The Obama campaign released this Spanish language ad today hitting Senator McCain over economic issues. The ad is a 30 second spot and running, at least for now, only in Florida. Senator Obama trails in the polls in Florida anywhere from 3 to 5 points depending on the poll. McCain has held that lead pretty steadily in poll after poll but has failed to pull away.

Obama is doing well among Hispanics in California where he is winning 77% of their votes. He isn’t doing so well among Hispanics in Florida. The September 18th SUSA Florida poll found that among Hispanics in Florida, McCain leads by 19 points. It’s a different mix of nationalities and one more in tune to international issues in Florida. Hispanics make up 20% of Florida’s population with nearly half that from Cuba. In addition, there are some 2 million Colombians (probably only half of these are citizens however) in Florida for whom the Colombian FTA is an issue and given Obama’s opposition to the trade deal, he is unlikely to carry that vote. And then the Venezuelan-American community is concentrated in south Florida. That’s another constituency that Obama won’t carry though in numbers it is quite small but it is well-off and my understanding is that they are donating heavily to the McCain campaign.

Update: The ad will start running in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada as well.

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A new poll in Michigan (link is to US Census demographic data) from Inside Michigan Politics points to tight and tightening race with Senator McCain and Senator Obama locked in a dead heat effectively. While previous polls in Michigan gave Obama as much as a seven point lead, a poll earlier this week gave Obama a narrow three point lead well within the margin of error. This poll gives McCain a three point lead, again within the margin of error. Taken together, these polls show Michigan as one of the key states to watch this election cycle.

A poll released today by Inside Michigan Politics shows that Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain has a slim three (3) point lead over Barack Obama in Michigan’s latest poll.

The poll shows that both candidates have strong support with their base voters, but McCain’s support among Independent voters 45%- 37% (+8%) puts him on top in this toss-up state.

“John McCain has a track record with Michigan Independent voters,” said Bill Ballenger, Editor of Inside Michigan Politics. “The current polling shows that they still like him and they like and support Sarah Palin as his running mate.”

The poll showed that Obama continues to show strong support among women (+2%), young voters (+16%), African Americans (+89%), voters living in the Detroit Metro area (+9%) along with his traditional Democratic base. John McCain is showing strength among blue–collar voters (+10%), men (+9%), white males (+29%), conservatives (+62%) and voters living in West Michigan (+12%) and the Flint/Saginaw/Bay City Area (+8%).

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El presidente de Colombia, Álvaro Uribe, y la candidata republicana a la vicepresidencia de EE.UU., Sarah Palin, sostuvieron hoy en Nueva York un encuentro, que el mandatario colombiano describió como “muy provechoso”.

Durante la entrevista, de media hora de duración, uno de los asuntos destacados, según las autoridades colombianas, fue el Tratado de Libre Comercio (TLC) entre los dos países y pendiente de aprobación en el Congreso estadounidense.

La portavoz de la campaña republicana Hessy Fernández indicó que la reunión sirvió para “reconocer la importancia de este aliado en América Latina”. Además del TLC, según Fernández, los dos políticos abordaron asuntos como la lucha contra el narcotráfico.

La reunión se llevó a cabo en la residencia de la embajadora colombiana ante la ONU, Claudia Blum, en el Upper East Side de Manhattan.

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There is little if any movement from last week’s California Field Poll in the new Rasmussen Reports poll out today. Senator Obama leads Senator McCain by 17 points, 56% to 39% in the Golden State (link is to US Census demographic data).

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of California voters makes it clear why John McCain isn’t predicating his election strategy on carrying the nation’s most populous state and its 54 Electoral College votes.

Barack Obama now leads McCain 56% to 39% in California (see crosstabs). Last month, the Democrat was ahead of his Republican rival 51% to 37%.

Obama has held a double-digit lead over McCain in California in every poll but one this year. In April the Democrat led by just seven points.

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It’s not much of a race in Kansas according to today’s Rasmussen Reports poll. Senator McCain leads Senator Obama by 20 points, 58% to 38%, in one of the most reliably Republican states in the Union.

John McCain has jumped back to a 20-point lead over Barack Obama in the Republican stronghold of Kansas. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state finds the GOP candidate ahead 58% to 38%.

Last month, McCain was ahead 52% to 37%, after leading by 20 in July. The race was closest back in June, when Obama pulled to within 10 points after clinching the Democratic nomination.

This month, McCain leads 58% to 34% among unaffiliated voters in Kansas. He also has a 62% to 34% advantage among men and a 55% to 41% edge among women.

