Monday Archive

Op-Ed: Campaigns Are Where the Real 'Change' Will Take Place

By Gerald F. Seib

Wall Street Journal

November 3, 2008

"Change" may be the most overused word of this election season, but here's one instance where it definitely applies: Campaign 2008 will change in a fundamental way how American campaigns will be conducted in the future…

Democrats Far Outspend Republicans On Field Operations, Staff Expenditures

By T.W. Farnam and Brad Haynes

Wall Street Journal

November 3, 2008

WASHINGTON -- The national and state Democratic parties are spending far more heavily than their Republican counterparts on field operations, after years of ceding the advantage in ground-level organizing to the Republican voter-turnout machine. Finance records show Democrats have hired five to 10 times more paid field staff in swing states than the Republicans…

Obama, McCain Spar in Final Weekend

By Amy Chozick in Henderson, Nev., and Laura Meckler in Springfield, Va.

Wall Street Journal

November 3, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama swept through Republican strongholds on Saturday pushing a familiar closing argument, as John McCain continued to hit his rival on taxes on a final swing through states rich in electoral votes. At a rally in Henderson, Nevada, which is outside Las Vegas, Sen. Obama harked back to the popular speech he gave during the 2004 Democratic convention widely believed to have launched him into national fame…

Georgia's Early Voting Period Ends

By Paulo Prada

Wall Street Journal

November 3, 2008

DUBLIN, Ga. -- With early voting in Georgia closing at mid-day Saturday, Democrats are starting to think the unthinkable: the state could possibly turn blue. A record 1.99 million people, or 36% of Georgia's registered electorate, voted during the 45-day-period set aside for early voting, according to statistics from the Georgia Secretary of State's office. That is more than 60% of the 3.28 million total voters in the 2004 presidential election, and far more than the number that voted early that year…

Election Battle Shifts to Republican Turf

By Jonathan Weisman

Wall Street Journal

November 3, 2008

The campaign's final days are playing out largely on territory won by President George W. Bush in 2004, as his unpopularity, combined with a struggling economy and shifting demographics, have helped Democrats gain traction in what have been reliably Republican states. Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama will pass through Nevada, Colorado and Missouri Saturday, after appearances in Iowa and Indiana Friday -- all states that voted Republican four years ago. He will be in Ohio Sunday, another Bush state, and Virginia Monday, where a Democrat has not won since 1964…

Succession of Voting Disputes Put Ohio Official in Spotlight

By Amy Merrick

Wall Street Journal

November 3, 2008

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- After Democrat Jennifer Brunner was elected Ohio's secretary of state in 2006, she hoped to make elections run so smoothly that few voters would know her name. It hasn't quite worked out that way…

Op-Ed: Next President's Call: When to Interfere

By Sudeep Reddy

Wall Street Journal

November 3, 2008

Among the president-elect's first tasks will be defining the government's new role as overseer or shareholder of large financial companies. Since September, the U.S. has placed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under conservatorship, taken a majority stake in failing insurer American International Group Inc. and passed a $700 billion financial-sector rescue plan, which now includes $250 billion for shares in large and small U.S. banks…

Op-Ed: In the Shadow of FDR and Reagan

A President Elected in Tough Times: Looking Back for Clues Going Forward

By Annelena Lobb

Wall Street Journal

November 3, 2008

Will stocks rally with a new face in the White House? History offers no clear lessons, but that doesn't stop investors from looking for some kind of sign in Tuesday's vote. There are two relatively recent historical precedents for the current election, where a new president will take office amid a serious financial crisis. Whether John McCain or Barack Obama is elected, he will confront ugly economic challenges like Franklin D. Roosevelt did after his 1932 victory and Ronald Reagan did in 1980…

From Pulpits of Ohio, a Mixed Message

By Michael Powell

New York Times

November 3, 2008

CANAL WINCHESTER, Ohio - Six months ago, Rev. Rod Parsley was one of the more prominent evangelicals to hail Sen. John McCain as a “strong, true, consistent conservative.” But two days before the election, in a state central to Mr. McCain’s hopes, Rev. Rod Parsley preached to his vast congregation at World Harvest Church of hellfire and “circling in on a fight with the eternal forces of darkness” without ever mentioning Mr. McCain…

