Good Morning Kids!

here's my morning round-up from kos and huffington. checked out wapo, but just found an annoying column by george will. though there's a wonderfully bitchy column by gail collins in nyt.

Now I get it

Why are the polls so close? Not only do around 25 percent of Americans watch FOX News Channel on a regular basis, but, from coast to coast, there are more than a thousand far-right talk radio stations occupied by shows that make Morning Joe sound like an Olbermann Special Comment. And 17 percent of Americans are glued to it at work and in their cars.

I don't know if you've dared to listen to far-right talk radio lately, but I can assure you that they're not ignoring Senator Obama -- or his family. Put it this way: if you only got your news and opinions from talk radio, you'd probably believe that Senator Obama is some kind of foreign-born baby-killing Manchurian Candidate terrorist -- if not a sexist uppity black man who, if he loses in November, will incite race riots in every city.

www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/enough-heres-why-the-poll_b_127167.html

McCain rejects Spain as Ally, for reals

www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/18/bizarre-mccain-remarks-ap_n_127346.html

Poll Check

9/18 Daily Kos R2K Tracking Poll: Obama 49, McCain 43

Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 05:10:23 AM PDT

Today's Daily Kos Research 2000 tracking poll has Obama up by 6, 49-43 over McCain (MoE +/- 3). The trend matches yesterday's Gallup, with moved in Obama's favor yesterday (Obama 47-45 McCain) for the first time since the failed GOP convention. Yesterday's Diageo/Hotline is stable (Obama 45-42) as is yesterday's Rasmussen with McCain 48-47, the outlier of the trackers. look for that to change today, as there's nothing going McCain's way. Our (Moe +/- 5.1) single day sample from yesterday has Obama up by 8.

Our tracker shows the following:

Favorable/Unfavorable
CANDIDATE FAV UNFAV NO OPINION
MCCAIN 46 46 8
OBAMA 56 35 9
BIDEN 50 32 18
PALIN 42 46 12

Palin's -4 and McCain's neutral does not match up with Obama's +21 and Biden's +19. In our tracker, Obama's gone from +9 to +15 with women, from 9/11 to 9/18. Neither Wall Street nor Walmart is saying "Get Palin on the phone."

That means that you can like Palin and not want her anywhere near the WH, especially as McCain looks old and tired and on the wrong side of the regulation argument. In addition, Republican George Bush's lack of leadershipis reflecting on Republican John McCain and Republican Sarah Palin.