held the previous record -- said McCain's ads have gone too far," said campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor, in a statement sent to reporters minutes after Rove's on-air comments.

But it must be pointed out that Rove, who masterminded both of President Bush's White House bids to earn the nickname "Bush's brain", said both candidates need to "be careful" about their attacks on each other.

"They ought to -- there ought to be an adult who says, 'Do we really need to go that far in this ad? Don't we make our point and won't we get broader acceptance and deny the opposition an opportunity to attack us if we don't include that one little last tweak in the ad?' " he said.

Is John McCain lonely?

Matt Spence — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:23:43 +0100

In John McCain's first full-scale campaign rally without running mate, Sarah Palin, he drew a crowd of 3,000 people in Jacksonville, Florida. The problem: the arena seated 16,000.

While 3,000 may have been a great crowd for McCain just a month ago, it certainly can't compare to the crowds he drew last week with Palin. Turnout like today's definitely makes the reports that the two may spend more time on the road together seem all the more likely.

Gordon Brown's Obama endorsement: the real deal or a Downing Street mix-up?

Hannah Strange — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:10:20 +0100

Gordon Brown's article in the Parliamentary Monitor has sent Downing Street screeching into one of those clumsy reverse manoeuvres with which it has become so familiar of late. Apparently, the PM hadn't meant to endorse Barack Obama at all - in fact, he hadn't even meant to write the article, which, it is now claimed, was put together by some junior official and submitted to the magazine without so much as a cursory glance by its supposed author.

Number 10 today signalled that Mr Brown had not written the article, but refused to comment on claims that he had not even seen it. The prime minister took "responsibility" for everything published "under his name", his spokesman would only say.

The article, in which Brown (or the soon-to-be-jobless official) rhapsodised on the Democratic nominee as the "progressive" candidate with the vision to turn around the ailing US economy, was greeted with a collective groan by British commentators. It is the resigned cringe of a teenager embarrassed, again, by a gaffe-prone parent - the "he's-not-with-me" response which seems to have become the default setting for so much of the British public since Brown's non-election last year.

Not because Brits don't want Obama in the White House (though if he doesn't make it, there might be some Labour backbenchers looking to draft him over here) but because we are well aware that the endorsement of our esteemed leader can only have a negative effect on his prospects. Among the swelling ranks of passportless-and-proud-of-it small town Americans who Obama most needs to win over, the only endorsement more damaging would have been if Jacques Chirac himself had swooped in from his retirement in the septième arrondissement and anointed him with a slice of over-ripe Camembert.

Compounding the humiliation is the noticeable lack of attention anyone has paid to the story outside of these shores. Usually, when putting together a reaction piece like this, I like to include opinion from US blogs and newspapers. This time, despite having scoured all possible news sources, I've come up with nothing. Not a word. One or two blogs make a passing allusion to it - none offer any comment on what, apparently, is pretty much a non-story in the US presidential race. Even the McCain campaign seems unbothered. Despite having contacted the British embassy in Washington to ask for an explanation, according to the Financial Times, it has now decided to shrug off the apparent snub with an "am-I-bovvered" palm-in-the-face reaction piece entitled "The Coveted Gorden Brown endorsement". "Far be it for this campaign to underestimate the value of an endorsement from Prime Minister Gordon Brown", it begins witheringly, before going on to question the substance of his argument.

This is not because of a lack of respect for British Prime Ministers in general. This is because of a lack of respect for Gordon Brown. If Tony Blair, even in his post-prime-ministerial guise, made such a statement, you can bet your last dollar for the gas pump that it would attract some prime-time media attention. As it is, no one really cares, which is just another depressing reminder of the dearth of authority and influence of our surely-soon-to-be-ex prime minister. The impression of yet another Downing Street foul-up adds to his woes, while the attempt to flatter Obama in the hope that some of that celebrity magic might rub off only reminds us of TB's attempts to buddy up to the Gallagher brothers - painful and transparent.

So I've rounded up reaction from British political commentators, and followed that with some comments from readers on the influential American blog Politico. Click below to keep reading.

Paul Waugh, Evening Standard:

"Oh dear, oh dear. It really is worse than we thought in the Brown bunker. The row over the PM's Parliamentary Monitor article on Barack Obama just descended into farce as Number 10 insisted that Mr Brown takes "responsibility" for everything that appears "under his name" - but refused to say that he had actually seen it before it was published. Of course, there's nothing wrong in having a ghostwriter for your articles (or even speeches) - that's what Number 10 political advisers are for after all - but something is seriously wrong if a piece in Brown's name appears without him even approving its contents."

Americano, The Spectator:

"Now, really this is a storm in a tea-cup. But it is hard to imagine the Bush or Kerry campaigns sending up Tony Blair like this or making this kind of sarcastic comment about him, “Far be it from this campaign to underestimate the value of an endorsement from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown”. A perceived endorsement from Blair would have been a boon to either candidate in 2004.

"Personally, I think the McCain campaign is being rather disrespectful. Brown, for all his faults, is still the British Prime Minister and should be treated with a certain amount of consideration by the campaigns of those who wish to become president. But the whole incident does seem to typify how the Brown camp can’t get anything right at the moment."

Guido Fawkes:

"The first meeting Obama had with Gordon resulted in McCain inching ahead in the polls. This is more good news, get your money on McCain. Barring an act of god, the curse of Jonah Brown means Obama is now doomed...

"Team McCain are trying to keep a straight face - see the campaign's piss-take "The Coveted Gordon Brown Endorsement". Loser backs loser... "

The Minority Report:

"Brown's premiership at this point fits the definition of walking wounded, and here's another example of how he got there."

The Telegraph:

"For a man who prides himself on his encyclopaedic knowledge of American politics, Gordon Brown has made an incomprehensible schoolboy error with his article apparently endorsing Barack Obama’s candidacy. ...
"The first law of diplomacy is that you do not stick your fat foot into other country’s elections, least of all the US presidential contest, where the chap who wins can turn round and squash you, like Monty Python’s giant descending foot, if you get it wrong. ... Nor is the endorsement, particularly so ineptly delivered, of Gordon Brown something that will warm the increasingly cold feet of Barack Obama. The Democratic candidate has been panned at home for his grandstanding European tour. He won’t win over Appalachia with the news that Britain’s lame duck prime minister is rooting for him."

Readers, Politico:

"Brits like Obama? That's like a dog whistle to the Dumbed Down Americans to vote for Palin-McCain. Thanks Brown."

"The most incompetent PM in recent English history for the first time since King George III and Lord North telling the USA who should run their country. Makes me feel like dumping some tea in the harbour."

McCain's task for tonight

Matt Spence — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:16:20 +0100

In the lead-up to tonight's big speech by John McCain, CQ Politics has a must-read piece on what he needs to accomplish. The gist: He needs to reach out to independent voters and moderate Democrats. Sarah Palin's speech last night was about motivating the base. McCain's speech tonight must be about expanding it.