Campaigns Focus on States Their Parties Lost in 2004

By Sharon Otterman

New York Times

November 3, 2008

On the last Sunday before the election, the presidential candidates and their running mates kept up a relentless pace by visiting states their respective parties had lost in 2004. Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee who is trailing in national polls, was making appearances in two states that voted Democratic in 2004, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, where he will hold his final town hall. On Monday, he will visit five swing states — starting with a midnight rally in Florida then Virginia, Indiana, New Mexico and Nevada — along with a stop in Tennessee before flying home to Arizona for Election Day…

What Happens to Public Financing?

By Michael Luo

New York Times

November 3, 2008

As Senator Barack Obama spends the last of hundreds of millions of dollars donated to his presidential campaign, the debate over how future campaigns will be financed is set to begin in earnest. The outcome promises to have a profound impact on future presidential runs, either upping the fund-raising ante irrevocably or forcing sweeping changes to prevent such large amounts of cash from coursing through campaigns again. But just as it has in this election cycle, it is quite likely that politics, as much as principle, will shape the jockeying…

Candidates Make Their Final Push on Reshaped Map

By Adam Nagourney

New York Times

November 3, 2008

Senators John McCain and Barack Obama began their final push for the White House on Saturday across an electoral map markedly different from four years ago, evidence of Mr. Obama’s success at putting new states into contention and limiting Mr. McCain’s options in the final hours. Mr. Obama was using the last days of the contest to make incursions into Republican territory, campaigning Saturday in three states — Colorado, Missouri and Nevada — that President Bush won relatively comfortably in 2004. In what seemed as much a symbolic tweak as a real challenge, Mr. Obama bought advertising time in Arizona, Mr. McCain’s home state…

Sheepish, Proud or Set to Flip a Coin, They’re Still Undecided

By Mark Leibovich

New York Times

November 3, 2008

WASHINGTON — Senators Barack Obama and John McCain have stood (or sat) for 36 debates, endured thousands of interviews, and spent hundreds of millions of dollars on advertisements and the better part of two years trying to convince voters that they are worthy of the presidency, or at least a vote. But with only days left until Election Day, a small cluster of holdouts — 4 percent, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll — are still wrestling with the “Who are you voting for?” question…

Florida Republican Leader Sees a Tougher Challenge This Year

By Damien Cave

New York Times

November 3, 2008

ORLANDO, Fla. — Lew Oliver’s McCain-Palin T-shirt advertised his intentions, and the woman in the S.U.V. gave him an opening. “I’m undecided,” said Nicole Ellington, 31, a paralegal with two young children. “You have two minutes. Go.” Mr. Oliver knew that her family leaned Republican because she was on his get-out-the-vote list, and he rapidly delivered a pitch honed over 22 years of volunteering for local campaigns. “Wow, you’re good,” she said. And as she drove away, Mr. Oliver smiled with satisfaction…

Running a Volunteer Operation With a Do-It-Yourself Attitude

By Jodi Kantor

New York Times

November 3, 2008

WINTER PARK, Fla. — By midsummer, Susan Skolfield, a freckled former actress, had grown a little frustrated with the presidential campaign of Senator Barack Obama. Despite her pleas, it had no plans to open an office here in her hometown, a traditionally Republican city west of Orlando. So Ms. Skolfield opened one herself. She dug into her own pocket for the initial $1,350 in rent, hooked up telephones and computers, hauled in furniture and printed up fliers for an early September opening party that drew nearly a thousand people…

A Surge on One Channel, a Tight Race on Another

By Jim Rutenberg

New York Times

November 3, 2008

WASHINGTON — It was a lousy day to be Senator John McCain, Keith Olbermann informed his viewers on MSNBC on Thursday. Senator Barack Obama’s surge in the polls was so strong he was competitive in Mr. McCain’s home state, Arizona. The everyman hero of Mr. McCain’s campaign, “Joe the Plumber,” failed to make an expected appearance at a morning rally in Defiance, Ohio, and the senator’s efforts to highlight Mr. Obama’s association with a professor tied to the P.L.O. were amounting to nothing…

