By Stephen HessSpecial to The Washington Post
The first time you are addressed as Mr. President, you will realize that your tomorrows are never again going to be like your yesterdays. Take the simple matter of words, for instance.
On Nov. 16, 1992, President-elect Bill Clinton gave robust support for moving quickly to lift the ban on homosexuals in the military, a second-tier promise in a campaign that was about "the economy, stupid." Clinton later wrote that he was unprepared for the emotional response to his words. His presidency hit the ground stumbling. You also will find that your words, as never before, have consequences.
Presidential transitions have been part of my life for nearly half a century. So, Mr. President-elect, what follows are five tips for avoiding political minefields on the way to your inauguration.
You are about to be besieged by proposals to reorganize government.
But always keep in mind that reorganizations come with costs, and not merely the cost of new stationery. Congressional committees will not take kindly to matters that may alter their jurisdictions. Changes within agencies create confusion for workers, if not outright hostility.
When President-elect John F. Kennedy went to the White House to meet President Dwight D. Eisenhower on Dec. 6, 1960, Eisenhower warned his successor, "Avoid any reorganization until you become well acquainted with the problem."
On taking office, Kennedy promptly disbanded Eisenhower's elaborate national security arrangements, considering them too bureaucratic. When confronted with the Bay of Pigs crisis, he found himself without a properly functioning advisory body.
There is also a lesson about listening. Those leaving government, even if of the opposition party, are usually anxious to pass along advice. The problem is that the incoming people are often too impatient to listen.
There are folks who have spent tremendous energy trying to advance your cause and now want jobs. It would be grand if they were all experienced in government management. But take note of the trail left by the friends of Jimmy Carter.
Of the top eight White House positions, President-elect Carter gave seven to fellow Georgians, only one with experience in Washington. Carter said what he most needed were aides "who were compatible with each other and who were loyal to me." His first legislative effort "alienated about as many members of Congress that you can possibly do," according to budget director Bert Lance.
Kennedy, on the other hand, was probably the most skilled at finding appropriate positions for his loyalists, adjusting duties to their capacities and balancing insignificant responsibilities with other rewards.
You will find no shortage of applicants willing to sacrifice for high-salaried government jobs.
Yet when seeking the right people for the top jobs, prepare to be surprised. President-elect Reagan was turned down by six of his first Cabinet choices, President-elect Nixon by four. Only Eisenhower claimed he was accepted by everyone.
A case history: In the 2000 transition, Paul O'Neill met with President-elect Bush and Vice President-elect Cheney and outlined all the reasons he should not be appointed Treasury secretary. Two years later, President Bush fired O'Neill for exactly those reasons.
Case history No. 2: President-elect Clinton on making Mack McLarty his chief of staff: "He told me he would prefer another job more suited to his business background. Nevertheless, I pressed Mack to accept the position." McLarty was not a successful chief of staff, but he stayed in the administration and successfully completed a number of important international economic transactions.
The moral of the stories: Those who say no usually have a good reason, even if you think otherwise.
When a nomination is in trouble, count votes and move quickly if you don't have enough of them.
The worst case was the nomination of John Tower, then a former senator from Texas, as secretary of defense. Bush 41 would not fold and became the first incoming president to be denied a Cabinet member of his choice. The best case: Bush 43 replaced labor secretary nominee Linda Chavez within two days of a controversy surfacing over her dealings with an illegal immigrant and was given more credit for acting expeditiously than blame for making a flawed appointment.
Here's my last piece of gratuitous advice -- although it will be hotly challenged by Bill Clinton:
Never give major public policy responsibility to someone you cannot fire.
Stephen Hess is senior fellow emeritus in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and Distinguished Research Professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. He is the author of "What Do We Do Now? A Workbook for the President-Elect."
By Dan Payne
WITH 99 percent of this remarkable campaign now behind us, we in the political class have learned some valuable lessons.
Candidates get the campaigns they want. John McCain is no better than his campaign. He's responsible for what comes out of his mouth. McCain's campaign was sloppy, erratic, ugly, feckless, and rife with last-ditch recriminations. Barack Obama's was disciplined, poised, seamless, and powerful.
Never call your running mate a "whack job." McCain's spinners claim solidarity with Sarah Palin, but it's not a good sign when an unnamed top McCain aide tells a reporter that she is "a whack job."
A bad VP pick can be costly. According to Howard Fineman of Newsweek, of 70 or so politicians, newspapers, and pundits who shifted from McCain to Obama, 38 said they did so in part because of Palin. The New York Times poll shows 59 percent of voters now believe she is unprepared for the job.
Women aren't suckers. They will not support a female candidate just because she's a woman. Palin is ditzy, unaware, mean-spirited, and embarrassing.
The endless primaries helped Obama. They hardened the candidate, broadened his fundraising and volunteer bases, and let the country get used to the idea of a black president.
Public financing of presidential elections is over. Obama had said he'd limit his general election spending to $84 million in public presidential funds. He reversed himself and raised $150 million in September - with an average contribution of $86. Meanwhile, McCain took the $84 million, criticized Obama, and got no credit for abiding by the McCain-Feingold spending reform law.
Obama's 3-D chess game. Obama has so much money, he's playing 3-D chess while McCain is playing checkers. Obama used his TV dollars to force McCain to resign in Michigan, while he's moving in North Carolina and has checkmate in Virginia.
Crisis reveals character. Obama responded slowly, but wisely, to the Wall Street crisis. His press conferences revealed a calm, confident, reassuring, and - yes - presidential manner.
McCain misread the severity of the crisis ("The fundamentals of the economy are strong."), pretended to suspend his campaign to "help" in Washington, did nothing, then flew to the first debate in time to lose it.
