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 …
From TIME’s Massimo Calabresi:
In the nearly sixteen thousand words uttered last night in the debate between John McCain and Barack Obama, one was noticeably absent: God. The deity got not a single mention, not even a perfunctory “God Knows,” or “Good God,” or “God Bless America”. In fact, in the three presidential debates, McCain and …
From TIME’s Amy Sullivan:
In politics it is generally not considered a good sign when voters are laughing at you, not with you. And by the end of the third and last presidential debate, the undecided voters who had gathered in Denver for Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg’s focus group were “audibly snickering” at John McCain’s …
From TIME’s Amy Sullivan:
As he did for the first presidential debate, Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg gathered a group of undecided voters in a swing state (this time Colorado) to watch the town hall, polling them before and after to gauge how their reactions to the presidential candidates changed. The audience of 50 voters was …
From TIME’s Amy Sullivan:
Last night in Colorado (one of the key swing states we have our eyes on), the Democratic polling group Greenberg Quinlan Rosner brought together 40 undecided women voters to watch the vice-presidential debate. In pre-interviews before the festivities started, most of the women admitted that they didn’t know …
From TIME’s Amy Sullivan:
Sarah Palin’s handling of Roe v. Wade questions last night is getting all the attention. But Katie Couric asked another question of both running mates: Why do you think it’s important to have a wall separating church and state?
Each of them got half of the answer, but in doing so reflected the instincts of …
From TIME’s Amy Sullivan:
I’d missed this, but apparently Sarah Palin has taken to joking on the campaign trail that she’s been listening to Joe Biden’s speeches since she was a second-grader. The point, according to what she tells Katie Couric in a segment to air tonight, is to highlight the choice voters have in November between the …
From TIME’s Amy Sullivan:
Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg ran a dial-group with 45 undecided voters in St. Louis during the debate, polling them before and after to judge how the event changed their reactions to Obama and McCain. The group was mostly middle-aged, split evenly among education and class lines, and was heavily comprised …
From TIME’s Amy Sullivan
Rudy Giuliani becomes the first Republican speaker to describe what John McCain endured in the POW camp as “torture.”
CORRECTION: Jay Carney tells me Huckabee spoke the T-word first. Apologies, and kudos to Huck. “Beatings and isolation” was kinda wordy anyway.
From Time’s Amy Sullivan
Four years ago at the 2004 Democratic Convention, I noticed that when conservative media figures like Bill Kristol, Fred Barnes, Tucker Carlson, and Joe Scarborough moved through the convention area, the crowds would part to let them through while shooting glares and launching the occasional heckle. Fast-forward …
From Time’s Amy Sullivan
It was an emotional night in Clinton-land, with more than a few of her friends crying in the Clinton skybox. The former president tried to hold it together for most of Hillary’s speech, but by the end he was wiping away tears as well. After she concluded, he kept repeating, “She was great–she was really great” …
From Time’s Amy Sullivan
Listening to Mark Warner’s keynote address, it certainly sounded like he went after Bush, McCain and the GOP. (He pulled off the attack-dog role better than did Kathleen Sebelius, who mostly sounded like a fourth-grade teacher who was very disappointed with George and John.) But overall, the speech didn’t strike …
From TIME’s Amy Sullvan:
1. The selection of Joe Biden as Obama’s running mate means one thing I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere: The return of Mrs. Biden! Not the Senator’s wife, Jill, but his feisty 90-year-old mother, Jean. She lives with the Bidens in Delaware and was a hoot on the campaign trail during the primaries. As Chris …
