From TheHuffingtonpost.com: Obama Marriage Body Language: One Aspect We Should All Emulate (PHOTOS)

In an earlier post we commented on positive aspects of the relationship between Michelle and Barack Obama. Fresh from having watched their recent 60 Minutes interview, we'd like to bring to your attention one remarkable bit of body language we can all learn from. Specifically, if you watch their body language carefully, you'll see that Michelle and Barack communicate with each other in a way that is rare among presidential couples: when Michelle Obama is speaking, Barack makes eye contact with her and listens with interest to what she's saying.

If you want to see just how rare that is, look at old footage of interviews with Laura and George Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton and the elder Bushes. Go back a little further and look at footage of Nancy and Ronald Reagan, Pat and Richard Nixon and any others you can find. Here's what you usually WON'T see: the President looking at his wife when she's speaking. You'll see lots of footage of presidential wives listening, usually with an adoring smile locked firmly in place, to their husbands, but it's rare to see it the other way around. When Michelle Obama is speaking, though, Barack looks at her and listens. When he's speaking, she looks and listens. It's a refreshing exception, and a key to the respect that flows between them.

From NYTimes.com: Obama Asks Bush to Provide Help for Automakers

Mr. Bush indicated at the meeting that he might support some aid and a broader economic stimulus package if Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats dropped their opposition to a free-trade agreement with Colombia, a measure for which Mr. Bush has long fought, people familiar with the discussion said.

This is one thing that I hate about politics.  If you feel like aiding the automakers is the right thing, then do it.  If you don't, then don't do it.  A decision like this deserves to be decided on its own merit, not as part of deal for something else.

I am torn about the idea of aiding automakers.  I understand that jobs are at stake, but the automakers are primarily at fault for their own problems.  When has GM produced a car that you would actually want to drive?  They have a fundamental problem that lending 25 billion dollars won't solve.  People don't want to drive the cars they sell.

If you lend them the money, will this buy them the time to be able to fix the company and produce fuel-efficient and technologically innovative cars?  The irony of this is that GM has spent years lobbying the government against increased fuel efficiency standards.  If they had just gone along with this and improved their efficiency, their problems wouldn't be as dire as they are now.

From CNN.com: McCain's name nowhere to be seen at Palin rally

At a boisterous Sarah Palin rally in Polk City, Florida on Saturday afternoon, one name was surprisingly absent from the campaign décor -- John McCain's.

...

But on closer inspection, the GOP nominee's name was literally nowhere to be found on any of the official campaign signage distributed to supporters at the event.

That's the Republican strategy?  First hide Bush, now hide John McCain?

From The Canadian Press: Sarah Palin: disaster or superstar? Some Republicans want her to run in 2012

A Washington Post tracking poll released earlier this week indicated that Republicans and conservatives, for the most part, believe Palin's selection demonstrated the strength of McCain's ability to make sound decisions.

More than seven in 10 Republicans, and just under that number of self-identified "conservatives," said McCain's choice of Palin made them more confident in the kind of decisions he'd make as commander in chief.

Hopefully the majority will disagree with them on Nov. 4th.

From Huffington Post: Bush Strategist: McCain Knows He Put Country At Risk With Palin Pick

Matthew Dowd, a prominent political consultant and chief strategist for George W. Bush's reelection campaign eviscerated John McCain on Tuesday for his choice of Sarah Palin as vice president.

Dowd proclaimed that, in his heart of hearts, McCain knew he put the country at risk with his VP choice and that he would "have to live" with that fact for the rest of his career.
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Saying that Palin was a "net negative" on the ticket, he went on: "[McCain] knows, in his gut, that he put somebody unqualified on the ballot. He knows that in his gut, and when this race is over that is something he will have to live with... He put somebody unqualified on that ballot and he put the country at risk, he knows that."

270ToWin.com has an interactive electoral college map since 1789.

It's amazing how the political map has changed over the years. 
Some highlights:

1800 Four candidates for President
Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican) 73 electoral votes
Aaron Burr (Democratic-Republican) 73 electoral votes
John Adams (Federalist) 65 electoral votes
Charles Pinckney (Federalist) 64 electoral votes

Since there was no majority, Thomas Jefferson was elected by the House of Representatives.

