Does this mean an Obama presidency would be a cakewalk? Sayeth Adelman: Primarily for two reasons, those of temperament and of judgment. When the economic crisis broke, I found John McCain bouncing all over the place. In those first few crisis days, he was impetuous, inconsistent, and imprudent; ending up just plain weird. Having worked [...]

Sure, Obama has a more inclusive health care plan, he offers the opportunity for generational change, he was right about invading Iran Iraq* and his VP has a more distinguished reading list than “all of it,” but the Republican National Committee still thinks it has the goods on Obama. A deep, dark secret that will [...]

From TIME’s Amy Sullivan: It must officially be two weeks before Election Day because the leashes are now off. This afternoon, while Mike Huckabee was telling a Missouri television station that Barack Obama’s high school and college drug use should be a legitimate campaign issue, Rudy Giuliani was on Fox News complaining that the media [...]

• “Charles Manson was a community organizer.” [MNPublis] • “She may be a little ‘trigger-happy’ – I should know.” [MSNBC] • “Joe the Biden” [NYT] • “Vote YESH on Prop 2!” [HuffPo] • An interactive map as to the best locations to steal the election. [DVice]

FactCheck.org takes the Obama campaign to task for an ad that claims McCain would cut Medicare benefits, and calls the charge “a rank distortion”: These claims are false, and based on a single newspaper report that says no such thing. McCain’s policy director states unequivocally that no benefit cuts are envisioned. McCain does propose substantial [...]

Here’s the photo essay Powell spoke of:

A minor addendum to Karen’s observation that losing campaigns go negative: They also go furry. Somewhere buried in my hard drive are pleading emails, circa September 2004, from a DNC rep trying to get me post pictures of a dolphin at a strip club (in an attempt to smear the “real” dolphin that was following [...]