Late-night comedy kills. Palin was the butt of a running joke on "Saturday Night Live," and a daily target for Jon Stewart. One of David Letterman's Top 10 lists was Excuses why Palin took $150,000 worth of new clothes: "Need to look good for the Russians who can see me in Alaska."
The Clintons aren't invincible. Hillary went from favorite to tenacious underdog but ultimately fell short. Bill sullied his reputation with African-Americans and thereby helped Obama unify the black community.
War can be fatal to Democrats. No Democratic senator who voted for the Iraq war survived the primaries. Clinton's vote to go to war, followed by her stubborn refusal to admit she'd been wrong, gave Obama a chance to seize the liberal flag and claim first place in anti-war Iowa.
Don't put your campaign headquarters in DC. Obama's and Bill Clinton's first campaign headquarters were in Chicago and Little Rock, respectively. Neither suffered from Washington-style leaks, backstabbing, and blame games that haunted McCain's and Hillary's DC-centric campaigns.
Answering every attack is not mandatory. Obama responded when an attack looked damaging. But no matter how many times McCain linked him to Bill Ayers, tax-and-spend, and socialism, the Obama campaign answered that Americans need healthcare, jobs, and a middle-class tax cut.
If the incumbent president of your party is despised, distance yourself from him. But do it before the final week.
Americans want to believe. How else do you explain crowds of 100,000 in St. Louis and 75,000 in Kansas City, Denver, and Portland, Ore.?
The Internet beckons. Campaigns everywhere will try to mimic Obama's success with the Web. Now all they need is a brilliant, charismatic candidate.
Lie down with Schmidt and you'll get up with sleaze. Steve Schmidt, a Karl Rove thug, took over the McCain campaign after the primaries. McCain took his advice and lost the press and the voters.
The final narrative: poised beats erratic. Obama is poised for a big win Tuesday.
Dan Payne is a Boston-area media consultant who has worked for Democratic candidates around the country. He does political analysis for WBUR radio.
GROVE CITY, Ohio — Central Ohio's landfill authority is powering a few of its vehicles by turning trash into gas.
A month ago, the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio began producing fuel from the methane that's naturally given off by rotting garbage at its dump outside of Columbus.
Officials say the landfill's new gas-producing facility is capable of processing 300,000 gallons — enough to possibly fuel Franklin County's entire fleet of 400 vehicles.
A California company plans to invest $14 million to boost capacity even further. The landfill's director says that considering how much methane is given off by the dump's waste, the landfill could produce 10 times as much fuel.
Officials hope the fuel will eventually be used in local buses and garbage trucks.
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Information from: The Columbus Dispatch, http://www.dispatch.com
AS THE presidential campaign enters its final weeks, John McCain resembles a journeyman boxer, behind on every scorecard and struggling desperately to land a knockout punch.
His lurching pursuit of a nimble rival has led to some jarring shifts between McCain's dueling personas, Johnny Be Good and Mack the Knife.
Speaking at the Alfred E. Smith dinner last Thursday, McCain was hilarious and high-minded, his praise for his rival the picture of gentlemanly grace.
How curious, then, that at the same time, automated calls paid for in part by the McCain campaign were highlighting Barack Obama's distant relationship with former 1960s radical and domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.
Most voters are smart enough to see through that attempt at guilt by association. According to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, 60 percent of likely voters say that relationship is not a legitimate issue.
Still, as any flimflam artist knows, you can fool some of the people some of the time - particularly with robo calls that deliver this mendacious message: "You need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the US Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans."
Why, a skeptic could be forgiven for suspecting the intent was to gull the unwary into thinking Obama had actually worked with Ayers during his Weather Underground days. Actually, their association, which the nonpartisan truth squad FactCheck.org notes was "never very close," started decades later, in the 1990s. It included involvement with two nonprofit organizations and an event at Ayers's home during Obama's first state Senate campaign, in 1995.
In endorsing Obama on Sunday, former secretary of state Colin Powell decried attempts to use Ayers to taint Obama, aptly describing it as "demagoguery."
McCain friend and former strategist John Weaver tells me he's "disappointed" by the tactic. "The focus here should be on the economy," Weaver says. "That's what people are talking about."
It's hardly McCain's only attempt to land a roundhouse right. In another, McCain and Sarah Palin are suggesting that Obama favors socialism because he wants to raise income taxes on the wealthy and offer a tax break for the middle class and the less well-to-do.
Now, it's true that if Obama gets his way, upper-earners would help fund a tax cut for workers of more modest means, many of whom don't pay any income tax. (My view is that, given our huge federal deficit, proposals for big, permanent tax cuts by either candidate are irresponsible.) However, the tax cut in question would go only to workers who pay federal payroll (Social Security and Medicare) taxes; no one would get back more than he paid in those taxes.
Certainly it's quintessential silliness - conservative talk-radio silliness, even - to equate that $65 billion plan with socialism, a philosophy that calls for state ownership of the means of production and state distribution of national income. The Bush administration's emergency intervention in the financial markets, which McCain supported, is a much larger step in that direction.
Even someone as accomplished at the politics of convenience as Mitt Romney balked at McCain's description. "That's not the word I'd use," he told CNN.
As he flails away, McCain is adopting a tactic, if not the exact words, Romney did use in his 2002 gubernatorial bid: warning against turning all branches of government over to the Democrats.
Given the recent Republican record, traction there may be hard to generate. The Bush administration, after all, is going out like the Titanic. And as for the GOP reign in Congress, well, here's how Ron Kaufman, White House political director under President George H.W. Bush, puts it: "In 1994 Republicans said, give us control of Congress and we will govern wisely, we will tax less and have smaller government, and we will do it ethically and morally. In 2006 they fired us for not doing that."
