TO OUR READERS

Our second subscription drive starts today.  Subscriptions are absolutely critical to the survival of Urgent Agenda.  If you like what you see, and our readership growth shows that you do, please subscribe in the column on the right. 

Consider:  A week of Urgent Agenda costs less than a candy bar.  That's right - a week for less than a Milky Way.  We think that's an awfully good deal.

Our main page will always be free.  Subscribers support it because they want to guarantee that it exists at all, and maintains its standards.  But now, new and current subscribers will get special benefits.  We will be offering what amounts to an extra day of Urgent Agenda, additional audio reports, and a special e-mail address for subscribers to write to us and make their feelings known.  The "extra day" will be drawn from the research done for Urgent Agenda, and will include subjects we don't cover on the main site.

If for any reason you wish to cancel your subscription, the unused portion will be returned to you, upon request. 

On election day, if present trends continue, we will become part of the loyal opposition.  If trends reverse, we will be an honest gadfly to a McCain presidency. 

A voice like Urgent Agenda is needed now, more than ever.  Only you can guarantee that this voice will continue to be heard as we enter very uncertain times. 

We must be a subscription-based service.  Please become a subscriber, and join a very special, self-selected group.

---------------------------------------------------

SNIPPETS, our daily collection of short items and comments, is here.

--------------------------------------------- 

Answers to last week's "Current Question" are here. The new "Current Question" is here, in the right-hand column.

----------------------------------------------------

TO LISTEN TO OUR AUDIO COMMENTARIES, GO HERE.

---------------------------------------------------

MONDAY,  OCTOBER 13,  2008

UPDATE AT 8:49 P.M. ET:  We reported earlier that the first IBD/Tipp tracking poll for this election has just reported its first results - Obama by two points, 45-43.  This is outside the range of all other polls.  However, IBD/Tipp had the best record for accuracy in the 2004 election.  You can read the internal details of the poll here.

COMMENT:  Please note that the poll was taken over a six-day period, rather than the traditional three days for tracking polls.  That means it is not as up to date as other trackers, which may account for it being an outlier.  Also, accuracy in 2004 is not a guarantee of accuracy this year.  I'd be cautious about these results.

FURY

Posted at 6:30 p.m. ET

In researching Urgent Agenda today, I noticed a discernible increase in anger on the right.  (Our liberal friends in journalism used to call it "thunder on the right.")  Conservatives columnists are increasingly enraged at the treatment of John McCain and Sarah Palin, and at the stunning double standard in much of the media.  Mark Levin, whom many of you know from his ABC radio program, articulates the feeling at NRO.  The anger is justified.  It must now be channeled into constructive political work, building toward the 2010 midterm elections.  The worst thing for conservatives to do would be to get angry and withdraw, or to go off into fringe politics and conspiracy theories.  Levin:

Barack Obama's campaign has managed to paint Geraldine Ferraro, Bill Clinton, John McCain, and Sarah Palin as racists. Meanwhile, how dare anyone suggest that Obama's voluntary association with a racist pastor for 20 years, and his lame defense of the association, raises character questions.

Will the lib media be upset if we quote Aristotle, whose insight seems useful in this context?

"Those, then, are friends to whom the same things are good and evil; and those who are, moreover, friendly or unfriendly to the same people; for in that case they must have the same wishes, and thus by wishing for each other what they wish for themselves, they show themselves each other's friends." (Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book II, Chapter)

And...

We choose our own friends and associates. And this is significant in Obama's case in particular as we are trying to get a sense of who he is and what informs him. Obama is asking the nation to honor him with its highest office. Yet, during most of his adulthood, he has befriended some of the worst kind of people — many of whom detest the nation Obama seeks to lead. And when combined with Obama's own extremism on issue after issue (is there a left-wing position he does not embrace?), there can be no doubt that an Obama administration working with a Democrat majority in Congress will fundamentally alter the nation's character in ways that will be very difficult to unravel.

That is the fear.  But the American people, if organized correctly, can successfully resist.

As for Obama's commercials, they are deceitful even by the Washington Post's standards. They flat out lie about McCain's health-care plan and the tax consequences.

And...