Palin's Speech: How the swing-vote reacted

Matt Spence — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:44:32 +0100

The true test of any political speech is how independent voters react. With Sarah Palin's speech last night, it's no surprise that Republicans loved it and Democrats hated it, although pretty much everyone agreed that it was well-delivered and exceeded expectations.

Luckily, the Detroit Free Press gathered a panel of voters, including independents, from the all-important swing state of Michigan to weigh in. While noting, of course, that this is far from scientific, the comments from the independents on the panel are nonetheless interesting.

Continue reading below for the mostly critical responses from Detroit's independent voters.

"I was completely underwhelmed. She was a Republican novelty act with a sophomoric script. It was not even a speech I would expect for a someone running for the local PTA, much less for vice president."
      - George Lentz, 66

"Sarah Palin came across as the small town girl who made good. I knew that I disagreed with her on some issues before this evening. After listening to her speech … it appears that once she makes up her mind, that is the end of it. We live in a gray world, not every answer is black and white."
      - Diane Murphy, 42

"Sarah Palin is a self-described ‘pitbull with lipstick.’ She spent little time helping Americans learn who she is. She is a cool, poised speaker, but her speech contained few statements about policy or the party platform. … I am not convinced that Palin's experience as a mayor or governor in Alaska meet the qualifications to be vice president much less one stroke or heart attack away from being commander in chief."
      - Ilene Beninson, 52

"Nothing worked for me. I found her barrage of snide remarksand distortions to be a major turn off. She is not a class act. The most important point she made is that she will be an effective attack dog."
      - Jan Wheelock, 58

"Who is Sarah Palin? I'm sorry but I still don't know anymore about this young lady tonight than I did last night ... The way it looks to me, she's the Republican vice presidential nominee for one reason: because Hillary wasn't selected."
      - Mike Kosh, 38

"Sarah got as much applause as Hillary did, and had a friendly, appealing appearance.
Her delivery style reminded me of a high school valedictorian who also might have been a cheerleader. I thought she would appear more professional, more stateswomanly. She's no match for Joe Biden."
      - Joellen Gilchrist, 64

What were your thoughts? We should see some polling on last night's speech sometime in the next few days.

Sarah Palin's convention speech: the reaction

Hannah Strange — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:50:25 +0100

Conservatives are swooning, liberals terrified - that's how I would sum up the media reaction to Sarah Palin's big moment in St Paul last night. Never mind that she told a fair few porkies - both about her own record and Barack Obama's - the young governor of Alaska issued a rallying cry to the conservative Republican base that will go down in the annals of the culture wars as one of the most energising opening salvos of recent times.

But will it win over wavering independents? I personally think not, as thinking moderates will, I believe, look beyond her charismatic delivery to positions that have little resonance with their own. And they may well be turned off by the divisive "It's us right-thinking Americans against those snooty East Coast almost-foreigners" tone of her speech. But I could be wrong. Only time - and perhaps the next round of polling - will tell.

A selection of views from the blogosphere - left and right:

Joe Klein, Swampland, Time:

"She delivered a brilliant speech. It was a classic Republican speech--written by Matthew Scully of the Bush speechwriting shop -- chock full of conservative populism, a cultural "torpedo" as Chris Mathews is saying as I write this, aimed directly at Barack and Michelle Obama. She was far more effective, using fewer words than the over-the-top Rudy Giuliani, in tearing down the Obama candidacy. There was not much substance -- issues don't matter, remember? -- and her description of Obama's policies, particularly his tax policies, was quite inaccurate. ... The speech also very effectively steered Palin away from her extremist views on social issues...and from her differences from McCain on almost every issue -- global warming, tax increases, pork -- except abortion. It will, obviously, be crucial for McCain and Biden to make clear the inaccuracies in her speech -- and her relentless mischaracterizations of Obama's positions, especially taxes."

Walter Shapiro, Salon.com:

"It will take more than a single speech convincingly read off a Teleprompter for the voters to ratify McCain's judgment in choosing the fledgling governor of Alaska as the first woman on a Republican national ticket. ...

"While the selection of the Alaksa governor may not be the gender-gap-closing masterstroke that Republicans initially hoped, it also is not looking like the politically impulsive disaster that the Democrats had envisioned. What Sarah Palin may have underscored on her big night on center stage is that, in the end, vice-presidential candidates are mostly political afterthoughts for the voters."

MyDD:

"We have met someone that we will be doing battle against for a decade or more. Seriously. I've never seen a woman, or a man for that matter, speak that way, prime time, national, convention, live, ever. She blows away Hillary Clinton. …
OK, so my guess. Come November, and Obama's glorious victory, Palin is who they pronounce as the '12 nominee against Obama. Either that, or Palin is Prez after McCain croaks on a pretzel from 2 years of the WH.
Palin captured the GOP's heart and flag tonight. She hit it 456 ft into deep right field, and way friggin outside the park. … Anyone that thinks McCain could have chosen better than Palin, among the GOP ranks, is on drugs. Talk about a cultural war that's on again!"

Red State:

"Sarah Palin ... gave the speech of a lifetime, perhaps the best nationally broadcast political introduction in the convention history, and a knock out blow to the Obama-Biden campaign and their pals in the media.
"... She proved she's tough, she's a fighter, and yes, she can lead. Governor Sarah Palin could lead on day one. She is ready to be President. ... John McCain chose wisely.
"After tonight, it is clear the media's reaction to Sarah Palin was hyperbolic, false, and filled with the anger of a Democratic opposition just now recognizing what a threat Governor Palin is to their established order. Sarah Palin is the real deal."

The Campaign Spot, National Review Online:

"Tonight, we either saw a watershed in American politics, a tour de force, the most striking and graceful debut in our nation’s political life, and a national introduction that makes Barack Obama’s 2004 convention address look like small potatoes… or we saw what we wanted to see, and the country’s persuadable independents saw something else. I’m afraid to believe. If I’m wrong, I don’t really know what Americans want. I know conservatives are thrilled to pieces, and they ought to be. She knocked it out of the park. I don’t think she could have delivered that speech any better. Even if I hadn’t suggested a line, I would say that the speech hit almost every note just right. (Did the Obama fans feel this way? Is this what their exultation feels like? Wonderful. I’m glad they get to experience it too.)"

Talking Points Memo:

"If you didn't sense last night how deeply Sarah Palin channeled some of the country's deepest, most powerful currents of pent-up indignation and yearning, you don't sense the trouble we Democrats are in.
"Rhetorically, she was the anti-Obama. She was stirring precisely because she was so artless, matter-of fact, and "American" -- with no cadences or grand, historic resonances, but with plenty of mother wit and shrewdness. The two currents she tapped ... were riptides of deeply wounded pride and groping loyalty, a yearning for vindication of something that is not to be disparaged at all."

Palin and supporters stretch truth on Obama

Hannah Strange — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:08:51 +0100

This just in from the Associated Press - an interesting fact check on Sarah Palin's presentation to the convention last night.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.

Some examples:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform _ not even in the state senate."

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state _ by population.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right _ change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington _ throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.

Another useful factcheck that focuses exclusively on Palin's speech is available here, at the Reality-based Community.

