In Kentucky (link is to US Census demographic data), a new poll from Rasmussen Reports shows Senator McCain with a clear and comfortable ten point lead over Senator Obama. McCain leads 52% to 42%.

The presidential race in Kentucky remains stable this month. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state finds John McCain leading Barack Obama 52% to 42%.

This is the second straight month McCain has held a ten percentage point lead over the Democrat. In June, McCain had a sixteen point lead.

McCain is viewed favorably by 63% of Kentucky voters, Obama by 49%.

Ratings are slightly less favorable for their running mates, who will face off tonight in the first and only Vice Presidential debate. Joe Biden is viewed favorably by 46% and unfavorably by 50%. Sarah Palin’s ratings are 56% favorable, 42% unfavorable.

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Polls in Minnesota (link is to US Census demographic data) remain conflicted either showing a narrow lead for Senator McCain or for Senator Obama. The latest poll from Survey USA (SUSA) out today shows a narrow one point lead for McCain. McCain leads 47% to 46% well within the +/- 3.7 margin of error. Effectively, the race in Minnesota is a dead heat. In that, it’s good news for the McCain campaign. Additionaly 4% remain undecided and unlike other states support for third party candidates is another 3%.

If an election for President of the United States in Minnesota were held today, 10/02/08, 33 days from the vote, John McCain and Barack Obama finish effectively even, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for KSTP-TV in Minneapolis, WDIO-TV in Duluth, KAAL-TV in Rochester, and KSAX-TV in Alexandria. The nominal advantage today goes to McCain, who is atop Obama 1 percentage point, 47% to 46%, within the survey’s 3.7 percentage point margin of sampling error. But: Compared to an identical SurveyUSA poll 20 days ago, Obama is down 3 points. How much of this is movement and how much of this is “noise” is unclear.

Minnesota behaves unlike other states in some respects. Among women, there is movement to McCain, at a time when McCain is losing ground among women elsewhere. Among voters younger than Obama, there movement to McCain, at a time when Obama is consolidating support among young voters elsewhere. Among voters older than McCain, there is movement to Obama, at a time when older voters elsewhere are sticking by McCain. In Western MN, which abuts the Dakotas, there is movement to McCain. In Northeastern MN, which overhangs Michigan, there is see-sawing back to Obama.

Complicating this analysis is the emergence of a possible protest vote. 12% of Independents, 8% of young voters, 6% of men, 6% of those who almost never go to church, 5% of Conservatives and 5% of Twin Cities voters tell SurveyUSA that they will vote for neither McCain nor Obama, but rather “some other candidate.” How much of this protest can be attributed to the failure of the U.S. House of Representatives to pass an economic recovery bill, the day before interviewing for this survey began, is unclear. Ron Paul held his campaign “convention” in Minnesota a month ago. Bob Barr and Ralph Nader are on the ballot in Minnesota. Voters who tell SurveyUSA they are for “some other candidate” also tell SurveyUSA they are likely to change their minds. It is unclear how many actual votes will be siphoned from McCain and/or Obama on Election Day, however, polling results from the Norm Coleman / Al Franken U.S. Senate race in Minnesota, also released today by SurveyUSA, suggest the protest may be non-trivial.

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Though there are no polls from Michigan to report today, internal polling in the McCain campaign must indicate a clear and decisive Obama trend in the state for the McCain campaign has decided to divert its spending and resources out of the state. The move now puts pressure on the McCain campaign to hold all of the states that Bush carried in 2004. Winning Michigan’s 17 Electoral College votes would have offset reverses elsewhere. His margin for error is thus vastly reduced.

From the Associated Press.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain conceded battleground Michigan to the Democrats on Thursday, GOP officials said, a major retreat as he struggles to regain his footing in a campaign increasingly dominated by economic issues.

These officials said McCain was pulling staff and advertising out of the economically distressed Midwestern state. He also canceled a visit slated for next week. Michigan, with 17 electoral votes, voted for Democrat John Kerry in 2004, but Republicans had poured money into an effort to try to place it in their column this year.

The decision marked the first time either McCain or his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, has tacitly conceded a traditional battleground state in a race for the White House with little more than a month remaining.

In a campaign now unfolding across more than a dozen states, the decision allows McCain’s resources to be sent to Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida and other more competitive states. But it also means Obama can shift money to other states like Virginia, Colorado and North Carolina where he is trying to eat into traditional Republican territory.

By pulling out of vote-rich Michigan, McCain conceded a large part of the electoral map in the heart of the industrial Midwest.

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The latest poll for North Carolina (link is to US Census demographic data) from Rasmussen Reports shows a five point swing towards Senator Obama turning a narrow lead for Senator McCain into a narrow for Senator Obama. Obama now leads 50% to 47%. The contest in North Carolina is still competitive but with a slight edge for Obama.

