Here are seven 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 Counts on Massive Support from 4 Million New Voters
By David Gardner in the UK Daily Mail.
In the past year, according to the Washington Post, the election rolls have expanded by about four million voters in a dozen key states.
Eleven of them have been targeted as swing states that could vote Obama despite being carried by George Bush four years ago - Ohio, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico.
The other make-or-break state coveted by both sides is Pennsylvania, which went for John Kerry in 2004. In Florida, newly-registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans by two to one. In Colorado and Nevada the ratio is four to one and in North Carolina it is six to one. In Colorado, which Mr Bush won by 100,000 votes in 2004, Democrat registration-is up 80,000, compared to 21,000 new Republican voters. Republicans acknowledge the imbalance, but say Mr Obama still has to get the voters to the polls.
Conservatives Question McCain’s Attack Strategy
By Jimmy Orr in the Christian Science Monitor.
New York Times columnist David Brooks, also appearing on Face the Nation Sunday, doesn’t believe a negative campaign can be successful.
“They don’t understand how the same political tactics that they’ve used before, going after liberal, liberal, liberal, that’s not going to work now because something has overshadowed it,” Brooks explained. “And that overshadowing, that economic anxiety is just going to dominate the next five weeks. There’s no way around that. And if they’re not touching that, then they’re not touching the core issue. And John McCain has not done it. And he hasn’t done it over the weekend, where they’ve been attacking Obama for being too liberal or not loving America enough.
McCain Goes for Obama Jugular
By Mosheh Oinounou for Fox News.
In an unbridled attack Monday, John McCain struck Obama on a number of fronts as he sought to characterize his rival as a risky, unqualified candidate who has been deceptive about his experience and background.
The GOP nominee summarized the theme with one question. “Who is the real Barack Obama?” he asked supporters before attempting to answer the question himself.
It is quite the speech. Some of it fair, some of it more open to interpretation. Still, I did enjoy this:
My opponent has invited serious questioning by announcing a few weeks ago that he would quote — “take off the gloves.” Since then, whenever I have questioned his policies or his record, he has called me a liar.
Rather than answer his critics, Senator Obama will try to distract you from noticing that he never answers the serious and legitimate questions he has been asked. But let me reply in the plainest terms I know. I don’t need lessons about telling the truth to American people. And were I ever to need any improvement in that regard, I probably wouldn’t seek advice from a Chicago politician.
Chicago politician is about right.
Can John McCain Pull This One Off?
By Roger Simon writing for Politico.
Can John McCain possibly win this thing? Can he actually win in November?
The outlook is bleak: The polls are ugly, the Electoral College map is grim, the economy is getting worse, and McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin may have energized the Republican base, but it has appalled and frightened many outside it.
Still, McCain’s campaign has come back from the dead more than once. He survived his early support for immigration reform, he not only survived but has prospered from his support for the Iraq war surge, and he rebuilt a primary campaign that was in a state of near collapse to win the Republican nomination.
But can McCain do it again? Can he come back? And if so, how? What does he have to do between now and Election Day, and what does he have to do in Tuesday’s second presidential debate in Nashville?
Why Elite Women Hate Palin
By Ann Marlowe in Forbes.
Most women I’ve talked with about Palin–all certified members of either the media elite or the just plain elite–take her nomination personally. Their animus isn’t explained just by her politics; none of them hate Condoleezza Rice, though they disagree with most everything she’s done. Nor, for that matter, do they even dislike John McCain. Typically they “respect” McCain but find him too old or too erratic or simply adore Obama.
It’s as though Palin were an average girl from their boarding school class–or, frankly, from the public school down the road–who unexpectedly won a big prize. “Why not me?” is the subtext, and it’s one I’ve never heard from men talking about male politicians. Many New Yorkers hate George Bush, for instance, and say similar things about his and Palin’s lack of intellectual capability and curiosity about the wider world. But they don’t view him as a personal rival.
Is Era of Dominance Over for Conservatives?
By John Harwood in the New York Times.
The first stirrings of conservative ascendance came in the 1950s, after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal Coalition won five straight elections. The cultural divisions of the 1960s lent new force to Republican candidates.
But it was stagnating incomes in the 1970s that allowed Ronald Reagan to knit free-market economic policies with cultural and foreign policy conservatism into a Republican revolution. In 1994, Newt Gingrich matched his achievement in Congressional elections. Democratic politicians like Bill Clinton adapted, ending the federal welfare entitlement and declaring the era of big government over.
With the collapse of the markets, the party traditionally identified with big government — the Democrats — has reason to wonder if public sentiment has decisively shifted in its direction. “Are we looking at another inflection point today?” Michael Barone, a political analyst and historian, wrote in National Review last week. “Maybe so.”
Economic Woes Dim GOP Chances
By Reid Wilson in Real Clear Politics.
In late September 2006, Republicans knew they faced a difficult political landscape, though few anticipated the party would lose as many seats as they did. Then, on September 29, Florida Congressman Mark Foley abruptly resigned amid charges of inappropriate relations with young House pages, a moment many call a tipping point that cost the GOP majorities in both chambers.
This September, Republicans were feeling much better about their chances, anticipating only a few losses as John McCain ran neck and neck with Barack Obama and the party plotted offensives against House Democrats. But the collapse and sell off of several large investment banks, followed, on September 29, by a 777-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average has put Republicans back on defense and McCain at a distinct disadvantage. With a month to go before Election Day, the GOP could be forgiven from having horrifying flashbacks.