A couple of days ago I asked on this blog and some others, not at all sarcastically, when the McRacists would start lynching Obama in effigy. This is close enough....

McRabbleRouser needs to be forced to publically denounce this.

53-43 for BHO, according to ABC.  Also - Bush is at 23/73, which is the worst in the history of the poll, Nixon included.  Not bad at all.

Bush Oil Dancing!

copyright © 2008 Betsy L. Angert.  BeThink.org

"Drill baby, drill," is the now ever-present and popular battle-cry for many Americans.  From Presidential candidates to everyday people, those who wish to consume sweet light crude as they have for a more than a century remind me of my hair, and the current President's energy policy.  I ponder the parallels and invite you to consider . . .

During a recent press conference, as I gazed upon the President of the United States, noticeably aged after years in the Oval Office, I thought of my hair and my history.  His wavy gray locks are not as the strands that fall from my head.  Nor did the diminutive curl that danced on his brow remind me of my own tresses.  The style the Chief Executive donned did not resemble the permanent waves, pompadours, or ponytails I once wore.  As George W. Bush spoke of his energy policy, I pondered.  His approach to petroleum and power were as the methodology I embraced when I colored my hair.

Crossposted from The Motley Moose

Mudflats has a piece on Sarah Palin's unmitigated failure to do anything for the grinding poverty of Alaska's rural citizens.  Josh, a former teacher in rural Alaska, writes:

We became very close with a family in our village that had a child drown in a steel container of raw sewage. Let me say that again. They had a child drown in a steel container of raw sewage. Their child was simply outside playing and since there is no playground equipment for the kids to play on, they play on anything, often things too dangerous for children. In this case it was something commonly referred to as a "honey bucket." This is a steel container where house sewage is dumped since there is no indoor plumbing.

MORMONS TO DELIVER LETTERS, PETITION OPPOSING PROPOSITION 8

Not all Mormons agree with their church's decision to forcefully support Proposition 8, the constitutional amendment that would eliminate the right to same-sex marriage in California. Now they're speaking out.

Hundreds of Mormons and friends of Mormons have written letters and signed a petition at SigningForSomething.org to oppose the church's inappropriate political posturing in California. The letters and petition will be delivered to church headquarters at 2 p.m. Friday, Oct. 17, after which Mormon dissidents will be available to talk with the media about their reasons for opposing the church's political stance. Copies of the letters and petition will also be available for the press.

Signing For Something supporters will meet at a public park in downtown Salt Lake City across from the Church Office Building. It is on the northeast corner of State Street and North Temple. (This is the southernmost part of Memory Grove Park.)

Crossposted at Motley Moose and DailyKos.

Heh.  You read me right.  Ha, ha, ha, ha!  Joshua Trevino, co-founder of the conservative blogging flagship site Redstate can't pull the trigger for the McCain/Palin ticket.

I've been lurking around MyDD since John Kerry lost in 04, but today I thought I'd introduce myself.  My name's Dan and I'm a Democrat.  And I'm damn proud of it.  I'm a milk drinking, whatever-happens-to-be-running-this-week driving, NASCAR watching, salmon eating, progressive populist liberal.  I'm not sure what exactly that says about me and my politics, but that's the format all the cool kids in the political world are using to describe themselves and others these days, so I thought I'd better start off with that.  If you'd care to indulge my biographical ramblings,  I'll tell y'all a bit more about myself, how I came to vote for Obama today, and why I'm fired up to win this thing.

I grew up in Burlington, Iowa, which sits in the southeast part of the state right on the Mississippi.  My dad has a little farm and through most of my childhood years worked in the Case backhoe plant in town.  He's still a member of the UAW.  I still remember being too young to read, holding up signs and walking the picket line.  Like most hopeless addicts I picked up politics at young age, taking notes on the Lieberman-Cheney debate even though I was only 12 or 13.  (Yeah, I've got it bad.)  I knocked on few doors that year, but I really got my feet wet in '04 when I did some voter contact volunteering for the Kucinich campaign before the caucuses, and then John Kerry in the general.  Kucinich may be a vegan and look more like the Traveling Gnome than JFK, but you know where the man stands and who he's fighting for.  Come to think of it, I'm not sure I even knew what a vegan was before Kucinich ran, but I digress.  While I was disappointed when Kerry lost, I was mainly just more fired up to get Democrats elected in '06.  One thing I'm glad I learned early: Politics isn't about particular candidates.  If your candidate loses in the primaries it's not the end of the world, you just hope that their involvement helped shape the debate and pushed the party in the right direction.  And if your party's candidate loses in the general, you get mad as hell and work twice as hard next time.