Live-Blog: Palin vs. the Media

Matt Spence — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 02:11:40 +0100

Expectations for tonight's speech by Republican vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, have been set almost so low that she'll be hard-pressed not to hit a home run. After the brutal pummeling she's received from the media since she burst onto the national political scene last Friday, tonight is her first real chance to redefine herself for the American public.

Ms Palin, who has been under full-on attack from the national press, is expected to take direct aim at her assailants in an effort to deflect the nation's attention toward what she considers the unfair, sexist treatment of her in the media. Her goal is to turn the nation's attention away from her pregnant 17-year-old daughter, the "troopergate" scandal, and her husband's membership in an Alaskan separatist party, and to turn that focus onto her record as a reformer, an executive, and a strong, conservative working mother.

In early excerpts from the speech, Palin addresses the media's attack head-on:

"I’m not a member of the permanent political establishment. And I’ve learned quickly, these past few days, that if you’re not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone. But here’s a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion - I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this country."

Check back throughout the speech for first impressions as we live-blog. Wire-to-wire coverage after the jump...

9:02pm ET: Just got word that Palin's speech is expected to be longer than initially thought. There's some speculation that the tight "packaging" of the prime-time hour is to cut down on the time the networks have to fill with commentary in between speeches so that the speeches by former-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and Governor Palin stand for themselves.

9:11pm ET: A new CBS Poll out tonight shows that Sarah Palin is still an unknown quantity to most of America. Polling conducted over the weekend showed 66 percent of Americans with no opinion of her. Even polling data from Monday and Tuesday shows fully 60 percent of those surveyed without an opinion of Palin. This leaves a lot of room for her to determine her own fate tonight.

9:17pm ET: John McCain's three main rivals for the GOP nomination are speaking in the lead-up to Sarah Palin's headlining speech. First up is former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney, who is currently railing against a "liberal" Supreme Court, Congress, unions, and government spending, much to the delight of the conservative faithful in the room. He'll be followed by former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee, and Rudy Giuliani.

9:29pm ET: Huckabee is speaking. Meanwhile, the worst-kept secret in the room appears to be that John McCain will take a cue from Barack Obama and make a surprise appearance on stage after his VP nominee's speech.

9:36pm ET: Huckabee is banging the GOP populist drum, but may have just landed the jab of the night. He quipped, "I want to tell you folks something. [Sarah Palin] got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for President of the United States." Ouch!

9:43pm ET: FACT CHECK: Joe Biden got more than twice the votes in just Florida and California during his run for President than there are citizens in Wasilla, Alaska. So, if you're keeping score, it was a funny line, but completely inaccurate.

9:49pm ET: Rudy Giuliani will take the stage right at 10pm Eastern. Expect him to make a strong case for Sarah Palin's executive experience.

9:55pm ET: For a guy who Joe Biden says puts together a sentence with "a noun, a verb, and 9-11," I'm happy to announce that only once in Giuliani's prepared text of nearly 1700 words does the phrase "September 11th" appear.

10:11pm ET: Giuliani has taken on quite the mocking tone toward Barack Obama's time as a community organizer and his "present" votes during his tenure in the Illinois State Senate. The crowd, of course, loves it. He compares this indecisiveness to Palin's executive experience, noting that she didn't have the luxury of voting "present." Says Obama "is the least experienced candidate for President in at least the last 100 years." Notes that "Barack Obama has never led anything. Nada." Declares, "This is not the time for on the job training."

10:14pm ET: Just a thought, but while this sort of derisive tactic may work well as a surrogate for McCain, it probably explains why Giuliani's own presidential campaign never really got off the ground. It's killing in the hall, but that sometimes translates into cocky and brutish to viewers at home.

10:27pm ET: Giuliani wraps up by calling the media sexist for questioning Palin's fitness to handle a family and the vice-presidency.

10:29pm ET: Giuliani spoke so long they skipped the planned biographical video and Sarah Palin came out on stage immediately.

10:32pm ET: Palin: "Mr. Chairman, delegates, and fellow citizens: I am honored to be considered for the nomination for Vice President of the United States." Chants of "Sarah, Sarah, Sarah" from the crowd.

10:36pm ET: Palin mentions her son, who is deploying to Iraq this week, and nephew who is currently serving in the Persian Gulf.

10:38pm ET: A slight nod to her very public family issues: "Our family has the same ups and downs as any other...the same challenges and the same joys."

10:41pm ET: Not having much experience with Alaskan accents, I'm not sure I can tell the difference between hers and that of your average Canadian. I wonder how this will play in Scranton.

10:43pm ET: Palin takes the second shot of the hour at Obama's community organizer past, saying her time as mayor is "sort of like being a community organizer, but with actual responsibility."

10:45pm ET: See pull quote before the jump. The crowd is absolutely loving her shot at the media over the past week's negative attention.

10:48pm ET: Palin is spending a significant portion of her speech touting her reformer credentials and tying her story to McCain's maverick reputation.

10:50pm ET: She mentions the famed "Bridge to Nowhere" and her opposition to it, though Democrats have pointed out that she was for it before she was against it.

10:52pm ET: Palin has moved on to energy, which should be, by nature of her position in Alaska, her area of expertise. She's using energy to bring up Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela - a clear attempt to reassure skeptics that she does know a thing or two about foreign policy.

10:55pm ET: The guns turn on Obama: "This is a man who's authored two memoirs, but not a single major law or reform."

10:57pm ET: Now we're seeing where she got the nickname "Sarah Barracuda." Palin hits Obama on taxes, spending, Iraq, big government, small businesses, negotiating with terrorists, and energy.

11:07pm ET: Palin begins to wrap her argument with the comparison, "For a season, a gifted speaker can inspire with his words. For a lifetime, John McCain has inspired with his deeds." This is clearly the crux of the argument she attempted to make tonight...Obama as the high-minded, overnight success who dazzles with words and no action, and McCain as the hardened veteran who has spent a lifetime serving the American people. Whether or not it's an argument that carries weight with voters is yet to be determined.

11:10pm ET: I hate to belabor the point, but Palin's attacks on Obama, like Giuliani's (but to a lesser extent), tended to cross the line into sarcasm, mockery, and condescension. On-camera smirking and a sense that he was better than his opponent were a major problem for Al Gore in the 2000 presidential race. If this keeps up, I wonder if we'll see a similar backlash against the Republicans.

11:12pm ET: McCain makes his "surprise" appearance on stage and asks the crowd, "Don't you think we made the right choice for the next Vice President of the United States?"

11:13pm ET: The whole Palin family, including pregnant Bristol and boyfriend Levi, joins McCain and Palin on stage to the delight of the crowd.

11:15pm ET: That does it for tonight. McCain will take the stage tomorrow night at about 10:20pm ET (3:20am GMT) to accept the nomination of his party for President of the United States.

Palin Liveblog: A Preview

Matt Spence — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:50:49 +0100

Check back in tonight when I'll be live-blogging the speech of Sarah Palin's life. Expectations have been set high, and there are a number of hurdles she'll need to clear. Palin is due to take the stage around 10:30pm ET (3:30am GMT). In the meantime, this piece by Chris Cillizza of washingtonpost.com is a must-read for those curious about just what she needs to accomplish tonight.

