As predicted some polls believe the Nevada Race is tightening. I did not notice in my last calls to Nevada for the first time there were a greater shared of committed to McCain than in previous calls. We are going to need to work harder.
RGJ political reporter Anjeanette Damon provides breaking news, insider observations and experienced analysis from Nevada's political arena.
While U.S. Sen. Barack Obama appears to be maintaining a consistent lead over U.S. Sen. John McCain, the latest RGJ poll indicates that the late undecided voters appear to be breaking for McCain, as many political observers predicted they would.
The numbers are small and well within the margin of error so it's difficult to draw too firm of a conclusion. But compared to the last time the RGJ polled earlier this month, the number of undecideds has dropped from 4 percent to 2 percent, while McCain's support has increased from 43 percent to 45 percent. Obama has remained steady across the two polls at 50 percent.
With the margin of error, this could remain a neck-and-neck race and the tiny number of undecideds could ultimately decide it.
As for other interesting findings in the poll, Obama continues to do well among women and Latino voters. Among Hispanics he's favored by a 43-point margin. He also continues to lag with white voters and men.
In Washoe County, McCain appears to have made up some ground compared to the last poll. He's favored 48 percent to 45 percent over Obama. Last time he was favored by just 1 point. However, the numbers I'm hearing on internal polls from both parties has Obama leading in Washoe County.
Further bad news for McCain: he hasn't improved his favorability rating with Nevada voters-- it remains at 45 percent favorable and 49 percent unfavorable-- and the number of voters with an unfavorable view of his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, has increased by 5 points. Palin's favorables are 40 percent, compared to 51 percent unfavorable.
Obama has maintained a 54 percent favorability rating compared to 42 percent unfavorable.
(CNN) — John McCain does not appear to be making up ground in Ohio, the key battleground state that is crucial to keeping his White House hopes alive.
According to CNN's latest poll of polls of the state, the Arizona senator now trails Obama by 6 points there, 50 percent to 44 percent. That gap is two points wider than it was Monday and double what it was one week ago.
Election Center: Check out recent Ohio polls
No Republican has won the presidency without carrying Ohio, and barring a major upset in another big state, the state's 20 electoral votes are a must win for McCain. The Republican presidential candidate is expected to spend two full days there later this week.
The latest Ohio poll of polls consists of recent surveys from LA Times/Bloomberg (October 25-27), Reuters/Zogby (October 23-26), and CNN/Time/ORC (October 19-21). CNN Poll of Polls do not have a margin of error.Meanwhile, a new poll of polls in Florida shows a similar story. The Arizona senator trails Obama by 4 points there, 49 percent to 45 percent. That gap is 3 points higher than it was earlier today and is largely due to a newly released survey from LA Times/Bloomberg showing McCain down 7 points in the state. The Florida poll of polls also includes surveys from Suffolk University and Reuters/Zogby.
RICHMOND
A phony State Board of Elections flier advising Republicans to vote on Nov. 4 and Democrats on Nov. 5 is being circulated in several Hampton Roads localities, according to state elections officials.
In fact, Election Day, for voters of all political stripes, remains Nov. 4.
The somewhat official-looking flier - it features the state board logo and the state seal - is dated Oct. 24 and indicates that "an emergency session of the General Assembly has adopted the follwing (sic) emergency regulations to ease the load on local electorial (sic) precincts and ensure a fair electorial process."
The four-paragraph flier concludes with: "We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause but felt this was the only way to ensure fairness to the complete electorial process."
No emergency action has been taken by the General Assembly. It is not in session and lacks the authority to change the date of a federal election.
State Board of Election officials today said they are aware of the flier but disavowed any connection to it.
"It's not even on our letterhead; they just copied the logo from our Web site," said agency staffer Ryan Enright, noting the flier has been forwarded to State Police for investigation as a possible incident of voter intimidation.
Election officials did not specify in which Hampton Roads localities the flier had been spotted.
State Police are aware of the complaint and are looking into it, said spokeswoman Corinne Geller.