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Recently I was talking with a old friend about the election.  We agreed that Senator Obama was not what the country necessarily needed at this particular moment in history and then the subject of John, her husband who I have also known for many years, came up.  “Oh, I can’t talk to John about this at all,” she confided.  “I have tried but he just gets hysterical.”  After a brief inner smile at the image of the bearded 6′7″ 300 plus pound John becoming hysterical, the conversation continued.  “He is so invested in an Obama victory,” she said shaking her head.  “I just can’t tell him I’m not going to vote for Obama.   I just smile and nod and agree with everything he says.”  In another conversation with an African American friend, Margie, I heard a similar story but this time it was her children she was “protecting” from the truth that she did not intend to vote for Senator Obama.  “It’s so important to them, and I really am pleased that they have a black candidate for president to root for but I just can’t vote for him.”   Both these women had been ardent Hillary supporters, for whatever that is worth, but I have  heard similar stories for months, and not just from former Hillary supporters.  There has been a lot of talk about the so-called Bradley effect, or the Wilder effect depending on your location I suppose.   Wiki gives us this:

The term Bradley effect, less commonly called the Wilder effect refers to a frequently observed discrepancy between voter opinion polls and election outcomes in American political campaigns when a white candidate and a non-white candidate run against each other. Named for Tom Bradley, an African-American who lost the 1982 California governor’s race despite being ahead in voter polls, the Bradley effect refers to a tendency on the part of white voters to tell pollsters that they are undecided or likely to vote for a Black candidate, when, on election day, they vote for his/her white opponent.

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I take deep satisfaction from the fact the current version of the Democratic party is on its death bed. I have high hopes that defeat in November will bring a new leadership to a party that is more corrupt than the Republican one and that is truly mind boggling given the scandals on the past eight years but on tap for the Democratic party is a scandal brewing that is going make the lobbyist scandal of Jack Abramhoff look like child’s play. The mess at Fannie Mae is ultimately a Democratic party mess. It was the Democratic leadership in Congress led by Senator Dodd, Senator Obama and Representative Steny Hoyer that prevented meaningful reforms of the mortgage giant. When the nexus of corruption that was lead by former CEOs and Obama advisors Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines fully comes to light, it isn’t going to be pretty. The facts for now remain few but if my reading of the tea leaves is correct, there is much to investigate. But between now and then, the Democratic party has other problems — those pesky Clinton voters aren’t on board with the Obama bandwagon. Pity that.

A new poll from the Associated Press, Yahoo and Newsweek shows that Senator Obama has not made any inroads since June among disaffected Clinton supporters despite assurances from everyone like Howard Dean to Donna Brazile to Roland Martin that we would be “coming around.” I am not coming around. In fact in June, my thoughts were to abstain from voting. That’s changed. I’ll vote for McCain even though in California it won’t make a dent into Obama’s margin. It’s a matter of principle now. I loathe Obama for who he is as a person. His values are not mine. He has no convictions other than his own political welfare. And I fear that both his economic policy will turn a recession into a depression with his protectionist leanings and that his international inexperience will lead to disasters the world over. I do not in the least trust him. And on paper, I should be an Obama voter through and through even if tepid at best. I am a liberal white Hispanic, well-educated, well-off, well-read and I live in San Francisco. Yet the reality is that I loathe Obama. Some of it is issue-based, most of it is really character.

Apparently others loathe Obama as well and won’t be “coming around” in November.

Barack Obama’s support from backers of Hillary Rodham Clinton is stuck smack where it was in June, a poll showed Tuesday, a stunning lack of progress that is weakening him with members of the Democratic Party in the close presidential race.

An Associated Press-Yahoo News poll shows that among adults who backed his rival during their bitter primary campaign, 58 percent now support Obama. That is the same percentage who said so in June, when Clinton ended her bid and urged her backers to line up behind the Democratic senator from Illinois.

The poll shows that while Obama has gained ground among Clinton’s supporters — 69 percent view him favorably now, up 9 percentage points from June — this has yet to translate into more of their support.

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In the first poll for New Hampshire (link is to US Census demographic data) since August 20th Rasmussen Reports poll which showed Obama leading by one, a new poll from the University of New Hampshire (pdf.) shows the race still in a dead heat with a narrow McCain lead. In the Granite State poll, Senator McCain leads Senator Obama 47% to 45% with many voters undecided or unfirm in their choice.

John McCain has regained a slight lead over Barack Obama in the race for President in the swing state of New Hampshire. But many voters remain undecided and many more say they could change their minds between now and the election. The most important issue to voters continues to be jobs and the economy. These findings are based on the latest WMUR / Granite State Poll,∗ sponsored by WMUR-TV and conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. Five hundred fifty (550) randomly selected New Hampshire adults were interviewed by telephone between September 14 and September 21, 2008. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 4.2%. Included was a subsample of 523 likely November voters (margin of sampling error, +/-4.3%).

