To all my Virginia readers (you know who you are!), if you are not yet registered to vote, you need to mail your voter registration form by the end of next Monday, October 6th. If you plan to mail your form, it must be postmarked by October 6th. You can also go in person to your local voter registration office and submit your registration form. If you do not register in time, you will not be able to cast your vote on November 4th.

To fill out and print the voter registration form, you can go to Vote For Change or to the Virginia State Board of Elections website. If you plan to submit your form in person, you can locate your local voter registration office here. Registering to vote is quick and easy and only takes a few minutes.

For the first time since 1964, the Democratic presidential candidate has a real chance to win Virginia’s 13 electoral votes. A Virginian’s vote has never been so important. It is very likely that Virginia voters will determine the next president of the United States.

In 2006, Jim Webb won the Senate seat from Virginia by a mere 9329 votes. That was a sliver of a margin - 0.39% - out of nearly 2.5 million votes cast. He won by a huge voter turnout in Northern Virginia, by tipping Loudoun County blue, and by running up votes in the Tidewater region. Every vote mattered.

Every vote will matter November 4th.

Barack Obama currently holds a small lead in the composite poll results in Virginia over John McCain. However, the latest poll - the respected Mason-Dixon poll - shows McCain leading Obama 48% to 45%. The race is still neck and neck. The election will certainly be decided on the margins by which candidate can get his voters to the polls. But to get to the polls, you have to be registered to vote.

 I am told that even Homer Simpson is registered to vote this year:

Second most if not all the Egyptian newspapers spoke about this debate more than the original debate of Obama-McCain. Most of the newspapers consider Biden a winner despite they paid their respect to the strength of Palin, no one can deny that Palin stood against the Congressman veteran more than we expected and imagine. Still all newspapers attacked Palin and Biden saying that there was no much difference between them in kissing Israel’s ass.

This is what I think both were like in bid for proving who will serve Israel the 51 state of the United States of America more , the Zionist Biden or Palin who has the Israeli flag in her office “Already this is the first time I know that a governor in a remote state would have a flag of a foreign country in his/her office !!??”

There is not big surprise here ,of course it is expected but I must highlight some points that astonished me.

I was surprised to find out that the United States and France succeeded in expelling Hezbollah outside of South Lebanon !!?? This is according to Biden the 30 years congressman veteran in foreign affairs !!

Of course he means that United States and France succeeded in expelling the Shiite Party from the South Lebanon in another life in another world !!

The man forgot that the so-democratic government now is made of Hezbollah and 14th of March !!!

Now to the newcomer.

It is first time to know that transferring American Embassy to Jerusalem will help in Peace process and establishing the Palestinian State !! As you can see all their remarks are in the sake of Israel despite their stupidity

Anyhow again the democrats believe that they won that debate and the republicans believe that their Hockey mom won it , the show is on and the whole world is watching especially us.

Part of the middle East especially the Gulf States are watching the elections for the economic reasons especially after the economic crisis , they are the Gulf countries that we will be affected where as us and the rest of the confront countries as they are called watching for the Peace Process ,Iraq,Iran and democratic reforms.

Another thing I heard a very bad rumour that Mubarak and son regime is trying to open direct channels with Obama , if this is true ,then Obama must give them cold face.

“About that catch in his throat: in the moment, he ‘could picture Beau in the bed’ after the 1972 car accident that killed Biden’s first wife, Neilia, and their baby girl and critically injured his young sons. Now Beau, the 39-year-old attorney general of Delaware, was off to war, a judge advocate general traveling to obscure regions of Iraq, where the road isn’t exactly the safest place to be. The memory of being a single parent mixed with worries about Beau to create ‘a lot of bundled emotions. It surprised me. I was hoping nobody noticed.’ Only 70 million or so did.”

He also gives an interesting insight into Barack Obama’s character:

“Biden says Obama reminds him of Bill Clinton in his ‘confidence, cognitive ability, judgment’ and intellectual security - that he can listen and absorb advice without having to prove he’s the smartest person in the room, a critical leadership skill.