From Stoops and Lobbies, Dialing for Obama or McCain

By J. David Goodman

New York Times

November 3, 2008

Between phone calls and sips of coffee, Maggie McComas enjoyed the crisp, sunny Sunday on Beatrice Sibblies’s front stoop on West 121st Street. The battleground states of Pennsylvania and New Hampshire seemed far away as she sat back in her folding chair with sheets of voters’ names and numbers…

Montana: Seeing a Lot of Obama

By Jim Robbins

New York Times

November 3, 2008

Many Montanans have been pleasantly surprised by Barack Obama’s campaign, which has lavished attention on a state not used to seeing presidential candidates…

Missouri: Picking Winners Is a Specialty

By Larry Rohter

New York Times

November 3, 2008

Missouri has voted for the winner in every presidential election save one over the last century, and Barack Obama seems to be fighting for every ballot in every county…

Ohio: City and Rural, Tooth and Nail

By Michael Powell

New York Times

November 3, 2008

Hard experience has shown that Ohio tends to offer intense matches and bleary eyes while awaiting election-night returns…

Florida: Wrong House, but Right State?

By Damien Cave

New York Times

November 3, 2008

Democrats would love to recapture Florida after two straight defeats that included the bitter recount of 2000…

Colorado: Early Voting Changes Tactics

By Kirk Johnson

New York Times

November 3, 2008

In Colorado a big piece of the election is already over, mandating, in a still-tight race, a pinpoint, surgical search for the votes still left…

New Hampshire: McCain Seeks ‘Life Support’

By Abby Goodnough

New York Times

November 3, 2008

New Hampshire propelled Senator John McCain toward his party’s nomination this year, but Senator Barack Obama has taken a commanding lead in polls…

North Carolina: First Real Race in a Generation

By Katharine Q. Seelye

New York Times

November 3, 2008

In one of the biggest surprises of this long campaign season, Senator Barack Obama has pulled even in the polls with Senator John McCain in North Carolina…

Virginia: In One County, Gusts of Change

By Kate Phillips

New York Times

November 3, 2008

Once a solidly Republican state in presidential elections, Virginia is swinging into a battleground. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Loudoun County…

Pennsylvania: Battle Royal for a Big State

By Leslie Wayne

New York Times

November 3, 2008

The McCain campaign is taking a page from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s primary playbook to try to take Pennsylvania, which is knows it must take to win the White House…

Georgia: Black Turnout May Hold Key

By Shaila Dewan and Robbie Brown

New York Times

November 3, 2008

Democrats have renewed hopes that Georgia could be truly competitive in this election,but what remains to be seen is the demographics of the turnout on Election Day…

Op-Ed: Vote for ( )

By Thomas Friedman

New York Times

November 3, 2008

The presidential candidates have broad ideas about how to restore the nation’s financial health. But what they are not saying is that we are all going to have to pay for it…

Op-Ed: Rejoin the World

By Nicholas D. Kristof

New York Times

November 3, 2008

As president, George W. Bush’s cowboy diplomacy wrenched the United States out of the international community. We must rejoin the world…

Tempo, Rhetoric Heat Up On Trail

McCain and Obama Hurry to Win Over Battleground States

By Shailagh Murray and Juliet Eilperin

Washington Post

November 2, 2008

PUEBLO, Colo., Nov. 1 -- Barack Obama and John McCain sprinted through a dwindling number of battleground states on Saturday, appealing for votes by returning to the core arguments of their candidacies with time running out. Obama seized on a rare campaign appearance by Vice President Cheney to drive home his theme that electing McCain would represent a continuation of the failed policies of the Bush administration. Speaking in Laramie, Wyo., Cheney declared that McCain is "the right leader for this moment in history," and Obama responded to the endorsement at a rally here in Pueblo…

The State Of the Races

Polls Show Obama Leading in States Whose Electoral Votes Total Nearly 300, and the Democrats Heading Toward Expanded House and Senate Majorities

By David S. Broder, Dan Balz and Chris Cillizza

Washington Post

November 2, 2008

Barack Obama and the Democrats hold a commanding position two days before Tuesday's election, with the senator from Illinois leading in states whose electoral votes total nearly 300 and with his party counting on significantly expanded majorities in the House and Senate…

Op-Ed: Will She Ever Get There?