And then there is ACORN. Obama worked for them, represented them, and has now given them $800,000 from his campaign. Is Obama unaware of what a fraudulent operation this is? Of course not. He rejects any responsibility for their actions. And what of Obama's thuggish tactics in intimidating those with whom he disagrees? He asked the Justice Department to prosecute a private group that was running ads about his ties to William Ayers — and later sought tax information from them to file complaints with the IRS. He tried to silence our own Stanley Kurtz by using his campaign e-mail list to encourage calls to the management of a radio station on two separate occasions to keep Kurtz off the air. And then they flooded the show with calls when Kurtz was on.

It's important that this story get out.  Michael Barone warned a few days ago about the coming liberal thugocracy.  Normally, the press would be outraged.  But it has drunk the Kool-Aid.

The vast majority of conservative intellectuals and grassroots activist comprehend what's at stake in the election, even if David Brooks, Christopher Buckley, Doug Kmiec, and other eccentrics do not. Obama and David Axelrod know exactly what they are doing, and so do most of the media anchors and reporters. And they hope to alter this country in ways we should all find revolting.

Next step:  If Obama wins, going into effective opposition.  Pouting gets us nowhere.

October 13,  2008.      Permalink          

UPDATE AT 4:54 P.M. ET:  A number of readers have alerted me to a Larry Kudlow note at NRO, reporting that the Investors Business Daily/TIPP tracking poll, which just started its polls for this election year, has the race at Obama 45 and McCain 43.  What makes this significant, according to a distinguished expert among our readers, is that this poll had the best track record for the 2004 election. Let us hope.

UPDATE AT 4:45 P.M. ET:  CNN reports that Monday's stock market gain, now pegged at more than 900 points, was the largest point gain in the market's history.  We'll see what happens tomorrow.  If it continues, it may clear the air and allow John McCain to have a good three-week run to election time...if he can get his campaign back on track.

NOTE AT 4:23 P.M. ET:  Christopher Hitchens, who had made some limited headway in his trek from left to center, passionately denounces McCain/Palin and endorses Obama/Biden in a piece today for Slate.  I found it angry and sad, especially the vile comments about Sarah Palin.  I don't know, maybe Hitchens is trying to get back in the good graces of the left.  But if this is an example of the "new/old" Hitchens, he's regressed to a state from which recovery is rare.  You can read it here, if you like.

BULLETIN AT 4:04 P.M. ET:  The figure may change slightly in final counting, but the Dow was up 854 at the close, a spectacular day.  Clearly, though, this isn't the final story.  Are we seeing a recovery, or a one-day blitz?  It is heartening news, though.

UPDATE AT 2:41 P.M. ET:  Using some new methodology that I'm not sure I fully follow, Gallup has Obama up 8.5.  It was seven yesterday.  Yesterday Gallup announced that the race was tightening.  Apparently not. 

UPDATE AT 2:21 P.M. ET:  The Dow is up 542.

UPDATE AT 11:08 A.M. ET:  The Hotline tracker has Obama up six, down from seven yesterday.  We await Gallup, which publishes in the afternoon, ET.

UPDATE AT 11:01 A.M. ET:  Dow is up 466.

UPDATE AT 10:16 A.M. ET: The Dow is now up 303, a decline of almost 100 points since the opening.  Expect volatility.  No need to panic for another 30 seconds.

UPDATE AT 9:47 A.M. ET:  As noted earlier, based on advance news reports, Rasmussen has Obama up five points this morning, down from six yesterday, and eight a week ago.  But Rasmussen cautions that many internal numbers, such as the comparative favorability of the two candidates, strongly favor Obama, and that the race is relatively stable.

UPDATE AT 9:36 A.M. ET:  Stocks opened sharply higher today.  The Dow is currently up almost 400 points.  Of course, this is an opening number, and should not be taken as a guarantee of anything.

UPDATE AT 9:20 A.M. ET:   LONDON (AP) -- European markets rallied strongly Monday following Asia's lead in response to the widespread government efforts over the weekend to shore up the world's battered financial system.

