Fresh from delivering the best soundbite of his presidential campaign -- his retort to Barack Obama during their Wednesday night debate that "I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago" -- John McCain today again dissed the current White House occupant.
He also took a couple of shots at Obama and Joe Biden.
And he did all this in a new 60-second ad that, as part of an attack on "Washington" in general, lumps together Bush, Obama and Biden without mentioning any of their names!
The ad (which can be viewed in full below) is simplicity itself from a production standpoint; a seated McCain speaks directly into the camera, The backdrop, though, evokes the White House. And in that setting, McCain immediately and unequivocally distances himself from Bush.
The ad's first line: "The last eight years haven't worked out very well, have they?"
Since a two-term cap was imposed on the presidency, three men have served in the office for a full eight years: Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. None of the nominees chosen by their parties to replace them -- Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush and Al Gore, respectively -- ever came close to so explicitly trashing their predecessor's record.
After McCain's extraordinary critique of the current administration, he asserts that Washington is making this bad situation worse. "Telling us paying higher taxes is 'patriotic?' " he mockingly asks -- the Biden-relared barb.
McCain follows with another rhetorical question: "And saying we need to 'spread the wealth around?' " That derives, of course, from the now-renowned impromptu policy debate in an Ohio-neighborhood between Obama and "Joe the Plumber."
The ad goes on, but those first few seconds provide the likely playbook McCain and his camp will follow over the next two-and-a-half weeks: Stiff-arm Bush, decry Democratic tax policy and -- again and again and again -- spotlight that "spread the wealth" line.
Today, though, Obama had a snappy reminder for supporters with short memories.
Appearing before more than 100 major contributors at a fundraising breakfast in Manhattan, the front-runner in the presidential race said: “For those of you who are feeling giddy or cocky or think this is all set, I just have two words for you: New Hampshire.”
Obama was referencing his campaign's jolt-of-reality setback last January in the Granite State. Hot on the heels of his triumph in Iowa, an Obama win in New Hampshire's primary might have effectively ended the Democratic race. Polls showed him solidly ahead. But when the votes were counted, he lost by a couple of percentage points to Hillary Clinton.
“I’ve been in these positions before when we were favored and the press starts getting carried away and we end up getting spanked,” he continued this morning. “That’s another good lesson that Hillary Clinton taught me, so we want to make sure that we are closing strong, running through the tape.”
That said, Obama could not resist looking ahead, beyond the Nov. 4 election.
“One of the things that I think we have to remember is that we are now 19 days, not from the end, but from the beginning," he said. "The amount of work that will be involved for the next president is going to be extraordinary.”
With 20 days to go until the general election, new research on state polls by Karl Rove & Co. shows two more states moving into the electoral vote column of Sen. Barack Obama and one other state moving from tossup into the column of Sen. John McCain's states.
Obama in recent days (before last night's final debate) has gained Florida and Colorado, a total of 36 hypothetical electoral votes, to give Obama a new total of 313, well beyond the 270 necessary.
McCain gains Indiana's 11 electoral votes to give him a total of 174. Only 51 votes in four states remain in the tossup category, as shown in yellow on the map below, courtesy of Karl Rove & Co. The study's methodology and a chart showing weekly movements from July are available by clicking on the Read more line below.
Much has been made in recent weeks of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's network interviews with some in the media. John McCain called it "gotcha" journalism.
Funny how Palin does this MSNBC network interview with Savannah Guthrie and gets caught doing something else. But no one points out this interview as proof of anything bad.
Watch and judge for for yourself what it says. Maybe you know others who'd like to judge too. Send them this link here. And for a photo of Palin and Trig, click the Read more line below.
-- Andrew Malcolm
To register for instant alerts on all Ticket items straight to your cell, go here to Twitter.
And a hat tip to the all-seeing folks over at MediaBistro.
The culprit for the chaos in the financial markets has become clear. Blame it on the just-concluded series of presidential and vice presidential debates.
True, on the day of the first one -- Friday, Sept. 26 -- traders were a friendly audience for a faceoff. Before John McCain and Barack Obama took the stage that night in Mississippi, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose about 121 points.
But on its next work day -- Monday, Sept. 29 -- Wall Street was in a foul mood. The Dow plunged about 777 points.
OK, so maybe the drop had more to do with the surprise failure of the House late that morning to pass the first financial rescue plan. But how do we explain what has happened since then:
** Sarah Palin and Joe Biden meet in St. Louis on Thursday, Oct. 2, for their sole debate. The Dow that day -- down about 348 points.
