Barack Obama

As you probably already know, Rolling Stone has undergone a significant change and shrunk its size from 10"x12" to a standard 8"x 11". (In July, The Observer's John Koblin caught wind of this development.)

What you may not know is that it also significantly changed the color of Senator Barack Obama's tie. (Maybe he should've gone with purple?)

Q: For years now, shows like Meet the Press have been broadcasting clips of an SNL sketch, a spoof of political reality, to have a conversation with their audience about the actual political reality. How are you getting to the core ingredients of what’s going on in a way that people like Tom Brokaw can’t seem to articulate?

A: I think they’d like to make sarcastic comments about candidates, but their role as news people prevents that, so I think showing our clips permits them to let us make the point.

I think it would be awkward for even some of the people on cable to be as out-and-out mocking as we can be, and I also think it sort of makes their shows more entertaining—they can do it for free.  read more »

A week ago, John McCain seemed poised to devote the final weeks of what could be the final campaign he ever runs to slash-and-burn politics.

His running-mate, Sarah Palin, was deputized to accuse Obama of “palling around with terrorists.” Speakers at McCain-Palin events took to invoking Barack Obama’s middle name as if it were an epithet, and the Republican campaign cut an ad that played up Mr. Obama’s tenuous association with Bill Ayers, an aging ’60s radical. Finally, Mr. McCain himself played the Ayers card at one of his town hall meetings – which only prompted his supporters at the event, in an extraordinary scene, to appeal to him to launch even harsher attacks.  read more »

The New York Times' John Harwood makes a decent point today–that candidates with leads the size of Barack Obama's generally don't squander them in the final three weeks of a presidential campaign.

But this principle is even more iron-clad than Harwood seems to realize. He writes:

In the latest Gallup tracking poll, Obama leads Mr. McCain 50 percent to 43 percent among registered voters. Mr. McCain's deficit in that survey has remained seven percentage points or more for most of the last two weeks.

 

Since Gallup began presidential polling in 1936, only one candidate has overcome a deficit that large, and this late, to win the White House: Ronald Reagan, who trailed President Jimmy Carter 47 percent to 39 percent in a survey completed on Oct.

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Last week, a lot of people in the media were upset about Newsweek's un-retouched cover photograph of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

The cover showed an extreme close up of Governor Palin's face, illustrating a critical appraisal of the candidate by Newsweek editor Jon Meacham in the magazine.

It prompted Portfolio's Mixed Media blogger Jeff Bercovici to aks, "Did 'Newsweek' Have to Show Palin's 'stache?" Fox News devoted a segment to the cover on October 8, 2008, and CBS News' Bonnie Erbe had some thoughts about in her Washington Whispers column last week.

To make the controversy all the weirder, The Weekender is running a shocking cover that touts an "exclusive" view of the "First-Ever Unretouched Photos of the Weird Birthmark on Barack Obama's Face."  read more »

Rapper Jay-Z, who recorded a robo-call for Barack Obama in Ohio before the primary, is out with a video for Michigan urging "all [his] people" to vote on November 4.

The McCain campaign has basically abandoned Michigan, where the economic crisis has already settled in.

The real question, of course, is why the campaign got a Brooklyn-based rapper (wearing a New York hat!), rather than homegrown talent, like the notable noise-makers in Detroit.

UPDATE: Shortly after posting this item, the Obama campaign appears to have pulled the video from their YouTube page.

In Philadelphia this weekend, Governor Ed Rendell and Mayor Michael Nutter professed themselves utterly unimpressed with John McCain and Sarah Palin's personal attacks on Barack Obama.

"I have, like, zero interest in Sarah Palin," said Nutter, speaking to a scrum of reporters after an Obama event in Vernon Park. "You know people are focused on Senator Obama and trying to figure out what John McCain is talking about and I think Sarah Palin's 15 minutes of fame were up a long time ago."

Asked if he detected a racial undercurrent in the McCain attacks, Rendell said, "Not particularly.  read more »

SCRANTON, Pa.—For a while, the political rally that took place in here on Oct. 12 seemed to be happening in a parallel universe in which Hillary Clinton is running a general-election campaign.