Still, unlike the shameful Ayers offensive, tax policy and single-party control of government are at least legitimate issues.
And for McCain, that's progress.
By Scott Helman, Boston Globe Staff
SHAWNEE, Ohio - "It ain't gonna change nothing."
Robert Peyton, 62, was perched in a worn purple chair in his garage, on a hill overlooking what's left of Shawnee, a once-bustling coal town in the Appalachian foothills of southeastern Ohio. He dragged on his cigarette and explained why he saw no point in voting in the presidential election.
"The poor man's getting poorer," Peyton said, his old Ford pickup parked behind him with the hood open. "And the rich man's getting richer."
Once, there were jobs in these hills, not just in the coal mines, but at steel companies in nearby New Lexington. At the brickyard in New Straitsville, the next town over. At a local fiberglass plant, which employed more than 100 in its heyday. Peyton, born and raised here, used to work in area oil fields, back when those jobs were plentiful.
"Hell, there's nothing here anymore," he said yesterday. "Welfare and Social Security, and that's about it."
He went on, "Nothing's coming back. You live in China or Mexico, you got a job."
Peyton's already retired; his 22-year-old son, who lives with him, has it worse. He had been doing concrete work, Peyton said, but hasn't had a job in a year, because the construction industry is slow.
"This country is pretty much shot," Peyton said.
A lot of folks in the Shawnee area seem to feel the same way. It's a mixture of fatalism about their station in life and cynicism that a new president will make any meaningful difference in their lives. Things are pretty bad, and they have no hope that Barack Obama or John McCain will do a darn thing about it.
Shawnee and its fellow coal towns are known as the Little Cities of Black Diamonds. Fires are said to still burn in the old underground mines, but above ground the cities' spark has long been extinguished. There's still a mine or two operating in the area, but what's left largely are the industry's remnants, both human and environmental. A milky, acidic substance flows out of an old mine entrance near New Straitsville; the signs warn not to touch it.
Shawnee's Main Street is dotted with empty storefronts and dilapidated buildings, save for the Shawnee Village Restaurant, the Desperado bar, and a few other scattered businesses. We caught up with Debbie Manring and Amy Ellis, who both live in town. Manring, 50, used to work as a nursing assistant at a nursing home, but is now on disability. Ellis runs the local video store.
"I don't think I'd vote for either one of them," Manring said of Obama and McCain.
"That's exactly what I would say," added Ellis, as her 4-year-old son, Justin, rode a pink bicycle up and down the empty sidewalk.
They are both Democrats, feeling like they have two bad choices, wishing Hillary Clinton were still in the race. McCain, to them, would be an extension of President Bush. "He's going to make things worse," Ellis said.
When we asked about Obama, they made clear they felt a cultural disconnect. They do not trust him, do not see him as one of their own. Manring worries he is a Muslim (he is not); Ellis said she believes Obama would put other countries before the United States, and was bothered by his decision in the past to not always affix a flag pin to his lapel. (He does now.)
"He wouldn't even wear it," she said.
They say all this even though their views on helping the middle class and on the war in Iraq align more closely with Obama's. Manring said her nephew had served in Iraq, and returned with stories about "kids over there who are doing without."
"And you know what?" Manring said. "We've got that here."
Obama might have put it that way himself, but these are precisely the kinds of white, rural voters he has not won over. He likely won't before Nov. 4.
Not everyone around here expressed such apathy about the election. As we explored an old mine entrance yesterday, Cory Six pulled up in his red Ford Mustang. He is 20 years old, from New Straitsville, and training to drive heavy equipment. A year ago, he helped haul 300 tons of gravel to fill an old mine on the other side of the hill where we were standing.
"I haven't figured out who I'm going to vote for yet," Six said when we asked him about the election. "Do I want a black guy or a Republican?"
But to Six, Obama's race is merely an unremarkable fact. It is not a factor.
"Everyone should have the equal opportunity to run for president," he said. "It don't matter what color you are."
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Voters who are young or African-American or who sat out the last few elections had never been more sought after as the campaign hits its last weeks in Ohio.
Meghan McCain, the 24-year-old daughter of the Republican nominee, visited voters in rural central Ohio. Obama sent music mogul Russell Simmons to rally voters in urban centers of Columbus and Cleveland. And NBA star LeBron James - the closest thing Ohio has to a sports saint - joined Obama's campaign as a pitchman.
"It's all about getting young people to understand how important it is to vote. This is a time that could be life-changing for a lot of people," said James, who campaigned for Obama in his native Akron.
Both campaigns are using the biggest megaphones they can find to build on past years' models. Republicans still plan to carry rural areas; Democrats want to run up big numbers in the state's urban centers.
But both are attempting to go past that.
Obama's Ohio campaign is playing in areas that don't normally get campaign staff. His massive neighbor-to-neighbor program reaches goes into rural areas and traditionally Republican areas. The Democrats have a satellite office within 42 miles of every Ohio resident. All told, Obama's 300-person-plus staff in 79 Ohio offices is twice the size of John Kerry's in 2004, aides said.
Obama's campaign is forcing McCain's to spend time in areas once thought reliably Republican. Luckily for McCain's workers, the Ohio GOP has long organized the state with a groundgame that never truly shuts down after elections. The grass-roots volunteers remain engaged, and the state and county parties keep tabs on them.
McCain is running a leaner campaign, but the Republican National Committee's collaborative Victory Committee is supplementing those efforts. McCain has 40 Ohio offices, but they're open far fewer hours and have far fewer paid staff.
"The groundwork had been there for years. That gave us a good foundation through the dog days of summer," said Jon Seaton, McCain's aide tasked with running Ohio and Pennsylvania. "In other states, creating the infrastructure was a lift. We could get right into it here."