He says he experienced an ‘epiphany’ during a recent conference call on the bailout bill with Bob Rubin, Paul Volcker, Warren Buffett, Paul O’Neill, Joseph Stiglitz, Larry Summers and Laura Tyson. ‘He [Obama] comes on the call and says, ‘Well, folks, sorry I’m late. I’ve got four questions.’ He was in total frigging command! Here’s a 47-year-old guy in one of the most complicated economic dilemmas anyone has had to face since 1929 to ‘33. And it was like, ‘Bang! Bang! Bang!’ I called him afterward and said, ‘You sold me, sucker!’”

Look at Palin’s post-debate bump!

(More good news here)

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Those bold contenders of the US vice-presidency, so keen to prove their mettle when it comes to "defence", hid like rabbits from the epicentre of the Middle East earthquake: the existence of a Palestinian people. Sure, there was talk of a "two-state" solution, but it would have mystified anyone who didn't understand the region.

“So that’s the clash. McCain, the known quantity, the maverick turned lawman, fiery when called on to fight, an icon of the old known American story of standing tall, holding firm, protecting God’s country against the stealthy foe. Obama is the new kid on the block, the immigrant’s child, the recruit, fervent but still preternaturally calm, embodying some complicated future that we haven’t yet mapped, let alone experienced. He is impure — the walking, talking melting pot in person. In his person, the next America is still taking shape.

“The warrior turned lawman confronts the community organizer turned law professor. The sheriff (who married the heiress) wrestles with the outsider who rode into town and made a place for himself. No wonder this race is thrilling and tense. America is struggling to fasten a name on its soul.”

Barbadian diaspora blogger Doan Mind Me uses humour (and a touch of local parlance) to downplay his concerns:

The potential vice-president of the United States of America did not just get up in a televised debate and give a “shout out” to somebody. Ya lie! I mean I already knew she was sorta ghetto, what given the chile names and the pregnant teenager but still she like she was trying to prove her bona fides last night.

Look there is a time and place for everything. A live nationally televised debate was not the place to give shout outs. It tells me your vocabulary is limited or you don't have the sense to know when to use certain types of language. Leave that sorta talk to the fellas on ESPN and Sportsnet and people like me dat duz blog.

The glaring double standard is also not lost on him:

How it would look if Obama was giving a presentation and say yea I wanta thank my boy O-G Joe Biden for hooking me up with these figures and Michelle for the slamming PowerPoint slides. Everybody would be looking at the man like he gone off or something. Plus you would hear how he inarticulate and he ghetto and he sound like a rapper and all sort of stuff so. But let Palin do that and suddenly she folksy and cute and represent the everyday Joe sixpack.

Get the bleep outta here!

Living in Barbados has a similar take on the situation:

It was a fascinating contrast on display. In the past weeks we had been led to believe that Governor Palin was “gaffable”; an almost total “ditz”–not too smart; more than a bit folksy in her spoken manner (saying “Darnit” a lot); trying to sound ordinary by talking about “Joe Six Pack”, and hockey moms; out of her depth on any of the serious issues that we expect to hear top politicians talk on about. But, she had shown that she could learn a script, though unfortunately could not do more than recite the words (”She's a nauseating puppet”, my wife said in her text message from St. Kitts last night), and sometimes not in the right order. What was she saying by the repetition of the “all of the above” approach? Was this something on the brief that she needed to read to find out that there were some substantive arguments to make? Did she under that she asked for widening the constitutional role of the vice president? Maybe her wink at the camera was an ominous warning.

Ah, the wink. A ploy that did not sit well with Jdid:

Oh and what was with the winking? Looka me an she ain't nuh friends, we ain't share no inside joke, so either she got an involuntary tick in she eye or she was trying to get fresh wid me pun tv. And she coulda at least wink at muh when the wife wasn't sitting next to me.

Tongue in cheek, Living in Barbados says “you have to admire the single-mindedness of Gov. Palin”…

No matter what the question, she turned it back to her answers, and the two pillars of almost all her replies were “energy” and “tax reductions”. Ms. Ifill asked about a bankruptcy bill; Gov. Palin gave a cursory reply then came back with “I think that this is important to come back to, with that energy policy plan…” She spoke with energy, on energy issues, on energy plans, on renewable energy, about energy-producing states, about energy independence, and on and on. But there was very little substance to the answers.

