If you want to know the latest political advice from Palestinian group blog KABOBfest on whether to vote for Democratic candidate Barack Obama or Republican John McCain, the answer is clear: Don't vote.

Suggesting Arab Americans not vote on November 4, QuiQui writes:

How about we hear not one. single. word. of complaint for the next four years from those who are about to vote the trash in next Tuesday to replace the garbage they voted in eight years ago?

Arab Americans were asked vote for George W. Bush in 2000 in swing states like Florida by the same people now asking that Arab Americans living in swing states vote for Obama.

How about the Arab American leadership like those from the Arab American Institute stop trying to lead.

How about Arab Americans sit this one out. How about Arab Americans not vote. That way, this time, you can have every right to complain when Obama or McCain screw everything up.

How about, instead of the call to play ping-pong between Republicans and Democrats every four years, we hear calls to spend our energies on imagining and living under genuine democracy. Ways that do not rely on “leaders” to partake in the impossibility of “representation.” Ways that encourage us to do politics every day — not once every two or four years.

Electoral politics is not politics, yet we allow it to the be beginning and the end of our democracy oligarchy. Asking that everyone participate in this system is not going to change it any. On the contrary, it only legitimizes it and renders it our only thinkable solution.

Canadian blogger Darryl Wolk disagrees, though questions whether people are tired of Obamamania.

Darryl is glad the U.S. election nears to a close:

In 5 days, I will no longer be writing about the US election after blogging about it since 2006. It has been a historic primary. An African-American candidate for President. Two prominent women Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton taking center stage and breaking down barriers for women. A slate of political all stars running in both primaries that included Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards and Joe Biden. We have seen endorsements, debates, speeches, a revolutionary internet campaign and a presidential election that really started following the last mid-term race in 2006. Millions have been raised and spent. The campaigning is basically over. The focus now for both sides must be getting out the vote on the ground, particularily in the swing states. This campaign has been exciting and turnout is going to be extremely high.

How do Wolk and Canadians feel about McCain and Obama?

Read on:

John McCain says he is running on change and that he is different from Bush. His policies are the same and his campaign has been nothing but mudslinging and negative attacks. Obama wants to build America up while McCain is focused on tearing Obama down. His low road attacks are not based in truth and his polling numbers show that Americans have rejected the recycled “liberal”, “tax and spend”, “socialist” and “weak on national security” labels that have been used in past campaigns. I have not seen one person comment about how George W. Bush has done a good job or has been a great president. People on the right and left are united in calling Bush one of the worst presidents in United States history. Unfortunately, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result. It is time for real change.

Barack Obama has been tested during these past two years. He has made an immediate impact in the senate dealing with arms control and ethics. He has experience in the state legislature. His campaign has been about unity and moving America forward. He offers the change that Americans and the world are demanding. His platform (or the video last night) shows that many of his policies are no different than what Conservatives are offering in Canada. Unlike McCain, we know exactly where we stands. He is running on the economy, an area McCain admits he is not up to speed on.

As for the future, will Sarah Palin run for the presidency in 2012? Thomas Ash of British-American project openUSA ponders that intellectual question over several paragraphs, with the following conclusion and an assumption about next week's victory:

Assuming McCain loses, she is bound to attract some of the blame. Her popularity in Alaska shows signs of decreasing from its (very high) initial base, and events there may yet damage her. She will face formidable opponents, possibly including a better-funded Mike Huckabee and a re-energised Mitt Romney (whose former staffers have been involved in spreading anti-Palin spin to reporters, according to the American Spectator). And, awkward though it is to say so, her looks - which constitute a significant part of her appeal for some people - will begin to fade as she goes from 44 to 48.

Should Arab Americans stay away from the polls?

Will Obama occupy the White House?

And will maverick and hot mama Palin lose her looks by 2012?

Thoughts?

How will she fare in the TV debates against the veteran politicker Biden? Will Palin’s history of running for Miss Alaska back when Obama was applying to Harvard Law School help balance the whole “celebrity” schtick? We’ll have to wait and see over the next two months (which could be a very long two months of infuriating sexism levelled against a different female candidate this time (the concept of vpilf.com is especially obstreperating)). But if the McCain campaign has chosen a woman at least partly to appeal to Hillary supporters, well: anti-abortion advocate Palin is not the woman those disaffected Dems are looking for, that’s for sure. How insulting to left-leaning women generally for the GOP to think that she could be: as if all that matters to Hillary supporters is that Hillary was a woman, so Palin is interchangeable just because she’s a woman too.

What I do find interesting though is that in McCain choosing a woman as VP who’s more socially conservative than he is, he is playing to the potentially disaffected Republican base, those people who won’t vote Obama in a million years but who might very well choose to stay home rather than vote McCain - Palin might just tip enough of them into turning up at the polls. Obama’s choice of Biden, oddly, appears to be also playing particularly to the potentially disaffected Republican base (who, remember, mostly wouldn’t vote Obama in a million years). This is not to say that Biden doesn’t have any strong points on the left side of the balance, but his particular strength for the combined ticket is as a centrist with some hawkish credentials. Why aim to appeal to the right more than to the base of Democrats feeling alienated, Dems who were willing to vote for him earlier this year if he ended up the nominee but who now have doubts because he’s been equivocating on their core issues as part of running after swinging Republicans (a pattern repeated by the last few Dem presidential campaigns - why do they keep running after the right instead of shoring up the left? how many Congress majorities do they have to lose to get the message?).

Of course McCain chose a Veep to appeal to his base on the Right rather than any possible swing from the Left. Most of those people who read carefully are well aware that the PUMA phenomenon is over-hyped, a media narrative picked up and blown out of all proportion. The resentment is there in bucketsful, sure (including a couple of bloggers who’ve been on my feed reader for ages and who regularly rant in fine PUMA style). There’s especially heaps of resentment that traditional pro-forma procedures acknowledging close contenders were banned from happening by the DNC just for this convention: nevertheless that doesn’t mean that a majority of Hillary supporters are going to vote for McCain out of spite (a term with interesting connotations), especially in a swing state - they can count the numbers on the Supreme Court as well as anybody.

But what about the disaffected Dems living in states that are solidly red or blue in presidential elections? Where a small proportion of those not toeing either party line cannot influence the electoral college result, but whose vote can strategically influence other results? Those who perhaps initially supported Edwards as a check against corporatism, then who may have voted for Hillary in the primaries because of her determination regarding healthcare, and who’ve never particularly been convinced that Obama is strong in the areas that matter most to them? The Greens for one are going to pick up plenty of votes, enough to allow them to develop their party funding base and become a more influential party in the next election and the election after that. The perception that the Dem National Committee has simply ignored their concerns could also hurt a lot of Dems running for Congress/Senate at the State and local levels - the Dems could conceivably win a Presidency that has to cope with a hostile Congress and more Republican/Independent Governors than ever before.

At the beginning of this year, there were plenty of Dem voters looking at the candidacies of Edwards, Clinton and Obama and thinking “wow, this is great, I could happily vote for any of them, we’re not only going to sweep the Presidency we’ll sweep both Houses as well”. That general cross-candidate goodwill has largely evaporated amongst many Dems who first supported other contenders because they feel that their vote is being demanded as an entitlement rather than having their issues considered in the way that the issues of disaffected Republicans are being considered.

Even worse, people who are not fully on board with Obama, even those who are just saying “I’ll vote for him, but I’m not that happy about it” are reporting that others both online and in their social/family circles are bullying them for not being evangelically pro-Obama. That sort of bullying is not going to convince hold-their-nose Obama voters to become fervid supporters and evangelists for Obama-Biden, but it may well push them into not voting for any other Dem on the ticket for all those other elections in November.

There comes a point when people should just be satisfied (though not complacent) that the numbers are falling their way with the potential to get even better. No need to get true-believer on people’s arses as well.

A few reporters admitted they knew of the candidate’s infidelities with a videographer long before John Edwards provided proof in a recent statement from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. In fact, the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer had been reporting the story for nearly a year. Now that it has proven true, at least some members of the mainstream media establishment are soul searching and shockedthat they sat on it for so long, especially when papers such as the New York Times reported on the alleged affairs of presumptive Republican nominee for President John McCain.

For reid (1053), a commentator at Kiwiblog, not reporting the story doesn’t prove the impotence of the mainstream press in the United States. Rather, holding “scandals” over candidates’ heads anoints the media as kingmakers.

The media have got enough to screw either McCain or Obama and it just depends which one those who control the agenda want to become POTUS. I said in Jan/Feb that the media will hold the dirt on Obama until about 4 weeks before the vote when it’s too late to do anything about it. (I imagine that homosexual trysts fueled by cocaine will be enough to prevent the first black candidate from being elected.)

At present that prediction still stands but as Adolf has pointed out on No Minister, Shillary hasn’t released her delegates and that’s an interesting wild card. Note though that there’s dirt on her too.

I find it amusing that some people really seem to think the US elections are free and open. They’re anything but.

One of the reasons the story stayed in the news — at least the supermarket press — is that Reille Hunter, the object of Edward’s affection, became pregnant out of wedlock. (Hunter gave birth to a daughter on February 27, 2008.) Edwards, once a Senator from North Carolina, said he is not the father of the child.

A minor debate in the blogosphere targets the fallen image of John Edwards, who was once seen as a charismatic politician who this election cycle helped push working-class poverty to a more prominent place in the political debate.

Shiloh Musings, a blog in Israel, writes:

I remember how upset people were when it was revealed that JFK (and the other men in the family) weren't loyal to their wives. It's so hard to keep one's illusions, to believe what we see. I feel sorry for the young.

Over at the Cuban-American blog babalú, there’s plenty of talk about two-faced Democrats, who have now gown through two major infidelity scandals in the past decade: “Good old liberals….every hair in place during TV speeches…But after 5:30 PM, some R&R.”

On the other hand, Egypt’s own Rantings of a Sandmonkey considers himself an Edwards fan, stating “ I like my politicians the way I like my lawyers- scummy, fake, manipulative and pretty.”

Sandmonkey, however, holds out no compassion for Elizabeth Edwards, who after the 2004 election, learned she had breast cancer.

But before you feel bad for his wife, please take a minute and chill. Don't think she is a victim. Ok, so she has cancer, that makes her a cancer victim, but come on, u get the idea. She knew of the affair in 2006, and still supported his running for office in 2008, knowing full well that if that thing exploded around general election time- and of lookie, it just did- the chances of the Dems winning the presidency would've been close to nill. But she went ahead anyway, aware of the affair, and keeping her mouth shut, defending him, appearing everywhere, using her cancer to guilt people into donating to their campaign and most recently to get herself a speaking gig at the convention- in order to get that coveted female terminal cancer victims whose husbands cheated on them demographic, it's soo important- and a Think Tank job. The woman's ambition and complicity puts Hillary's to shame, and now that Hillary knows that, she is probably glad that Elizabeth has cancer.

http://voiceswithoutvotes.org/2008/08/18/living-me-and-elizabeth-edwards/ No scandal gossip here. Press coverage of Elizabeth Edwards' metastatic breast cancer has me steamed, and as a sister cancer patient, I want to say something about it. My story with breast cancer parallels Elizabeth's. Elizabeth Edwards and I are both *living* with cancer. We are alive!

Well, it seems the answer to that question is..weirdly enough..John Kerry:

Kerry talked with several potential picks, including Gephardt and
Edwards. He was comfortable after his conversations with Gephardt, but
even queasier about Edwards after they met. Edwards had told Kerry he
was going to share a story with him that he'd never told anyone
else—that after his son Wade had been killed, he climbed onto the slab
at the funeral home, laid there and hugged his body, and promised that
he'd do all he could to make life better for people, to live up to
Wade's ideals of service. Kerry was stunned, not moved, because, as he
told me later, Edwards had recounted the same exact story to him,
almost in the exact same words, a year or two before—and with the same
preface, that he'd never shared the memory with anyone else. Kerry said
he found it chilling, and he decided he couldn't pick Edwards unless he
met with him again.

This is the man whose wife found out that her cancer was back in march 2007, and father a kid in february 2008. Our boy cheated on his cancer-stricken wife. No wonder he was talking about two Americas, he was sleeping in two bedrooms, one in each America. But before you feel bad for his wife, please take a minute and chill. Don't think she is a victim. Ok, so she has cancer, that makes her a cancer victim, but come on, u get the idea. She knew of the affair in 2006, and still supported his running for office in 2008, knowing full well that if that thing exploded around general election time- and of lookie, it just did- the chances of the Dems winning the presidency would've been close to nill. But she went ahead anyway, aware of the affair, and keeping her mouth shut, defending him, appearing everywhere, using her cancer to guilt people into donating to their campaign and most recently to get herself a speaking gig at the convention- in order to get that coveted female terminal cancer victims whose husbands cheated on them demographic, it's soo important- and a Think Tank job. The woman's ambition and complicity puts Hillary's to shame, and now that Hillary knows that, she is probably glad that Elizabeth has cancer. I mean that kind of brazen immorality combined with manipulating people's emotions and guilt has always been Hillary's shtick, and now comes Edwards wife, whose husband also cheated on her while she is battling cancer and after she lost a son? Hillary can't win against that in 2012. That's some heavy heavy guilt.

Alas, too bad, I always liked Edwards (I like my politicians the way I like my lawyers- scummy, fake, manipulative and pretty. Hallo, I did endorse Obama, people. That should tell you something) and the nice little image of the American dream realized that he and his wife have presented to us so well. No longer will women lament how they never got a man this decent, who is attractive, young-looking and a millionaire, and yet won't cheat on his old fat wife. They once again got their fantasy shattered and will continue to believe that we are all the same. Thanks John, you dick, for ruining even that for us. Now go chase an ambulance, you will need the money, having a new-born baby to raise that you probably hate now and everything. Enjoy.

John Edwards, who campaigned throughout the 2008 Democratic primaries alongside his family -- and made his marriage a central part of his overall message -- was dealt a political blow Friday after admitting to having an extramarital affair. He denied, however, being the father of the woman's child, as tabloid reports have alleged.

The former North Carolina senator, who was often mentioned as a possible candidate for Sen. Barack Obama's vice presidential pick, does not believe his admission will have a long-lasting impact on his career.

Democratic strategist and CNN contributor Paul Begala said Edwards' affair will result in a "larger loss of faith in institutions." "But keep in mind, you know, John Edwards did not order that anyone be tortured. He did not violate the Geneva Convention. He did not forge a document to lead us into a war. He cheated on his wife," he said.

But I am still somewhat amazed when it is revealed that a senior US politician has been cheating on his wife - how could they think they would get away with it when there are 100 journalists following them about.

So John Edwards’ political career is over. The fact his wife is dying from cancer (and he had exploited this) makes it far worse for him than a normal affair. Add onto that the fact he lied repeatedly about it, and his Finance Chair was paying off the woman (from campaign funds I presume) and the man who calimed to the father of the child of Edward’s girlfriend - well I can’t see a rehabilitation around the corner.

I have to say I can’t imagine Obama ever cheating on Michelle Obama. And McCain’s cheating (hopefully) is in his past.

The Enquirer scooped everybody on this story because it paid for it. The so-called professionals scoff at The Enquirer because it pays its sources, which supposedly violates a journalistic canon which is nowhere to be found in the annals of journalism and which all great editors and reporters have “violated” both before and after the dissemination of news became some kind of vocation. They expect, of course, to be paid themselves for what they report but are loathe to pay anyone else. Can anything be more hilarious than the churlishness of Woodruff and Bernstein when Deep Throat finally emerged from the shadows to outscoop them and collect a long overdue pay day (which would have been theirs had they been left to disclose his identity posthumously)? Money is a less toxic motivation than most. Hatred, envy, the desire to wreak vengeance — all these can disfigure the truth more and are less reliable than the profit motive. Yet informants with the basest motives can pass muster so long as they do not expect to be compensated for their information while those with the most transparent motive of all are shunted aside as mercenary. None of it makes any sense unless one regards newsgathering as the exclusive domain of journalists, or, rather, their own monopoly. That, of course, would be very foolish indeed.

Something else distinguishes The Enquirer from its mainsteam competition. Although decidedly conservative in its defense of family values — because it publishes sleeze does not mean that it is on the side of the sleezeballs — The National Enquirer is not a right-wing or even a politically-driven publication. If I remember correctly it was also the first to expose Newt Gingrich's infidelities. Gingrich went a step farther than Edwards when he asked his cancer-stricken wife on her deathbed for a divorce so he could marry his mistress. Well, maybe Edwards is working his way up to that.

When the MSM finally reported the Edwards story it repeatedly asked in mock indignation: “What would have happened if Edwards had been the Democratic nominee instead of Obama?” Having crowned Obama as the nominee long before he had secured the nomination, and even when Hillary's overwhelming lead in super delegates made it unlikely that he would be the nominee if the Michigan and Florida delegates were seated, the media's speculation about a “what if Edwards?” is the most lackadaisical of all hypotheticals. And it begs a response: “What if any of the stories which The Enquirer has published about Barack Obama over the last year proves as devastatingly accurate as its reportage on Edwards?”

What if?

Among such sites is Who the World Wants, which aims polls non-Americans, giving them the choice between selecting Republican Party candidate John McCain or Democratic Party nominee Barack Obama.

“This website is intended to finding out who the world outside the United States of America wants as a President for your country. Please, if you are a United States Citizen, DO NOT VOTE (you get to vote for real),” says the announcement on the site.

So far, the results show Obama as a global favourite, with 1,032 votes in his favour, against McCain's 685 global fans.

Another site sharing a similar idea is Who Would the World Elect? On this site, Republican Ron Paul is the forerunner, with close to 67,000 votes from around the world. Obama is a far second with 21,000 votes while former Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton is a third, with around 6,800 votes. The site, which has so far seen 118,332 votes cast, also has a listing of where the votes came from, and for whom.

From Afghanistan, for instance, eight people have had their say as follows:

3 votes for Ron Paul
3 votes for Hillary Clinton
2 votes for Barack Obama

Australia too favours Ron Paul, with 1,267 votes for him. The other results are as follows:

710 votes for Barack Obama
176 votes for Hillary Clinton
97 votes for Dennis Kucinich
72 votes for Mike Gravel
28 votes for John Edwards
27 votes for Rudy Giuliani
13 votes for John McCain
11 votes for Fred Thompson
8 votes for Mitt Romney
5 votes for Chris Dodd
4 votes for Joe Biden
4 votes for Mike Huckabee
4 votes for Bill Richardson
3 votes for Sam Brownback
3 votes for Tom Tancredo
2 votes for Duncan Hunter
2 votes for Ralph Nader

For a full listing of how people in other countries have voted, click here.

What if we all voted? is yet another site, operating on the same principle. The site describes itself as:

a simple poll* of who the world would vote for in the upcoming US presidential election… if they could.

Obama leads the polls on this site and the full results can be found here.

It shows Edwards at the top of his litigation game –brutal yet never a moment emotional lost in the violence of his words. I've watched this now several times and I have to say, it is one of the most breath taking moments in political history.

It is without a doubt what cross many people's minds when the rumor about him getting an Attorney General nod in the Obama administration was floated earlier this year. Rumor or not, I have to say, chalk me in for making it a reality. John Edwards for United States Attorney General would wipe away the tortureful memories of John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales' tenures as USAGs.

From India, Pickled Politics puts it concisely:

It’s been a long time coming but John Edwards has finally endorsed Barack Obama…

…Another nail in the coffin for the Clinton campaign…

The World Wants Obama Coalition, a blog set up to demonstrate Obama's popularity worldwide, believes that the endorsement will break barriers:

In his landmark endorsement of Senator Obama in Grand Rapids, Michigan today, former Presidential candidate John Edwards emphasised the importance of restoring Americas moral authority and image in the world. The evidence collected on this website from dozens of countries demonstrates that Senator Obama has the backing of world public opinion and, if he governs as President according to the ideals that have excited us in his campaign, then we believe he will indeed be able to pull down the dividing wall that Edwards talks about:

A Political Glimpse from Ireland shares a theory on the endorsement:

My theory on the Edwards endorsement is that the Democratic Party leaders have had a meeting and said that Senator Obama is the nominee. In order to appease Clinton supporters and heal the party, they have allowed her to continue on but pressed the remaining Superdelegates and anyone with some political power to openly endorse Senator Obama so that this drawn out process can be done by the end of May. What does everyone else think? To answer the question to what a alot of people have been asking; Yes, I think the endorsement does matter and it will help Senator Obama.

Vivir Latino from Puerto Rico finds the suspense exciting:

Now, you know Hillary is probably pissed off about this one. Now all eyes turn to former Vice President Al Gore. Will he endorse Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama? The suspense is better than a novela!!!