In 2007, the General Assembly passed a law making it a Class 1 misdemeanor to knowingly communicate false information to registered voters about the date, time and place of the election or voters' precincts, polling places or voter registration statuses in order to impede their voting. The measure is one of the few such deceptive voting practice laws in the country, according to the watchdog group Common Cause.
Julian Walker, (804) 697-1564, dale.eisman@pilotonline.com
OCT 27th CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada has asked the Justice Department to help ensure that overseas voters who faced delays in getting absentee ballots from Washoe County election officials are able to vote.
“With only a week left before the election, anyone overseas who has not yet received a requested ballot and who is without access to a fax machine has essentially zero chance of having their vote counted,” Rowland said.
Today Senator Obama began to make his closing argument to the American people as to why he should be our next President. Today its time for all of us to stand up and make our closing argument as to why Senator Obama should be the next President of the United State of America.
As predicted the McCain/Palin Campaign is coming out today harder and nastier then ever. Some people believe this election maybe be a landslide, I do not concur with that conclusion. We have all worked tirelessly this campaign but its not enough. Not when this morning the McCain/Palin Campaign introduced new scare tactics. We cannot allow the voice of fear to drown out the voice of hope. A shift in just one battleground state could be the difference in winning and losing. Which is why we must join together for these last eight days and work harder then we have worked the past year. This means if your goal is to make 25 calls each day to battleground states then make it 50. If your goal is to make 50 calls each day to battleground states then make it 100. There are other ways to help as well. Don’t stop talking to your neighbors and friends. For every person you touch they reach out to others. When you reach out to 50 people a day each one of these persons reaches out to another 50 other people or more. I spoke with a very good friend of mine last week, she has not registered to vote since the late 70’s. I have been calling her once a week for 12 weeks to beg her to register to vote and support Senator Obama. Each time she said it won’t make a difference. Well last week when I spoke with her she told me she registered to vote and will be voting for Senator Obama! Her decision to vote has inspired me to work even harder! It is also a great lesson to us all that just because a person says NO does not mean that if you keep asking at some point they won’t say YES! In one single day we come in to contact with quite a few people .Whether we are out and about running errands or having lunch or dinner at a restaurant. Reach out to every employee you come in contact with and ask them to please vote for Senator Obama. Talk to the strangers you are on line with and wear your Obama T-Shirts! While you’re out and about running errands you may indirectly come in to contact with more than 500 people who will see you with your Obama t-shirt. Without saying a single word you have reminded them all to vote for Senator Obama and they will remind their friends and family. Like many of you I worked all day last weekend at different events in support of Senator Obama. Like you I am exhausted right now but now is the time to turn on the jets and finish this strong! If we do this together Senator Obama will be our next President and the change all of us seek by joining this cause will become a reality.
WASHINGTON — Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was convicted of seven corruption charges Monday in a trial that threatened to end the 40-year career of Alaska's political patriarch in disgrace.
The verdict, coming barely a week before Election Day, increased Stevens' difficulty in winning what already was a difficult race against Democratic challenger Mark Begich. Democrats hope to seize the once reliably Republican seat as part of their bid for a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
Stevens, 84, was convicted of all the felony charges he faced of lying about free home renovations and other gifts from a wealthy oil contractor. Jurors began deliberating last week.
The senator showed no emotion as the jury foreman said "guilty" seven times. After the verdicts, Stevens sat in his chair and stared at the ceiling as attorney Brendan Sullivan put his arm around him.
Stevens faces up to five years in prison on each count when he is sentenced, but under federal guidelines he is likely to receive much less prison time, if any. The judge originally scheduled sentencing for Jan. 26 but then changed his mind and did not immediately set a date.
The monthlong trial revealed that employees for VECO Corp., an oil services company, transformed Stevens' modest mountain cabin into a modern, two-story home with wraparound porches, a sauna and a wine cellar.
The Senate's longest-serving Republican, Stevens said he had no idea he was getting freebies. He said he paid $160,000 for the project and believed that covered everything.