…but he seems genuinely impressed by how Senator Biden handled the debate:

I admired Sen. Biden for not blinking doe-like in the same fashion as Katie Couric, but it was a hard thing not to do. Staying with the reported strategy, he did not focus much on Gov. Palin, but on the Bush-McCain nexus, including a nicely aimed kick at Vice President Cheney, whom he said “has been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history”.

He surmises:

What I saw also were clear attempts to connect to ordinary people. These two candidates are really reluctant heroes in not choosing to run for the highest offices, but were plucked onto the wagon to give each side something that was missing and would hopefully seal enough votes for the presidential candidates. Sen. Palin has her simple family story and told it often. Gov. Biden too has a simple family story, even though he now has a better life than with which he began.

For Living in Barbados, there was one defining moment of the entire debate:

When he (Biden) choked on recalling these difficulties of his own life, it was notable that Gov. Palin did not offer a word of common sympathy or acknowledgment, but came back with: “People aren't looking for more of the same. They are looking for change. And John McCain has been the consummate maverick in the Senate over all these years.” That for me was more telling than the rest of the debate. Gov. Palin had been too coached to respond to anything that was being said to her and her pat answer says volumes about what is really at work.

Jdid chimes in:

Oh and just because.
maverick, maverick maverick maverick, maverick.
Sorry just had to get that out my system.

As if the debate itself weren't enough fodder for bloggers, Sarah Palin went and attacked Barack Obama over William Ayers. Trinidad and Tobago diaspora blogger Mocha Soul Child has this to say:

After her stunning victory of a mediocre performance at the debates, Palin launched another attack at the Obama camp. It was clear from the debate that Palin does not support negotiations with “terrorist states” without preconditions.

If, she had followed that line of reason, I would be inclined to say she had a real debatable question in her hot little hands.

But instead of taking the high road, she lays it in the gutter, casting doubt on his patriotism, instead of debating the issues. The fundamental statement the McCain-Palin ticket seem to be making is “He's not one of us.” Why else would you attack Obama's patriotism and his Americanness, when there are plenty of real issues they could address such as the value of meeting with enemy nations without preconditions?

Why attack Obama on his patriotism, when it would be so much more salient to question him on foreign policy? It tinges on the the verge of something far nastier, something no one who supports senator Obama can even acknowledge for fear of alienating white voters, but is there, just as the blatant sexism in this race to the white house.

Personal, character attacks began during the weekend, when Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin accused Barack Obama of “palling around with terrorists.” She was referring to Obama’s alleged association with Bill Ayers, a founding member of the Weather Underground — not to be confused with the uber-chic '60s band the Velvet Underground. The Weather Underground, also known as the Weathermen were a left-wing terror group implicated in a series of bombings across the United States between 1970 and 1974, namely, the New York City police house, a toilet in the U.S. Senate Building, a woman’s restroom in the Pentagon, a San Francisco police station, a Marin County Courthouse and the Presidio Army base in San Francisco.

According to the Alaskan governor, both Obama and Ayers often attended the same social functions and once sat on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, an anti-poverty group. They also live within a few blocks of each other on Chicago’s north side. The Washington Post blog Fact Checker found that Ayers, who is now a distinguished professor of Education at the University of Illinois-Chicago, contributed $200 to Obama’s re-election fund to the Illinois State Senate in 2001. Ayers never served a prison sentence for his role in the Weathermen, but admitted in a memoir he didn’t regret setting the bombs.

The whole thing adds up to the Fact Checker calling the link between the two “tenuous.”

Next, it was Obama’s turn to rekindle some of John McCain’s past. Bloomberg reports that the Obama campaign has constructed a new website with videos reminding voters how McCain is a member of the Keating Five, a group of Senators accused of improperly intervening with federal regulators on behalf of their financial backer, Charles Keating, the owner of a failed Savings and Loan. When Keating’s Saving and Loan went belly up, more than 23,000 bondholders were drafauded and the U.S. government stepped in, becoming liable for $2 billion in loses. (Fact Checker hasn’t gotten around to these claims, but according to the Arizona Republic, McCain's help to Keating was in “poor judgment.”)

“I think it is safe to say this presidential campaign has thus far been cleaner than the last two, with only one truly nasty attack ad,” writes dubaiwalla, from Dubai, in his Livejournal page.

Look for that to change over the next month, as John McCain attempts to roll the dice one last time by questioning Barack Obama's character in a bid to cut into his comfortable lead. And if he does, expect to hear a lot more about his own past, and that of his running mate. My personal prediction is that the polls will close a bit, as McCain spends all the cash he has hoarded. But with the combination of a lead in cash, good poll numbers in every swing state (plus some traditionally Republican ones), and a strong ground presence, I am very optimistic about Obama's chances. The economic crisis should amount to a coffin nail.

From the Public Opinion weblog at the Thought Factory, run out of Australia, McCain’s fade in the opinion polls leave his camp with only one tactic left: personal attacks.

The Guardian reports that the economic crisis has led to a haemorrhaging of Republican support over the last two weeks. Polls and reports from Democratic and Republican campaign staff on the ground suggest that a seismic shift is taking place in the electoral map in favour of the Democrats. Obama is making inroads into states once regarded as safe Republican areas, while the number of states in which McCain is competitive is narrowing, mainly because of the Wall Street collapse.

I'm not so sure that it is that cut and dried. McCain can still win narrowly–like Bush did…So what then for McCain? A turn in tactics? To negative adverts? A smear campaign? To shift the campaign discussion away from substantive issues, such as the economy or health care? McCain needs to try and divert attention from the economy.

As Bloomberg points out that the character attacks — as they are now called — puts the Obama camp, and its message of hope, in a predicament. How can you try to preach change and be vindictive at the same time?

From a writer called CLARENCEGIRL, blogging in North Country Voices in Australia:

Both the Republicans and Democrats are naturally trying to control media spin in the 2008 US presidential election.

Cease and desist letters are flying back and forth between candidates and lobby groups (such as the National Rifle Association), as well as between media outlets and the Obama and McCain campaign machines.Legal action is apparently being regularly threatened over a broad area.

After a failed attempt to allegedly buy internet censorship, Obama has relied on a number of websites in his attempt to control this spin.
His Fight the Smears site asks for help in spreading the ‘truth' about political rumours and falsehoods.

However, his supporters appear to be going a little overboard and are apparently attempting to censor what goes up on the Internet.

However, bloggers around the world are calling into question using attack campaigning at all. From a liberal perspective, but one with political experience, Duncan Riley from Australia argues that both John McCain and Sarah Palin deserved to win their debates: They spoke more in key points, used their grand narrative well, articulated the negatives of the other candidate and lectured on their fighting spirit while their opponents conversed less in sound bites and more often took a positive approach. “Everything I’ve learnt from years in politics,” Duncan confesses, “told me that McCain won the debate.”

I was wrong. Every poll showed that Obama won. It was a triumph of substance over style, of a positive message trumping a more negative one.

If we can, let’s get beyond the partisanship of the post and focus on the nuts and bolts of the argument. Why could Obama grow his lead after these head-to-head encounters? By becoming more aggressive and resorting to more personal attacks, are the Republicans fighting the previous war?

The electorate is changing.

At a time of economic crisis, and with wars on several fronts, the American people are looking past the politics of old, the politics of negative spin and sound bites, and want something more. It can be the only explanation for Obama and Biden winning both debates among swinging/ undecided voters in particular. Intelligence and a deep understanding of the issues are less of a crime in 2008.

There’s also the defeat of narrative + negativity over positives and intellect. Notice how McCain in the first debate referred to his experience in Vietnam, and how Palin said that only McCain knows how to fight and win. Being in a POW camp deserves respect, but it doesn’t give you a special ability to run the free world over your opponent. Notice Palin’s constant references to Alaska, and hockey moms, and her disabled child, having 5 children, running a small community etc etc…great narrative that may connect on some levels, but it’s no longer a vote winner over what you are capable of delivering and what your policies are.
Change starts from the ground up. If the polls continue, and Obama wins in a landslide (or something close to it), the people of the United States will join others in Australia and the United Kingdom in finally rejecting the negative politics that became the defining factor of all three in the late 90s and into the first decade of the 21st century. We’ll only know in November.