Scranton, of course, is Clinton Country. Older white women constituted the majority of the crowd inside the Astroturf-carpeted sports complex, and many of them wore Hillary buttons on their shirts. Several of the men wore Hillary buttons on the suspenders they used to hold up their jeans. Bill delivered an address attesting to his wife’s wonderfulness. Vice presidential candidate Joe Biden spent the first portion of his speech talking about how close he was to Clinton.  read more »

The financial crisis was the main topic of discussion on Sunday’s Meet the Press, so it only made sense that Jon Corzine, the New Jersey governor and former Goldman Sachs chairman, was called on to speak for the Democrats in a discussion that also included Rob Portman, a former Bush administration budget chief.

But three weeks before Election Day and at a time when his financial expertise carries unusual political value, Corzine’s highly public turn as an Obama campaign surrogate produced a predictable question, which the National Journal’s blog expressed thusly: “Is N.J. Gov. Jon Corzine auditioning to be Barack Obama’s Treasury sec.  read more »

PHILADELPHIA—In an effort to boost voter turnout in the all-important battleground state of Pennsylvania, Barack Obama held four separate rallies on the afternoon of Oct. 11 in which he sought to connect with largely black audiences on economic grounds.

At each event, Obama was introduced by Governor Ed Rendell, who plainly laid out the campaign’s mission to the crowd.

“Fifty-three percent this Election Day won’t cut it, right?” Rendell said during an event in Germantown, referring to the Democratic turnout of the Philadelphia area during the primary. “I want to see Philadelphia go over 70 percent.”

The day started early, in North Philadelphia's Progress Plaza, where Obama stood, in shirtsleeves, in a square surrounded by stores with signs like “Auto Tags,” or “Dollar World.  read more »

Among the most useful exercises to ward off mental plaque is to imagine reversed circumstances. Now a provocative version of that exercise has popped up on various message boards, written by someone who wonders how America would receive an Obama family that was ... well, more like the McCain and Palin families. It is especially useful for those who imagine that racial prejudice has magically disappeared:  read more »

Steve Kornacki's column today pointedly recalls the nasty Republican memes of the 1992 campaign, which sought to instill doubt about Bill Clinton's patriotism because he had protested the Vietnam War. So desperate were they to retain power that employees of the first Bush administration rifled illegally through Clinton's passport files.

(That scandal concluded with an ineffectual special-counsel investigation by a highly partisan G.O.P. lawyer.) Flash forward to the affecting moment two weeks ago, when that same George H.W. Bush, now quite old and frail, showed up as an honored guest of his successor at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York.

There was real emotion in the elder Bush's voice when he talked about his friendship with Clinton, which began in earnest with their fund-raising efforts on behalf of the Katrina and tsunami victims.  read more »

New York Times executive editor Bill Keller defended last weekend's front-page story on radical William Ayers and his connection to Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. Mr. Keller writes an e-mail to Politico.com's Michael Calderone:

"We've reported the Ayers relationship before, and we had it on our ‘to do’ list for a while to take a more comprehensive look... When the McCain campaign began to make it a major focal point of ads and stump speeches, we decided the time was right.”

“It didn't take any prodding... When the conversation on something controversial reaches a certain level, curious readers look to The Times to help them sort the facts from the fictions and figure out what to make of it. That's what we did.”

 

 

In a tongue-in-cheek post on The Daily Beast (100+ hours and still going strong!), Christopher Buckley endorses Senator Barack Obama for President.

Writes Mr. Buckley:

Let me be the latest conservative/ libertarian/ whatever to leap onto the Barack Obama bandwagon. It’s a good thing my dear old mum and pup are no longer alive. They’d cut off my allowance.

Funny, but probably not the best week to make jokes about father's (or grandfather's) cutting kids off.  read more »

The good news from the presidential campaign is that even though Senator McCain and Governor Palin have resorted to swift-boat tactics, the fundamental issue of economic well-being has begun to dominate the race for the White House. In the past, that would be bad news for environmental protection and sustainable development, as we’d be hearing we can either have either economic growth or environmental protection. Fortunately, Senator Obama is connecting economic well-being with energy efficiency and renewability, and he often links science and technology, education and health care with the growth of our economy. While Senator McCain is not articulating as comprehensive a case for sustainability, he clearly understands the need for a focus on renewable energy and basic research and development.  read more »

On Thursday, John McCain at last did away with all above-the-fray pretense and added his voice to the right-wing chorus now openly trying to portray Barack Obama as a fundamentally anti-American figure.