** McCain and Obama conduct their town hall debate in Nashville on Tuesday, Oct. 7. The Dow that day -- down about 508 points.
** Wednesday's concluding face-off takes place on Long Island on a day the Dow plummets about 733 points.
Political junkies and undecided voters may yearn for still more debates. But for the markets, that might be a death blow.
He's the balded plumber in the tight Toledo T-shirt who engaged Barack Obama in a six-minute conversation Sunday about the freshman senator's small-business tax that would hit Joe's about-to-be-business harder. Obama patiently explained how Joe might end up paying more on what he made over $250,000 but that was to help the people who weren't making that much.
Since Joe just came up from that lower income area, he did not seem fully convinced.
Joe kept talking about being a foreman and chasing the American dream, but he didn't really get the higher tax part because it seemed to penalize his hard work the more successful he became.
Joe's name -- his first name anyway -- came up 26 times in last night's presidential debate, mostly at the instigation of Sen. John McCain, who sees Joe (there, that's eight Joes -- nine -- here already) as a symbol of upwardly-mobile Americans who would be taxed more under an Obama administration and which, McCain says, would be the worst thing to do in tough economic times. Even if your name's not Joe (ten).
Joe (eleven) says he always wanted to engage a politician in a substantive discussion and get them to stop toe-tapping all-around an issue, kinda like stopping a stubborn leaking pipe. Joe (twelve) says he still feels he got a tap-dance, but now he's also got about 13 minutes of fame left. If you need more on Joe (thirteen), our colleague Robin Abcarian has it here.
The entire polite conversation between Obama and Wurzelbacher was caught on tape by ABC News. It is actually rather unusual for a presidential candidate, whose most precious commodity is each day's 1,440 minutes, to spend six of them on one possible voter, even with a network camera obviously rolling nearby.
Since American political protocol says a candidate shouldn't be the one to break off a conversation with a voter, usually one campaign aide is assigned the duty to politely end such chats after one or two minutes by interrupting with a "We really must be going, sir." But not this time.
Obama, who picked Joe (fourteen) out of the crowd himself. may come to regret spending those six minutes on Joe (fifteen), even if Joe (sixteen) turns out to be a McCain campaign plant. (You can bet folks are checking him out overnight and we may soon learn he's pregnant. No, wait, better yet to discredit him, his ex-girlfriend got a temporary restraining order.)
There is a 100% chance you are going to hear some more about Joe in the campaign's remaining days. So you might as well watch the entire video exchange for yourself now so you know what it's all about in case you only see pieces later. It's viewable right here.
Seventeen Joes (eighteen) in 12 paragraphs. Not a record. But not bad.
--Andrew Malcolm
Even if your name isn't Joe (nineteen), you can get instant alerts on all Ticket items flashed straight to your cell registering here at Twitter.
Here is the complete transcript of the third and final presidential debate between Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois at Hofstra University, Hempstead, N.Y. Oct. 15, 2008. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)
SCHIEFFER: Good evening. And welcome to the third and last presidential debate of 2008, sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. I'm Bob Schieffer of CBS News.
The rules tonight are simple. The subject is domestic policy. I will divide the next hour-and-a-half into nine-minute segments.
I will ask a question at the beginning of each segment. Each candidate will then have two minutes to respond, and then we'll have a discussion.
I'll encourage them to ask follow-up questions of each other. If they do not, I will.
The audience behind me has promised to be quiet, except at this moment, when we welcome Barack Obama and John McCain.
Gentlemen, welcome.
By now, we've heard all the talking points, so let's try to tell the people tonight some things that they -- they haven't heard. Let's get to it.
Another very bad day on Wall Street, as both of you know. Both of you proposed new plans this week to address the economic crisis.
Senator McCain, you proposed a $52 billion plan that includes new tax cuts on capital gains, tax breaks for seniors, write-offs for stock losses, among other things.
Senator Obama, you proposed $60 billion in tax cuts for middle- income and lower-income people, more tax breaks to create jobs, new spending for public works projects to create jobs.
I will ask both of you: Why is your plan better than his?
Senator McCain, you go first.
MCCAIN: Well, let -- let me say, Bob, thank you. And thanks to Hofstra. And, by the way, our beloved Nancy Reagan is in the hospital tonight, so our thoughts and prayers are going with you. It's good to see you again, Senator Obama.
Americans are hurting right now, and they're angry. They're hurting, and they're angry. They're innocent victims of greed and excess on Wall Street and as well as Washington, D.C. And they're angry, and they have every reason to be angry.
