Scranton, Pennsylvania may be a Democratic stronghold, but folks aren’t shy about ticking off what bugs them about Barack Obama. He seems a bit smug. He was never in the same league as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, then added insult to injury by passing her over for VP. And there’s the rumors, false, that Obama is a Muslim. Plus his earlier refusal to wear an American flag pin.

“He said it was a fashion statement, wearing the flag,” Trish Votaw , a 40-something divorcee, said as she smoked Marlboros on her front porch while waiting for her teenage boys to get home from school. “But who cares if it is a fashion statement? It’s the American way. Especially with our troops over there. He should have the flag on.”

Votaw voted for Clinton in the Pennsylvania primary, helping her trounce Obama in the Scranton area by a 3-1 ratio. When Clinton conceded the nomination, Votaw flirted with backing Republican John McCain because she respects his experience and clear-eyed patriotism.

But after eight years of a Republican president, most of it with a Republican Congress, she is leery. The war in Iraq is a drag, excess on Wall Street has led to lean times on Main Street, and many of the good-paying factory jobs that helped build this coal town are gone. She worries her sons won’t have anything to keep them here.

If Obama reverses his crummy fortunes among working-class white voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio and other rural reaches of the Rust Belt and manages to get elected president of the United States, it will be thanks to Votaw and former Clinton supporters like her — working-class white voters who may not love him, but who are learning to tolerate him.

The St Petersburg Times is tomorrow publishing a story on voters in Scranton and north-eastern Pennsylvania, an area that voted overwhelmingly for Senator Clinton in the April primary (by a 3:1 margin), that again points to a fundamental shift in the race over the past month. In the wake of the financial crisis that began on September 15th with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the rescue of AIG and the ever-increasing economic anxiety, there has been a strong shift among three key demographics towards Senator Obama and away from Senator McCain.

Hispanics in early September were opting for Obama by a 3:2 margin in the west but now that margin is closer to 3:1. That’s a 15 point shift. Seniors represent the second group that has seen a shift towards Obama and away from McCain. Back in early August, McCain held an eight-point lead (47%-39%) among those age 65-plus. McCain now trails among seniors by one point. That’s a nine point shift. The third group are working class white without a college degree. In early September, McCain had a 26-point advantage among white voters without a college degree who were likely to vote. But by late September, the advantage had dropped to 7 points, with McCain leading 46% to 39% among this group.

These three groups were carried by Senator Clinton in the primaries. However belatedly for Obama and however reluctantly, these are the Clinton Democrats coming around.

Many hard core Clinton supporters will find this hard to believe, but I don’t. The thesis that Obama is unelectable is not one to which I subscribe. The economic crisis changed the dynamic of the race and seemed to confirm Obama’s message that McCain is more of the same. Obama is now clearly ahead in the polls and given that the McCain campaign has yet to offer a credible alternative on the issues facing the country I think it highly unlikely that the gap will close significantly. Barring some sort of external development on the international front that may yet again highlight the difference in experience between McCain and Obama come November 4th I expect Obama to cruise to victory with 300+ Electoral College votes.

Perhaps sad but true and to be frank, I don’t blame them. McCain has failed to articulate a message on the economy. And while Obama has been no doubt vague, he wins on that score simply because his message has been the McCain is more of the same. I may be an Obama skeptic but my objectivity isn’t going to compromised. Obama is winning and it’s because, more than McCain, his campaign has been on message. Much of that message has been negative (McCain = Bush is hardly positive), some of it deceitful, but in terms of running a tightly scripted campaign, Obama is running a well-managed campaign.

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This is the tenth poll of the critical battleground state of Ohio (link to US census demographic data) and the second consecutive poll to show a tight race once again after two which had shown Obama leading by as many as seven points. It appears that at least in the Buckeye State after the rough patch of the last three weeks that the McCain campaign has stemmed the bleed. In the latest poll from the Ohio News Organization, a consortium of eight Ohio newspapers, Senator McCain leads Senator Obama 48% to 46%, a two point margin.