Battleground states and the electoral college: a breakdown

Hannah Strange — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:37:27 +0100

The latest polls show Barack Obama leading John McCain by 50 to 42 per cent nationally, but as always it will be in the battleground states that the race is won and lost.

Here's a battleground breakdown - using an average of nationwide and local surveys from Real Clear Politics. I've omitted states where one candidate has a lead of more than 17 points :

Virginia: Tied

New Hampshire: Obama +0.3

Colorado: Obama +0.4

Nevada: McCain +1

Ohio: McCain +1.2

Florida: McCain +3.1

North Carolina: McCain +4.2

New Mexico: Obama +4.3

Michigan: Obama +4.3

Minnesota: Obama +4.5

Pennsylvania: Obama +5

Iowa: Obama +5.3

Montana: McCain +5.3

Georgia: McCain +6.3

Indiana: McCain +6.7

Missouri: McCain +7

Oregon: Obama +7

Wisconsin: Obama +7.2

Washington: Obama +10.5

New Jersey: Obama +10.7

Texas: McCain +10.8

Mississippi: McCain +11.7

Arizona: McCain +11.7

Massachussetts: Obama +12.6

Maine: Obama +15

California: Obama +15.3

Kansas: McCain +16

Kentucky: McCain +16

New York: Obama +16

Louisiana: McCain +16.3

Arkansas: McCain +16.3

Using this data, I've created an electoral college map over on the Real Clear Politics site, which you can view here. Any state in which a candidate is leading by four points or more I've classified as leaning towards that candidate (light blue or light red). Any state in which a candidate is leading by seven points or more is classified as solid (dark blue or dark red). Toss-up states (no candidate leads by four points ore more) are shown as grey.

These classifications differ from those used by Real Clear Politics, which labels any state with a candidate leaning by less than 5 points as a toss-up, by between 5 and 10 as leaning, and over 10 as solid. You can see the original map here.

In my scenario, Obama leads in the electoral college with 260 votes to McCain's 200, with 78 a toss-up.

In the RCP scenario, Obama leads 228 to 185, with 125 a toss-up.

A candidate needs at least 270 electoral college votes to win.

Woops!

Matt Spence — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:26:35 +0100

Between this slip-up from RNC vice-chair, Jo Ann Davidson, and today's Dan Balz piece in the Washington Post, you really have to wonder just how quickly the Palin decision was made. The Balz account certainly contradicts earlier statements from the McCain camp that her vetting process was as thorough as that of everyone else.

Hat Tip to Marc Ambinder for catching the video.

If you want a story told well, hire an actor...

Matt Spence — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:51:54 +0100

For all the fuss made by the McCain campaign about Barack Obama's "celebrity," last night, the Republicans rolled out their very own celebrity to make the case for John McCain's character. Former Senator, presidential candidate, and Law and Order leading man, Fred Thompson took to the stage on the first real night of the GOP convention to deliver a stirring account of McCain's time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. With his folksy Southern drawl and story-telling prowess, he wove a tale that recounted the beatings, interrogations, and broken limbs, and culminated in the line: "Now being a POW doesn't qualify anyone to be President, but it does reveal character."

Watch for yourself in the excerpt posted below. Thompson's speech was easily the highlight of an otherwise slow night in Minneapolis/St. Paul.

The Palin teen pregnancy: a campaign issue?

Hannah Strange — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:44:45 +0100

The world of punditry was today busily cogitating the news that Bristol Palin, the 17-year-old daughter of McCain's newly named VP Sarah Palin, is five months pregnant and plans to keep the baby. The key question, as the revelation begins to bed in, is how will it affect the race? And, as a clearly personal matter, should it at all?

I've scoured the comment pages and the blogosphere for answers, and present to you the fruits of my labour. But before I do, I'm going to briefly weigh in (just because I'm that way inclined...)

Good for Bristol, I say. Her decision to marry the father and keep the baby is a brave and noble one, and should be applauded. But as Kevin Drum notes on the Washington Monthly blog Political Animal (see below), that is not a decision that her mother (or McCain) would afford your teenage daughter if she takes office (I speak to our American readers here). Nor would she allow your son or daughter the opportunity to learn about safe sex, being a staunch advocate of abstinence only sex education. In fact, even if your teenage daughter was raped, she would force her to keep the baby - prosecuting her if she refused. As a woman, this is a position I find so personally abhorrent that every single cell of my being spasms in one giant collective retch - not because I like abortion (who does?) but because women should never be treated like cattle, to be shackled in a pen and forced to reproduce. In that context, the fact that she reportedly allowed her own teenage daughter to decide the fate of her unborn baby is worthy of discussion.

Bristol's personal life is just that, and her name should be kept out of that discussion as far as possible. But Sarah Palin's views are not - in fact they are as invasive into your personal, and indeed biological, life as it is possible to be.

The Washington Post:

"Democrats and Republicans alike said they had no idea what the political fallout would be, especially among women, and argued that it could cut both ways for McCain. ... All sides agreed on one point: After upending the gender politics of the campaign with his decision to pick Palin, McCain was forging into uncharted territory in his bid for female voters. A whole new set of policy questions might resonate in the vice presidential debate -- about not only abortion, but also abstinence education, the role and responsibilities of working mothers, child care, and health care."

David Brody, Christian Broadcasting Network:

"This development will actually be positive for the most part with evangelicals. First they hear that Sarah Palin chooses the life option even though she had a Down syndrome baby and once again the family (and Bristol) has chosen the life option in this recent case. That’s a double “ca-ching”. Let’s call this the Evangelical daily double. If anything, this whole situation will probably make more people around the country relate to her and her family. It makes them more real. Will there by some turned off by the whole pre-marital sex thing? Of course but this type of story doesn’t sink her at all with Evangelicals."

RJ Eskow, The Huffington Post:

"It's tempting to use this incident to argue that abstinence education doesn't work, but - come on. No method is 100% effective, which is why we avoid using anecdotal evidence. There are comprehensive studies that disprove abstinence education, but one young woman's actions mean nothing.
It's also tempting to play gotcha with the fact that Sarah Palin said, back when her daughter was only 14, that if the girl were raped Gov. Palin would "choose life" and refuse to let her have an abortion. That's a private matter. What's far more important, and not addressed by anecdotes like these, is the fact that Gov. Palin would refuse to allow your daughter to get an abortion if she were raped at age 14, no matter what you wanted for her. That's what we should be discussing, not the personal issues, beliefs, or private actions of one family.
This scandal couldn't have come at a better time for Palin and the GOP. It's taken the abuse of power investigation off the front page. And it's distracting us from Palin's views, which will disturb a lot of people. She's cozy with big oil . She thinks creationism should be taught in schools."

