by Frank James

One of the most notable polling results at the time of the 2006 elections was that Democrats had closed the national-security gap versus Republicans who held a long and significant advantage in that area. That was short-lived.

Unfortunately for Democrats, the gap has reopened. Democrats are regaining the reputation with voters as wimps.

Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner has just released a survey that indicates that voters perceive Republicans once again as far and away better on national security issues than Democrats.

Forty nine percent of those surveyed thought Republicans were better on national security while 35 percent thought Democrats better. When it came to combating terrorism, 48 percent thought Republicans superior to Democrats while 33 percent gave Democrats the advantage.

According to the Greenberg study researchers:

The national security credibility gap is returning. Old doubts about Democrats on security, after diminishing during 2006-2007, have begun to re-emerge: concerns that Democrats follow the polls rather than principle; that Democrats are indecisive and are afraid to use force; and that Democrats don't support the military. Because these weaknesses are longstanding and deeply ingrained, and because Republicanweaknesses are newer and do not yet have a label associated with them, Republicans continue to win on many security issues.

The Greenberg poll, done for the think tank Third Way, echoes a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll which found a large lead for Republican Sen. John McCain over his Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama, with McCain holding a ten point lead over Obama on the question: who would be better on the Iraq, a 25 point lead on the handling of international crises and a 28 point lead on being better able to handle terrorism.

Results like these in part explain why the Republicans stressed the military and terrorism at their recently completed convention in St. Paul, Minn. They were trying to run up the score on the Democrats in the national security area.

by Mark Silva

A couple of bounces, and the playing field levels.

An Obama "convention bounce'' and a McCain "rebound bounce.''

Barack Obama and John McCain went into their nominating conventions tied in the Gallup Poll's daily tracking surveys. And now, they are virtually tied again.

Obama, the Democratic junior senator from Illinois nominated for president by his party, gained an eight-point advantage over McCain, the Republican senior senator from Arizona nominated by his party, coming out of the Democratic convention in Denver. But now, with a day of surveys following the Republican convention included in the three-day track -- McCain running strong in Friday's post-convention surveys -- McCain has largely erased that advantage, according to Gallup.

"Barack Obama's advantage over John McCain has been shrinking since the start of the Republican National Convention, and is now down to just two percentage points -- 47 percent to 45 percent -- too close to call,'' Gallup's Lydia Saad reports today of a track that carries a possible margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points.

"Obama had led McCain by as much as eight percentage points in recent days, both during and immediately after the Democratic National Convention in Denver,'' Saad notes. "Those results reflected a convention bounce for Obama of four percentage points in his support among registered voters (from 45 percent to 49 percent).

"It appears that McCain is now enjoying a rebound bounce coming out of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul that is nullifying some of Obama's gains.'

"The interviewing for today's report partially reflects public opinion following the highlights of the Republican National Convention on Wednesday and Thursday nights when McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, made their acceptance speeches. This includes a strong night for McCain in Friday's interviewing, the first full night of interviewing following his acceptance speech.'

"The first Gallup Poll Daily tracking report based on interviewing conducted entirely after McCain's speech (from Friday through Sunday) will be published on Monday. The test for McCain will be whether he can do more than return the race to the absolute tie seen at the beginning of the convention period, and actually lead Obama by a significant margin for the first time since late April/early May.''

For more on the McCain-Obama polling, see Gallup.

by James Oliphant, and updated

TERRE HAUTE, Ind.--Barack Obama turned up the heat on John McCain and Sarah Palin at a rally here Saturday afternoon, accusing McCain of being surrounded by lobbyists and engaging in "Karl Rove-style" politics and charging that Palin, while in Alaska, accepted federal pork "when it's convenient."

At an event held in a show barn on the Wabash Valley Fairgrounds, Obama employed the strongest language he's used since McCain and Palin formally accepted the GOP nomination for president and vice-president. He also accused them of hijacking his message of change.

