Since John McCain and Republicans like Elizabeth Dole and Mel Martinez now claim to have great concerns about lobbyists for Fannie Mac and Freddie Mae, perhaps they can explain why John McCain is expected to choose a Freddie Mac lobbyist to head his transition team:

The lobbying firm of the man Republicans say John McCain has chosen to begin planning a presidential transition earned more than a quarter of a million dollars this year representing Freddie Mac, one of the companies McCain blames for the nation's financial crisis. Timmons & Co., whose founder and chairman emeritus is William Timmons Sr., was registered to lobby for Freddie Mac from 2000 through this month, when the federal government took over both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

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So what issue are voters focused on now? In my opinion, it is the economy. It is NOT Sarah Palin's favorability rating, Troopergate, or any other aspect of Palinpalooza.

Here is an ironic passage from DemfromCt:

Lifetime has a poll getting some play, showing McCain-Palin is making strides with women, at least in terms of understanding them. That number (McCain 44-Obama 42, a big jump for McCain) is very different than who women will vote for.

(Emphasis supplied.) No kidding. Of course that poll result is pretty meaningless in terms of votes. It is about as meaningless as Palin's favorability rating. Time to realize that Palin is an asterisk in this election now. No potential swing voter cares. We're playing by Carville's Rule again - "It's the economy, stupid." Not Sarah Palin.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

We wrote days ago that Gov. Sarah Palin had peaked when polls began to show a noticeable decline in her favorability ratings.

PPP will have a new Colorado poll out this morning. They offer one stat as a teaser. Palin's favorability rating in the has dropped 3 points and her unfavorable rating has increased 9 points.

I'm 100% with Markos of Daily Kos on this:

Again, for those who counseled leaving Palin alone because she was too popular and because it took attention off McCain, had we done so, she'd be entrenched as a woman of the people, propping up the Republican ticket. Instead, she's been relegated to the far less glamorous (and helpful) task of keeping the GOP base intact, nothing more. She may be popular with the base, but people outside wingnut circles aren't impressed.

With Palin neutralized (and there's a reason they're hiding her from view), it's much easier to knock down McCain on the economy, his desire to deregulate healthcare just like Wall Street, his lies, and so on.

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Colorado has 18 initiatives on the ballot this year, one of which is the dreaded Amendment 48, the Personhood Amendment. The Amendment reads:

"As used in sections 3, 6, and 25 of Article II of the state constitution, the term 'person' or 'persons' shall include any human being from the moment of fertilization,"

In other words, a fertilized egg would be deemed a person. The Denver Post, in an editorial today, urges voters to reject it.

The three sections mentioned are part of the state's Bill of Rights that protect our rights to life, liberty and property. Simply put, Amendment 48 asks that society grant a free-floating fertilized egg the same protections we enjoy as living Americans.

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Two weeks ago I did a preliminary assessment of Colorado voters, trying to assess the impact of the state's evangelical voters. I began with the 2004 presidential results. There were 2.1 million voters and Bush won by 100,000 votes. We have 9 electoral votes.

The Colorado Secretary of State has these voter registration numbers (pdf) by county, current as of September 2. There are 3 million registered voters in the state.

Via Alaskan radio host Shannyn Moore, here are the top ten reasons TrooperGate is a fair investigation:

1. It began with a 12-0 vote of eight Republicans and four Democrats.

2. The President of the Senate, a Republican, voted in favor of the investigation.

3. The Speaker of the House, a Republican, voted in favor of the investigation.

4. The investigation began in July, well before Governor Palin was placed on the national ticket.

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Steve Schmidt, a top McCain strategist, said the TV ad was a “real buy” that would air nationally and “will air across the depth and breadth of the battleground states.” Schmidt also belittled the media for not providing a “symmetry” to their probing of Obama’s background compared to the scrubbing that the team of McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has received.

Original Post: 9: 52 a.m.

McCain Ad Attacks Obama and Chicago Machine

Displaying his customary lack of self-awareness, John McCain has released an ad about Obama and the Chicago machine on the first day of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens trial.

I read the ad and substitute Gov. Sarah Palin for Barack Obama -- and Ted Stevens and his cronies, including a lobbying firm with close ties to Stevens, for those named from Chicago. [More...]

As I've written many times over the past 18 months, Sen. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are not my cup of tea on criminal justice issues. Neither are particularly progressive. Today I received an invitation to a conference call with Joe Biden.

Today, the Obama-Biden campaign is holding a conference call with Senator Joe Biden to proudly announce the endorsement of the National Association of Police Organizations (NAPO). NAPO President Tom Nee will join Senator Biden on the call and the two will talk about Senator Obama’s strong track record on law enforcement issues, support for law enforcement officers and commitment to keeping our communities safe.

NAPO represents more than 2,000 police unions and associations, 238,000 sworn law enforcement officers, 11,000 retired officers and more than 100,000 citizens who share a common dedication to fair and effective crime control and law enforcement.

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The one thing John McCain is not in short supply of is chutzpah. Last week McCain was lying about former Freddie Mac CEO Franklin Raines advising Obama, both in his ads and on the stump. Just this morning, McCain spokesman Nicole Wallace repeated the lie on Morning Joe (and of course Scarborough did not challenge the lie.)

McCain's chutzpah is evidenced by the fact that McCain campaign manager Rick Davis made millions of dollars lobbying for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:

Senator John McCain’s campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say. . . . “The value that he brought to the relationship was the closeness to Senator McCain and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again,” said Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae, who said that while he worked there from 2000 to 2002, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together paid Mr. Davis’s firm $35,000 a month.

(Emphasis supplied.) Lying about Obama's advisors while doing that he claims to criticize. That is John McCain in a nutshell - a lying, unprincipled, incompetent ideologue. McCain is a disgrace.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign has confirmed he is closing up shop in North Dakota.

An Obama spokeswoman, Amy Brundage, confirmed Sunday that the campaign's North Dakota staffers were being sent to Minnesota and Wisconsin, where recent polls have shown a tight race between Obama and Republican John McCain.

McCain has no offices or staffers in the state, which has gone Republican since 1964 when it voted for Lyndon B. Johnson.

Obama's campaign is stressing the benefits of its presence since July to the downticket races: [More...]

Gov. Sarah Palin drew huge crowds near Orlando, FL today. But consider:

She went to perhaps the easiest place in Florida to get a large Republican turnout, stuck mostly to the themes she's hit since the Republican convention and took no questions from reporters or the crowd.

...But Biden made four stops in his two days, and ventured into Republican strongholds like Fort Myers and Sarasota. He took questions from the audience at each stop and did interviews with local media.

She can rally the base, but the question as I like to frame it is, are there more of them or more of us? Turnout will be key.

Update: The LA Times reports Palin's political capital is eroding in Alaska.

Speaking in North Carolina today, Sen. Barack Obama said there should be no blank check for Wall Street.

Obama charged that Republicans have run the economy "into the ground," as he outlined some broad concepts for reform of the financial industry.

"First, there must be no blank check when American taxpayers are on the hook for this much money," Obama said. "Second, taxpayers shouldn't be spending a dime to reward CEOs on Wall Street while they're going out the door."

Obama also said taxpayers must be protected, be able to recoup some of the investment they might make in a bailout and provide assistance for homeowners at risk of losing their homes.

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