1860 Abraham Lincoln wins
Lincoln defeats three challengers, including Stephen A. Douglas who he lost to earlier in a race to be a Senator from Illinois.  Douglas comes in 4th, with only 12 electoral votes even though he came in a not too distant second in the popular vote. 

1876 Rutherford B. Hayes wins
Rutherford B. Hayes wins the electoral college by one vote even though he loses the popular vote by several hundred thousand.

1904 Theodore Roosevelt wins
Can't get any more North vs. South than this one.  Theodore Roosevelt dominates the North.

1948 Truman defeats Dewey
I'm not sure how the newspaper thought otherwise, Truman wins easily 303 to Dewey's 189.  Strom Thurmond came in 3rd with 39 electoral votes.

1984 Ronald Reagan wins
525 electoral votes to Walter Mondale's 13.  Country is painted red.

1992 William J. Clinton wins
First time California goes blue since 1964

2000 George W. Bush wins
Bush wins 271 to 266 over Al Gore despite losing the popular vote by 450,000

I was at my parents' house yesterday and saw this old Cincinnati Enquirer covering the 2000 election.
For all of you who just "like" Palin and will vote McCain/Palin just because of her, just remember what these last 8 years have been like when we've voted for someone "likable".  I would rather not have to say "I told you so" eight years from now.  Again.

From NYTimes.com: Stocks Fall as Rescue Plan Is Negotiated

"When there's a fire in your kitchen threatening to burn down your home, you don't want someone stopping the firefighters on the way and demanding they hand out smoke detectors first or lecturing you about the hazards of keeping paint in the basement," Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said in a speech on the Senate floor. "You want them to put out the fire before it burns down your home and everything you've saved for your whole life."

Mr. McConnell added: "The same is true of our current economic situation. We know that there is a serious threat to our economy, and we know that we must take action to try and head off a serious blow to Main Street."

This fire has been burning for over a year.  Until last week, the Bush Administration has been saying that the economy is fine.  Now, they say we're facing a serious threat to the economy and that we don't have time to work out and discuss a real bailout plan.  We have to pass a "clean" bill with only what the administration wants and we need to do it immediately.

700 billion dollars is not an amount that you give a blank check for.  We're supposed to blindly trust Treasury Secretary Paulson, a former CEO of Goldman Sachs to bailout companies and not just give handouts to all comers.  We need financial "experts" to get us out of this mess, they are also the ones that helped create it.

Strict supervision is necessary and it's Congress's job to do its due diligence on this no matter if the markets drop.  The markets will bounce back once a bill is passed, but its important to make sure that the taxpayers aren't just stuck with a bunch of losses so banks can profit.

From Politico.com: Why McCain is going so negative

McCain seems to have made a choice that many politicians succumb to but that he had always promised to avoid -- he appears ready to do whatever it takes to win, even it if soils his reputation.

"We recognize it's not going to be 2000 again," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said, alluding to the media's swooning coverage of McCain's ill-fated crusade against then-Gov. George W. Bush and the GOP establishment. "But he lost then. We're running a campaign to win. And we're not too concerned about what the media filter tries to say about it."

You can tell that they've made a conscious choice to do whatever it takes to be President, no matter the costs are to McCain's reputation.  It's sad.

Thanks to Chris for sending the link.




From AP News: Analysis: McCain's claims skirt facts, test voters

John McCain's campaign keeps telling voters that Sarah Palin opposed a federally funded Bridge to Nowhere that, in fact, she originally supported. It accuses Democrat Barack Obama of calling Palin a pig, which did not happen.
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McCain's persistence in pushing dubious claims is all the more notable because many political insiders consider him one of the greatest living victims of underhanded campaigning. Locked in a tight race with George W. Bush for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, McCain was rocked in South Carolina by a whisper campaign claiming he had fathered an illegitimate black child and was mentally unstable.

From NYTimes.com: McCain Barbs Stirring Outcry as Distortions

Harsh advertisements and negative attacks are a staple of presidential campaigns, but Senator John McCain has drawn an avalanche of criticism this week from Democrats, independent groups and even some Republicans for regularly stretching the truth in attacking Senator Barack Obama's record and positions.
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Indeed, in recent days, Mr. McCain has been increasingly called out by news organizations, editorial boards and independent analysts like FactCheck.org. The group, which does not judge whether one candidate is more misleading than another, has cried foul on Mr. McCain more than twice as often since the start of the political conventions as it has on Mr. Obama.