HANSON

Posted at 8:55 a.m. ET

Victor Davis Hanson, who actually knows history, sets the record straight on some charges against the McCain campaign.  It is remarkable to see how many well-compensated pundits get basic facts wrong, don't do research, and make their assumptions based on what other equally inept pundits say.  Hanson provides a good disinfectant:

This is becoming a very strange campaign.

On CNN last evening both David Gergen and Ed Rollins echoed the current mantra that the "old" noble McCain is gone-and a "new" nastier one has emerged, largely because of his attacks on Ayers, perhaps his planned future ads on Wright, and a few unhinged people shouting at his campaign stops...

...A couple of thoughts: the George Bush, Sr. / Willie Horton campaign was far tougher; so were the Bush 2000/2004 efforts. If anything, McCain's campaign is subdued in comparison to what we've seen on both sides in past years. Indeed, McCain as a vicious campaigner is a complete fabrication, but, again, a brilliant subterfuge on the part of Team Obama that, in fact, has run, via appendages, the far more vicious race.

Thank you, sir, for giving us actual history.

Obama and his surrogates have repeatedly engaged in racial politics (as Bill Clinton lamented when in fury he denounced the "race card"). When there was never evidence that McCain was using race as a wedge issue, it was clear Obama most surely was--preemptively, on at least two occasions--warning Americans he would soon be the victim of opposition racial stereotyping.

And...

So far, McCain supporters have not broken into Biden's email, or accused Biden of being a Nazi, or accused anyone of not bearing one of their own children, or photo-shopped grotesque pictures of Obama on the Internet (as in the Atlantic magazine case). I don't think deranged McCain supporters in Hollywood or television almost daily are quoted as damning Obama in unusually crude terms. Nor are white racist ministers calling McCain a 'messiah' or McCain operatives fraudulently swarming voter registration centers.

Someone finally said it.

Obama, as I have said ad nauseam, has brilliantly prepped the battlefield to such a degree that a Farrakhan endorsement or surrogates calling Palin a quasi-Nazi or a bimbo, or smearing McCain as near senile is irrelevant; yet one screamer in a crowd of tens of thousands is proof of McCain's and Palin's racism and hatred.

Again, most conservatives know this paradox, but for some being outraged, as the conservative voice of reason, at McCain's supposed low road ensures a CNN spot, or some future rehabilitation during the expected Obama regnum of the next eight years. I think should I write a column suddenly taking the "high road", praising Obama's wit, taste in books, and metrosexuality, I would be dubbed principled rather than cynical, 'even-handed' rather than self-serving, and a maverick rather than toadish.

You can see why Hanson is so respected as a sober, informed writer.

And as far as ethics go, in fact, a cursory review of the past Obama campaigns would reveal a ruthlessness never seen in any of McCain's efforts. Obama's record is far more left than McCain's is far right. Obama the healer has proven to be the most partisan in the Senate, McCain one of the most bipartisan.

But let's not let facts stand in our way.  The Obama nation will lead us to a better world.

Won't it?

October 13, 2008.      Permalink               

UPDATE AT 8:22 A.M. ET: Battleground poll has Obama up eight, same as when Battleground last published Saturday.  Zogby has him up four, down two points from yesterday.

UPDATE AT 7:39 A.M. ET:  Paul Krugman, the Princeton economist and often daffy New York Times columnist, has just been awarded the Nobel Prize in economics.  No politics here.  Nah. 

COMMENT:  I guess next year's literature prize will be given to Oprah Winfrey, and we can expect the chemistry award to go to Betty Crocker.

THE RACE

Posted at 7:22 a.m. ET

Despite a new ABC/Washington Post poll showing Obama up ten, there are some tentative indications in tracking polls that the presidential race is tightening.   We will wait for confirmation, or non-confirmation, over the next three days.  Advance word is that Zogby, a problematical poll, will show Obama up only four today, down from six yesterday, and that Rasmussen will show him up five, down from six.  Gallup yesterday directly claimed that the race is tightening.

Added to this informed speculation is the fact that Obama normally delivers less than he polls.  So there may be hope that the common tightening of the presidential race toward the final weeks may be happening. 

What must McCain do to place the race in hard reverse?