"Since the beginning of this campaign, we've been talking about change," Obama said. "That's been the theme of this campaign. We must be onto something because I've noticed everybody's talking about change now. Everybody's talking about change."

"John McCain has said that, "change is coming." Now think about this. This is from the party that been in charge for eight years. They've been running the show." Obama said. "And suddenly, he's the change agent."

Then Obama opened a fresh line of attack, one he hasn't used recently on the trail.

"He says I'm going to tell those lobbyists that their days of running Washington are over. Who's he going to tell?" Obama said. "Is he going to tell his campaign chairman who's one of the biggest corporate lobbyists in Washington? Is he going to tell his campaign manager, who was one of the biggest corporate lobbyists in Washington. Is he going to tell all the folks running his campaign, who are the biggest corporate lobbyists in Washington?

"Who is he going to tell that change is coming?" he said. "I mean, come on, they must think you're stupid."

by James Oliphant

The following statement was released Saturday by the competing presidential campaigns:

On September 11, 2008, we will join together to mark the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks at Ground Zero.

"All of us came together on 9/11 -- not as Democrats or Republicans -- but as Americans. In smoke-filled corridors and on the steps of the Capitol; at blood banks and at vigils -- we were united as one American family. On Thursday, we will put aside politics and come together to renew that unity, to honor the memory of each and every American who died, and to grieve with the families and friends who lost loved ones. We will also give thanks for the firefighters, police, and emergency responders who set a heroic example of selfless service, and for the men and women who serve today in defense of the freedom and security that came under attack in New York City, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania."

John McCain and Barack Obama will appear together next Thursday at Columbia University in New York at a forum to discuss sacrifice and community service. Neither candidate will campaign that day.

by Mark Silva

Not since Spiro Agnew took on the "nattering nabobs of negativism'' has a presidential running mate stood so ready to wage a media war.

Sarah Palin, with her shots across the bow of the mainstream media in her hugely popular acceptance speech in St. Paul this week, has opened a floodgate of media-bashing. At the same time, her initial reluctance to field questions from the media raises questions of how insular a vice presidential nominee can possibly remain

"I'm not a member of the permanent political establishment.,'' Palin told the delegates of the Republican National Convention and a national television audience of 37 milliion people -- just a notch behind the viewership that Republican John McCain and Barack Obama drew for their acceptance speeches. "And I've learned quickly these last few days that if you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone.''

(Boo, reads the transcript).

"Now here's a little news flash,'' Palin added. "Here's a little news flash for those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion. I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this great country.

(Cheers, applause, chanting, transcript reads.)

"Americans expect us to go to Washington for the right reason,'' Palin said, "and not just to mingle with the right people.''

Now, it's not so much a question of mingling with the media powers as it is answering their questions. On this forum alone, we've seen comments today suggesting that nobody cares if Palin talks to the media. But it isn't the media to whom she is talking when she answers reporters' questions. It is the public whom she is addressing.

And we've seen before a candidate's fortunes sink when he couldn't answer the simplest of questions: When retired Gen. Wesley Clark, former European supreme allied commander, took to the presidential campaign trail in 2004, he was foiled by a few reporters asking him what he would have done on the use of military force in iraq.

Game over.

At some point, certainly, Palin will answer reporters' questions, and the public will be the better-informed for it.

In the meantime, a candidate can hide behind speechwriters, as Agnew was doing when he addressed the California Republican state convention in San Diego in 1970. He said, "In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4-H Club -- the 'hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.'"

The words came from a wordsmith, William Safire, later columnist for The New York Times, then a speechwriter for President Richard Nixon and Agnew.

Palin's words this week came from other wordsmiths, and she delivered them powerfully. Still, at some point, a candidate must find her own words.

by Manya A. Brachear

When Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin promised to lead the nation with a "servant's heart," evangelical Christians immediately recognized her as one of their own.