Which brings me to the '08 election cycle.  Which started back in '06 if I'm not mistaken... Anyhow I remember watching C-Span in my senior year of high school (05-06) and excitedly calling my mom into the living room every time Barack came on and saying, "That's Barack Obama mom, he's probably gonna be the first black president.  In 2016 or 2012 if we lose in `08."  (Hopefully I'll be half right.)  And every time I'd have to coach my mom through pronouncing his name, but after a while she got it down.  I ended up becoming an early supporter of Edwards.  I liked Obama, but as I said at the time, "Marshmallows and rainbows aren't policy issues."  I thought Obama was too vague and too soft and cautious with his rhetoric and policies on the economy and health care.  He still pisses me off from time to time when he does things like easing back his criticisms on NAFTA and telecom immunity.  But the fact of the matter is I think my fellow Democrats picked the right candidate and a dang good one too.  You don't become president by agreeing with me on every single thing.  You do it by doing what Barack Obama's been doing: Running an effective campaign.  When the economy took a nosedive I was sitting in my living room, annoyed as hell, wondering, "When is he gonna hit McCain with Keating?!"  This is why his campaign staff gets paid the big bucks and I'm still in college.  Rather than being knee jerk they waited for McCain to hit and then used Keating hit back.

What to make of Pennsylvania's status as a top tier battleground state? According to RealClearPolitics, Obama has a 13.8 lead in that state, far greater than his lead in NJ or OR, both of which are assumed to be safe states for the Democrats, and haven't warranted a visit from either candidate.

Politico is featuring a story today on McCain's continuing attempts to win the state, calling it a "risky play:"

Pennsylvania hasn't voted Republican for president since 1988. Democrats have increased their registration numbers here by more than a half-million over the past year, and Barack Obama has a double-digit lead in the polls.

Yet John McCain's campaign continues to signal that it intends to contest the state and its 21 electoral votes to the end. It is a high-risk, high-return endeavor: Pennsylvania represents a costly gambit, one that siphons resources from must-win states such as Ohio and Florida, but a win here would enable McCain to lose a few other states that George W. Bush carried and still capture the White House.

Of course, McCain could be making a "Hail Mary" attempt to carry the state in the hope of pulling off a miracle as his chances sink across the board. But if that was the case, wouldn't the Obama campaign just ignore him and focus on making inroads elsewhere?

Instead, Obama was in PA just yesterday, with four separate rallies in just two hours.

And Biden, whose Scranton roots were part of the reason for his pick, has made several visits to the state, including a rally tomorrow with both of the Clintons:

Biden will stump in Scranton Sunday with Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, a schedule that will bring Biden's total days campaigning in the state to five -- the same as Palin.

In other words, Obama's team is taking McCain's efforts to contest PA seriously, UNLIKE IN IOWA, where they don't seem to be.

And here's Rendell at the rally yesterday, making them sound like the underdog here:

At one rally, in a North Philadelphia neighborhood near Temple University, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, the popular former Philadelphia mayor who backed Clinton in the primary, warned the crowd of 20,000 that Obama would need a massive turnout in Philadelphia to carry the state.

"In the primary, only 53 percent of registered voters in Philadelphia turned out," Rendell said. "Ladies and gentlemen, 24 days from today, 53 percent will not cut it. It will not cut it. If we want to make sure Barack Obama is the 44th president of the United States, we need to turn out at least 75 percent."

In 2004, Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry crushed President Bush in the city by more than 400,000 votes on his way to winning the state by about 144,000 votes. Since then, Democrats have increased their voter registration edge substantially in the city.

Rendell told reporters after a rally in city's Germantown section that his goal is for Obama to drive a historic turnout in Philadelphia and then to meet or exceed Kerry's showing in Pittsburgh and the rest of the state. Rendell predicted the best opportunities for improvement are in south central Pennsylvania, which is becoming less conservative as it absorbs population from Philadelphia, and traditionally Democratic northeastern Pennsylvania.

So what's the deal with the polling here? Clearly, both campaign's internals must show a closer race than 13 points, but how much closer? And, if that's true, why are the polls so far off?