Elections - Politico

Grasping for a foothold on the economy, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) plans to propose new tax cuts this week as part of an economic package designed to lure investors back to the stock market, campaign advisers said Sunday.

It can get ugly in the final month of a campaign — political passions run high and enthusiasm can turn quickly to anger, especially when one side feels victory slipping away. Character assassination attempts become part of rallying the base.

Chris Matthews' legs must have been tingling yesterday, as he rode along on Obama's press bus through Philadelphia.

No sooner do I note that Democrats have done some crazy stuff too than a quite high-ranking Republican, the chairman of the Virginia Republican Party, gets up on a chair and explicitly compares Obama to Osama bin Laden, all for the benefit of Karen Tumulty:

Congressional leaders from both parties sounded a receptive note on Sunday to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s proposal for the government to inject capital directly into the nation’s banks.

On Fox News Sunday, Obama chief strategist David Axelrod goes on offense against McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis:

PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania hasn’t voted Republican for president since 1988. Democrats have increased their registration numbers here by more than a half-million over the past year, and Barack Obama has a double-digit lead in the polls.

As part of a plan to reinvigorate his flagging campaign, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is considering additional economic measures aimed directly at the middle class that are likely to be rolled out this week, campaign officials said.

It’s the newest charge against Sen. Barack Obama in the presidential campaign: that he worked, as a young community organizer, with a group now involved in voter registration fraud.

Sen. Barack Obama says in a new ad that he launched his first campaign at the Ramada Inn in Chicago, not the living room of former terrorist William Ayers, as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) says.

After consulting with Barack Obama, Democratic leaders are likely to call Congress back to work after the election in hopes of passing legislation that would include extended jobless benefits, money for food stamps and possibly a tax rebate, officials said Saturday.

Calling the diplomacy hasty and incomplete, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is criticizing President Bush's decision to remove North Korea from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, as part of negotiations to get the rogue nation to give up nuclear weapons.

Civil rights icon John Lewis compared Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to George Wallace in a posting to Politico's forum "The Arena," accusing McCain of fostering “an atmosphere of hate” and “hostility” like the one that led to white supremacists’ 1963 bombing of a church in Birmingham, Ala. 

My story today:

Sen. Barack Obama has taken a commanding lead in the race for president not because of any dramatic gesture, but because of a signature political trait: his caution.

Sarah Palin violated the trust Alaskans placed in her as their governor in how she handled the events surrounding the firing of a state official who had refused to dismiss her ex-brother-in-law from his job as a state trooper, according to a legislative report released Friday night.

Fearing the raw and at times angry emotions of his supporters may damage his campaign, John McCain on Friday urged them to tone down their increasingly personal denunciations of Barack Obama, including one woman who said she had heard that the Democrat was "an Arab."

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, emerging from a meeting with central bankers from across the world, said that the U.S. government will buy stock in troubled banks rather than simply buying up toxic mortgage-backed assets.

Last year, when a Juneau Pentecostal church asked the Alaska state government for cash for a new youth center, Gov. Sarah Palin, who had recently started worshipping at the church, vetoed the legislative appropriation from the capital budget, explaining it was “not a state responsibility.”

After a thoroughly panned presidential debate, a wide-ranging coalition of activists on the left and the right is calling on Barack Obama and John McCain scrap the rules for the last presidential debate to avoid the stiff and scripted answers that many critics said deadened their earlier exchanges.

Clearly the first step to take for the economy is to address the immediate crisis.

The old free trade mantra was that all boats were lifted with the rising tide of globalization.

A White House official said the United States is not considering the idea floated by the Italian government of closing world financial markets in an attempt to restore stability.

A new Republican Party ad called “Chicago Way” whacks Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for his ties to “political boss William Daley,” shown in sinister black and white. 

Barack Obama attacked John McCain on Friday for launching a “barrage of nasty insinuations and attacks” as the stock market tumbled. 

We’re starting to see the first tangible impact of the financial deficit that House Republicans are facing.

The unmistakable momentum behind Barack Obama's campaign, combined with worry that John McCain is not doing enough to stop it, is ratcheting up fears and frustrations among conservatives.

Despite championing immigration reform in 2007, John McCain is poised to lose the Hispanic vote by a landslide margin that is well below President George W. Bush's 2004 performance.