On the day after the Republican Party convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, there are indications that the traditional post-convention bounce usually seen in opinion polling is materializing early for the GOP. The Real Clear Politics polling average has narrowed to show Sen. Barack Obama with a 2.5 point lead over Sen. John McCain. That is down four points in the last three days. The reason for the tightening can be found in two of the components of the average, the Gallup and Rasmussen Reports daily tracking polls.

Gallup shows the race as a 48-44% Obama lead, down from a nine-point Obama advantage on Aug. 29th, the day after his acceptance speech. That was Sen. Obama's biggest lead since Aug. 15th and came on the same day that Sen. McCain announced Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. On Thursday, Rasmussen showed the race as a two point Obama lead, 48-46%. Both polls have very large sample sizes, 2800 and 3000 respectively, and measure public opinion over three days, averaging the result. Gallup measures registered voters while Rasmussen measures likely voters.

The news for the McCain campaign is likely to get better. Both results only include one day in in which voters would have seen Gov. Palin's vice-presidential acceptance speech. With the enthusiastic response to her address, and the fact that Plain is now more popular than either presidential candidate, according to a recent Rasmussen poll, the daily tracking numbers should close even further as the weekend progresses. By Monday, all three days in the rolling average of each poll will include post-Palin speech sampling. That result is likely to show an even race or perhaps a small McCain lead.

The pattern of this election appears to be set. This will be a very close election, just like the elections of 2000 and 2004. Democrats still appear to have the built-in advantages. But the selection of Gov. Palin by Sen. McCain has energized the Republican base like never before in this contest. Conservatives for the first time have a reason to vote for the McCain ticket, rather than against the Democrats. The first Presidential debate takes place on Friday, Sept. 26th. Unless one of the candidates has a major misstep before then, the race is likely to remain even or close until then.

Update: The show will start at 11pm. You can call in to talk to Caleb and I, and the other hosts will join us tonight, too. Call-in Number: (347) 677-1645



The Political Machine's own Denise Williams, Tommy Christopher and Caleb Howe announced today that they will be co-hosts of a Blog Talk Radio show called "Unusable Signal," debuting Friday, Sept. 5 at 11pm EDT. From my own head:

"Unusable Signal" will air Tuesday through Sunday, from 11pm to 1 am on BlogTalkRadio. It will be hosted by a lineup of progressive voices from the interweb, and Caleb.

We haven't finalized the lineup yet, but Caleb and I will host Friday nights, Denise Williams has Tuesdays, Tom Fitzsimmons on Wednesdays, and YesToDemocracy's Christina Cedeno on Thursdays. There will be a show on Saturdays, host to be announced.

"Unusable Signal" will take a raw, edgy approach to mainstream politics. Check your tin foil at the door.

The show will be available live, or if you miss it, you can download it from the archive. We'll have guests, and take calls from our tens of listeners. Visit the "Unusable Signal" homepage for more details.

Although Hillary has every right to tell Obama to go fly a kite, her chances of winning the nomination in 2012 in the "I told you so" primary will be greatly enhanced if she appears to actually care this time around. So she's going to Florida.

Obama's erstwhile Democratic rival is scheduled to appear on his behalf in the swing state of Florida on Monday. While both Obama and Clinton aides emphasise that the programme was set before the Republican vice-presidential nominee was chosen, some analysts and Democratic loyalists believe the former first lady is the person best equipped to take Palin down a peg.

"What [the Republican presidential candidate, John] McCain has done with Governor Palin's nomination is aim right at a demographic that Obama needs to address quickly: non-college-educated women," said Mike McCurry, who served as White House spokesman under Clinton's husband, Bill.

Actually that's been in the works awhile, but it certainly does take on some extra meaning now. The trick here is to campaign just hard enough to show she's doing her part, but not hard enough to actually push Obama over the top. You have to admit, so far her statements have lacked a little fire, as noted in the WaPo blog:

"After listening to all the speeches this week, I heard nothing that suggests the Republicans are ready to fix the economy for middle class families, provide quality affordable health care for all Americans, guarantee equal pay for equal work for women, restore our nation's leadership in a complex world or tackle the myriad of challenges our country faces. So, to slightly amend my comments from Denver: NO WAY, NO HOW, NO McCAIN-PALIN."

Clinton has been exceptionally quiet since the selection of just the second female vice presidential nominee in history.

Is Obama likely to admit that he needs rescuing with female proxies like Gov Sebelius and Senator Clinton? And if he does use them, wouldn't that bring back the question about selecting Joe Biden as his VP, who is pretty much useless right now?

According to Fox News, Oprah Winfrey is pushing back on a report posted today on The Drudge Report that she strongly opposes booking Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin. "There has been absolutely no discussion," Winfrey said via press release, "about having Sarah Palin on my show." Winfrey reiterated that when she publicly endorsed Barack Obama (on the Larry King Show) she made a decision not to have any guests on her own show that would use it "as a platform". Winfrey expressed interest in having Palin on after the campaign.

Senator Obama appeared on the show twice, both appearances coming before he announced his intent to run for the presidency. The issue, however, is largely a moot point since the McCain campaign has turned down all requests for an interview with Palin.

Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic writes:

A senior McCain campaign official advises that, despite the gaggle of requests and pressure from the media, Gov. Sarah Palin won't submit to a formal interview anytime soon. She may take some questions from local news entities in Alaska, but until she's ready -- and until she's comfortable -- which might not be for a long while -- the media will have to wait. The campaign believes it can effectively deal with the media's complaints, and their on-the-record response to all this will be: "Sarah Palin needs to spend time with the voters."

Verne Gay of The TV Zone argues that Winfrey should capitalize on the controversy while taking the opportunity to support her candidate by offering to openly debate Palin on her show.

When Palin does start doing press, it looks like Larry King has first dibs. Igor at Think Progress reminds us that McCain has already promised Larry King an interview with his running mate. When McCain appeared on Larry King Live in July McCain said, "I want to say that that vice presidential candidate will be on your show. I will not risk the wrath of Larry King. I want to assure you." McCain, Igor also points out, recently canceled an appearance on King's show in retaliation for this classic exchange between CNN's Campbell Brown and McCain adviser Tucker Bounds.

A friend sent me an email for publication today, and it contained the inflammatory phrase in that headline. At first, I wondered what idiot shock jock had said that. It's actually from Mike Williams, a medical staffing recruiter. Here's what he says:

Don't know if you caught the Palin speech for the Republicans this week, but I was offended at the pandering to handicapped parents and playing the "retard-card".

..."You can rest assured that you will have no better advocate for special needs children if elected"......

Before you gasp...just know that I'm the parent of a special needs 26 yo daughter. She was diagnosed with Down Syndrome at birth and has acheived goals that few of us can claim. She has a black belt in karate, speaks 3 languages, has been on the front page of the Cincinnati Enquirer and is a proud union card carrying employee.

I thought I had heard about every card in the deck, but this is a new one to me. For some reason, this guy's email really fleshes out the problem with identity politics. Here's the rest of what he had to say:

For a few years of my life, I worked part time as a fact-checker at a magazine. It's a tedious job, going through text and ferreting out mistakes, exaggerations, or outright falsehoods. Thankfully, when it comes to politics, we have the services of the good people at Factcheck.org, a non-partisan truth squad who make it their business to sound the alarm when politicians start spinning their improbable yarns. This week, they've dissected the speeches at the GOP convention, and their conclusions aren't pretty.

Among the worst of the untruths were those put forth by Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani.
John McCain took some liberties himself, mind you.

For comparison sake, you can see what they made of Barack Obama's convention speech as well.

They conclude that while both McCain and Obama stretched the truth here and there, Palin and Giuliani were guilty of outright fibs.

According to Vanity Fair, Cindy McCain's outfit from Tuesday night's convention cost more than many people's entire domicile, including my own:

Cindy McCain Oscar de la Renta dress: $3,000

Chanel J12 White Ceramic Watch: $4,500

Three-carat diamond earrings: $280,000

Four-strand pearl necklace: $11,000–$25,000

Shoes, designer unknown: $600

Total: Between $299,100 and $313,100 Wow! No wonder McCain has so many houses: his wife has the price of a Scottsdale split-level hanging from her ears.

(All prices except Laura's shoes and Cindy's watch are estimates, and the jewelry prices are based on the assumption that the pieces are real.)

I wonder if Cindy got stuck with one of those sub-prime mortgages on that outfit?

Tommy Christopher co-hosts "Unusable Signal" on BlogTalkRadio, debuting Friday at 11pm. Click here for the Unusable Signal homepage.

The Nielsen numbers are preliminary but it appears more people tuned into watch John McCain's speech last night than did Barack Obama's last week. But only barely. About 38.9 million viewers saw the McCain speech, compared to about 38.38 million for Obama. The ratings appear to mirror the national polling, which consistently has the two candidates neck and neck.

Across all broadcast networks Thursday, Sen. McCain's speech ended the night with a 4.8 rating/7 share, compared to Sen. Obama's 4.3/7 average, according to overnight numbers from metered households in 55 U.S. markets measured by Nielsen.

The GOP can crow and the McCain camp is no doubt encouraged they made the right choice picking Sarah Palin. She's got the Republican base fired up and they tuned in to the convention in droves.

Abuse of power usually begets obstruction of justice, whether in Washington DC or Alaska. Brian Ross does his job:



And the Anchorage Daily News has more:

Bottom Line: Gov. Palin is stonewalling on Troopergate; the Legislature [Alaska's] should issue subpoenas.

We knew this was coming.

A number of pro-choice groups are targeting Sarah Palin, spending a ton of cash in an effort to make sure women - particularly undecided voters, no doubt - don't take too much of a liking to the feisty Alaska governor and cast their vote for John McCain in November.

Three major advocates of abortion rights are planning to spend nearly $30 million to defeat John McCain's run for president, citing his new running mate as the core reason, The Hill reports.

NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood and EMILY's List plan to spend $30 million, combined, to defeat McCain's presidential run, citing his anti-abortion running mate as the main reason.

"This is the most anti-choice ticket in history of the Republican Party," NARAL Political Director Beth Shipp told the paper. "McCain put someone as outside the mainstream as you can on his ticket, which is Sarah Palin."