_By Philip Elliott
FOR MONTHS, political reporters have reported on what they know best, politics. Attack ads, conventions, polls, debates, and gotchas - what George Will calls stagecraft, as opposed to statecraft, the ideas of the candidates. That suddenly changed when reality intruded in the form of an economic crisis.
Wall Street was a presidential test and McCain flunked. When the Wall Street crisis hit, John McCain looked dazed and confused and, yes, old. His clueless initial response - saying the fundamentals of the economy are strong - cost him credibility at a crucial moment. Wall Street was a test of presidential capability and McCain buckled.
Ineffectual under pressure. McCain pulled a transparent stunt in pretending to suspend his campaign so he could go to Washington and somehow appear relevant.
He was quickly exposed as over his head when he sat for 40 minutes in dead silence during a discussion by congressional leaders at the White House. Then House Republicans turned down the first plan, leaving McCain with little to say or do. A week later, he quietly voted for the pork-laden Senate bill and slipped out of town.
The public saw it first. Unlike McCain, Americans quickly knew things were bad. Nearly everyone owns stock these days, in retirement accounts. As the Dow plunged, Barack Obama jumped into a statistically significant lead nationally and in crucial states.
Presidential stature. Obama conducted himself with cool and calm during the bailout crisis, just as he did in Tuesday's debate. In short, he looks presidential. We haven't had one in so long I forgot what a president looks like.
The reality of unemployment. Obama is forcing McCain to spend TV dollars in expensive toss-up states like Ohio and Pennsylvania. McCain's quitting Michigan was about too few dollars, too few voters - a recent published poll showed Obama leading by 13 points - and too few jobs.
A job is all that matters when you're unemployed. The Labor Department reported 159,000 jobs were lost in September. Since January, we've lost more than 750,000 jobs and are on our way to 1 million by year's end. Right now, we are a nation with 2 million unemployed.
McCain wants to disqualify Obama. A losing campaign has one chance to win when it's running out of time: disqualify the opponent. McCain's plan is to turn Obama into a risky weirdo who's not like us (white people).
Desperate times, desperate hockey mom. Sarah Palin is out attackin' Obama's character using a flimsy connection to the 1960s radical, anti-Vietnam War bomber Bill Ayers - they once served on a nonprofit board together. Sarah calls this "palin' around with terrorists." Obama has denounced Ayers' words and actions, most of which occurred when Obama was 8. Obama used the attack to make his move against McCain.
Ready, aim, post. The Obama campaign armed its supporters (it's got over 2 million volunteers and contributors) with a 13-minute Web video that had been produced for just this occasion. It's the true story of McCain's strong ties to Charles Keating, a convicted real estate swindler. A charter member of the Keating Five during the savings and loan scandal in the late 1980s, McCain improperly and unsuccessfully used his office to call off federal regulators. McCain, then 58, had received $112,000 in Keating-related campaign contributions plus free trips for McCain and his family on Keating's private jet to the tycoon's retreat in the Bahamas.
Careful what you wish for. Can you imagine 10 of these interminable town hall debates as McCain wanted? Tuesday's debate was boring - except McCain calling Obama "that one" probably got the attention of black voters.
CNN's post-debate poll showed 54 percent of those who had watched felt Obama won; 30 percent said McCain. CBS had it 40-26 percent Obama. Those polls understated Obama's command of the evening.
Obama managed to tie McCain's ceaseless charge about the surge to the financial crisis. Obama said we need the $10 billion a month the war costs.
Tom Brokaw played Clock Nazi the whole night, enforcing time limits just when the candidates started to really debate.
McCain quickly left the stage, grasping the reality of his predicament.
By Peter S. Canellos, Boston Globe Staff
WASHINGTON - John McCain had two goals in last night's town hall-style debate: To rekindle the straight-talk rapport with average voters that was at the core of his primary campaign, and to raise some fresh doubts about his rival, Barack Obama, who has been leading in recent polls.
But from his first remark, "Senator Obama, it's good to be with you at a town hall meeting" - possibly a simple greeting but more likely a veiled reference to Obama's refusal to accept his proposal for 10 town hall debates - McCain's two goals seemed to pull against each other.
Sometimes sarcastic and sometimes sincere, McCain seemed off-balance in a way that undermined his much-repeated claim of being "a cool hand at the tiller."
Obama, who did not particularly excel at town hall-style debates during the primaries - sometimes seeming lordly or professorial - was better than McCain last night at connecting with audience members on their own terms.
When a voter asked what was in the financial bailout package for him, McCain launched into an attack on the abuses in the mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, claiming that they occurred "with the encouragement of Senator Obama and his cronies and friends in Washington."
Obama looked the questioner in the eye and said, "Well, Oliver, first let me tell you what's in the rescue package for you. Right now, the credit markets are frozen up and what that means, as a practical matter, is small businesses and some large businesses can't get loans. If they can't get a loan, that means they can't make payroll. If they can't make payroll, they have to shut their doors and lay people off. And if you imagine just one company trying to deal with that, now imagine a million companies all across the country."
Obama's answer had the slightly syrupy quality that made Bill Clinton extremely effective in town hall settings - and sometimes set him up for ridicule afterwards. But such answers are the standard by which town hall debates are judged. Unlike encounters at which both nominees stand behind lecterns, town hall debates test a candidate's ability to frame issues in ways that are meaningful to average people.
McCain, during the primaries, did that and much more - winning plaudits for saying things that most politicians would never say. Sometimes, he openly disagreed with questioners. Sometimes he admitted to weaknesses in himself. Often he challenged conventional assumptions about issues - for example in his politically brave opposition to subsidies for the alternative fuel ethanol.
Little of that McCain was visible last night.
