Obama Gets Gets No Lift from Economic Turmoil

John McCain and Barack Obama are locked in a statistical deadheat in the Wall Street Journal's new poll on the presidential race:

The race between Barack Obama and John McCain remains a dead heat, despite financial turmoil that has turned the nation's attention to economic issues that tend to favor the Democratic presidential candidate, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

One reason that Sen. McCain may remain competitive: The survey shows that voters have grown even angrier about the direction of country than they were over the summer, a sentiment that the Arizona lawmaker has appealed to with a passionate populist message. For more than a week, he has eviscerated Wall Street and Washington alike for the greed, corruption and incompetence he says lie behind the financial meltdown.

At the same time, a majority of voters still believe Sen. Obama is best able to handle the economy, and many more believe he would bring real change to the country than say the same of Sen. McCain.

Overall, the race remains essentially tied, with 48% favoring Sen. Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, and 46% favoring Sen. McCain and his vice presidential choice, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. In the last Journal poll two weeks ago, Sen. Obama had a one-point edge. The new poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. (See the full poll results.)

While Obama is stronger on the economy, McCain holds a substantial lead among political independents, 51 to 38 percent, which is a ratio to watch as election day draws near (see Rasmussen's daily tracker as well, which also indicates a statistical tie).

Note, too, that state-by-state polling will be key in forecasting the race. While some reports have seen Barack Obama doing well in the battleground states, John McCain's up in Ohio (which could be the decisive state in 2008), and the Obama campaign has abandoned its highly-touted "50-state strategy," essentially conceding a large number of states for the GOP (a reality check on the hubris).

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UPDATE: Gallup's tracking numbers find McCain and Obama in at tie a 46 percent apiece.

Sarah Palin Interview With Katie Couric

Here's Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric:

Palin's performance was in keeping with her style: A down-home straight-talker who doesn't dodge a bullet. As Jonathan Martin put it:

She is what she is - not a seasoned politician who knows how to dodge every question. It's bracing but it also could be spun as normal.

Still, get ready for the reaction on the left, for example in this description (courtesy of the Demonic Conservative Ridicule Machine):

I’m still in shock over how terrible the Palin/Couric interview was. “Train wreck” is being charitable – it was more like a train derailing on a bridge, tumbling a thousand feet into a canyon and landing on a pile of old dynamite and gas drums. And then a jumbo jet crashed into the flaming wreckage. Followed by an earthquake that caused the whole mess to slide off a cliff into the sea, where the few miraculous survivors were eaten by sharks.

That's just a bit over the top, I'd say, not unlike Matt Taibbi. In fact, I'm reminded of Matthew Yglesias' comments upon learning that Palin had a tanning bed installed at the governor's mansion at her own expense:

... that’s all pretty weird. Normal Americans don’t live in Alaska, don’t experience 22 straight hours of darkness ever, and don’t own personal tanning beds. Long story short, tanning beds are about as all-American as moose stew, which is not to say not all-American at all but rather idiosyncratic elements of the culture of an odd state located northwest of Canada.

Okay, I'll spot Mr. Liberal Internationalist the moose stew, but tanning beds? Normal Americans don't own tanning beds?

Boy, if that's idiosyncratic I'll look for my students to start showing up to class sporting kafiyas and machetes.

Critics, of course, will pounce on Palin's knowledge on the economy, so note her response to Couric on the "risk of another Great Depression?"

Unfortunately, that is the road that America may find itself on...

So is that a gaffe? Is a "train wreck" being charitable?

Maybe some of the lefties should check in with Paul Krugman at the New York Times, who's also a MIT trained economist and a professor at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University:

With a distinct whiff of the 1930s in the air, we had better refresh our memories and relearn the basics of Depression economics.

Hmm ... looks like Palin's got some company in "Depression economics." If Krugman's as good as they say he is, then perhaps Governor Palin, with her "5 colleges and 6 years," is in fact just a bit more qualified for the vice-presidency than her detractors acknowledge.

Rolling Stone Smears Palin as "Gidget at the Reichstag"

I read Rolling Stone's new attack-piece on Sarah Palin the other night.

Entitled "The Lies of Sarah Palin," the piece was so over-the-top with screaming left-wing excrement I was literally shaking my head in disbelief while wading through the article's demonizing slurs - and this is after 9 months of non-stop Democratic assassination politics in which nothing has been considered out of bounds. Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone's in-house attack-master, has outdone even the most evil smear-merchants of the nihilist leftosphere, and that's saying alot, given the depths of the depravity so far mucked by the left's anti-Palin industry.

And I asked myself: How many young Americans actually read this nihilist bull?

Rolling Stone's not only a popular rock-junky rag, but is available at supermarket checkout stands nationwide. Young Obama supporters, already dazed and confused by "The One's" ethereal nothingness, will be amply indoctrinated into even more mindless drivel with Rolling's Stone's bird-cage padding.