Talking Points Memo:

The Anchorage Daily News, in its write-up of the announcement that 17-year-old Bristol Palin is pregnant, reveals that Sarah Palin's spokesperson didn't know about this two days ago ... The McCain campaign says they knew about the pregnancy, but this suggests the possibility that they didn't -- and raises further questions about how thoroughly McCain vetted, and how much he knew, and knows, about the person he selected as his back-up commander-in-chief.

Political Animal, Washington Monthly:

"Now, there are different schools of thought on this, but I'm very much inclined to think a politician's kids are entirely off-limits for public scrutiny. Bristol Palin's pregnancy has no political relevance whatsoever.
I can't help but notice, though, that the McCain campaign emphasized the fact that she "made the decision on her own to keep the baby."
That's nice, but if McCain has his way in office, the choice wouldn't be up to her at all. Roe would be overturned, and reproductive rights would be dramatically curtailed for every woman in America. Indeed, it's not just McCain -- Sarah Palin told Alaskans during her gubernatorial campaign that she wouldn't support abortion rights even if her own daughter had been raped. (Palin is also a staunch advocate of abstinence-only education.) Something to keep in mind."

LA Times:

"The political effect of Palin's announcement will depend on how voters process the news. ... James Dobson, head of the conservative group Focus on the Family and a past critic of McCain, said Palin and her husband should "be commended once again for not just talking about their pro-life and pro-family values, but living them out even in the midst of trying circumstances."

"Privately, however, some Republican insiders said that the next few days could be crucial to the futures of McCain and Palin. "If instead of looking like a hockey mom, she looks like a person from a weird family, this could sink her," said one GOP strategist who requested anonymity to speak candidly. …
The pregnancy would be an unwelcome diversion for any candidate, but McCain has seemed particularly uncomfortable dealing with birth control issues."

Republicans not ceding the spotlight

Matt Spence — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 22:22:17 +0100

Not wanting to be left out of all the excitement here in Denver, The Republicans are making their presence known during the Democratic Convention. In addition to this rather funny bumper sticker I ran across downtown, the Republican National Committee has set up shop in Denver to provide "rapid response" to all of the convention happenings.

The effort, called "Not Ready '08", has adopted the slogan "A Mile High and an Inch Deep," a clever reference to Denver's altitude. Prominent Republicans, including VP-hopeful Mitt Romney and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, are on hand and available for interviews, and they've set up a "war room" designed to disseminate rebuttal information to the press almost instantaneously.

Traditionally, the parties have gone silent during the opposing party's convention, but in the age of the 24-hour news cycle, it's hard to give up any opportunity to grab the ear of the media.

A Campaign Holiday?

Matt Spence — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:49:32 +0100

This week begins the two-month campaign slow-down between the July 4th Holiday and the Democratic and Republican Conventions. The collective attention of the public will turn more to summer beach getaways and the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing than politics. As with almost every presidential election, a candidate can't win the race during this time, but one sizable slip-up can certainly lose it.

It's during this campaign lull when a candidate can be irreparably branded, so it's important to stay on the offensive and respond quickly to attacks. In 2004, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth emerged during the summer to undermine John Kerry's military record. In 1988, it was this summer calm that saw George H.W. Bush unleash Willie Horton on Michael Dukakis, forever branding him as soft on crime.

Going into this break, both candidates have very clear plans for where they'd like to be positioned entering the two weeks of conventions in late-August and early-September, and for the two-month sprint to Election Day that will follow.

From NBC's First Read:

McCain's goal for these next two months: to have this a low single-digit race by September 5. Obama's goal is more obvious: 1) to begin erasing character doubts about himself, 2) bankrupting McCain financially in the lean red states, and 3) building not only a national lead but double-digit leads in as many states as he can.

So, while campaign coverage may take something of a holiday from its highs of the past months, don't expect to see Barack Obama or John McCain relaxing on a beach between now and September. They'll both be busy jockeying for position and doing their best not to let the other's attack machine brand them as unelectable.

McCain "Working for the Weekend"

Matt Spence — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:49:26 +0100

Given his recent work patterns, John McCain may do well to change his campaign's theme song to Loverboy's 1980's hit, "Working for the Weekend."

As Politico reports, Mr McCain has "held just one public campaign event on a weekend" in the 20 weeks since Mitt Romney left the GOP race. While the McCain camp insists that the Senator has been keeping busy, they also admit that it's been nice for their candidate to have the chance to rest, polish up on policy, and meet privately with aides and advisers.

The downside to Mr McCain's absence from the weekend campaign trail is that it inevitably raises questions about his age. At 71, the candidate goes to great lengths to appear vigorous and energetic. In fact, his image is so carefully controlled that it took this blogger significantly longer than usual to find a photo of him not wearing a suit and working.

Avoiding weekend events also prevents Mr McCain from cashing in on the larger crowds he could attract outside of the work week. For a candidate who is notably lacking in enthusiastic support among his base, many analysts think he's wasting valuable time. (This week's LA Times/Bloomberg poll showed only 45% of McCain supporters were "enthusiastic" about his candidacy.)

Mr McCain's weekend getaways may be coming to an end soon, however. His campaign points to upcoming events Saturday in Washington and Kentucky and says the senator will campaign on weekends for much of the summer.

John McCain's $300 million energy challenge

Hannah Strange — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:43:21 +0100

John McCain has offered a $300 million cash prize to anyone who can invent a more efficient battery for electric and hybrid cars, as part of a package of proposals to help wean America off foreign oil.

Both he and Democratic rival Barack Obama have spent the past week focusing almost exclusively on energy, battling for domination of the headlines as fuel prices spike and the economy sputters.

The prize, which would be paid by the government and represents $1 for every American, was proposed during a speech in Fresno yesterday as the Republican nominee tried to wrest the initiative back from Obama, who had spent the weekend pushing his energy plans.

Over the weekend, Obama said he would impose a tax penalty on Big Oil for sales at or above $80 a barrel. It closed on Monday at $137.15, edging close to its record high of $137.69 on June 6 and nearly double the price just one year ago.

Obama said he would use the tax proceeds to help Americans make their homes more energy efficient and assist consumers with utility bills.

But McCain argues that Democrat President Jimmy Carter tried a similar tactic 30 years ago and only succeeded in deepening an oil shortage in the midst of the Arab oil embargo. It is an erroneous and rather revisionist argument, given that the embargo was over in 1974 - years before Carter took office - shortages during his presidency being largely a consequence of the Iranian Revolution and Iran-Iraq war rather than of his largely symbolic effort to improve efficiency.

In McCain's view, the answer lies with exploiting domestic reserves - he last week joined President Bush in urging an end to the ban on offshore drilling. But critics say such oil supplies would do nothing to ease the pain of consumers for several years and even then would have a negligible impact on prices.

McCain has the more difficult sales job to do, given the perception that his presidency would be a third term of George W. Bush, whose popularity has fallen through the floor amid a weakening economy, soaring oil prices and a war which has failed to deliver the energy security envisioned by its architects.

The two men do agree on one proposal, however. They both support closing the so-called “Enron loophole,” a 2000 congressional exemption on energy trading regulations which is thought to contribute to price surges through unfettered speculation on electronic markets.