Whether before an audience of ministry students or on a national stage at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, the 44-year-old Palin speaks fluently about her faith, striking chords with phrases that evoke Christian virtue. Palin has called on people to pray for the cooperation necessary to build a natural gas pipeline across Alaska, labeled the U.S. mission in Iraq a "task that is from God" and argued that students should be taught the creation account from Genesis in public schools.

In a race where both presidential candidates, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain, have tried to court religious voting blocs, Palin's introduction to the Republican ticket adds another dimension.

Just as McCain's politics are largely shaped by his experience as a prisoner of war and Obama's by his embrace of his racial identity, Palin's approach has been shaped by her relationship with God. Palin sees her government work as paling in comparison to a greater mission.

See the rest of the story about Sarah Palin's religion in today's Tribune.

by Mark Silva

A couple of major political parties have just finished nominating their candidates for president and vice president. Pretty proud, they both are.

So everyone will show up at the Sunday morning news talk shows, right?

Wrong.

Where in the world is Sarah Palin?

As our colleague, Don Frederick, notes at Top of the Ticket, Palin is a no-show on the Sunday shows.

Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee for president, will appear on ABC This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Joe Biden, Obama's running mate, will appear on NBC's Meet the Press. John McCain, the Republican nominee for president - isn't it nice to be able to stop saying, presumptive? - will "Face the Nation'' on CBS.

There are a few cable networks out there with Sunday morning news shows. Funny they haven't booked Palin.

Maybe not so funny: McCain campaign manager Rick Davis has indicated that they aren't "in any hurry to slot Palin for a Sunday show appearance,'' Frederick notes, "and will do so only if he and other strategists determine it serves the ticket's purposes, not because some may view it as a required initiation for a major political player.''

Appearing on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Davis said, "I'd never commit to anything in the future. ... Our strategy is in our hands, not the media's. We're going to do what's in our best interests to try to win the election. If we think going on TV news shows are [sic] in our best interests, we'll do it. If we don't, we won't."

So, maybe putting Sarah Palin out there in public where she has to answer questions from a reporter, as opposed to running circles around a fast-reeling TelePrompTer, isn't in McCain's "best interests?''

Palin, conspicuous by her mere absence: This booking strategy may speak volumes about the McCain campaign's confidence in the governor from Alaska.

(AP Photo/David J. Sheakley)

by Andrew Zajac

What is it about Sarah Palin and e-Bay?

As a gubernatorial candidate, Palin vowed to sell a business jet acquired by then-Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski on e-Bay.

It was a popular move because the jet had come to symbolize Murkowski's arrogance and free-spending ways-- he tried for years to get one, even asking the federal Department of Homeland Security to underwrite a purchase.

When he did buy the jet, for $2.6 million, he used an existing state line of credit to avoid needing the approval of the state legislature, which he likely could not get.

Palin offered the plane for sale on e-Bay three times but bidders didn't meet the reserve price. She eventually turned to a broker, who sold the plane to businessman Larry Reynolds, of Valdez, for $2.1 million, in August 2007.

by Mark Silva

John McCain and George Bush.

That's who Barack Obama wants to talk about

John McCain and Sarah Palin.

That's who McCain wants to talk about.

McCain and Bush - "They share the same out of touch attitude, the same failure to understand the economy... the same questionable ties to lobbyists,'' the Obama campaign says in a TV ad, part of a campaign that will be running the word "same'' into the ground before Election Day.

The ad quotes and pictures McCain boasting about voting with Bush "90 percent of the time.'' That's a handy line for an Obama campaign portraying McCain as "more of the same.''

McCain and Palin: Then along comes Palin, the "lipstick'' hockey mom-pit bull, the come-from-nowhere governor of the state of the bridge to nowhere, and the McCain campaign is more than happy to define the real pair in this race: The reform-minded Republicans.

"Politics isn't just a game of competing interests and clashing parties,'' Palin says in the clips of this streaming ad of clips. "I stood up to the old politics as usual.''