McCain, whose running-mate previously accused the Democratic presidential nominee of “palling around with terrorists,” sought to frame Obama’s rather tenuous connection with Bill Ayers in the most sinister terms possible.

“Senator Obama says he was just another guy in the neighborhood,” McCain said. “We know that isn’t true. We need to know the full extent of the truth because of whether Senator Obama is telling the truth to the American people or not.  read more »

It seems like only a few glandular cases are obsessed with the fact that Barack Obama knows Bill Ayers, the vintage '60s "revolutionary" and former mad bomber, with everyone else including the New York Post dismissing the charge as a low blow.

But the Ayers controversy is only the spearhead of a massive Internet campaign by McCain supporters to brand Senator Obama a "socialist," the timing of which is exquisitely (if unintentionally) comic.

It goes like this: Sometime in the distant past, Obama won the endorsement of the Chicago chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, or D.S.A.—a rather moderate group of activists by left-wing standards, who have always believed in advancing such radical concepts as universal health care, green technology, union jobs at decent wages, as well as many other worthy ideas that are now boringly mainstream.  read more »

Barack Obama admitted to Men's Health that he occasionally bums a cigarette on the campaign trail, saying, "I figure, seeing as I'm running for president, I need to cut myself a little slack." [People]

Diddy did not appreciate McCain's much-noted "that one" remark at Tuesday night's debate, and he's posted a video to tell you about it. [Radar]

Leonardo DiCaprio was spotted "snapping photos of the topless Brazilian dancer at the Box," which seems a little creepy. [P6]

Hotelier Andre Balazs was seen having dinner with Renee Zellweger at Swifty's. [R&M]

Hugh Hefner confirmed his breakup with Holly Madison, but filming for The Girls Next Door continues.  read more »

The news just keeps getting worse for John McCain. For the first time this year, Barack Obama on Wednesday opened a double-digit lead over him in Gallup’s daily tracking poll – a 52 to 41 percent result that didn’t take into account Tuesday night’s debate, which (at least in snap polls conducted afterward) seemed to benefit Obama more. And Gallup is just one of numerous reputable polling outfits to find significant movement toward the Democratic nominee over the past two weeks.

This means it’s probably time to start thinking about an “October surprise” – some unforeseen or otherwise dramatic development that prompts millions of voters to rethink their assumptions and allegiances – because without one, the trajectory of the 2008 presidential race is now obvious.  read more »

As a follow-up to a story I wrote for today's paper about black members of Congress detecting racism in the remarks of the McCain campaign, I called Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina to ask why different audiences were apparently hearing such different messages in what John McCain and Sarah Palin are saying.

"If your experiences help to make who and what you are, then words and phrases are understood to the extent that your experiences allow you to understand them," he said. "If somebody were to say to an all-white group, "you people," white people might understand that one way.  read more »

John McCain's latest debate performance points up the cynicism of his recent attacks on Barack Obama's character -- which he plainly did not dare to repeat before the live audience on national television.

But if the questions that Senator McCain and his lip-sticked pitbull have raised about Senator Obama are so vital and so pertinent, why not challenge him in the town hall forum, where both candidates had plenty of latitude to speak as they wished?

Why not bring up Bill Ayers and Reverend Wright and any other twitchy bit of irrelevancy that might excite the Republican?

The answer is that Senator McCain knew he was addressing independent voters, so he restrained himself from plunging straight into the gutter, a spectacle he and Governor Palin reserve for members of their own party.  read more »

There are two possible ways in which the Oct. 8 presidential debate will be interpreted by most of the media over the next several days – and both are favorable to Barack Obama.

The most likely outcome is a general press consensus that the town hall forum was roughly a draw; that both Obama and John McCain had their moments, but that neither delivered a memorable line or introduced any kind of game-changing wrinkle into the mix. This, obviously, would constitute good news for Obama, who entered the debate with his largest polling advantage since the summer conventions, and with the daily drip of devastating economic news seemingly draining the life from McCain’s campaign.  read more »

As the McCain campaign ratchets up the intensity of its attacks on Barack Obama, some black elected officials are calling the tactics desperate, unseemly and racist.

“They are trying to throw out these codes,” said Representative Gregory Meeks, a Democrat from New York.