What a difference a couple of weeks make.

Boosted by growing concern about the Wall Street meltdown and Main Street credit freeze, Sen. Barack Obama is closing the gap for Ohio’s 20 electoral votes in next month’s presidential election, according to the latest Ohio Newspaper Poll.

The Illinois Democrat now trails Republican Sen. John McCain by two percentage points — well within the poll’s margin of error of 3.3 percent.

“It’s a statistical dead-heat,” said Eric Rademacher, interim co-director of the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati, which surveyed 876 likely voters across the state Oct. 4-8.

The poll was the second of three telephone surveys commissioned by the Ohio News Organization, a group of the state’s eight largest newspapers.

The first poll, conducted Sept. 12-16, showed McCain leading Obama 48 percent to 42 percent, with 5 percent of the respondents saying they’d vote for independent Ralph Nader or Libertarian Bob Barr and 5 percent undecided.

The new poll found McCain’s lead down to 48-46.

“We’ve gone from a race that looked increasingly like it was going toward John McCain to a race that now is more or less even,” said Rademacher, whose institute also conducts the Ohio Poll.

Also by a small margin, Obama was favored as the candidate who “would do the best job in improving economic conditions,” 47 percent to 44 percent.
Rademacher said the election was “still up for grabs” because 13 percent said they might change their minds and 3 percent were undecided. Several said they made up their minds only recently.

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Here are six 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.

Anger Is Crowd’s Overarching Emotion at McCain Rally
By Michael D. Shear and Perry Bacon Jr in the Washington Post.

There were shouts of “Nobama” and “Socialist” at the mention of the Democratic presidential nominee. There were boos, middle fingers turned up and thumbs turned down as a media caravan moved through the crowd Thursday for a midday town hall gathering featuring John McCain and Sarah Palin.

“It is absolutely vital that you take it to Obama, that you hit him where it hits, there’s a soft spot,” said James T. Harris, a local radio talk show host, who urged the Republican nominee to use Barack Obama’s controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and others against him.

“We have the good Reverend Wright. We have [the Rev. Michael L.] Pfleger. We have all of these shady characters that have surrounded him,” Harris bellowed. “We have corruption here in Wisconsin and voting across the nation. I am begging you, sir. I am begging you. Take it to him.”

The crowd of thousands roared its approval.

McCain Booed after Trying to Calm Anti-Obama Crowd
By Philip Elliott and Beth Fouhy for the Associatied Press.

“I don’t trust Obama,” a woman said. “I have read about him. He’s an Arab.”

McCain shook his head in disagreement, and said:

“No, ma’am. He’s a decent, family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with (him) on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign is all about.”

He had drawn boos with his comment: “I have to tell you, he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States.”

The anti-Obama taunts and jeers are noticeably louder when McCain appears with Palin, a big draw for GOP social conservatives. She accused Obama this week of “palling around with terrorists” because of his past, loose association with a 1960s radical. If less directly, McCain, too, has sought to exploit Obama’s Chicago neighborhood ties to William Ayers, while trying simultaneously to steer voters’ attention to his plans for the financial crisis.

Candidates Pressured to Change Debate
By Andy Barr writing for Politico.

After a thoroughly panned presidential debate, a wide-ranging coalition of activists on the left and the right is calling on Barack Obama and John McCain scrap the rules for the last presidential debate to avoid the stiff and scripted answers that many critics said deadened their earlier exchanges.

The group, which includes the likes of MoveOn, The Next Right, The Huffington Post and Wikipedia, sent a letter to the presidential candidates Friday pressuring them to change what they called a “lacking” debate that was lampooned as boring by Saturday Night Live.

At a minimum, the group demands that moderator Bob Schieffer be allowed to ask follow up questions to the candidates, who many believe have been allowed to skate through debates without being aggressively challenged on vague or non-responsive answers.

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Han Blix, the former chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq, discusses the legality of the war in Iraq. Like Hans Blix, I hold that the Iraq War was illegal in violation of the United Nations Charter. The next question is whether the Iraq War was criminal.

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