The old politics. The new politics.

Voters get to decide which is which.

by Mark Silva

Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia ought to know better.

He was raised in the Atlantla area in the 1950s when the racial divide in the South was quite pronounced, as our colleague Don Frederck notes at Top of the Ticket. And the word "uppity,'' when pronounced, often had a very specific connotation.

But the way the congressman tells it, he had no clue when, as The Hill newspaper reported, he said this about Michelle and Barack Obama: "Honestly, I've never paid that much attention to Michelle Obama. Just what little I've seen of her and Sen. [Barack] Obama, is that they're a member of an elitist class ... that thinks that they're uppity."

The remark, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes, quickly "zipped around the Internet, causing Westmoreland's office phones to ring off the hook."

That prompted a statement from Westmoreland:

"I've never heard that term used in a racially derogatory sense. It is important to note that the dictionary definition of 'uppity' is 'affecting an air of inflated self-esteem -- snobbish.' That's what we meant by uppity when we used it in the mill village where I grew up.''

We didn't hear any apology in there for the use of a term that many will certainly recognize in a context which the congressman says he doesn't understand.

by Mark Silva

The conventions, so far, have been a "net plus'' for Democrat Barack Obama, according to an analysis by the Gallup Poll.

The latest results of the Gallup daily track today - a compilation of surveys taken over three days, including the last day of the Republican National Convention - show Obama favored among 48 percent of those surveyed and McCain 44 percent.

That's narrower than the advantage that Obama held the day before (49-42) and closer than the 8-point spread for Obama that Gallup found after his convention in Denver - his so-called "convention bounce.'' The two were dead-even in the daily tracks heading into their conventions two weeks ago.

So, it would seem that McCain's own convention this week is starting to level the playing field with his own convention bounce.

However, Gallup reports this: "Support for Obama since just before the Democratic National Convention kicked off on Aug. 25 has ranged from 44 percent to 50 percent, while McCain's support has ranged from 41 percent to 46 percent. Whereas the race was initially tied at 45 percent, Obama pulled into an eight-point lead at several points over the course of his convention.

"It now appears the Republican National Convention may be helping McCain to recoup some of his losses, though with Obama's current four-point lead, the entire convention period to this point has still been a net plus for Obama.

Today's results, from 2,779 interviews of registered voters Sept. 2-4, carry a possible margin of error of 2 percentage points.

For more on the Obama-McCain matchup, see Gallup.

by Mark Silva

John McCain outdrew Barack Obama in the television viewing audiences watching their presidential nomination acceptance speeches.

McCain drew 38.9 million viewers for his speech last night in St. Paul, according to Nielsen. That was a half-million more viewers than Obama drew for his speech in Denver.

Fortunately for McCain, he also outdrew his own running mate, who had drawn an extraordinary audience in her own right with her convention speech this week, 37 million.

McCain drew more men than Obama did. The senior senator from Arizona drew an audience of 17.9 million men, Nielsen reports today, and 19.2 million women.

Obama drew a larger female audience for his speech -- 19.9 million women and 16.2 million men.

More white viewers were watching McCain than Obama, too: 32.2 million for McCain and 27 million for Obama. More black viewers watched Obama -- 7.5 million to 3.1 million,.

What everyone thought about the two speeches, however, is beyond Nielsen's "pay grade.''

by James Oliphant

DURYEA, Pa.--At a campaign event here Friday, Barack Obama ran headlong into the one of the issues that dogs him in this battleground state.

"There are rumors going around that . . . you're going to take away our guns," said Joan O'Neil, a resident of tiny Susquehanna in northeastern Pennsylvania, a big-time area for hunting.

This gun issue that Obama has tried to deftly navigate throughout this long campaign and one that damaged him here in his primary fight with Hillary Clinton. And it's one that could do even him even further harm in the general election, as he is matched against a pro-gun ticket that includes a vice-presidential nominee who has been photographed firing an assault rifle.