Barack Obama holds a slight advantage over John McCain in the traditionally Republican state of North Carolina.

It’s Obama 50%, McCain 47% in the latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Tar Heel State voters. A week ago, Obama held a two point advantage. This change comes as Obama has opened a fairly stable lead nationally in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.

In North Carolina, Obama now leads by twelve among women while McCain leads by ten among men. Obama leads among voters under 40 while McCain is on top among older voters. McCain leads among by three among Investors while Obama is up by six among non-Investors.

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As in many other battleground states, Senator Obama seems to be opening up a comfortable lead in the land of enchantment. In New Mexico (link is to US Census demographic data), the latest poll from Rasmussen Reports points to a five point lead for Senator Obama over Senator McCain, 49% to 44%. While the race in New Mexico has been exceedingly close up to now, that has now shifted into a clear outside the margin of error lead for Obama.

New Mexico has been near the top of the list of “Red States” that Democrats hoped to “Turn Blue” in Election 2008 and Barack Obama is poised to do so with just over a month to go until Election Day.

While John McCain was up by two points in this key southwestern state a month ago, Obama now has a 49% to 44% lead in the latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state.

Obama is viewed favorably by 53% of New Mexico voters, McCain by 47%.

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The McCain campaign released this ad this morning to run today nationally poking fun at Senator Biden over his propensity to commit gaffes and misspeak. The ad is a 60 second spot.

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Fought

Fighting

Angry?

Yes We Can

A 527 group called Right Change has released four anti-Obama ads. Each ad revolves around either the crisis at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac highligthing Obama’s ties to Fannie Mae’s former CEO and current unofficial advisor Franklin Raines or on Obama’s economic proposals. Technically, three ads are anti-Obama (negative) and one pro-McCain (positive). Each ad is a 30 second spot and packs quite a punch. It has been my view that the 527 group ads that are attacking Obama over his past associations with William Ayers and the Reverend Wright are largely missing the mark. These center, I think, on issues that are more front and center in the campaign right now and I think that they might be more effective in reversing the tide towards Obama.

Right Change self-describes as:

RightChange.com is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to helping Americans see through the haze of politicians’ “spin” to understand the facts about crucial policy choices. Our goal is to make sure that the coming wave of political change in America is the “right” kind of change, in terms of conforming to the facts and common sense.

They may be a non-profit but I’m not sure about non-partisan because these are probably the hardest hitting anti-Obama ads that I have seen so far. I’ll also note that as of late last week, 527 groups were spending 3:1 in favour of pro-Obama groups. In terms of minutes per medium, most of the anti-McCain ads are actually running on radio, not television. It seems odd that both the Obama campaign which is running the largest radio ad buys ever and the anti-McCain 527 group ads would independently opt for radio. 527 groups by law cannot coordinate any part of their ads or strategy with any candidate or his campaign.

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Here are nine 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.

Anxious Party Tells McCain to Fight Harder
By Ewen MacAskill in the UK Guardian.

Republicans are urging John McCain to adopt more aggressive tactics against Barack Obama amid fears that the White House is slipping away from them.

With ballots already being cast in battlefield states from Virignia to Ohio, Republicans are panicking that voting is taking place against the backdrop of the catastrophic events on Wall Street and that McCain could be a casualty.

Although McCain has been pumping out negative ads throughout August and September, Republican state leaders and officials want to see him becoming even more personal, exploiting Obama’s links with figures he knew in Chicago. These include: William Ayers, a former member of Weather Underground, a group involved in a 1970s bombing campaign in the US; the Rev Jeremiah Wright, his controversial former pastor; and Tony Rezko, the land developer convicted of fraud and bribery earlier this year who had contributed to his campaign funds.

Palin’s Strengths Rooted in Alaska
By Sally Jenkins in the Washington Post.

They are experiences Palin will draw on to deal with crushing pressure of a different sort: her vice presidential candidacy and her debate Thursday night with her Democratic counterpart, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr (Del.). Friends and family insist that she will reassert her famous self-will when she takes the stage in St. Louis. “We all know what’s riding on it,” Chuck Jr. says. “But she has a history of coming through in big events.”

The Heaths have tried to ignore the contrail of their daughter’s political comet, the soaring upsweep from unknown governor to national celebrity, fashion heroine and triumphant stump speaker, followed by a swoon in popularity resulting from uncertain answers under hard questioning. On the evening Chuck Sr. quizzed his grandson about whether he had earned a soft drink, Palin was faltering badly in an interview with CBS News’s Katie Couric, in which she was less the huntress than easy prey.

“I can take anything but the blogs,” her father says uneasily.