And they want this country to go in a new direction. And there are elements of my proposal that you just outlined which I won't repeat.
But we also have to have a short-term fix, in my view, and long- term fixes. Let me just talk to you about one of the short-term fixes.
The catalyst for this housing crisis was the Fannie and Freddie Mae that caused subprime lending situation that now caused the housing market in America to collapse.
I am convinced that, until we reverse this continued decline in home ownership and put....
All campaigns distribute confidential talking points to their surrogate speakers, lists of several things they want said over and over again on TV, online and in print to drive home the message of the day to viewers out there to turn them into supporters or keep them there.
All campaigns write these talking points at headquarters to ensure consistency.
But only one campaign today e-mailed those post-debate talking points out to the media -- by mistake.
Oops! Where's that UN-send button when you need it?
Someone at Barack Obama headquarters today sent out what the campaign wants its surrogates to say starting right this minute.
Flick your TV remote.
Look and listen for these points below. And, remember, these talking points were written before the debate.
"This is John McCain’s last chance to turn this race around and somehow convince the American people that his erratic response to this economic crisis doesn’t disqualify him from being President.
"Just this weekend, John McCain vowed to 'whip Obama’s you-know-what' at the debate, and he’s indicated that he’ll be bringing up Bill Ayers to try to distract voters.
"So we know that Senator McCain will come ready to attack Barack Obama and bring his dishonorable campaign tactics to the debate stage.
"Obama continues to lead on the economic crisis with a....
Final thoughts: In political lore, this final candidate faceoff of the longest presidential campaign in U.S. history is destined to be remembered as the "Joe the Plumber" debate.
Joe the Plumber, aka Joe Wurzelbacher, the Ohio plumbing contractor who recently asked a question of Barack Obama about tax policy, which prompted the Democrat to invoke the phrase "spread the wealth," which John McCain clearly decided could be used effectively to depict his rival as embracing a liberalism akin to socialism. By one quick count, McCain referred to "Joe the Plumber" 15 times.
But if Wurzelbacher achieved instant stardom, the real winner tonight was the American public. The third time truly proved the charm as McCain and Obama -- after two false starts -- finally engaged in a rhetorical battle that spelled out clear differences between them on a number of fronts.
These include the federal budget, healthcare, education and abortion (the latter two issues had been virtually ignored in the previous debates).
McCain delivered his best performance, at least during the debate's first 30 minutes. As befits his self-proclaimed "underdog" status in the race (confirmed by the polls), he immediately and aggressively challenged Obama on economic matters -- most obviously taxes.
And he delivered an effective retort when Obama played the "you're-a-Bush-third-term" card (see below). McCain partisans may rightly wonder what took McCain so long to come up with such an effective sound bite to this long-running Obama refrain, but better late than never.
Obama seemed off his stride -- and perhaps too passive -- as McCain got off to his good start. But once the William Ayers matter came up, was dealt with and set aside (again, see below), Obama rallied. And as the debate proceeded, he got stronger while McCain at times lost his focus.
McCain's campaign, though, can be expected to keep its focus on what he seemed to telegraph will be its main line of attack over the next few days -- and perhaps through election day. And that is hammering Obama over the "spread the wealth" phrase.
7:25 p.m. Unlike the previous debates, which focused largely on the economy and foreign policy, tonight Schieffer is asking questions about a wide range of issues, from abortion to education.
Although the candidates agree that America should have more charter schools, their education policies differ in some important ways.
McCain calls for an overhaul, including the implementation of a voucher system that would allow families to pull their tax dollars from public schools and use the money for tuition at charter or private schools. Obama does not favor vouchers.
Obama would pump billions into the school system and overhaul the No Child Left Behind program. He also talks about the need to improve college accessibility and affordability.
McCain, in responding, ignores the college issue and concentrates instead on the....
Major League Baseball agreed Wednesday to push back the start time of Game 6 of the World Series by about 15 minutes so that Fox Broadcasting Co. could sell Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama a half-hour of prime time on Wednesday, Oct. 29.
The campaign also has bought the same time period -- 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 29 -- on CBS and NBC so Obama can run a 30-minute program on all of the networks. Each network is selling the time for $950,000 to $1 million. Buying time on all of the major broadcast networks would allow Obama to reach more than 20 million people on the Wednesday before the election.
A spokesman for Fox said the network would make available a similar 30-minute block of time for the Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain, if he chooses. Time for McCain would be either later that night (if there is no Game 6) or the following evening.