The first thing, and we've stressed it here before, is to recognize that the press is against him and speak over its head.  I have urged a whistlestop tour across the nation, Sarah Palin at his side.

The second thing is to mount a full-scale defense of Sarah Palin herself.  No, she is not a perfect candidate, and was clearly not up to speed on national policy when she became McCain's running mate.  But in Alaska she is considered a serious governor with very high public approval, and that has not been stressed enough.  A good chunk of the American public has come to love her, gaffes and all, and she grows more confident by the day.  But the McCain campaign must do more for her.  Polls show that she's receiving public sympathy over her treatment by the media.  Sympathy can be artfully used.  Sarah Palin has terrific qualities.  Emphasize them.

The third thing is to articulate clear, positive stands on the issues.  Americans love optimists.  McCain must articulate a positive vision of America, a heroic vision, to go with his life story.  David Paul Kuhn, in The Politico, reports:

Top Republican strategists believe John McCain’s stalled presidential campaign can only be revived if the Arizona senator takes an immediate and decisive turn in direction, one marked by an almost unwavering focus on the economy and a sharp break from Bush administration economic policy.

While Barack Obama’s past associations with controversial figures such as former radical William Ayers should be a part of McCain's closing argument, they say, the GOP nominee needs to primarily concentrate on the historic nature of the current economic crisis and explain why he is better suited to lead the country out of it.

“Either McCain wins the argument over the economy or he loses,” said Newt Gingrich, the former Republican Speaker of the House. “When the economy is this central to everybody’s life, when everybody is as worried as they are now, then when you are not talking about the economy you are not winning.”

McCain must stress that our greatest economic days are ahead of us, then present a vision of how we get there.  He must trash Obama's ideas as 40 years out of date, the failed policies of another era.

At the same time, he must continue to ask the American people this question:  In the crises to come, who would you trust with the safety and security of your family?

The fact is that Obama has proved himself a poor closer in contests past.  Look what happened to him in the final weeks of his battle against Hillary Clinton?  He almost collapsed, and barely crawled across the finish line. 

There's another debate this week.  The press is already writing McCain's obituary.  He must come out fighting, but in a positive way, and he must turn the negative of his age into a positive - a wise man who has been through hell, and knows how to avoid it.

Can McCain win?  It will be difficult.  We rarely have had as smooth a performer, in politics or in circuses, as Barack Obama.  But yes, McCain can win. 

October 13, 2008.       Permalink              

SUNDAY,  OCTOBER 12,  2008

SARAH, SARAH

Posted at 8:36 p.m. ET

This is a wonderful piece from the Anchorage Daily News and confirms what many of us have thought - that Sarah Palin is actually a smart lady who's done some very good things, but is being savaged by the liberal press and restricted by the McCain campaign.

Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has let her energy platform be dumbed down to "drill, baby, drill," but her actual record on energy is much more responsible, balanced and substantial.

• She worked with lawmakers and used her popularity to vastly increase Alaska's take-home share of its oil wealth, providing the state with billions of dollars in budget surplus with an oil tax that increased both the base rate and captured progressively more at higher oil prices.

• She encouraged new investment and exploration with generous, intelligent tax credits.

• She kick-started investment in a natural gas pipeline -- both through her own Alaska Gasline Inducement Act and the response by North Slope producers BP Alaska and Conoco Phillips, who pledge to spend up to $600 million on their own project.

• She maintained her predecessor's hard- line stance with Exxon/Mobil over development of the Point Thomson gas reserves, ultimately deciding to take the leases back rather the trust Exxon to make good on its umpteenth promise to produce. That prompted Exxon to go to court. That also prompted Exxon to promise $1.3 billion of work on Point Thomson.

• She proposed a Renewable Energy Fund that lawmakers last session approved for $250 million over five years. This is money to bankroll wind, geothermal, tidal and other forms of renewable energy.

• She supported lawmakers' work on home energy conservation, including $200 million for the Weatherization Program that increased the qualifying income limits for individuals and families and $100 million for the Home Energy Rebate Program, which provides up to $10,000 per household for energy efficiency improvements.

Whether you agree or disagree with these steps, the woman is an intelligent, engaged executive.  And note this:

Gov. Palin can't claim sole credit for any of this...