"We in New Hampshire saw him do a lot of these meetings," said Dartmouth College political scientist Linda Fowler. "What was memorable about them was his physical energy, his willingness to say unexpected things. . . . None of that McCain was in evidence last night."
A likely explanation was that, with only four weeks until Election Day, McCain felt pressure to raise doubts about Obama. That required pointing an accusatory finger.
But lines like "Senator Obama would have brought our troops home in defeat," seemed unnecessarily mean when delivered in a friendly setting amid a group of average voters, especially with a confident Obama standing by.
McCain was far better in the rare moments when he bantered with questioners, such as when he told a Naval veteran that everything he learned about leadership came from a chief petty officer.
As in last week's debate, Obama matched McCain point-for-point on foreign policy, and defended himself against McCain's attacks; he fired back with accusations of his own at times, but maintained a more positive tone overall.
Obama called attention to areas where he and McCain agreed, as in the first debate, citing the need to counter Russian dominance in former Soviet satellite states as an example. And he couched his criticisms of McCain and even the Bush administration in gentler terms than his rival.
When asked by moderator Tom Brokaw if healthcare was a privilege, right, or responsibility, McCain chose responsibility. Obama said it was a right.
As at many other points last night, Obama seemed more in touch with his audience.
By William Hershey | Dayton Daily News
Democrat Barack Obama has moved ahead of Republican John McCain in Ohio and two other key battleground states, Florida and Pennsylvania.
A new Quinnipiac University poll of likely voters released on Wednesday, Oct. 1, found that the sagging popularity of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain's vice presidential running mate, and more confidence in Obama's ability to handle the sagging economy have helped the Democrat in the race for the White House.
The poll tested voter sentiment both before and after the presidential debate on Friday, Sept. 26,
In Ohio, Obama led 49-42 percent pre-debate and 50-42 percent post-debate. In a Sept. 11 Quinnipiac poll, Obama led 49-44 percent.
In Florida, Obama led 49-43 percent pre-debate and 51-43 percent after the debate. In a Sept. 11 Quinnipiac poll, McCain led, 50-43 percent.
In Pennsylvania, Obama led 49-43 percent pre-debate and 54-39 percent post-debate. In a Sept. 11 Quinnipiac poll, Obama led 48-45 percent.
The pre-debate surveys were conducted from Monday, Sept. 22-Friday, Sept. 26.
The post-debate surveys were conducted Saturday, Sept. 27-Monday, Sept. 29.
No candidate has won the White House since 1960 without carrying two of these three states, pointing up the emphasis both candidates are placing on them this time.
In Ohio, the 64 percent of voters who watched the debate said Obama did better, 49-33 percent. Voters in Florida and Pennsylvania also favored Obama's debate performance.
Also in Ohio, Palin's favorability rating was split 35-35 percent between favorable and unfavorable in the post-debate poll while she had a 40-33 percent favorable rating in the pre-debate poll. In the Sept. 11 poll she had a 41-22 percent favorable rating.
Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a press release that "it's difficult to find a modern competitive presidential race that has swung so dramatically, so quickly and so sharply this late in the campaign."
"Sen. Obama clearly won the debate, voters say. Their opinion of Sarah Palin has gone south and the Wall Street meltdown has been a dagger to McCain's political heart," said Brown.
"Roughly a third of voters, and almost as large a share of the key independent voters, say McCain did more harm than good in trying to resolve the financial crisis, and the share of the voters who see the economy as the top issue has risen from roughly half to six in ten."
The margin of error in Ohio for the pre-debate poll was plus or minus 2.8 percent. In the post-debate poll it was plus or minus 3.4 percent.
An emotional Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. was uncharacteristically at a loss for words yesterday as an introduction from Steelers owner Dan Rooney stirred memories of a bright interlude in a painful time.
On a campaign stop at Greensburg Salem High School, the presence of the Steelers owner reminded the vice presidential candidate of the tragic Dec. 17, 1972, car accident that killed his first wife and daughter and seriously injured two young sons. Mr. Biden had just been elected to the Senate.
Mr. Biden paused, wiped his eyes and, at one point turned away from the crowd for a long moment. Talking of his long vigil at his sons' bedsides, he said he left the boys at some point to go out and buy a Christmas tree for their hospital room. When he returned they each had an autographed football.
"My one little boy was in traction, the other little boy had a serious fractured skull, and they were happy. ..." After pausing, and wiping his eye, he continued.
"I said, 'Guys, where'd you get the balls?' "
They said, 'Daddy, Rocky Bleier brought it for me.'
"Mr. Rooney's Dad, without any fanfare, without an announcement, without anything but this incredible decency. ..." He paused again, and as the crowd applauded, said, "I really apologize. I shouldn't have tried to do this. ... It's a hell of a family."
Ed Kiely, the late Arthur J. Rooney's longtime aide, said he was not surprised that Mr. Rooney had sent the balls to the Biden boys. "He did that an awful lot, even with somebody he didn't even know," Mr. Kiely said yesterday.
The poignant anecdote about the footballs -- a story Mr. Biden has recounted at least once before in the campaign -- stirred applause from the crowd of more than 500 sitting on folding chairs in the high school gym.
WASHINGTON - John McCain last night tried hard to make the first presidential debate a test of Barack Obama's fitness for office. McCain succeeded in his framing of the test - but Obama passed it.
In an encounter that seems destined to be remembered more for its substance than any quips or gaffes, the two candidates defended their positions stoutly, outlined clear contrasts for the voters, and showed a command of the issues that was greater than in most past presidential debates.
McCain persuasively cast himself as a government reformer committed to cutting spend ing; but Obama forcefully argued that cutting spending alone would not revitalize the economy.