And indeed, several of the dozens of plant workers invited to Obama's economic "town hall" here in this town outside of Scranton, Pa. nodded as the question was asked. Pennsylvania has the highest per capita rate of National Rifle Association members in the nation.

"I believe in the Second Amendment, and if you are a law-abiding gun owner you have nothing to fear from an Obama administration," Obama said. "This has been peddled again and again. Here's what I believe: The Second Amendment is an indvidual right. . . people have the right to bear arms. But I also believe there is nothing wrong with some common-sense gun safety measures."

GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, now likely the most famous moose-hunter in the country, mocked Obama's stance on guns during her nomination speech Wednesday, when she accused him of talking "one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco," -- a reference to Obama's now infamous comment about some people in America who "cling to guns or religion."

by Mark Silva

At the National Review Online, David Freddoso is asking why so many people seem to want to hate Sarah Palin. His headline: "Following 'Caribou Barbie.'''

He quotes a 40-something woman he met around the convention, someone not particularly involved in politics, who said: "I don't know who I'm going to vote for. I haven't been watching the stuff at the convention. But what really upsets me is the way they're treating this woman."

"You mean Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska?" he asked.

"Yes. I can't even watch my television anymore with what they're doing to her,'' she said. "It's just awful."

This woman was expressing "a fundamental sense of sense of decency and fair play,'' he writes, "perhaps also the frustration of watching a woman subjected to an unfair double standard.

"This week, the false left-wing Internet rumors about Sarah Palin -- about how her youngest son is actually her daughter's baby, about how she was an Alaska secessionist -- were as unworthy of the attention of the mainstream media as any claims that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. Yet they received that attention anyway, with some especially irresponsible tidbits seeing print.''

On the Internet, he notes, "leftists took to calling her "Caribou Barbie."

by Mark Silva

"These are tough times... tough times,'' Republican John McCain said on the campaign trail in Wisconsin today, relaunching his bid for the White House with Sarah Palin by his side.

Democrat Barack Obama, waging his own campaign for the White House, maintained today that McCain is insensitive to the current turmoil of the American economy. "I don't think this is because John McCain is a bad person,'' Obama told his campaign audience today. "I just think he doesn't get it.'

Not only getting it, but also offering a solution for it will become one of the central issues of the fall contest for the White House, at a time when most Americans are discouraged about the direction the nation is taking and at a time when each day, it seems, brings new bad news about the economy.

Today's bad news: Another 84,000 jobs lost in August, boosting the national unemployment rate to 6.1 percent. This is a five-year high in the unemployment rate. It was 5.7 in July. It hasn't been as high as it is since September 2003.

The statistics mean that 605,000 fewer people are working today than were working at the start of 2008.

"There's no question that the labor market is not as strong as we'd like and these were disappointing numbers,'' Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, said at a press briefing today.

"We want to see the economy return to job growth, and we understand that this is a difficult time for many Americans,'' the White House spokeswoman said. "It's important for Americans also to know that in addition to these numbers, there are other numbers that show that the economy is strong to show some signs of growth. For example, the growth rate from last week, and also on productivity and exports, those numbers have been positive.''
An expanding, albeit slowly, expanding economy doesn't offer much solace to 605,000 people looking for work.

And, with just two months left until Election Day, Nov. 4, McCain and Obama will have to start focusing on solutions.

For now, the two appear to be focusing on warnings about the other: McCain warns that Obama will raise taxes, which will impede economic growth. Obama maintains that 90 percent of all Americans will see a tax cut under his plans, which ask wealthier Americans to help pay for health care for instance. Obama insists that the McCain campaign is "out of touch'' on needs such as health care. McCain says his tax incentives will help more people find the insurance they need in the private market.

But for now, at least, the candidates are acknowledging something that many Americans understand all to well. All that talk about the fundamentals of the American economy being strong is starting to fade to a necessary reality check: "These are tough times,'' McCain says. "A difficult time,'' says the White House.