...But Gov. Palin did parlay her unprecedented popularity and those favorable circumstances to give Alaska something closer to a state energy policy than anything the United States has by way of a national policy.

Glad someone said it.  But you won't read it in the mainstream media.  Try to go through the rest of the piece, which provides the details, and concludes:

Sarah Palin's got a solid energy record in Alaska. National voters need to hear more than "drill, baby, drill."

Agreed.

October 12, 2008.      Permalink          

TRACKERS

Posted at 4:32 p.m. ET

The only particularly interesting thing about today's trackers is this statement from Gallup, which reports Obama up seven, down three from eleven four days ago:

These results, based on Oct. 9-11 polling, represent a narrowing of Obama's lead over McCain. Obama led by double-digits for three consecutive days last week, but now his advantage is down to seven percentage points. Obama has led in each of the last three individual days' polling, but by less than double-digits each day, suggesting that the race is, in fact, tightening.

Well, that's one poll, and we'll have to watch the trend.  Rasmussen also shows an Obama loss, but by only one point from yesterday.  Hotline as well shows Obama down, from ten yesterday to eight today.  Battleground doesn't publish on weekends.  Zogby has Obama up six, contrasted with four yesterday.

I'd also point out that the Gallup tracker tends to swing more wildly than the others, and was the outlier earlier in the week, when it reported Obama up by eleven. 

I wouldn't attach much meaning to today's Gallup statement.  Coming this week is the final debate, and McCain has lost the first two.  Also, we don't know what the financial markets will do.  If they improve, that conceivably can help McCain.  But if they plunge further, that fact will suck the air out of the news, making it hard or impossible for McCain to make progress.

The election is three weeks from Tuesday. 

October 12, 2008.      Permalink          

UPDATE AT 9:37 AM. ET:  Two trackers are out for today.  Zogby/Reuters/CSPAN has Obama up six, 49-43, a gain of two from yesterday.  Rasmussen also has Obama up six, 51-45, a loss of one from yesterday. 

COMMENT:  Please note that, even in the midst of economic crisis, Obama barely breaks 50 percent.  There are opportunities for McCain, but he doesn't know how to exploit them. 
 

McCAIN MESS

Posted at 8:43 a.m. ET

I must tell you how little good journalism is available today.  It's as if journalists themselves are holding their breath, waiting for this week's economic news.  The presidential candidates aren't saying anything they haven't said before, and don't seem to have any great ideas to deal with the crisis before us.  There is a sense of emptiness and drift, rather than resolution.  I'm reminded of William Goldman's comment about Hollywood:  "Nobody knows anything."  If someone knew, maybe this economic trauma could have been averted.

On the political front, the main story seems to be frustration with Senator McCain's campaign.  He is getting advice from all quarters, much of it conflicting.   There is no unifying theme.  Some say attack.  Others say don't attack.  Some say question Obama's character.  Others say come up with a coherent economic plan.  Three weeks from Tuesday, America will elect a new president.  I suspect many Americans are waking up to the reality that this new president will probably be Barack Obama.  Will this recognition ignite a backlash, a realization that we are heading down an unknown path with an unknown candidate toward an unknown destination?  I don't know.  But some one had better articulate the danger. 

Frank Miele, a highly intelligent Western editor whose work is often quoted here, has one of the best appraisals of the McCain campaign: 

No, I don’t mean his physical ailments, partly brought on by age and partly by the vicissitudes of torture at the hands of his captors in Hanoi 40 years ago. And I don’t mean his policies, although God knows he has some explaining to do there as well.

I am talking about his inability to carry the battle to his enemies — to look a man square in the eye and tell him, “You are wrong.” He hasn’t yet determined how to run a campaign aimed against Barack Obama’s many flaws, and time is running out.

McCain must fight:

But most pointedly of all, a McCain supporter at a rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin, on Thursday stood up and told McCain to his face what almost all of his supporters are feeling — take off your gloves and fight!

“I’m mad! I’m really mad!” said the unidentified man. “When you have Obama, [House speaker Nancy] Pelosi and the rest of the hooligans up there going to run the country, we have to have our head examined. It’s time that you two represent the rest of us,” he told McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, “So go get ’em!”