He had asked for an unusually speedy trial, hoping he'd be exonerated in time to return to Alaska and win re-election. He kept his campaign going and gave no indication that he had a contingency plan in case of conviction.
Despite being a convicted felon, he is not required to drop out of the race or resign from the Senate. If he wins re-election, he can continue to hold his seat because there is no rule barring felons from serving in Congress. The Senate could vote to expel him on a two-thirds vote.
"Put this down: That will never happen _ ever, OK?" Stevens said in the weeks leading up to his trial. "I am not stepping down. I'm going to run through, and I'm going to win this election."
Democrats have invested heavily in the race, running television advertisements starring fictional FBI agents and featuring excerpts from wiretaps.
Stevens' conviction hinged on the testimony of Bill Allen, the senator's longtime drinking and fishing buddy. Allen, the founder of VECO, testified that he never billed his friend for the work on the house and that Stevens knew he was getting a special deal.
Stevens spent three days on the witness stand, vehemently denying that allegation. He said his wife, Catherine, paid every bill they received.
Living in Washington, thousands of miles away, made it impossible to monitor the project every day, he said. Stevens relied on Allen to oversee the renovations, he said, and his friend deceived him by not forwarding all the bills.
Stevens is a legendary figure in Alaska, where he has wielded political influence since before statehood. His knack for steering billions of dollars in federal money to his home state has drawn praise from his constituents and consternation from budget hawks.
There was no immediate word on Stevens' campaign plans. His spokesman, Aaron Saunders, did not immediately return a message seeking comment on whether Stevens would stay in the race.
Stevens is the fifth senator convicted of criminal charges. The last previous one was Republican David Durenberger of Minnesota, who was indicted in 1993 on charges of conspiring to make fraudulent claims for Senate reimbursement of $3,825 in lodging expenses. He later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges and was sentenced to one year of probation and a $1,000 fine.
The jurors left the court without comment.
Said U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan: "The jurors have unanimously told me that no one has any desire to speak to any member of the media. They have asked to go home and they are en route home."
The jurors had been shuttled to and from the proceedings each day by court officials.
Once again John McCain is proving that he would rather react then wait for the facts of a story to come out. One has to question why the McCain Campaign would even get themselves involved in this Story. If it had been true it would have been all over the news. However now the McCain Campaign has made this story in to an even larger story.
McCain Communications Director Gave Reporters Incendiary Version Of "Carved B" Story Before Facts Were Known .
John McCain's Pennsylvania communications director told reporters in the state an incendiary version of the hoax story about the attack on a McCain volunteer well before the facts of the case were known or established -- and even told reporters outright that the "B" carved into the victim's cheek stood for "Barack," according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions.
John Verrilli, the news director for KDKA in Pittsburgh, told TPM Election Central that McCain's Pennsylvania campaign communications director gave one of his reporters a detailed version of the attack that included a claim that the alleged attacker said, "You're with the McCain campaign? I'm going to teach you a lesson."
Verrilli also told TPM that the McCain spokesperson had claimed that the "B" stood for Barack. According to Verrilli, the spokesperson also told KDKA that Sarah Palin had called the victim of the alleged attack, who has since admitted the story was a hoax.
The KDKA reporter had called McCain's campaign office for details after seeing the story -- sans details -- teased on Drudge.
The McCain spokesperson's claims -- which came in the midst of extraordinary and heated conversations late yesterday between the McCain campaign, local TV stations, and the Obama camp, as the early version of the story rocketed around the political world -- is significant because it reveals a McCain official pushing a version of the story that was far more explosive than the available or confirmed facts permitted at the time.
The claims to KDKA from the McCain campaign were included in an early story that ran late yesterday on KDKA's Web site. The paragraphs containing these assertions were quickly removed from the story after the Obama campaign privately complained that KDKA was letting the McCain campaign spin a racially-charged version of the story before the facts had been established, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.
The tied is turning as more Republican's are voting for Obama!
Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School, has long been one of the most important conservative thinkers in the United States. Under President Reagan, he served, with great distinction, as Solicitor General of the United States. Since then, he has been prominently associated with several Republican leaders and candidates, most recently John McCain, for whom he expressed his enthusiastic support in January.
This week, Fried announced that he has voted for Obama-Biden by absentee ballot. In his letter to Trevor Potter, the General Counsel to the McCain-Palin campaign, he asked that his name be removed from the several campaign-related committees on which he serves. In that letter, he said that chief among the reasons for his decision "is the choice of Sarah Palin at a time of deep national crisis."
Fried is exceptionally thoughtful and principled; his vote for Obama is especially noteworthy.
While Senator McCain loves to portray Senator Obama as a celebrity it was Mr. McCain who found himself stuck on the tarmac Philadelphia, with what aides described as a two-hour delay on planes flying to Newark. Mr. McCain’s campaign plane turned around, and the campaign hired a small helicopter to whisk him, his wife, Cindy, two of their aides, and two Secret Service Agents, to their rendezvous with David Letterman.
Glad to see McCain has his priorities straight.
Jeremy
JUNEAU - Gov. Sarah Palin's rural adviser is resigning amid criticism of the governor's record on hiring Alaska Natives.
Rhonda McBride said Monday in an e-mail to Native leaders that she agrees the job would better filled by an Alaska Native. She said there are too few Alaska Native voices in Palin's Cabinet .Many Alaska Natives have said they felt ignored when Palin made appointments to her administration.
McBride is not an Alaska Native, but has extensive experience covering rural issues as a journalist.
McBride said she plans to return to reporting to help bring attention to Native issues.
Her resignation is effective Oct. 23.
Monegan says Palin image is damaged
WASHINGTON - Former Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan said Monday he feels "relieved" by a legislative report concluding that Gov. Sarah Palin abused her authority by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper.
"I've never contested my firing. My firing was completely lawful," Monegan said in a nationally broadcast interview. "It wasn't that I was fired that I asked any questions. It was, what were the reasons for the firing."
Monegan declined to say in an interview with NBC's "Today" show what legal options, if any, he might be exploring in the wake of the findings announced late Friday in Alaska by investigator Stephen Branchflower.
Monegan did say that he and his family were pleased with the report's conclusions.
"Actually, I feel relieved," he said. "My wife and I have been through a lot. It's not a matter of being revenged. It's just strictly a matter of being relieved." Monegan was interviewed by telephone from Alaska.
In his report Friday to a bipartisan panel that looked into the matter, Branchflower found Palin in violation of a state ethics law that prohibits public officials from using their office for personal gain. Palin has said that Monegan's tenure as the state's lead law enforcement officer ended because of policy differences.
The inquiry looked into the dismissal of Monegan, who said he lost his job because he resisted pressure to fire a state trooper involved in a bitter divorce and custody battle with the governor's sister.
"I feel vindicated," Monegan had said late Friday. "It sounds like they've validated my belief and opinions. And that tells me I'm not totally out in left field."
On Monday, Monegan said the controversy "really isn't about me."
"I think that we're more concerned about our governor," he added, "and I think she took a big blow to her credibility and more significantly to her promises of being open and transparent."
Asked how he planned to vote in the November elections, Monegan said he didn't want to say, telling his interviewer that's why they "put those little curtains around" the polling booth.
This from http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/10/early-voting-in.html
14 Oct 2008 06:14 pm
Almost 500,000 early votes have been cast already - 75,000 more than all the early votes in 2004, with three weeks to go. African-American turnout is 37 percent of the total, way ahead of their 29 percent of the total electorate. McCain will almost certainly win Georgia. But this cannot be encouraging for him.
Great news for all of us who have been to Reno or are on our way back. Senator Obama now leads in Washoe County. All of our work is paying off in Nevada. What else can we do?
Jeremy Smith
October 14th 2008 Politco.com
But these four counties are crucial battlegrounds in four of the most competitive states in the presidential race. In recent years, the Republican path to the White House has run through these areas.