McCain's $300 million offer is part of an attempt to bolster his reputation as a green Republican, put at risk by his call to allow offshore drilling. He argues that a battery more efficient than current models would decrease fuel consumption and consequentially reduce carbon emissions that contribute to global warming.

“In the quest for alternatives to oil, our government has thrown around enough money subsidising special interests and excusing failure. From now on, we will encourage heroicefforts in engineering, and we will reward the greatest success,” he said in announcing the proposal.

It is certainly an eye-catching offer, and one that will appeal to the American entrepreneurial spirit. And there is no doubt that a more efficient battery would have the desired effect, attracting more Americans into electric and hybrid cars and away from gas guzzlers. But there are some key questions that are as yet unanswered, such as who will own the patent to the new improved battery. Because if I was the inventor, I'd be charging all the other car manufacturers a hefty price - and there'd have to be a whole new package of regulation to force them to use it.

Still, I'm starting to wish I'd paid more attention in my physics class...

Why John McCain's offshore oil plan makes no sense

Hannah Strange — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:06:59 +0100

I've been probing the recesses of my brain for some 24 hours now, and I still can't work out quite what John McCain hopes to achieve with his plan to lift the United States' 27-year ban on offshore oil drilling. It's certainly a brave move - not when it comes to his relationship with the big oil companies, which have donated over $1 million to his campaign, but in electoral terms, it seems like a bit of a dice roll.

First of all, it harms his attempts to distance himself from the Bush administration, key to his support among moderates. Only yesterday, as he announced his plan, did he insist that "the next president must be willing to break with the energy policies ... of the current Administration." Yet today, President Bush announced he would be asking Congress to do exactly the same thing.

To be fair, McCain has always had a near impossible task in balancing the need to win over conservative Republicans with maintaining the support among moderates and independents that he has long enjoyed. This latest move could be read as an act of redemption with the Republican leadership, but one has to wonder how they will take his renewed commitment not to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, which with between 4.3 billion and 11.8 billion barrels of oil is one of the US' largest offshore oil reserves. While he might be hoping this will placate environmentalists, the danger is that he will end up pleasing no one.

How the plan will play with voters is uncertain. As Politico notes, McCain is wagering that soaring gas prices have led voters to rethink their long-held opposition to offshore oil exploration. A Rasmussen survey released on Monday supports this view, finding that 67 per cent of US voters are now in favour of offshore drilling. But nationwide polling does not reveal the extent of opposition in the states most affected, such as Florida and California. There, the signs are that the policy remains distinctly unpopular, not only with voters but with Republican politicians.

Says Politico: "The stakes couldn’t be higher: If he is wrong, McCain will have seriously damaged his chances in two key states with thousands of miles of coastline — California and Florida — and where opposition to offshore oil drilling has been unwavering. And he will have undermined some of his closest political allies in those states and others, including potential fall battlegrounds such as Virginia and North Carolina."

The announcement also leaves McCain open to accusations of flip-flopping, coming as it does after years of support for the offshore moratorium. He has been keen to present himself both as a green Republican and a straight-talker who adheres to his principles regardless of pressure from lobbyists or donors - such an about turn risks both reputations.

Says the Huffington Post: "This is a very sad moment. The oil industry has demonstrated that their reach and power enable them, with just the slightest flick of a finger, to take a Presidential candidate whose reason for being was independent, and turn him into a lapdog."

Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard, a conservative opinion magazine, notes a further flaw. McCain's newfound position is essentially a federalist one, claiming that it is up to individual states to decide whether or not to allow offshore drilling. But as Barnes writes, the core of his reasoning in lifting the ban is that dependence on foreign oil is a serious threat to national security.

"A federalist on what he regards as a grave national security threat? That's an odd stance. It seems more like a dodge -- a very un-McCain-like tactic -- than a logical position.... There's an intellectual and political hole in McCain's position, a lack of coherence that hurts both his presidential campaign and that of Republican congressional candidates."

Finally, it leaves his commitment to weaning America off fossil fuels in serious doubt. McCain presented the proposal as a pragmatic, immediate solution which would alleviate the pain of ordinary Americans, while not harming work on alternative sources of energy. On neither part is he right. Lack of infrastructure means that oil production would not start until 2017, and in any case, according to the Bush administration's own advisers, would have negligible effect on fuel prices. The policy would divert attention and funds from alternative energy sources and technologies (some of which, such as cars with greater fuel efficiency, could be ready far sooner) while failing to eradicate US dependence on foreign oil. As McCain himself says, untapped oil reserves are thought to contain 21 billion barrels of oil - including in ANWR - while America imports 13.5 million barrels a day. At that rate, offshore oil drilling would fill the energy gap for just four years.

This is a plan to prolong the US addiction to oil, not end it.

"It's a Google": John McCain's top ten vice-presidential choices

Hannah Strange — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:13:43 +0100

"Basically, it's a Google," quipped John McCain, when asked his thoughts on a running mate during a Virginia campaign stop yesterday. But jokes aside, a decision appears to be just days away. The Republican nominee-in-waiting said that the next time he spoke about the vice-presidential spot on the ticket, he would be announcing his choice. Watch the video below, then scroll down for my breakdown of the most likely candidates.

McCain's VP choices (in order of likelihood):

1. Charlie Crist The popular governor of Florida would be a massive boost to McCain's chances of taking the state, a key battleground with 27 electoral votes on offer. At 51, his youth could counteract concerns about McCain's advanced years, while his shock of dazzling white hair and permatan make him both telegenic and instantly recognisable. Florida's attorney-general before becoming governor in 2006, he has a reputation as a hardliner on law and order, while his strong conservative credentials on issues such as gun rights, abortion and marriage could help shore up the Republican right. Crist was invited to a gathering at McCain's Arizona ranch along with a handful of other VP hopefuls last month, and has recently appeared alongside the nominee at Florida campaign stops.

Follow the money: 8/1

2. Tim Pawlenty Again, the governor of a key battleground - this time Minnesota. The state offers fewer electoral votes that Florida, but rival Barack Obama is performing far better here in the polls, with a comfortable lead that McCain needs to peg back. Pawlenty has solid conservative credentials which could help win over right-wingers alienated by McCain's moderate stance on issues such as immigration and civil unions. McCain aides have suggested Pawlenty is near the top of the shortlist - I would have made him number one had he been invited to the nominee's Arizona "audition". However his absence could simply indicate that he is the man to beat.

Follow the money: 6/1

3. Bobby Jindal This rising star took over as governor of Louisiana in January, becoming the first American of South Asian origin to be hold such office. A staunch social conservative, he opposes human embryonic stem cell research and abortion in any form, and favours the teaching of intelligent design in schools as an alternative to evolution - positions that could help win over the religious right. At 36, he is considered by some to be too young for the VP spot, but has been widely tipped as a favourite and was one of the favoured few at the Arizona gathering. He has also appeared alongside McCain at recent campaign stops in Louisiana.