McCain explained clearly why he believed "victory" in Iraq would be jeopardized by setting a timetable for withdrawal; but Obama argued strongly that a disproportionate focus on Iraq was jeopardizing success in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"It was substantive, it was detailed, and, I could say, no clear winner," concluded Wayne Lesperance, political scientist at New England College. "McCain, I thought, was strong on the economic questions. And Obama more than held his own on foreign policy. It was kind of a reversal of the conventional wisdom."
But with the majority of the debate focused on foreign policy - where McCain's superiority was assumed, and Obama's vulnerability was greatest - the lack of a clear winner benefits Obama more than McCain.
Voters concerned that Obama might be too dovish to defend the country heard him promise to increase troops in Afghanistan and redouble efforts to "capture or kill" Osama bin Laden.
Voters concerned that Obama lacked a strategic knowledge of the world heard him discourse comfortably and intelligently on the complex challenges facing the United States in Russia, China, Iran, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Good judgment, he suggested, was as important as experience.
"We took our eye off Afghanistan. We took our eye off the folks who perpetrated 9/11. They are still sending out videotapes. And Senator McCain, nobody's talking about defeat in Iraq, but you know, I have to say we are having enormous problems in Afghanistan because of that decision."
McCain tried repeatedly to portray Obama as a neophyte, prefacing many answers with variants of the statement, "What Senator Obama doesn't seem to understand," and later insisting that Obama "showed a little bit of naiveté."
But Obama didn't seem either uncomprehending or naive, and McCain seemed so frustrated at times that he almost lost his cool.
After Obama followed a McCain jab about Obama's failure to hold a hearing of his Senate subcommittee with a return punch that McCain had once claimed the United States could "muddle through" in Afghanistan, the Arizona senator clenched his teeth, flared his eyes, and seemed on the verge of losing composure.
Finally, he came out and said what he couldn't demonstrate.
"I honestly don't believe that Senator Obama has the knowledge or experience and has made the wrong judgments in a number of areas," McCain insisted.
But the claim wasn't backed up by what viewers had seen for the past hour.
Earlier, when McCain was at his most vulnerable, he himself didn't give an inch.
McCain insisted that reining in government spending and preserving lower tax rates would be the best cure for the economy. Obama argued equally forcefully that what is needed is a change of philosophy, and that McCain had been a willing traveler on the Bush Adminstration's failed economic policies.
McCain would have none of it.
"It's well known that I have not been elected Miss Congeniality in the United States Senate, nor with the administration," he shot back, in one of his strongest responses of the night. "I have opposed the president on spending, on climate change, on torture of prisoners, on Guantanamo Bay, on the way the Iraq war was conducted. I have a long record, and the American people know me well."
They do. They know Obama less well. But last night, they probably came away feeling they knew him a little better - and liked what they saw.
Both candidates came off well. But Obama had more to gain, and he did.
By Dan Balz The next president will take the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2009, with hands tied. Abroad and at home, the agenda for John McCain and Barack Obama has now been defined and it is far more daunting than either imagined when the campaign began.
Abroad are two wars of uncertain future, conflicts to be won or wound down in a way that brings stability to those regions while retaining public confidence in the next commander in chief. At home, the cost and complexities of resolving the economic crisis have put the government on a new footing and are likely to sharply limit the next president's domestic maneuvering room.
Presidential campaigns are exercises in big dreams and grand ambitions. This campaign has turned into a case of watching those ambitions chipped away by events. McCain or Obama will inherit a mess by any definition and will have to spend the first year of his presidency, at least, consumed with these problems.
There are now questions that both candidates should be asked in the upcoming debates about how their thinking and agendas have been affected by these events, how this may shape or reshape the way they put a government together, how it may change their priorities and how they might use the situation to enhance prospects for bipartisan governance.
McCain and Obama are more than bystanders as Congress and the Bush administration move this week toward enacting some version of the proposed $700 billion plan to rescue the nation's -- actually the world's -- financial system. But they don't quite have a seat at the table for decisions that will affect them far more than they will President Bush.
What has played out on the campaign trail over the past week is a kind of kabuki dance by the candidates. They have tried to stay abreast of events and offer public demonstrations of how they might deal with such a crisis if they were actually president, all in an effort to show they have stuff that the public is looking for in a new leader.
They have had few good options politically. McCain zigged and zagged last week, on the state of the economy, on the AIG bailout, on more regulation versus a history of less regulation. He issued a rescue blueprint of his own as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was forging ahead with something more audacious.
McCain became the angry populist, railing against greed on Wall Street and calling for heads to roll in Washington -- or at least one head, that of SEC Chairman Chris Cox. McCain's critics pounced on him for rash behavior while supporters described him as strong and decisive.
Obama adopted a different approach. According to one of his economic advisers, Obama delayed issuing a rescue plan of his own at the request of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. He held a highly visible meeting with a battery of economic advisers but over the weekend he was restrained in either fully endorsing or criticizing what the administration was doing. His critics called him tentative, indecisive and political. His supporters said he showed calm and good judgment.
The crisis has played to the Democrats' natural advantages, but how voters are marking their scorecards on the leadership of the two candidates is anybody's guess in such an environment. The upcoming debates should provide more clarity on that question.
There are plenty of questions for the candidates now that go beyond whether they support or oppose the administration's rescue plan. After all, in just 43 days, one of them will be starting to put together a new administration. This is not idle campaign rhetoric any more. Assertions by either that they know how to do this are not enough.
In coming days, both are likely to provide more details about dealing with the financial mess, and in particular the kind of oversight and regulation each envisions in a new system. But much more remains for inquiry.
Obama has argued that what ails the economy needs far more a financial system rescue plan, that ordinary Americans need help from the strain of job losses, threats of foreclosures and the increased costs of gasoline, home heating oil, medical care and college tuition.