By Anne E. Kornblut

Washington Post

November 2, 2008

As the presidential campaign draws to a close, it's commonplace to hear 2008 heralded as an excellent year for women. But has it been? First Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton ran the most serious presidential campaign of any woman in U.S. history. Then Gov. Sarah Palin, the first woman on a Republican ticket, sparked an initial rush of excitement. Never before have women played such a prominent role in national politics, the reasoning goes, and that has laid the groundwork for even greater advancement the next time a woman runs…

Op-Ed: The Amazing Race

I thought 1960 was the best campaign I'd ever cover. But 2008 has that election beat.

By David S. Broder

Washington Post

November 2, 2008

I remember the precise moment when I became convinced that this presidential campaign was going to be the best I'd ever covered. It was Saturday afternoon, Dec. 8, 2007. I stood in the lobby of Hy-Vee Hall, the big convention center in Des Moines, watching an endless stream of men, women and children come down the escalators from the network of skywalks that link the downtown business blocks of Iowa's capital. They were bundled in winter coats against the chilly temperatures, and the mood was festive -- like a tailgate party for a football game. But the lure here was not a sporting contest; it was a political rally…

Our Polls Are on the Mark. I Think.

By Jon Cohen

Washington Post

November 2, 2008

January, you may recall, was a rough month for the pollsters. All the polls showed Sen. Barack Obama poised to follow up his big win in the Iowa caucuses with a knockout blow to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the New Hampshire primary. But he lost, sending the 13 firms that did public pre-election polls there scrambling for explanations. Could polling be similarly embarrassed this month, misjudging the last chapter of this epic presidential election? Thoughts of the Granite State jolt me and my fellow pollsters awake in the dead of night during these final days…

Sacrifice theme returns to US politics

Both McCain and Obama cite the need for selflessness and service.

By Alexandra Marks

The Christian Science Monitor

November 3, 2008

The notion of sacrifice – asking Americans to give something up for a greater good – appears to be coming back into political vogue after decades of being seen as a poison pill. Both major-party presidential candidates are emphasizing the need for individuals to shoulder responsibility for changing the direction of the United States, though they do so in different ways. Personal sacrifice and service to the nation are central themes of John McCain’s candidacy. His campaign motto sums it up: “Country First.”…

Editorial: Go slow on early voting

Voting before Election Day has caught on, but its full impact has not yet been weighed.

The Christian Science Monitor

November 3, 2008

The 2008 presidential campaign has been chockablock with superlatives. Longest. Most expensive. First black nominee. A record number of registered voters. The most YouTubed. But one major change worth watching – with both joy and worry – is that a third of voters will have cast a ballot before Nov. 4, or double eight years ago…

Obama and McCain zero in on Ohio, Pennsylvania

The candidates stump in the key states, speaking out on the usual issues, but the tone of the campaign has changed slightly in the eleventh hour.

By Seema Mehta and Michael Muskal

Los Angeles Times

November 3, 2008

Reporting from Marietta, Ohio, and Los Angeles — After almost two years of constant cross-country campaigning, the presidential election has come down to a flurry of appearances in several key states. Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin are crisscrossing Ohio today, while GOP standard-bearer John McCain returned to Pennsylvania, whose 21 electoral votes are seen by his strategists as up for grabs in Tuesday's election. One symbol of the two sides' different appeal is the entertainment at their rallies. Republicans tapped country star Gretchen Wilson, who warmed up the crowd in Marietta, Ohio, with her hit "Redneck Woman." Democrats are counting on rocker Bruce Springsteen, who is scheduled to perform at an Obama rally in Cleveland this afternoon…

In Ohio, Obama's ground game outguns McCain's

McCain has struggled to gain momentum in a battleground state that Bush won in 2004 -- and that he needs to win to beat the odds.