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Asked by CBS’s Katie Couric about an ad Obama released earlier this month mocking John McCain for not being able to use a computer, Biden criticized the commercial and suggested it had been aired without his knowledge.

“I thought that was terrible by the way,” Biden said of the computer ad in an interview broadcast tonight on the CBS Evening News

Asked why it was aired, Biden said: “I didn’t know we did it and if I had anything to do with it, we would have never done it.”

Of course, the Obama campaign was less than thrilled so ol’ smokin’ Joe recanted. From the Washington Post:

Democratic vice-presidential nominee Sen. Joe Biden issued a statement late Tuesday attempting to clarify his comments that an ad the Obama campaign ran earlier this month was “terrible.”

Biden, in an interview that aired Tuesday on CBS Evening News, had criticized an ad the Obama campaign released earlier this month that highlighted McCain’s inability to use a computer, saying, “I thought that was terrible by the way” and “if I’d have had anything to do with it, we never would have done it.”

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Here are ten articles from both the US and international media about the US Presidential race. Highlights of each article provided with a link to the full article.

Obama Makes Move into the Conservative Deep South
By Gary Younge in the UK Guardian.

So far this fissure has failed to turn into a full-blown chasm. Polls in the summer showed Obama to be competitive in Texas, Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee while holding narrow leads in South Carolina and Arkansas. Democrats recorded stunning byelection wins in Mississippi and Louisiana, prompting Time to run a cover proclaiming “The End of the South”. But predictions of a full-scale remoulding of the region’s electoral map have not been borne out. Obama pulled most of his staff and almost all of his advertising from Georgia a few weeks ago. Now he is focusing on North Carolina and Virginia.

I don’t personally think of Virginia and North Carolina as the “Deep South” but apparently the British do.

The Battle Plan II: “Evita” Palin, The Muse of the Coming Police State
By Naomi Wolf in the Huffington Post.

You have to understand how things work in a closing society in order to understand “Palin Power.” A gang or cabal seizes power, usually with an affable, weak figurehead at the fore. Then they will hold elections — but they will make sure that the election will be corrupted and that the next affable, weak figurehead is entirely in their control. Remember, Russia has Presidents; Russia holds elections. Dictators and gangs of thugs all over the world hold elections. It means nothing. When a cabal has seized power you can have elections and even presidents, but you have freedom.

You’re deranged, Naomi. Seek therapy. The United States is not Russia nor Chile circa 1973 much less Argentina 1946. For six years, all you have said is the coup is coming, the coup is coming. Well, where is it? Is that why you call it Battle Plan II? Because Battle Plan I failed to materialize? You’re no better or different than Ann Coulter. You’re both lunatics. Or perhaps it is just a marketing ploy to sell more books. Well, I, for one, am done buying your books. Tomorrow, I’ll throw away whatever books of yours I have in my library. Just for the record, you could substitute Obama in your piece and actually have it more sense than your suggestion of Palin. And while I do think that Obama is controlled by the cabal of Durbin, Kerry, and Daschle et al., I do not think it represents the end of freedom. Obama is just a means to an end for for the anti-Clinton faction of the Democratic Party. Your metaphor of Sarah Palin as Evita Peron is so flawed that Yale should rescind your degree. And while I am at it, women in Islamic countries are repressed and many are actually enslaved. You are a moron for suggesting otherwise and I should have told you that the last time we met at Commonwealth Club. Seriously, get help. You’re an embarrassment with this coup is coming nonsense and your viewpoints on the role of women in Islam are nothing more than Islamic appeasement by the lunatic left. Start criticizing Chávez, Correa and Ortega, why don’t you? You won’t because last we talked you said “Chávez has done so much for his people.” Really? What planet do you live on? You might actually start defending Western values instead of trashing them.

PR Firm Behind Palin Smears Has Ties with Obama Media Chief Axelrod
By Ray Robinson in the San Francisco Examiner.

Ethan Winner, an executive with a Public Relations firm connected to a senior Obama campaign advisor has admitted to distributing a video designed to smear Republican Vice Presidential nominee Governor Sarah Palin. An investigation has shown that David Axelrod, chief media advisor to Obama had previously worked with the PR firm chief Chuck Winner on another campaign.

In 1996, a group of investors penned Proposal E in Detroit which allowed for casinos. The investors hired the firm Winner/Wagner & Mandabach to study the chances of passing that proposal. As told in an article written by Laurence B. Deitch, an attorney for the proposal supporters, the Winner firm later led the media effort to help pass the measure. It brought in several outside media and communications groups.

A video from the Detroit Mayor’s office produced by Mayor Archer’s political consultant David Axelrod was noted as a key part of the Winner directed effort. This revelation places Axelrod in a direct working relationship with the Chuck Winner PR firm in a past campaign.

Geez, why am I not surprised?

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