He wants to cut taxes on the middle class and raise them on the wealthy. He wants to spend around $100 billion a year on a health care plan. He has penciled in $15 billion a year for investment in alternative energy. He says he has a fiscally responsible way to do this, but in light of what's happened recently, he needs to be pushed harder to prove it.
McCain's domestic agenda includes tax cuts, tax and market incentives for expanding health care coverage, an all-of-the-above approach to energy independence. He too must be pressed to explain how he can pay for this, whether he can accomplish what he claims.
McCain, too, should be asked to explain how his proposal to move the political affairs office out of the White House into the Republican National Committee represents anything other than a symbolic act. Does he mean there will be no one in the White House who has any contact with party officials at the RNC?
Bigger questions include staffing the next administration. The choice of a Treasury secretary has now become far more significant than ever, given the likely powers that will be invested in that person under the bailout plan. What checks might McCain or Obama put on that person through the creation of an overall economic team? What qualities are now needed in a Treasury secretary?
The same goes for the departments of Defense and State. Who are the models for Obama and McCain as they weigh these choices? What kind of experience, history, ideology and vision are they seeking to implement their stated policies in Iraq, to deal with the changing and increasingly dangerous situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan and to repair relations elsewhere?
The default position of the tone of the campaign has been pettiness and small-mindedness, lipstick and Britney. Events, however, keep reminding voters that these are extraordinary times. Will the candidates rise to meet those challenges, not just when one of them takes the oath next January, but in the final weeks of this incredible campaign?
The crisis that has seized Wall Street over the last few days caught the campaigns of both Barack Obama and John McCain flat-footed.
Neither man, as we wrote yesterday, has a demonstrated expertise on the issue and national polling shows that voters aren't sure whether Obama or McCain would do a better job in managing the economy as president.
So, with both campaigns scrambling to win the issue over the next few days, The Fix solicited the opinions of a handful of Republican and Democratic strategists, asking them what specifically they would advise their party's candidate to do in the short term to stake their claim to this critical issue.
We collected and sorted the suggestions -- which ranged from the zany to the downright ingenious. We picked the best five for each candidate and listed them below; some contradict one another but all seem to have solid strategic thinking behind them. The names behind the suggestions have been withheld in order to let the operatives speak their minds without being seen as telling their party's candidates (and his inner circle) what to do or not do.
Agree or disagree? The comments section awaits.
OBAMA
1. Two-Day Ohio Tour: Obama should spend two full days traveling the Buckeye State with stops in cities ranging from the big (Cleveland) to the medium (Dayton) to the small (Zanesville). The suggested theme? "McCain's strong fundamentals" playing off of the Arizona senator's much-disputed statement Monday that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. Ohio was the central battleground of the 2004 election and the economic stresses have hammered the state in the intervening four years. Show Ohioans Obama isn't just a gifted speaker; he understand better than McCain the problems faced by average middle class families.
2. Spend a Night At Home: With home foreclosures still a huge problem and many middle class families worried about being able to make their monthly mortgage payments, Obama should spend a night at home with a family facing potential foreclosure -- either in Nevada or Michigan, two of the battlegroundiest (is that a word) states in the country. This idea is along the lines of the Service Employees International Union's "Walk a Day in their Shoes" campaign during the Democratic primaries but has the potential to produce great television images that ooze "empathy."
3. A Series of Speeches: Obama's greatest strength is his oratorical abilities. Use them. Follow the blueprint used to much success by George W. Bush in 2004 when he gave a series of speeches explaining and contextualizing the war in Iraq and the fight against terrorism. Use that framework and sub in the economy; in one speech tackle the pinch the economic crisis is putting on an average middle class family, in another lay out how small business are being impacted, in a third show -- specifically -- how an Obama Administration would handle the economic problems different than has the current president. "Speeches are his wheelhouse and he needs to get back into his comfort zone," said Phil Singer, a former adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign. "He's been trying to be someone else which has been cramping his style on the stump."
4. Town Hall Tryout: Obama has largely avoided the sort of town halls that McCain has made his own during this campaign. Pick a series of white working class neighborhoods and set up a series of economic-themed town halls over multiple days. Do more listening than talking. Obama, as The Fix himself has witnessed during a presidential dialogue sponsored by MTV and MySpace in Iowa, tends to shy away a bit from the "I feel your pain" politics of Bill Clinton. Suck it up and wade into the crowd. Console people who are struggling, hug folks having hard times. Be, at least for a few days, the consoler in chief.
5.Sitdown with Lehman Brothers Staff: Don't meet with the bigwigs and suits of the failed investment bank. Convene a roundtable with some of the support staff (administrative assistants etc.) who are impacted by the company veering into bankruptcy. Almost no one feels bad for the executives when these massive companies go through crises, knowing that these well-paid upper management types will survive without a hitch. But, there are also large numbers of employees at Lehman and other companies who are living paycheck to paycheck and will have their lives fundamentally altered by the bankruptcy. Put faces to these statistics and let them speak their minds about what's wrong and how to fix it.
HERE'S THE QUESTION voters should be asking themselves this week: Just how stupid does the McCain-Palin campaign think I am?
The answer: Dumb enough to hoodwink with charges so contrived and cynical they make your teeth ache.
Let's start with the most insidious of the assertions: that Barack Obama has supported teaching "comprehensive sex education" to kindergartners. The McCain campaign has put up an ad making that claim, citing legislation Obama voted for as an Illinois state senator.
Actually, the intent wasn't to teach young kids all about sex, but rather how to recognize improper physical contact, says Kelvy Brown, legislative coordinator for the Chicago Department of Public Health, which backed the bill.
"It was about teaching them what's not appropriate when it comes to touching, fondling, those types of things," Brown said.