Now it turns out that Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone's publisher (who also rolled out Us Weekly's tabloid slam on Palin earlier this month), is sending out the current issue unsolicited to mailbox's nationwide. As an e-mailer to Michelle Malkin notes:

Dear Michelle - I was surprised to pull Oct. 2 issue of Rolling Stone magazine out of my mailbox day before yesterday addressed to my 20 year old college daughter. I asked her if she had subscribed and she said no. After the US mag cover and hatchet job on Sarah Palin and knowing same person owns both mags, I think this might be a subtle way to influence young 1st time voters in presidential race. We live in Virginia and I have heard it’s a toss up state. Rolling Stone cover headline says “The Lies of Sarah Palin.” Magazine calls her a “tawdry, half-assed fraud.” The article is disgusting. Was this just a random thing or was the magazine sent unsolicited to quantities of young voters?

Check the link for additional testimonials, and especially the recommendation for recipients to send the issue back REFUSED via return-trip U.S. postal service.

Here's taste of Taibbi's vileness:

Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she’s a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power. Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she’s the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV — and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the base energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation…

…She appeared to be completely without shame and utterly full of shit, awing a room full of hardened reporters with her sickly-sweet line about the high-school-flame-turned-hubby who “five children later,” is “still my guy.” It was like watching Gidget address the Reichstag.

"Gidget at the Reichstag" is one of the most inventive BDS-style slurs I've seen, but it's totally keeping with this week's stream of filth pushing the "BushCo fascist coup" meme and accompanying calls for a popular uprising against the state.

Click here for the full text of "The Lies of Sarah Palin."

Read it, rip it apart in a post, and send it viral. The left is doing everything it can to alienate middle Americans from the Democratic Party, so let's return the favor with the widest possible distribution of this trash.

Obama Denies Link to Palin Video Smear Attacks

The Jawa Report has details on Barack Obama's denial of any involvement in the anti-Palin video smears that have been linked to media strategist David Axelrod.

Here's the initial highlight video from Jawa Report, which essentially proves a voice-narration match between the anti-Palin smear video and those used in Obama's official campaign spots:

Jawa links to Marc Ambinder, who has the Obama denial:

For the record, here is what Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor has to say:

"This one ranks as one of the most outlandish conspiracy theories in a campaign that has had its share of them. Neither our campaign nor any of our consultants had any involvement with this YouTube video, and the McCain campaign should provide a shred of believable evidence before advancing false allegations and misleading voters yet another time."

Ace of Spades says the Obama folks are lying:

I think they produced this video in house, then realized what a stinking pile of lies it was, and so coudn't run it themselves.

So they sent it to their friends (and colleagues) at Winner & Associates and told them "Take it viral."

And Ethan Winner passed it to his friend Geekesque to spread on Daily Kos.

Geekesque denies it, but recall this screen-cap from Daily Kos:

The original Kos post has vanished, unsurprisingly.

Recall, of course, that Daily Kos is Barack Obama's main netroots squeeze, and I've documented previously the campaign's official coordination with Markos Moulitsas in the release of Obama's certification of live birth.

Jawa Report's investigation appears first-rate (see Ray Robison's summary report as well), and it's a shame that little reporting in the mainstream press has followed up this story so far.

And don't forget: All of these smears and cover-ups are "symptomatic of the left's political culture of deceit."

Rioting Could Follow "Racist" GOP Victory in November

I highlighted another left-wing essay this morning arguing that an Obama loss in November would be explicable only in terms of racism.

It gets tiring, the smears and denunciations of thoughtful citizens as bigoted rednecks, and there are not enough hours in the day to debunk this endless stream of gunk clogging up the public information stream.

Thankfully, Dennis Prager has a concise explanation of the left's continued cries of racism in the event of an Obama defeat. Black Americans will be the main source of outrage, suggests Prager, but the media build-up of "entrenched" white racism and alleged Atwater-esque GOP racial "swift-boating" is paving the way for an urban eruption:

If Obama loses, it will not be deemed plausible that Americans have again rejected a liberal candidate, indeed the one with the most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate. Liberals will explain an Obama defeat as another nefarious Republican victory. Combining contempt for many rural and middle-class white Americans with a longstanding belief in the inevitability of a Democratic victory in 2008 (after all, everyone they talk to despises the Republicans and believes Republicans have led the country to ruin), there will be only one reason Obama did not win - white racism.

One executive at a black radio station told me when I interviewed him on my radio show at the Democratic National Convention that he could easily see riots if Obama loses a closely contested election. Interestingly, he said he thought blacks would be far more accepting of a big McCain victory.