By Bob Drogin and Robin Abcarian

Los Angeles Times

November 2, 2008

Reporting from Delaware, Ohio — John McCain has targeted this wealthy area just north of Columbus as one of 15 counties in Ohio where he needs to drive up his vote tally if he is to beat Barack Obama on Tuesday in this must-win state. But on Friday night, only nine volunteers manned the 24 phones in the McCain campaign office. The phone bank began operating on a daily basis just two weeks ago. And only five people have shown up on most weekdays since then to canvas local neighborhoods…

McCain, Obama economic policies appear to be politics as usual

Experts say the candidates' tax plans won't narrow the income gap and don't place a high priority on the budget deficit and other long-term issues.

By Ralph Vartabedian

Los Angeles Times

November 2, 2008

As Americans head to the polls, they carry their deep fears about the economy coupled with the weight of dire warnings about the potential economic fallout of an Obama or McCain presidency. Democrat Barack Obama is accused of having a "socialist agenda," and Republican John McCain allegedly wants to further enrich "millionaires and billionaires." To listen to the campaigns, the risks for ordinary Americans are extraordinary…

Four big questions of the presidential election

Who wins, and where, will give clues about the nation's feelings on race, the role of government and the hold of partisanship.

By Peter Wallsten and Janet Hook

Los Angeles Times

November 2, 2008

Iowa gave the first sign that the American political landscape had changed. Democrats in an overwhelmingly white state, many from small towns and farms, said an African American man from Chicago was the best choice for president -- and by a convincing margin. Barack Obama went on to build a broader coalition than any previous black candidate, winning the Democratic nomination on an agenda of "change." John McCain emerged as the GOP nominee, despite a history of breaking from Republican beliefs. He too promised "change" from the nation's current course…

McCain and Obama agree: The race isn't over

Obama, ahead in the polls, urges backers not to be complacent. McCain focuses on states that he needs in order to beat the odds.

By Mark Z. Barabak

Los Angeles Times

November 2, 2008

Barack Obama and John McCain battled Saturday into the final weekend of the marathon campaign for the White House, jetting between a handful of states that could yield a Democratic landslide or deliver Republicans one of the greatest comebacks ever. "Don't believe for a second that this election is over," Obama told a crowd outside Las Vegas…

Long lines might deter some voters, election watchers say

By Noam N. Levey

Los Angeles Times

November 3, 2008

An insufficient number of voting machines to accommodate record turnout could deal an even bigger blow to voting rights than do reports of voter intimidation and malfunctioning machinery, experts say…

Voters know they are about to be heard

By Cathleen Decker

Los Angeles Times

November 3, 2008

In Virginia, Florida, Colorado and Nevada, and across the country, 'the choice' is on people's minds…

McCain, Obama dash across Bush states

By Maeve Reston and Michael Finnegan

Los Angeles Times

November 3, 2008

Schwarzenegger joins the GOP nominee in Ohio, and Gore stumps for the Democrat in Florida, while Obama visits Indiana and Iowa -- all states won by the president in 2004…

Late-night TV comedy is election winner

By Donna Freydkin

USA Today

November 3, 2008

As Election Day looms, late-night comedy shows are wrapping up their campaign coverage in high style…

Voter registration at highest level since women got the vote

USA Today

November 3, 2008

Nearly three-quarters of eligible citizens are registered; Democrats added 2.9 million voters but GOP rolls declined…

Nearly 2.6 million early voters turn out in North Carolina

USA Today

November 3, 2008

A historic rush to the polls in North Carolina for early voting has eased the state's concerns of an overwhelmingly busy Election Day…

Chavez: Obama win could spur talks with U.S.

USA Today

November 3, 2008

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is willing to talk with Barack Obama if the Democratic candidate wins Tuesday's election…