Major League Baseball did not have an immediate comment.
UPDATE: Alex Conant, spokesman with the Republican National Committee responds with this: “It’s unfortunate that the World Series’ first pitch is being delayed for Obama’s political pitch. Not only is Obama putting politics before principle, he’s putting it before our national pastime.”
John McCain's surprise pick of Sarah Palin as his running mate undoubtedly fired up his party's base and initially appeared to boost his political prospects.
The L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll completed earlier this week, though, raised the prospect that among the public at large, she's become a drag on him -- or at least a wash.
The survey found a virtual tie in attitudes toward Palin: 43% gave her a thumbs up, 42% a thumbs down. Slightly more -- 27% -- said she made them less likely to vote for McCain than those who said she upped the chances they would do so -- 22% (the majority -- 50% -- said her presence on the ticket would not affect their vote).
Back in her home state, Alaska's leading newspaper today decided to hold forth what has happened -- politically -- to Palin since she was thrust onto the national stage less than eight weeks ago. Sean Cockerman of the Anchorage Daily News asserts that she "has morphed on the national campaign trail from bipartisan small state governor to a conservative lightning rod."
He goes on:
Even if she doesn't win the vice presidency, her political career will never be the same. If she returns (to Alaska), the Republican governor will face former Democratic allies furious at her campaign attacks. She will also face lawmakers from both parties ticked off at her handling of the so-called Troopergate investigation and her recent false assertions that the investigator's report cleared her, according to interviews with a number of lawmakers and others who watch Alaska politics. ...
But Palin would also return as a national figure who excited huge crowds across the nation and is already being described as a potential presidential candidate four years from now. She continues to enjoy high approval ratings among Alaskans, and she would come back a seasoned campaigner with new political chops.
If McCain loses the presidential election, Palin would face re-election as governor in 2010. One of Alaska's two U.S. Senate seats also is up that year, but it's already occupied by a female Republican: Lisa Murkowski. That would be the daughter of Frank Murkowski, the incumbent governor Palin trounced in the 2006 GOP primary on her way to becoming the state's chief executive.
Tonight we will be live blogging Barack Obama and John McCain's final presidential debate, just as we did their previousshowdowns. You can find our coverage right here, beginning at 5:30 p.m. PDT.
While the candidates brush up on their talking points (we already know Obama's, because they were accidentally sent to the media), we thought you might want to bone up, too. So we present you with our debate day reading list -- a collection of some of the most interesting politics stories online:
Stephanie Strom of the New York Times writes an illuminating piece about Obama's connections to ACORN, a community organizing group that Republicans say committed voter fraud in several important swing states. Does the ACORN fracas seem ugly? It won't after you read Jill Lepore's article in the New Yorker about how we used to vote. In the nineteenth century, she says, Americans sometimes had to quite literally fight their way to the polls on election day (they also had to bring their own ballots).
Meanwhile, in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, Thomas Frank defends another favorite McCain campaign target -- William Ayers. And Politico's Jeanne Cummings notes that while McCain's ads linking Obama to Ayers are getting a lot of attention -- Obama is actually airing many more commercials.
John B. Judis write in the New Republic about politicians' personalities and the role that “heroism” has played in some elections.
Our own Johanna Neuman and Seema Mehta preview the debate, and Richard Cohen explains in the Washington Post the questions he'd like to see the candidates answer.
And finally, if you don't have time do all that reading, Slate recaps all that has happened in the election since the first presidential debate in a handy (if a bit slanted) four-minute video:
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Our Bloggers
Don Frederick has served as an editor helping guide coverage of every presidential election since 1984. He is a third-generation Washingtonian, so watching the political world comes naturally to him.
A graduate of Northwestern University, he was a reporter for newspapers in Colorado, New Mexico and Texas before joining the (now-defunct) Los Angeles Herald Examiner in 1983. Hired by The Times in 1989, he has worked in its Washington bureau since 1996 — a perch providing him a close-up view of the impeachment of President Clinton, the government's response to 9/11 and the day-to-day wrangling of the two major parties.
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000.
A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
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A graduate of Northwestern University, he was a reporter for newspapers in Colorado, New Mexico and Texas before joining the (now-defunct) Los Angeles Herald Examiner in 1983. Hired by The Times in 1989, he has worked in its Washington bureau since 1996 — a perch providing him a close-up view of the impeachment of President Clinton, the government's response to 9/11 and the day-to-day wrangling of the two major parties.
A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.