Further, the 2003 legislation stipulated that any school sex education program had to be "age and developmentally appropriate" and have a parental opt out.
As the nonpartisan campaign watchdog FactCheck.org has made clear, this is a thoroughly dishonest ad.
No matter. The McCain campaign has shown it's ready and willing to say preposterous things to win.
Now, it's true the Obama camp has been guilty of some distortions of its own. Still, it's the McCain team that has made leveling false or misleading accusations its modus operandi.
Witness this week's other foray into flimflam: the charge that Obama had called GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin a porcine politico on Tuesday by saying "you can put lipstick on a pig - it's still a pig."
That expression is one that McCain himself has used a number of times, most notably to criticize Hillary Clinton's 2007 healthcare proposal. And in context, it's clear Obama invoked the phrase to portray McCain's policies as a continuation of the Bush administration's, and not to disparage Palin.
Indeed, the notion that it was a barb belittling Palin is so self-evidently absurd that Republican Mike Huckabee refused to play along. "It's an old expression," he told Fox News' Sean Hannity. "I do not think he was referring to Sarah Palin."
Of course he wasn't. And yet, the McCain camp quickly put up a Web ad portraying it as a sexist remark, and on Wednesday McCain spokespeople and surrogates served up similar accusations of disrespect on TV. Pressed about those claims on MSNBC, McCain senior policy adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer stumbled into a revealing moment. "It doesn't matter what the media thinks," she said. "What matters is what the American people think."
Translation: If we can dupe voters into believing Obama disparaged Palin, we can score political points.
Sadly, one of the McCain allies pushing this manufactured controversy has been former Massachusetts acting governor Jane Swift, who on a Tuesday McCain campaign conference call flatly accused Obama of calling Palin a pig.
On Wednesday, I noted to Swift that a reading of Obama's remarks simply doesn't lend credence to that charge. And, further, that McCain has used the same expression himself.
Well, replied Swift, Palin's convention speech joke about lipstick meant the word was very much associated with her in the public mind. "If it didn't intend to bring her into it, why would you choose that particular" formulation? she asked.
What's more, she said, some in the crowd listening to Obama had also taken his comment as a reference to Palin.
Think those arguments are flimsy? Well, consider her further contention: "Nobody but Barack Obama . . . can know what he intended," but the fact that she and others had found it offensive meant that he should "make the whole thing go away by saying, 'I shouldn't have said it.' "
So, let's see: Obama employs an everyday expression to make a legitimate political argument. His opponent's camp then strains an Achilles in a ludicrous attempt to twist his comment into a sexist insult.
And now, to end the controversy, Obama should apologize?
There's some pretzel logic for you.
McCain and Swift are the ones who should apologize.
Voters, meanwhile, should be insulted that the McCain campaign is trying to peddle them this kind of transparent trumpery.
Scot Lehigh can be reached at lehigh@globe.com
WITH ONE important exception, what we have learned about vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family does not reflect badly on any of them. What the Palin family story does do is underscore the flaws in the political philosophy that was critical to her being selected by John McCain.
The exception, of course, is the allegation that she tried to get the Alaska public safety commissioner to fire her former brother-in-law and fired the commissioner when he would not give in to her wishes. Public officials cannot use their official positions on behalf of family members in a domestic dispute.
The divorce itself and the pregnancy of Palin's daughter are the sorts of things that occur in many American families, and those involved are entitled to be treated with compassion. But that is precisely the point that makes this a relevant political issue. Palin was selected by McCain in substantial part because of her high standing as a leading advocate of the socially conservative wing of the Republican Party. McCain was reportedly leaning strongly toward naming Joe Lieberman to be his running mate, but was deterred by the vehement opposition of social conservatives. And when Palin was selected, James Dobson, one of the leading advocates for imposing personal moral choices on the rest of us, announced that this was the one thing that switched him from skepticism about McCain to enthusiastic support.
According to that right-wing social viewpoint, divorce, teen pregnancy, and other lapses in family values are the fault of liberals. According to this political movement, respecting the right of gay and lesbian people to formalize their relationships; refusing to censor the Internet, books, television or movies; supporting age appropriate sex education; and refusing to allow religion to be inculcated by official government means, are the causes of social dysfunction in America. And every indication we have is that Palin believes this viewpoint.
That is why the questions of divorce and teen pregnancy are relevant in discussions of the McCain/Palin ticket. The individuals involved in these cases deserve to be treated with compassion, but so do millions of other Americans who find themselves in similar situations. But, sadly, they are often met with criticism and hostile public policy formulated by those who now claim Palin as their political champion. Too often, people on the right seek to impose strict standards on others, and blame them for falling short, while making exceptions for those close to them. Respect and compassion should extend to all who find themselves in similar situations.
The problems that have affected Palin's family are part of the experience of millions of people who face the stresses and strains, moral dilemmas, and difficult choices of contemporary life. The right wing, of which Palin is one of the acclaimed leaders, rejects this view, and argues that it is the failure of many of us to adopt their particular moral view that is the cause of these problems.
The glaring inconsistency between the social philosophy that blames liberalism for divorce and teen pregnancy and the facts of Palin's family life further underlines the serious shortcomings of that philosophy. This does not mean that family members are "fair game," a view that some have inaccurately attributed to me. People are not "game," fair or unfair. They are human beings who often face difficult personal decisions.
The relevant political point about the existence of these incidents in Palin's family is not that they reflect badly on her or her relatives, but that they further reveal the central flaw of the harshly judgmental and intolerant philosophy she exemplifies: She advocates restricting the personal freedom and right to fair treatment of many Americans in a fruitless effort to eradicate the kind of behavior that, as her own experience shows, does not lend itself to this sort of approach.
US Representative Barney Frank is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.