“He’s ‘not one of us?’” Mr. Meeks said, referring to a comment Sarah Palin made at a campaign rally on Oct. 6 in Florida. “That’s racial. That’s fear. They know they can’t win on the issues, so the last resort they have is race and fear.”

“Racism is alive and well in this country, and McCain and Palin are trying to appeal to that and it’s unfortunate,” said Representative Ed Towns, also from New York.  read more »

Leonard Nimoy approves of Barack Obama’s emotional detachment and logical approach to campaigning.

“He is measured and stable,” said Mr. Nimoy, who played Mr. Spock on Star Trek, and who has supported Mr. Obama since they first met about a year and a half ago at a small Los Angeles fund-raiser. “It’s true that he has an intellect that works for him, he handles difficult problems with aplomb. Reliability and stability are very important assets in this race, in these particularly volatile times.”

Mr. Obama, as far as anybody knows, does not greet strangers with a cloven V salute, practice debilitating neck pinches, bleed green or have a constitutional incapacity to fib.  read more »

Far be it for me to condone the Kenyan government’s heavy-handed treatment of anti-Obama polemicist Jerome Corsi, news of which was splashed across the top of the Drudge Report this morning, and is still prominently displayed. It appears to this reporter, who has spent some time in the region, that Corsi’s deportation—if that is indeed what happened—appears to be an all-too-familiar case of an annoyed government overreacting in stereotypical fashion. On the other hand, no one should portray Corsi as a martyr for press freedom. What he was up to in Kenya wasn’t journalism. It was a dangerous political stunt.  read more »

When John McCain’s campaign made it clear over the weekend that their stretch-run strategy would lean heavily on raising questions about Barack Obama’s personal history and past “associations,” Obama’s communications director provided a simple, almost indifferent reaction to The Washington Post: “This isn’t 1988.”

Michael Dukakis, the Democratic presidential nominee whose campaign was eviscerated that year by tactics ripped from the same playbook from which Mr. McCain now seems intent on borrowing, tends to agree.

“Well, it happens every time,” the former Massachusetts governor said in an interview on the afternoon of Oct. 6 in his college office. “They’re desperate, they’re slipping, and all of that stuff.  read more »

John McCain is now delivering the negative message against Barack Obama himself, asking a crowd in Alburquerque, New Mexico today, "Who is the real Senator Obama?"

Here's a key section of the remarks, sent out moments ago by the McCain campaign:

"My opponent’s touchiness every time he is questioned about his record should make us only more concerned. For a guy who’s already authored two memoirs, he’s not exactly an open book. It’s as if somehow the usual rules don’t apply, and where other candidates have to explain themselves and their records, Senator Obama seems to think he is above all that.  read more »

It was always difficult to understand why The New York Times felt obliged to devote regular Op-Ed space to the views of William Kristol, but as of today I get it.

What Kristol provides, unlike many writers whose opinions are equally trite and detestable, is a transparent view of the Republican operative brain. Reading him, you can almost hear the ratcheting of his mind through layers of opposition research until he thinks he has found what his candidate needs. This morning he treats us to his conversation with Governor Sarah Palin, in which they try to come up with a strategy (or at least a few tactics) to distract the country from the economic disaster created by years of right-wing governance.  read more »

Before the vice-presidential debate in St. Louis on October 2, I asked David Axelrod what he expected Republicans to produce as an October surprise this year, and whether his campaign was prepared to defend against them.  read more »

Less than a month before Election Day, John McCain’s position is increasingly desperate. Barack Obama has built (or rather, regained) a mid- to high-single-digit lead in national polling over the last two weeks and has significantly improved his standing in most swing states. McCain is more likely to lose on Nov. 4 than to win, and given the enormous built-in advantages that his opponent enjoys—the economy, most importantly—there may not be anything he can do to engineer a victory.

But he’s not doomed in the way that others have been at this same point in recent campaigns. In 1996, for instance, Bob Dole was running about 15 points behind Bill Clinton in early October.  read more »

But it certainly looks really cool!  read more »

ST. LOUIS—This time, Sarah Palin wasn’t going to let the questions get in her way.

“I may not answer the questions the way either you or the moderator want to hear,” she said. “But I’m going to speak straight to the American people.”

In her closing remarks, she suggested she’d like to debate again and answer questions “without the filter of the mainstream media.”