I pray he is wrong on the first point. But it does seem that liberals are continuing to do whatever they can to increase anger at America, or at least at "white America." For 40 years, liberals have described the most open and tolerant society on earth as racist and xenophobic. If Barack Obama loses, the results of this liberal depiction of America may become frighteningly apparent.

I argued during the primaries that rioting would erupt in the nation's cities if Obama was denied the nomination at the Democratic convention in August. My argument proved moot, although I don't doubt that we might see massive street violence in the event of an Obama loss in the election, especially if a state like Florida or Ohio sees voting irregularities preceeding a McCain victory in the final Electoral College tally. The election so far has been unprecedented in the depths of recrimination within Democratic precincts, and it could all come out double-barreled in a burst of unrest after the polling ends.

In that event, note that it won't be just the urban poor who will riot. The netroots lumpen blogetariat's been making the case for insurrection against the "BushCo fascists," so certainly the ideological grounds for direct action among the "progressives" has been firmly established.

Mob Murders CEO in Delhi: Couldn't Happen Here?

The Times of London reports that Lalit Kishore Choudhary, the CEO of the India operations of Graziano Transmissioni, an Italian concern, was killed by a angry mob of factory workers who had been laid off in a suburb of Delhi:

The incident, in Greater Noida, just outside the Indian capital, followed a long-running dispute between the factory's management and workers who had demanded better pay and permanent contracts.

It is understood that Mr Choudhary, who was married with one son, had called a meeting with more than 100 former employees - who had been dismissed following an earlier outbreak of violence at the plant - to discuss a possible reinstatement deal.

A police spokesman said: "Only a few people were called inside. About 150 people were waiting outside when they heard someone from inside shout for help. They rushed in and the two sides clashed. The company staff were heavily outnumbered."

Other executives said they were lucky to escape with their lives. "I just locked my room's door from inside and prayed they would not break in. See, my hands are trembling even three hours later," an Italian consultant, Forettii Gatii, told a local newspaper....

The murder has stoked fears that outbreaks of mob rule risk jeopardising the subcontinent's economic rise.

This couldn't happen here, right?

I mean, it's worth asking, given the workers' revolt now brewing among many of the netroots lumpen blogetariat, seen for example, in Chris Bowers post "There Is No Crisis - Where's My Pitchfork?":

I thought there was a crisis. Now the government has to step in and help out hugely profitable firms just because one aspect of those banks is as profitable as the rest? Whenever rich people make a mistake, taxpayers have to plug the gap, even if those rich people are still making huge amounts of money?

This is all a lie. They are lying about how much trouble these firms are in. They are lying about their desire for oversight. It is just a big frakkin' lie. I doubt there is a crisis at all. They have done such a good job lying, however, that a majority of the country thinks a bailout is needed.

They are just lying, and looking to make the biggest single rip off in history. If there was a pitchfork and torch event taking place anywhere right now, I'd join in. This seems a helluva a lot like Louis the XVI demanding more money from the Estates General. When does the march on Versailles begin? It might seriously be time for a few hundred thousand people to start sleeping in two shanty towns, one surrounding the Capitol and the other surrounding the White House. If they can get away with this, then they can get away with anything.

The French Revolution got pretty bloody, if I recall.

Look, radical leftist Larisa Alexandrovna called for an insurrection earlier in the week, and now an outraged Bower's is pledging solidarity to a pending violent pitchfork siege of the capitol.

That just crazy talk, no doubt ... there's no risk of mob rule on the North American continent ...

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UPDATE: Well, maybe we'll see a little mob action after all, for example:

Not that we are suggesting this sort of thing is really a good idea, but I bet labor likes the idea quite a lot. It's a bit more brutal than litigating a fallen CEO into a heart attack (or a faked death) but it has a certain... honesty to it. That makes it, if nothing else, damn refreshing. And if anything is going to get murder condoned, it's a credit crunch and high gas prices in the United States. Ouch.

Ouch? The guillotine's supposed to be painless, so who knows?

Biden Calls Anti-McCain Attack Ad "Terrible"

Senator Joseph Biden, Barack Obama's running mate, has called the Obama campaign's recent attack ad on John McCain's alleged ignorance of computers and technology "terrrible":

That's not all.

Ben Smith reports that Biden really botched his Depression history during the interview:

Joe Biden's denunciation of his own campaign's ad to Katie Couric got so much attention last night that another odd note in the interview slipped by.

He was speaking about the role of the White House in a financial crisis.

"When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed," Biden told Couric. "He said, 'Look, here's what happened.'"

As Reason's Jesse Walker footnotes it: "And if you owned an experimental TV set in 1929, you would have seen him. And you would have said to yourself, 'Who is that guy? What happened to President Hoover?'"

If McCain would have said "Franklin Roosevelt got on the television" in 1929, the leftosphere would been all over him as "Old Man McCain," unfit to serve.

Maybe it's Biden who folks should be watching.