In 2004, President Bush won Washoe County, Nevada's second-most populous county, by a four-point margin over Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry. This year, when Obama is expected to run up a big vote lead in Las Vegas' Clark County, McCain is unlikely to be able to afford a loss in Washoe. Colorado's Jefferson County supported GOP presidential candidates by an average of almost 18 points between 1976 and 2004. While it hasn't supported a Democrat since 1964, Jeffco has become much more politically marginal in recent years — in 2004, Bush beat Kerry there, 52 percent to 47 percent. It was no coincidence that McCain running mate Sarah Palin made her first solo campaign appearance after the Republican National Convention in Jefferson. Tampa's Hillsborough County, which Bush carried 53 percent to 46 percent in 2004, and Raleigh's Wake County, which Bush won 51 percent to 49 percent in 2004, have been more evenly divided historically. With substantial minority populations and, in Wake County's case, a more affluent and educated electorate, they began this campaign as less friendly territory for McCain. Still, Bush carried both counties in his two presidential bids and Obama's strong performances in these areas represent a troubling sign for the McCain campaign. InsiderAdvantage pollster Matt Towery, who conducted the survey, said McCain's lagging numbers could be largely attributed to weak showings among independents and male voters. "When you begin to see McCain fall apart in these states, it's because that male split becomes less and less," said Towery, who emphasized that McCain would have to perform well among men to make up for Obama's strong advantage with women voters. Nevada's Washoe County features a dramatic gender gap, with women favoring Obama, 54 percent to 36 percent, and men choosing McCain, 55 percent to 38 percent. But in Florida's Hillsborough County, Obama not only won 49 percent of women voters, to McCain's 43 percent, but he captured a plurality of male voters, beating McCain 45 percent to 39 percent. In North Carolina's Wake County, the state's second-most populous after Charlotte's Mecklenburg County, McCain came closer to Obama's share of the female vote, with the Democrat leading by just over four points. But among men, Obama led McCain 51 percent to 43 percent — an untenable split for the Republican nominee.
As the lies continue flowing the the McCain Campaign and RNC, CBS News has looked in to a recent McCain Web Ad and found out that the the Ad is misleading.
OCT 13, 2008(CBS)
A recent web advertisement from Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain makes two false claims about a connection between Bill Ayers and Senator Barack Obama.
1. “Ayers and Obama ran a radical education foundation, together.” The foundation they are referring to is the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), set up in the early 1990’s with funding from the Annenberg Foundation to reform public schools. Walter Annenberg is a well-known philanthropist and conservative Republican. “This was not the Bill Ayers and Barack Obama show,” says Ken Rolling who was the Executive Director of the CAC and ran the organization, “It was not created by two people, it was created by a hundred people.” Was it radical? Rolling says that’s in the eyes of the beholder, but he confirms that the CAC funded programs with the following purpose: teacher training, music education, support for new school council candidates, afterschool programs, education research, improvements for literacy and arts programs and initiatives to strengthen parental involvement in public schools. “The idea that the Annenberg Challenge was somehow the extension of the Weather Underground of the 1960’s, that is just one of the most lunatic contentions I can imagine,” says Mike Flannery, political editor at the CBS Chicago affiliate WBBM who has covered Chicago politics for 35 years. Flannery says the other people on involved in the CAC with Obama and Ayers were "business types and Republicans." Obama chaired the board of the CAC but he did not serve on the board with Ayers. Ayers served on a separate advisory board. 2. “They wrote the foundation’s bylaws together.” “They didn’t sit over a coffee table somewhere and say ‘let’s do it this way,’ they were involved with a large group of people,” Rolling says, “They did not actually write them.” Rolling says Ayers served on a voluntary advisory board that hired a lawyer to write the bylaws that were eventually approved by the entire board of directors - one of the votes for the bylaws came from Obama. Flannery says the negative attention that is being paid to the CAC is mystifying to Chicago reporters, "Those of us who have covered politics in Chicago the way I have for 35 years simply don't recognize the caricatures and the ridiculous descriptions of this group."