But Chuck has seen his daughter handle herself in other perilous situations and come out all right. A few years ago, he watched her pilot husband Todd Palin’s commercial fishing boat in a storm. Todd was working at his oil-field job on the North Slope, and Palin and her father had been fishing on Bristol Bay. “It was the toughest work I’ve ever done, and it wasn’t only hard, it was dangerous,” Chuck says. At the end of the run, they had to get the boat on a trailer amid crashing surf. As cold, metallic-sheened waves tossed the trawler around, Chuck quailed.

McCain Talks to the Gay Press
An interview of John McCain by William R. Kapfer in the Washington Blade.

Blade: Do you have any role models who are openly gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender?

McCain: I had the humbling experience of speaking at Mark Bingham’s funeral after the attacks on Sept. 11. Mark had supported me during the 2000 campaign. Unfortunately, I barely knew him, but our country learned about him after 9-11. He was one of the heroes on 9-11 who tried to retake control of United Flight 93. His efforts along with the other brave patriots could have saved hundreds of lives. I honor and respect Mark. Memories of his sacrifice and the other victims from 9-11 motivate me everyday to make sure we keep our nation safe from the terrorists who want to attack our way of life because freedom is a threat to their message of hate.

Here’s what I said during his eulogy:

I love my country, and I take pride in serving her. But I cannot say that I love her more or as well as Mark Bingham did, or the other heroes on United Flight 93 who gave their lives to prevent our enemies from inflicting an even greater injury on our country. It has been my fate to witness great courage and sacrifice for America’s sake, but none greater than the selfless sacrifice of Mark Bingham and those good men who grasped the gravity of the moment, understood the threat, and decided to fight back at the cost of their lives.

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Here is the Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 edition of what’s making news and interesting reads from around the world. Also please note that off to the left there are two widgets with updates on news from Asia and the world in a separate page: Around Asia & Around the World New Feeds.

US Senate Passes Financial Rescue Plan
The U.S. Senate passed a $700 billion financial-market rescue package loaded with inducements for the House of Representatives to approve the measure, following the House’s rejection of an earlier version. The legislation, approved last night on a 74-25 vote, authorizes the government to buy troubled assets from financial institutions rocked by record home foreclosures. It contains two provisions favored by House Republicans: One raises the limit on federal bank-deposit insurance; the other reiterates the authority of securities regulators to suspend asset-valuing rules that corporate executives blame for fueling the crisis. More from the Washington Post and from the New York Times.

Bradford & Bingley Rescue Approved by the EU
The European Commission has given the go ahead for a British government rescue plan for the UK mortgage-lender Bradford & Bingley saying it does meet EU state aid rules. It is all part of the European efforts to limit the spread of the financial crisis. And amid all the gloom and fear some believe some good could come out of all this. Business expert Fabrizio Petrucci explained: “The European banking system, and particularly that of the euro zone is much more solid than the system in the US, Britain and Switzerland. I believe that right now the euro zone banks have a great opportunity, not only to withstand this crisis but also to become world leaders. The problem it is that right now we don’t really know what the European banks have on their balance sheets.” More from Euro News.

US Senate Approves US-India Nuclear Deal
The US Senate last night approved a historic agreement that opens up nuclear trade with India for the first time since New Delhi conducted a nuclear test three decades ago, giving the Bush administration a significant foreign policy achievement in its final months. Details from the Washington Post.

Cuba Enacts Price Freeze
Havana’s farmers markets reacted Tuesday with empty shelves, stalls without any supplies, and predictions that the situation “is going to get a lot worse,” after the decision by Cuba’s communist government to crack down on price increases. More from the Miami Herald.

Study: Iraq War Costs
The 190,000 contractors in Iraq and neighboring countries, from cooks to truck drivers, have cost US taxpayers US$100 billion from the start of the war through the end of 2008, a new US government study says. Yet while it costs half a million dollars per year to maintain a Blackwater professional armed guard, it costs exactly the same to keep one sergeant in combat in Iraq. More from the Asia Times.

Profile of David Cameron — Britain’s PM in Waiting
David Cameron, the leader of Britain’s Conservatives, has radically modernized his party and is leading in opinion polls. But if he succeeds in ousting New Labour to set up residence in Downing Street will he be able to deliver on all his promises? Der Spiegel profiles the leader of the British Conservative Party.

HIV Virus Older than Previously Thought
Genetic analysis of tissue specimen recently discovered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo leads researchers to believe the virus that causes AIDS has been present for more than a century. More from the Los Angeles Times.

Dollar Gains More Ground on Euro
The dollar rose through $1.40 against the euro for the first time in three weeks on Wednesday as hopes were raised that the US government would push through its bail-out of the financial system. More from the Financial Times.

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