In somewhat of the same vein, Jeremiah Haber, from Jerusalem, who writes the Magnes Zionist blog takes New York Times columnist 46422 at http://www.opendemocracy.net Wednesday to pull out of Michigan--a state which Democrat John Kerry edged with a margin of just over 3 percentage points in 2004 and was highly sought after by GOP strategists in the build-up to this year's election cycle--illustrates the increasingly bleak electoral college picture facing the Republican presidential nominee with just 31 days of campaigning left until polling day. Of the thirteen competitive states widely identified prior to this year's election as being pivotal to either candidate's hopes of success--Michigan, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin--Barack Obama currently holds strong leads in 6 and is polling ahead but within the margin of error in another 5; McCain, in contrast, leads Obama by no more than 2 percentage points in both Indiana and Missouri.

While the Republican exodus in the Wolverine state will invariably free up resources and staff for use in more tightly fought races in North Carolina and nearby Ohio, failure to transform these assets into tangible and substantive strategic gains within the coming weeks would mean that, as it currently stands, McCain faces the prospect of emerging from the aforementioned battleground states with a paltry 22 electoral votes out of a possible 168--a defeat so comprehensive that it would all but guarantee a Democratic victory.

The reaction to McCain's announcement amongst local operatives, both Democrat and within his own party, has so far proven mixed: concerned about the morale amongst advocates still campaigning on the Republican's behalf, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson noted that, "when the general leaves the battle field when the fight's still going it creates a lot of chaos." The decision also drew similar criticism from the chairman of the state party, Saul Anuzis. Fearing that McCain's departure would only serve as a catalyst for third party surrogates to fill the void with an array of attack ads, Democratic spokesman Lt. Governor John D. Cherry was more measured in his response, saying that, "I think the announcement you're reading is an invitation for independent groups to come in and do that sort of thing."

The Boston Globe and Huffington Post, meanwhile, are speculating that McCain's decision may signal the first of several pullouts, given that the Republican faces similarly sizeable polling deficits in states with far more costly media markets, such as Pennsylvania.

“One of the individuals in the caucus today talked about a major insurance company. A major insurance company — one with a name that everyone knows that’s on the verge of going bankrupt. That’s what this is all about,” Reid said.

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

That all depends on Obama’s numbers holding up over the next 30 days. Will they? There is not long to go, but there is always the possibility of an ‘October surprise’ – an unexpected event which hurts or helps one candidate, like Osama Bin Laden’s release of a video on October 29th, 2004. Absent that, the dire state of the economy is likely to be at the forefront of people’s minds as they head into the voting booths – and that helps Obama.

But it’s as opposed to talking about how John McCain and Sarah Palin are maaaavericks; and how John McCain was a POW. Did you know he was a POW?

Yes, faced with plummeting polling figures (hurrah!), the McCain campaign is planning to attack Barack Obama relentlessly until election day (boo!).

It is, as they say, all they have left.

From the Washington Post:

“Sen. John McCain and his Republican allies are readying a newly aggressive assault on Sen. Barack Obama’s character, believing that to win in November they must shift the conversation back to questions about the Democrat’s judgment, honesty and personal associations, several top Republicans said.

With just a month to go until Election Day, McCain’s team has decided that its emphasis on the senator’s biography as a war hero, experienced lawmaker and straight-talking maverick is insufficient to close a growing gap with Obama. The Arizonan’s campaign is also eager to move the conversation away from the economy, an issue that strongly favors Obama and has helped him to a lead in many recent polls.

‘We’re going to get a little tougher,’ a senior Republican operative said, indicating that a fresh batch of television ads is coming. ‘We’ve got to question this guy’s associations. Very soon. There’s no question that we have to change the subject here,’ said the operative, who was not authorized to discuss strategy and spoke on the condition of anonymity.”

But guess what? The Obama campaign is responding by… getting their attacks in first - yay! - and releasing an ad tomorrow which calls John McCain “erratic in a crisis”. Apparently this move by the Obama camp is called ‘political jujitsu’. Sounds dreadfully foreign and terrorist-like to me.