But the problem is that there's no clear vision for the campaign.  Analyst Dick Morris has said, correctly, that there are tactics, but there's no strategy. 

Barring some unforeseen testosterone transfusion, McCain is destined to keep thinking his enemies are his “friends” and that his self-appointed role as the oxymoronic “maverick moderate” will somehow pay off in votes instead of snickers.

It had looked for a while like Pitbull Palin would pull McCain across the finish line, but now it seems safe to assume that McCain will put a muzzle on her and turn the final three weeks of the campaign into a race for last place.

No matter what McCain does, he seems to get the blame:

McCain has missed opportunity after opportunity to go after Barack Obama’s tax policy, his education policy, his foreign policy and his fiscal policy, let alone his association with ACORN and its fraudulent voter registration campaigns, his 20 years of friendship with the radical Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his ties to the domestic terrorist and lifelong communist William Ayers.

The national media has already painted McCain as a negative campaigner, but the funny thing is, they do it without ever investigating whether the allegations against Obama are true. Doesn’t the truth play some small role in whether a campaign is negative or not? I mean, if someone in Russia had called Josef Stalin a mass murderer, would that be considered negative campaigning? Yes, it’s a negative statement, but in deciding your future, isn’t the truth relevant?

Wonderfully stated.  No, apparently it's not relevant, especially when the mainstream media is shaping what we see and hear.  Obama has two parties behind him - the Democratic Party, and the media party. 

Finally...

Ugh. It’s becoming almost ridiculously silly out there.

This time, I am afraid, America will get the government it deserves, and that — my friends — is a scary thought.

No doubt.  Wait 'til the day after election day.  Even scarier.

October 12, 2008.      Permalink          

"What you see is news.  What you know is background.  What you feel is opinion."
    - Lester Markel, late Sunday editor
      of The New York Times.

SUBSCRIPTIONS:

Subscriptions to URGENT AGENDA are voluntary.  Why subscribe to something you're getting free?  To help guarantee that you'll continue to get it at all.  Subscriptions sustain us.  Payments are through PayPal and are secure, but you do not have to sign up for a PayPal account.  Credit cards are fine.

FOR A ONE-YEAR ($48) SUBSCRIPTION, CLICK:

FOR A SIX-MONTH ($26) SUBSCRIPTION, CLICK:

IF YOU DON'T WISH A SET SUBSCRIPTION, BUT PREFER TO DONATE ANY OTHER AMOUNT TO SUSTAIN URGENT AGENDA, CLICK:

SEARCH URGENT AGENDA:

POWER LINE:

It's a privilege for me to post periodic pieces at Power Line. To go to Power Line, click here.

To link to my Power Line pieces, go here.

THE CURRENT QUESTION

This space will regularly raise questions that relate to the news, but transcend daily headlines.  The idea is to stimulate talk about basic issues. Our last question asked: 

Last week we asked:

What should the conservative strategy be in dealing with an Obama presidency?

You can view the answers here.

NEW CURRENT QUESTION

What can John McCain do to address the economic crisis in ways that will turn his campaign around?

If you'd like to send us your thoughts, click:
response@urgentagenda.com
(Please stay within two or three paragraphs.  We try to print every reply, if space allows.  Place your name at the end of the message if you wish your name published.  This question will stay up through Sunday.)

CONTACT:

YOU CAN E-MAIL US, AS FOLLOWS:

If you have wonderful things to say about this site, if it makes you a better person, please click:
applause@urgentagenda.com

If you have a general comment on anything you see here, or on anything else that's topical, please click:
comments@urgentagenda.com

If you must say something obnoxious, something that will embarrass you and disgrace your loving family, click:
despicable@urgentagenda.com

If you required subscription service, please click:
service@urgentagenda.com

FAVORITE SITES

Power Line
Faster Please (Michael Ledeen)
OpinionJournal.com
Hudson Institute
Bookworm Room
Bill Bennett
Red State
Pajamas Media
Michelle Malkin
The Weekly Standard
The New York Sun
Real Clear Politics
The Corner
City Journal
Gateway Pundit
American Thinker