What she wanted to do was talk about taxes and energy (and energy, and energy). She delivered polished attack lines with derision, and made check-marks on the papers on her podium.  read more »

ST. LOUIS—Beth Bextermueller, from Rolla, Missouri, is holding up a sign that says "Rednecks For Obama" on the quad of Washington University. She said that there are two people in the group, not counting herself, because she's helping out her father, who she called a founding member. "We're just the assistants," she said.

One passing student, originally from Oklahoma, said the group would go over big back home.

Bextermueller handed him one of the group's cards.  read more »

AP points us towards the November issue of Vibe magazine, which features a personal letter from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, urging readers, "We are at a defining moment in our history."

What struck Media Mob was the juxtaposition of the cover photo, which was by renowned (if somewhat louche) photographer Terry Richardson, and Senator Obama's plea that "I am running for president to take this country in a new direction." (Say it out loud.)  read more »

In the early morning hours of Wednesday, Sept. 24, The New York Times was printing its morning editions, including a front-page story reporting that Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign manager, Rick Davis, is a principal in a lobbying firm that had been receiving $15,000 a month since 2005 from embattled mortgage giant Freddie Mac.

But before those papers hit doorsteps, the McCain campaign had responded, via its Web site. Much of the morning news cycle was spent recycling the dispute: Had McCain lied? Had his campaign manager lied to him? Was the Times story flawed? And if it wasn’t, was it an example of ‘gotcha’ journalism both Mr.  read more »

This is what can happen when you gamble in politics. Last Wednesday, John McCain “suspended” his campaign – an action that sounded a lot more substantial than it actually was – to return to Washington and insert himself into the Congressional debate over a financial rescue package.

The results, for Mr. McCain and (if most financial experts are to be believed) for the economy, have been ghastly, culminating in the House’s stunning rejection of a compromise plan on Monday, which sent the Dow plummeting and Mr. McCain scrambling to save face.

It’s not that Mr. McCain’s impulse to do something “dramatic” was necessarily wrong.  read more »

John McCain just appeared before reporters to read a brief statement on the financial rescue package's failure in the House earlier today. The G.O.P. nominee "suspended" his campaign late last week in order to take part in the negotiations and attempted to portray his involvement as productive.

"I worked hard to play a constructive role in bring everyone to the table," he said. "The plan is now significantly improved."

"I was hopeful that the improved recovery plan would have had the votes needed to pass," he added.

Then, echoing Republican House leaders who earlier said that a partisan speech by Speaker Nancy Pelosi had prevented more Republicans from backing the plan, McCain said: "Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unnecessary partisanship into the process."

The McCain campaign just came out with a statement that blames Barack Obama for the defeat of the proposed bailout in the House today. While McCain's decision to "suspend his campaign" to go to Washington seemed not to have had a helpful effect on the initial round of negotiations over a bill, his campaign nevertheless argues that the partisan attacks of Barack Obama, who kept a greater distance from the negotiations, have now put people at risk of losing their homes.

The McCain campaign also uses the Obama "phoned it in" attack again, presumably because Obama never announced a "suspension" of his campaign.  read more »

It’s not too surprising that the financial crisis has triggered a timely political windfall for Barack Obama, whose poll numbers have steadily climbed since the magnitude of Wall Street’s collapse became clear just over a week ago. When campaigns are defined by economic unease, Democrats tend to benefit – especially when it’s the Republicans who’ve run the White House for the eight previous years.

But the crisis has been timely in another way for Obama, because it has drowned out what otherwise might have been an unhelpful development: The re-emergence of Bill Clinton.

Officially, the former president has been making the media rounds for the same reason he always does every September, to promote his annual Clinton Global Initiative conference, which is held in conjunction with U.  read more »

FREDERICKSBURG, Va.—Barack Obama seemed to be on the verge of paying for 12,000 rain-soaked people to have their clothes cleaned here last night—but he soon thought better of squandering his money that way.

“I’d like to cover everybody’s dry cleaning bill tonight, but I can’t cause I gotta use it on the campaign,” Obama told the huge crowd at the University of Mary Washington. “So consider it one more small contribution to our effort to change the country.”

The audience had been drenched by an earlier downpour and lighter but steady rain resumed minutes after Obama began speaking. University police meanwhile estimated that a total of 26,000 people had turned up for the event, 14,000 of whom had to be turned away.  read more »