CAMPAIGN MINDERS.... It was more than a little troubling when the McCain campaign decided it didn't trust Sarah Palin enough to let her answer questions from the media. But it seems worse for the McCain campaign not to trust Sarah Palin's supporters, either. Constantly under the watchful eyes of security, the media wasn't permitted to wander around inside Coachman Park to talk to Sarah Palin supporters. When reporters tried to leave the designated press area ...

THE WRONG MESSAGE AT THE WRONG TIME.... In recent years, when asked to reflect on his role in the Keating Five scandal, John McCain has consistently been contrite and willing to accept responsibility for his mistakes. "The appearance of it...

ALL OF BUSH'S IDEAS ARE NECESSARILY GREAT.... The president's odd combination of ignorance and arrogance has always been fascinating. Newsweek reported a few years ago, "It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States.... Bush can be petulant about dissent; he ...

OBAMA'S PREEMPTIVE ATTACK.... The McCain campaign has publicly indicated its plan to shift the campaign discussion away from substantive issues, and towards William Ayers and Tony Rezko. The plan, apparently, is to begin a fresh round of baseless attack ads...

A CANDIDATE AND HER CHEAT-SHEETS.... About a week ago, during one of Sarah Palin's meltdown moments in response to a Katie Couric question about the bailout, she appeared to be looking down quite a bit, apparently referencing notes. During last night's debate, Palin was less incoherent, but that may have had something to do with her learning to read her notes more effectively. The fine folks at ThinkProgress put together this fascinating compilation from the ...

CHENEY'S HEIR.... This week's debate featured plenty of what we've come to expect from debates: soundbites, quips, evasive answers, etc. But there was arguably a little news, too, when Sarah Palin shed some light on her perspective about Dick Cheney...

OBAMA TACKLES MCCAIN'S 'RADICAL' HEALTHCARE PLAN.... If you've been waiting for the healthcare debate to become a more central focus of the presidential campaign, you'll be thrilled with the Obama campaign's new push. With families increasingly worried about their economic security, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is opening a major assault on what he charges is a "radical plan" by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to decentralize health insurance. Bill Burton, national press secretary of the Obama ...

447.... The McCain campaign loves to say that Barack Obama "voted 94 times for higher taxes." It's a staple of McCain/Palin stump speeches; it's in the campaign's attack ads; it's on the lips of every surrogate. Palin even repeated the...

NO METHOD, JUST MADNESS.... According to a pool report, John McCain boarded his plane earlier this afternoon with his wife, top aides, and Rudy and Judith Giuliani, all headed for Mississippi. What was the atmosphere like on McCain's plane? According to the report: "utter confusion." Republican consultant Craig Shirley, who advised McCain's presidential campaign earlier in the cycle, noted the bizarre developments. "It just proves his campaign is governed by tactics and not ideology," Shirley ...

WHAT DOES A 'SUSPENDED' CAMPAIGN LOOK LIKE?.... Just this morning, in New York, John McCain was pretty straightforward about his perspective on the campaign: "I cannot carry on a campaign as though this dangerous situation had not occurred, or as though a solution were at hand, which it clearly is not. As of this morning I suspended my political campaign." Got it. So, what does a "suspended" campaign look like? As it turns out, it's ...

PALIN'S PENTECOSTAL WITCH HUNTER.... A few weeks ago, the McCain campaign told CNN that Sarah Palin "doesn't consider herself Pentecostal." That seems a little hard to believe right now. This rather striking video resurfaced yesterday of Palin at her former church, where her witch-obsessed pastor laid hands on her. "In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, every form of witchcraft is what we rebuke in the name of Jesus," the pastor says ...

IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED.... When the crisis on Wall Street began, and the markets began tanking nine days ago, the very first message from John McCain was, "The fundamentals of our economy are strong." That didn't work, and...

LOSING GEORGE WILL.... On ABC's "This Week" a couple of days ago, conservative columnist George Will was surprisingly candid in his critique of the presidential campaign, describing Barack Obama as "presidential, calm, and unflustered," and slamming John McCain for "substituting vehemence for coherence," and engaging in "unpresidential behavior." Will added, "John McCain showed his personality this week, and it made some of us fearful." Today, Will expounded on this point in his Washington Post column, ...

LUCKY 13.... That's a lot of cars. When you have seven homes, that's a lot of garages to fill. After the fuss over the number of residences owned by the two presidential nominees, NEWSWEEK looked into the candidates' cars. And based on public vehicle-registration records, here's the score. John and Cindy McCain: 13. Barack and Michelle Obama: one. One vehicle in the McCain fleet has caused a small flap. United Auto Workers president Ron Gettelfinger, ...

A PRESUMPTUOUS CELEBRITY.... Yesterday, in the midst of a speech, Sarah Palin told voters about what they could expect from a "Palin and McCain administration." Seriously, there's video of it. What's more, ABC News' Jake Tapper added that he's heard...

HOUSE REPUBLICAN THROWS HIS SUPPORT TO OBAMA.... There are 434 members of the House, and none of them has broken ranks to support the other party's presidential candidate. With that in mind, I found this pretty interesting. Rep. Wayne Gilchrest,...

OBAMA GAMBLES ON LENGTHY ECONOMIC AD.... Audiences have grown accustomed to certain kinds of political advertising. The new spot from the Obama campaign is a little something different. The spot is two minutes long, making it four times as long as the typical campaign ad. It's not too unusual to see a spot like this at the very end of a campaign, in something like a "closing statement," but this is just Barack Obama talking ...

BIDEN SHOOTS, BIDEN SCORES.... It's a shame Joe Biden hasn't been getting much attention lately; he's actually quite good on the stump. In his remarks in St. Clair Shores, Michigan, Biden said, "John McCain has confessed, and I quote --...

EVEN FOX NEWS.... I guess we've reached a tipping point. This morning, Fox News' Megyn Kelly was downright indignant, on the air, about the McCain campaign's dishonesty. Yes, I was surprised, too. McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds, as is his habit, started lying about Barack Obama's tax plan. Much to my surprise -- and Bounds' -- Kelly interrupted, and said Obama wouldn't raise taxes on middle-class families. Bounds pushed back, but Kelly pressed further: "[Y]ou ...

MCCAIN STILL SEES THE FUNDAMENTALS OF THE ECONOMY AS STRONG.... The Obama campaign routinely tweaks John McCain for having argued that the "fundamentals of our economy are strong." Last week, the Washington Post's Jonathan Weisman criticized Obama for using the...