Opinion Research (pdf) conducted a poll of 940 registered voters in Missouri for Time/CNN from September 7th through the 9th. The margin of error is 3%.

2/2a.  If Barack Obama and Joe Biden were the Democratic Party’s candidates and John McCain and Sarah Palin were the Republican Party’s candidate, who would you be more likely to vote for — Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the Democrats, or John McCain and Sarah Palin, the Republicans?  (IF UNSURE:) As of today, who do you lean more toward?  (RANDOM ORDER)

Obama – 45%

McCain – 50%

Neither – 3%

Other – 1%

No Opinion – 1%

There’s a variation on the theme, too:

3/3a.  Now suppose that the presidential candidates on the ballot in your state included Barack Obama as the Democratic Party’s candidate, John McCain as the Republican candidate, Bob Barr as the Libertarian party candidate, Cynthia McKinney as the Green party candidate and Ralph Nader, who is unaffiliated with a national party, who would you be more likely to vote for? (IF UNSURE:) As of today, who do you lean more toward?  (RANDOM ORDER)

Obama – 44%

McCain – 48%

Barr – 2%

McKinney – *

Nader – 3%

None – 1%

Other – *

No Opinion – 1%

That’s interesting – with the fringe candidates in the mix McCain loses 2% and Obama only loses 1%.

Repeat the lies enough and everyone will believe them.

We’ve got McSame campaign mail, sent to Missouri!

He’s so mavericky, you know. Because his mail tells us so.

From February 2008:

McCain defends lobbyist ties

Republican candidate says lobbyists who advise him are honorable

INDIANAPOLIS – Sen. John McCain said Friday that while lobbyists serve as close advisers to his presidential campaign, they are honorable and he is not influenced by corruption in the system.

McCain, who has styled himself as an enemy of special interests, defended having lobbyists working for his campaign. He is the expected Republican presidential nominee.

“These people have honorable records, and they’re honorable people, and I’m proud to have them as part of my team,” McCain told reporters following a town hall meeting in Indianapolis….

tiny URL

That’s right, all those Washington insider lobbyists who make all their money, you know, based on insider Washington stuff are going to help you lead the charge to cut off their own gravy train. Yep, that’s the ticket.

Ever hear about the Keating Five?

tiny URL

You’d think that some people would learn a lesson after an experience like that. But no, he’ll mouth the words but act in the McSame old ways.

If Washington isn’t working, and you’ve been there for twenty six years, and you vote with George W. Bush all the time (Uh, isn’t he part of the broken part?), why didn’t you bother to get all worked up about fixing things before now? Just asking.

…”the experience to stop the influence of special interests…” Yeah, that’s the ticket – tell us because your campaign and your political career is so intimately tied to lobbyists and their influences that you’ll be immune to it. Somehow I don’t find that very convincing. Do you?

Corruption in the republican party? You mean like the Keating Five? Or Jack Abramoff? Or Ted Stevens of, you know, Alaska. Say, isn’t he a mentor to someone you know?

Corporate lobbyists? Doesn’t your campaign have a bunch of corporate lobbyists? Labor unions? You mean like for working families? If you have corporate lobbyists in your campaign, you’d think you’d want some “labor bosses” in your campaign, too. You know, to keep that bad influence thing at arm’s length. Yeah right.

Wasteful projects? Someone you know was for a wasteful project before she was against it, eh.

Uh, balancing the budget with conservative principles? Not gonna happen with  republicans in control. Let’s see, the last presidential administration to have a budget surplus was, I’m thinking, I’m thinking…. Oh yeah.

It’s clearly evident – the real John McCain will look out for working families, that’s why he’s surrounded himself with working Washington insider lobbyists. That’ll change the world, right? Not.

This mailing came with an absentee ballot application. Uh yep, they want people to vote before they find out anything about the real McCain.

Why this election is the most important one we’ve ever had:

Any questions now?

It’s times like these that I’m glad I’m from Missouri. No, not the “show me” saying thing. It’s just that when compared to other places and other people, dare I say it, we appear to be so much more sane.

For example, Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, darling of the wingnut right, and vice presidential pick of McSame:

…COMPLAINT AGAINST SELF

Tom Daniel, an Anchorage labor and employment lawyer hired by the board in the Renkes case, took a quick look at Palin’s complaint Tuesday.

“It appears that the Governor has filed an ethics complaint against herself. … This is very unusual because ethics complaints typically are filed against others,” Daniel wrote in an e-mail responding to a Daily News query.

Asked whether the personnel board could take the investigation away from the Legislature — as Palin wants to do — Daniel answered: “I’ve never looked at that issue, but I can’t see why filing a complaint with the personnel board would deprive the Legislature of the right to conduct its own investigation…”

Yes, that’s right, Sarah Palin has filed an ethics complaint against herself. Don’t be so quick to applaud her altruism. She also claims that this complaint trumps the current investigation by the state legislature. A ha.

When I was a kid we used to run this gag all the time: “I confess, [long pause] he did it.”

Then there’s the definition of chutzpah: murdering your parents and then asking for leniency from the court because you’re an orphan.