Follow the money: 6/1

4. Mitt Romney Rumours of animosity between Romney and McCain have led some to discount this former Massachussetts governor, but he remains a strong all-round contender. A former opponent in the nomination race, his solid conservative credentials proved a big draw for right-wingers , while his business experience as head of private equity investment firm Bain Capital and CEO of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City would assuage concerns over McCain's ability to manage a struggling economy. Fears that his Mormonism could harm him among Christian evangelicals do not seem to overly bother McCain, who invited Romney to his gathering of VP favourites.

Follow the money: 5/1

5. Mike Huckabee A Baptist pastor with huge appeal to the religious right - a group with whom McCain has severe difficulties - Huckabee staked his claim to the VP spot when he took a swathe of southern states during the primaries. But his staunchly conservative views on religious and social issues - he does not believe in evolution, for example - were not mirrored by a hardline stance on economic matters during his ten-year stint as governor of Arkansas. He does however have a certain amount of charisma - or perhaps quirk appeal - having made regular campaign appearances with his Christian rock band Capitol Offense. Huckabee received an invitation to McCain's ranch - but did not attend.

Follow the money: 10/1

6. Tom Coburn A rock-solid conservative, Coburn's tough stance on issues such as immigration could allay concerns about McCain's liberal voting record. The pair have similar views on fiscal conservatism, a matter on which they have worked together before. However he is not particularly charismatic and as a senator represents Oklahoma, which is not expected to be a battleground state this year.

Follow the money: 25/1

7. Condoleezza Rice Her strong national security credentials - she was National Security Advisor to President Bush before taking over from Colin Powell as Secretary of State - will appeal to McCain. Meanwhile her status as a black woman could go some way towards negating the Obama factor and attracting women voters, including disgruntled supporters of Hillary Clinton. Considered a conservative Republican, she could also bring those in the party who are disenchanted with McCain back into the fold.

Follow the money: 14/1

8. Sarah Palin The telegenic governor of Alaska has a down-to-earth persona which would appeal to rural Americans. At 44, she is energetic and devoted to her family, which could help win over the soccer mom crowd. Her life-long membership of the National Rifle Association would make her immensely popular with the gun lobby, while she also has strong credentials as a social conservative. Known for her maverick governing style, McCain could see in her something of a kindred spirit.

Follow the money: 6/1

9. Mark Sanford The governor of South Carolina is youthful enough, at 48, and conservative enough, with a lifetime rating of 92/100 from the American Conservative Union, to provide a good counterbalance to McCain. His early support helped the Arizona senator to a primary win in the state, while his Southern appeal could pull in voters there. But some argue that McCain should have little difficulty in the South regardless of his running mate, while concerns have been raised over his lack of name recognition.

Follow the money: 12/1

10. Joe Lieberman If there's anyone to whom McCain owes the VP spot, it is Joe Lieberman. An Democrat-turned-independent, sometimes described as an Independent Democrat, Lieberman crossed party lines to throw his full weight behind McCain early in the primary season. Since then the pair have often seemed inseparable, and on many aspects of policy there is certainly little distance between them, particularly when it comes to defence and foreign policy. Far from being a strength, however, this could prove Lieberman's greatest drawback. As an independent he might burnish McCain's appeal to swing voters, but his selection would certainly not help - and could well harm - the nominee's efforts to woo conservative Republicans.

Follow the money: 20/1

Want to know what Times readers think? Click here for the results of Comment Central's online poll.

Odds given are the shortest odds offered by British bookmakers, as listed on PoliticalBetting.

Obama versus McCain: the polls

Hannah Strange — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:58:27 +0100

An air of dejection hangs over the polling department at Camp McCain. Pinched faces sit in nervous silence, each new set of numbers triggering a volley of angry barks before the gloom settles in again.

I am not privileged with access to said office, of course, and am therefore making this up. But that is what I imagine the current atmosphere must be like, if they put any stock at all in the proliferation of negative polls currently battering their candidate.

Rick Davis, John McCain's campaign manager, insists the Republican nominee is in a strong position, claiming that he is on course for victory in the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri and Nevada. In an online strategy briefing, he asserts that Ohio is "a dead heat" and that Pennsylvania too could go Republican.

But polling analysis, such as that conducted by the Real Clear Politics team over at Time magazine, suggests otherwise. It shows Barack Obama leading in the five most recent Pennsylvania polls by an average of 5.8 points, while in Wisconsin he commands a two-point edge.

RCP's thorough (and consistently accurate) breakdown of recent polling makes heartening reading for the Democratic nominee. Averaging out the results of surveys carried out since mid-May, it shows Obama beating McCain by 3.1 points in the November head-to-head. While such a margin won't see the Obama camp breaking out Havana's finest, it nevertheless represents a climb since his victory over Hillary Clinton became apparent last week and will reassure advisors that the campaign is moving in the right direction. Perhaps even better news for the Illinois senator is that all the surveys analysed project victory over McCain - bar Newsweek, which finds the two candidates in a dead heat. (RCP also has some useful electoral college maps here.)

But the path to the White House runs, as always, through the battleground states, which this year include the electoral collage heavyweights of Florida, California, Pennsylvania and Ohio. All of these favoured Clinton in the primaries, leading her to argue that her rival could not carry these states against McCain in the autumn. So far, at least, such predictions are proving incorrect, with RCP averages giving Obama a sliver of a lead - 1.3 points - in Ohio, a healthier lead in Pennsylvania, as already discussed, and a commanding 12.6 point edge in California. However he has yet to win over Floridians, who currently back McCain by an average margin of 8.3 points. Could his performance improve as memories of the vitriolic dispute over its rule-breaking primary fade? Perhaps. But the Sunshine state, with its large communities of Cuban exiles and wealthy retirees, has always been reluctant to vote Democrat - having done so just three times since 1952 - and ultimately Obama may do better to cut his losses here and focus on making the votes up elsewhere.

This, with his current push into Republican strongholds, seems to be exactly what Obama is intent on doing. Today, he embarks on a two-week tour North Carolina - which lasted voted for a Democratic presidential nominee 32 years ago - after which he is to head to Missouri, which has voted Republican in seven out of the last ten elections. He chose St Paul, Minnesota - the venue of the Republican convention in November - to declare his nomination victory last week before taking the battle straight to the GOP with campaign stops in Virginia, which last voted Democratic in 1964. (Political nerds can find an excellent breakdown of electoral history at www.270towin.com).

While this is a risky strategy, it could ultimately pay off. Having adopted such a tactic during the primaries, Obama has established robust voter turnout operations in many of these states and could yet pose a stiff challenge to Republican primacy. At the very least, as Obama aides quoted by the New York Times point out, it could force McCain to spend time and money campaigning in what should be safe ground, distracting him from fights elsewhere.

All this appears to be rattling the Republicans, with campaign insiders and party strategists using the press to urge a shift in strategy. Speaking to the Huffington Post, one Republican operative spoke of "a world of problems" facing McCain, suggesting the only was to finance a volley of negative ads painting Obama as a liability in an age of terrorism - a tactic the Arizona senator has so far disavowed.

Last week, Bay Buchanan - Reagan's treasurer and a leading conservative - delivered a scathing assessment of McCain's prospects, noting that his moderate policies alienated much of the Republican right while his opposition to trade protections would frighten off many of the so-called Reagan Democrats whose votes may well swing the election.

Writing in Human Events, she said: "In reality there is only one candidate. Barack Obama. In November he will win or he will lose. John McCain is relevant only in so far as he is not Barack Obama. The Senator from Arizona is incapable of energizing his party, brings no new people to the polls, and has a personality that is best kept under wraps."

Younger than McCain

Hannah Strange — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:14:14 +0100

If John McCain triumphs in the coming US election, he will become, at the age of 72, the oldest president in the country’s history. It is a sore point for the Republican nominee, who has accordingly dragged his sprightly nonagenarian mother Roberta around the campaign trail to impress voters with his family’s longevity and good health.

Now, despite the recent pledge of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean not to use his advanced years as ammunition, a senior Democratic operative has gone on the offensive over the issue.

Steve Rosenthal, who has been involved in every Democratic presidential effort since 1972 and was an advisor to Bill Clinton’s campaign, has created the website Younger Than McCain, a somewhat tongue-in-cheek look at old things that are nevertheless - you've guessed it - younger than McCain.

Says Rosenthal: “John McCain comes from another time, an old war-horse stuck in the past with an old-world view of things. Just for fun and to put into some perspective just how old McCain is, we started compiling lists of things that to most Americans seem really old, but they're still younger than good 'ole John McCain."

Here's the video, then scroll down for our short quiz:

Younger than McCain?

Decide whether following things are younger than McCain, then click "continue reading" to see the answers.

1) The state of Alaska

2) The jet engine

3) The contact lens

4) Daffy Duck

5) The tape recorder

6) Polystyrene

7) Thailand

8) The vacuum cleaner

9) The bikini

10) Mickey Mouse

Answers:

1) The state of Alaska - younger

2) The jet engine - younger

3) The contact lens - older

4) Daffy Duck - younger

5) The tape recorder - older

6) Polystyrene - younger

7) Thailand - younger

8) The vacuum cleaner - older

9) The bikini - younger

10) Mickey Mouse - older

Gen Petraeus on Iraq: the reaction

Hannah Strange — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 16:42:15 +0100

Reactions to the testimony of Gen Petraeus, the commander of US forces in Iraq, in the Senate yesterday were predictable in their split along party lines. Republican-leaning commentators by and large fell in behind John McCain's upbeat assessment of a successful surge and the swelling prospect of victory. Liberals, meanwhile, offered scathing critiques of what they described as propagandistic testimony, picking up on a number of points of interest:

1. That under pressure from Senator Joe Biden, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker admitted that Afghanistan and Pakistan, not Iraq, was the central front in the battle against al-Qaeda.

2. That Gen Petraeus stated that the US had not "turned any corners" nor "seen any lights at the end of the tunnel," in contrast to statements last summer in which he claimed corners had been turned.

3. That the Iraqi government is failing to take the necessary steps to ensure sufficient progress in the areas of politics and security responsibility.

4. That the United States, while accusing Iran of destructive and destabilising machinations in the country, is yet favouring with its support the Shiite faction most closely linked to Iran (The Islamic Supreme Council in Iraq, the largest party in government, and its militia, the Badr Corps).

For the verdict on how the presidential candidates performed at the hearings, click here.

Here's a selection of comment from the web:

Robert Scheer on the Huffington Post:

"His faithful testimony, at least to the president if not the truth, on Tuesday was a particularly painful performance. Civilian deaths in March were 50 percent higher than in February, and there were a score of recent American deaths, and there is no evidence of political progress to support Petraeus' stab at optimism over the "fragile" situation in Iraq. Most absurd was the suggestion that the problem would all go away if Iran would only behave, when in fact American troops are being sacrificed on the pro-Iranian side of an internal Shiite power dispute. The Shiites in charge of "our" government in Iraq are exiles trained for decades in Iran."

Hullabaloo:

"(Senator) Joe Biden asked Amb. Crocker whether it would be better for American national security interests to eliminate Al Qaeda in Iraq or Al Qaeda along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Crocker had nowhere to hide with that question.

"Crocker, in an impossible political position -- give the correct answer and humiliate the Bush administration; give the administration's answer and look like a fool -- dodged as much as he could. Then Biden forced him down. Crocker: "I would therefore pick Al Qaeda on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

"Game over. Every single argument that the Administration and their lapdogs like John McCain have made or are making break down after that answer. The Ambassdor to Iraq just admitted that Iraq is not the central front in the war on terror... He admitted that the global fight against terror is currently misdirected."

Andrew Sullivan on the Daily Dish, Atlantic.com:

"Petraeus and Crocker strike me as making every effort to be intellectually honest, and their credibility is all the greater for it. They certainly appear more circumspect about Iraq than some of their Republican interlocutors... He's candid about turning Baghdad into a warren of sectarian mini-ghettoes guarded by massive internal walls, about Iran's large gains in influence whatever happens, about a recent spike in violence. ...

"It's all he can do at this point, isn't it, to keep this "fragile and reversible" security progress from unraveling. Petraeus cannot be held responsible for the political will to commit to Iraq for a generation, the only time-line that makes much sense if this is to achieve anything faintly resembling a decent outcome in line with the original war-goals. So he hangs in there; along with the troops; while the kind of Iraqi political progress that alone can get us out of there with minimal damage occurs at a glacial and always reversible pace."

Crooks and Liars:

"Same as the last time…Everything is better, but very fragile...Sure sounds like they want the 100 year—McCain Plan to me.
Crocker: …almost everything in Iraq is hard, but hard does not mean hopeless
He sounds like a basketball coach telling his team during a time out—-that even though they are losing by thirty five points with 6 minutes left to go, they still have a chance to win,…Win, exactly?"

Cenk Ugyur on the Huffington Post:

"I hear him bemoaning Iranian influence in Iraq all the time. Yet, no one has helped Iran more inside Iraq than he has. We have lent the full force of our military might to the political faction and Shiite militia most closely associated with Iran. ...

"The Badr Corps is linked with the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), which is the largest party inside Iraq. The Badr Corps also happens to be the militia with closest ties to Iran. They also happen to be the militia that ran those feared death squads during the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad. And get this - they are also the ones that want to split up Iraq instead of keeping it unified.

"All of these objectives seem to be diametrically opposed to what we want in Iraq. So why have we thrown all our military muscle behind them? ... I would love it if we actually used Congressional hearings to ask a real question for once and if General Petraeus, for once, gave us a real answer."

National Review:

"If Gen. David Petraeus wasn’t denounced as a traitor upon his arrival on Capitol Hill Tuesday, his testimony was the occasion for the same dreary willful obtuseness on the part of congressional Democrats as in September. ... Petraeus and Crocker always counsel patience when talking of Iraq. They displayed it themselves during hours of interrogation on Capitol Hill. They are impressive public servants with no agenda other than trying to help the United States win a crucial war. Would that their antagonists learned from their example."