At least our republican governor….oh wait…  

If you don’t want a media circus the first thing you do is don’t show up at the tent:

Levi Johnston is on his way to join Palins at convention

By RACHEL D’ORO

The Associated Press

Published: September 3rd, 2008 01:50 AM

Last Modified: September 3rd, 2008 02:06 AM

WASILLA — The boyfriend of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s unwed, pregnant daughter will join the family of the Republican vice presidential candidate at the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn.

Levi Johnston’s mother said her 18-year-old son left Alaska Tuesday morning to join the Palin family at the convention where Sen. John McCain will officially receive the Republican nomination for president. The boy’s mother, Sherry Johnston, said there had been no pressure put on her son to marry 17-year-old Bristol Palin and the two teens had made plans to wed before it was known she was pregnant.

“This is just a bonus,” Johnston said…

No, that was not an Onion article. It’s from the Anchorage Daily News.

From Mudflats:

…It took me a while to get my palms off my face so I could check it out, but it’s true.  I know we’re not supposed to interfere with the personal lives of candidates’ children.  I know that many people, including myself, feel sorry for Bristol and the fact that she was hurled out in front of the nation with nothing to cover her secret expanding midsection except a baby and a giant blanket.  I even heard Barack Obama ask us all to drop it.  But, inviting the boyfriend to come to the convention in the middle of all this?  Who has brought this, and him, right into the most glaring of bright lights, in front of the hugest of audiences?  How to create a distracting, embarrassing spectacle with one plane ticket. The mind reels….I think.   It’s been reeling since Friday, so it’s hard to tell any more…

This could have all been so easy. McSame could have picked Tim Pawlenty and we could have had a nice, boring week (and election). But no, he had to go and pick Sarah Palin with a sloppy (or worse, “I don’t give a damn”) vetting process. One thing after another. There is no end.

Next:

Sarah Palin’s Preacher Problem. End Times Coming?

Good Lord. Another ‘gate’. Just talked to one of our local progressive radio talk show hosts (yes, we have them in Alaska!) and she said her head is spinning. Mine is too. No one knows where to turn. Keeping up with the tidal wave of what’s hitting the fan in Alaska is fast becoming a full-time job…

…I did a drive-by of Palin’s church when I was traveling through Wasilla yesterday, not realizing the furor that would be churning the blogosphere less than 24-hours later about a speech Palin delivered there only three months ago. Here’s what she said regarding the war in Iraq.

“Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God.”

Let that sink in a minute. A task that is from God. Sarah’s war is a holy war. It’s not, apparently from the God that says “turn the other cheek” or “I am my brother’s keeper” or “the greatest of all these is love”. It’s not about diplomacy, international relations, figuring out why we are so despised in the Middle East, keeping Israel secure, revamping how the U.S. deals with its unsustainable dependence on foreign oil, combating poverty and desperation that leads young men to terrorism. Nope. This war is God’s will. It’s God’s holy war. She went on:

That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.

So the plan is to pray for a plan? Perhaps it would have been better to pray for a plan beFORE we went to Iraq. Better still to sit down and create a plan – a thoughtful, intelligent, human-type plan…

[emphasis in original]

From an Alaskan Blog – Mudflats: Tiptoeing Through the Muck of Alaskan Politics

Go. Read the whole thing.

Did you know that September 27 through October 4, 2008 is Banned Books Week?

Library Bill of Rights

The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services.

I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.

II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.

III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.

IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.

V. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.

VI. Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.

Adopted June 18, 1948, by the ALA Council; amended February 2, 1961; amended June 28, 1967; amended January 23, 1980; inclusion of “age” reaffirmed January 24, 1996.

Oi vay:

Time

Mayor Palin: A Rough Record

Tuesday, Sep. 02, 2008

By NATHAN THORNBURGH / WASILLA, ALASKA

…Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving “full support” to the mayor…

tiny URL

What’s next after this?:

Members of ‘Fringe’ Alaskan Independence Party Say Palin Was a Member in 90s

September 01, 2008 6:52 PM

…Officials of the Alaskan Independence Party say that Palin was once so independent, she was once a member of their party…

…Lynette Clark, the chairman of the AIP, tells ABC News that Palin and her husband Todd were members in 1994, even attending the 1994 statewide convention in Wasilla. Clark was AIP secretary at the time.

“We are a state’s rights party,” says Clark, a self-employed goldminer…

tiny URL

I’m beginning to believe that John McCain just decided to place a whoopee cushion under everyone in the United States. That makes as much sense as anything else.

From the McCain campaign:

For Immediate Release

September 1, 2008 Contact: Press Office

Statement from Sarah and Todd Palin

ARLINGTON, VA — Today, Sarah and Todd Palin issued the following statement regarding today’s Reuters story:

“We have been blessed with five wonderful children who we love with all our heart and mean everything to us. Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.

“Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family. We ask the media to respect our daughter and Levi’s privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates.”

###

As a general rule of thumb in presidential politics – when running for such a high profile office one tries to avoid surprises.

This definitely falls under the “surprise” category.

I wonder how Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty really feel right now?

What are they saying in Alaska?

Oh, wait a minute. The republican nominee doesn’t appear to have to worry about any mortgages. You wouldn’t know that if you hung out with our useless and lazy old national media. Like at a cookout in Sedona, Arizona.

It seems that McSame can’t remember how many homes he owns. The Obama campaign has already fired up an ad: