Colin Powell Endorses Obama

Obama had another busy week, campaigning all over New York and Missouri. As is tradition, he and Senator McCain took a night off to relax and trade jokes at the Alfred E. Smith Foundation Dinner. For one night, there was "no other crowd [he] would rather be palling around with." The next day, it was back on the campaign trail, and the Democratic nominee was boosted by both an endorsement from Colin Powell and a record $150 million in fundraising in September. Powell was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs during the Bush Sr. and Clinton administrations, as well as President George W. Bush's Secretary of State. With only two weeks to the election, the Obama campaign is bombarding the airwaves with advertising, including ads in popular video games such as Madden '09 and Burnout Paradise.

Style Points

After campaigning for Two days throughout Ohio, a 'swing state' in which he and McCain are "Statistically tied," Barak Obama squared off once again with McCain for the third and last debate of the election, this time in NY. Although the group of undecided voters in the CBS studio mostly tended to lean towrds McCain, who they said showed to be more presidential than Obama and much better than in previous debates, polls made to homes and over the internet show Obama comfortably winning the debate. A big issue tonight was supprisingly personal, having to do with both candidate's tendencies to attack the other candidate rather than polocies, or discussing issues. this conversation, ironically enough, ended with attacks from both candidates.
Obama was reported to be calmer than McCain. This is reportedly caused in part by his reported 8% national lead over McCain. He may have been acting calmer in an effort to look more presidential, while McCain would surely over exert himself, trying to make attacks to make Obama look bad. This apparently paid off for Obama.
Obama is flying to Londery, New Hampshire to campaign tomorrow.

Race Gets Dirty as Election Nears

With the election a mere three weeks away, the race abruptly took a turn towards the negative. As Obama pulled further ahead in the polls, Senator McCain and Governor Palin questioned the ties between Obama and Weather Underground founder Bill Ayers. The Obama campaign responded with a video highlighting McCain's involvement in the Keating Five scandal of the Savings and Loan Crisis. However, late in the week, McCain toned down the attacks as his supporters became more and more angry. Obama praised the decision, but kept up the attack, saying that "when it comes to the economy and what families here in Pennsylvania are going through, Sen. McCain still doesn't get it."
Obama had a busy week of travel, holding as many as four rallies in one day in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Ohio is considered a crucial swing state, and Obama's many visits over the past weeks have helped him pull ahead in the polls, to a rough tie.

One More to Obama

Although Barack Obama was campaigning in North Carolina on Monday, there was much more press coverage over the event he attended on Tuesday night. After a day of campaigning in Nashville Tennessee, the presidential candidate squared off once again with republican nominee, John McCain. The most interesting thing they talked about during the debate was Healthcare. Both candidates put forth proposals pertaining to medical insurance. While McCain’s plan was too allow families a $5,000 tax credit towards paying insurance, Obama put forth that under his plan, people would be able to keep their old plans with their employers, or they "will be able to buy the same kind of insurance that Sen. McCain and I enjoy as federal employees."
It seems as though viewers watching the debate favored Obama. According to a CBS poll of undecided voters, 40% of those polled thought Obama came out on top, over the 26% that found McCain the winner. It seems as though Obama has had the advantage after the last two debates, so it shall be interesting who will win next Wednesday, when the two candidates battle once more in New York.

Today, Obama campaigned in Indiana, a state which he hopes to be the first democrat to win since Lyndon B. Johnson, while his running mate, Joe Biden, campaigned in Florida.

Obama Pulls Farther Ahead

As November 5th nears, the economy continues to be the top issue in the campaign. After the House of Representatives rejected the $700 billion bailout, the stock market plunged, with the Dow Industrial Average falling a record 778 points that day. An amended version passed the Senate and then the House, with both Senator Obama and McCain's support. However even after the bill was signed into law by President Bush the market fell, partially over fears caused by the jobless rate spiking to 6.1% last month. Obama continues to pull ahead as voters blame President Bush and the Republican Party for the credit crisis. McCain effectively gave up in Michigan, pulling his campaign out of the state, and Obama also enjoyed substantial gains in Minnesota, Colorado and Ohio. Responding to the McCain campaign's increasingly aggressive attacks, Obama said that it "was what you do when you're out of touch, out of ideas, and out of time." He had a busy half week of travel, campaigning in Lansing, Michigan, Abington, Pennsylvania and Newport News, Virginia.
The Obama campaign also launched an iPhone app over the weekend, allowing owners of the gadget to contribute on the go.

Debate Favorable to Obama?

Barack Obama and John McCain squared off at the University of Mississippi last week in the first of their Presidential debates. The debate, which surprisingly few people watched, seemed to have ended in a stalemate, verbally as well as non-verbally, with no prominent errors with either candidate. Although after the debate Obama was caught in several half truths that he had mentioned during the debate, this did not seem to hurt him at all. In fact, the result politically from the debate is that, as of yesterday, Obama has climbed in the polls, and has in fact climbed ahead of McCain in three swing states, Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. This surge in popularity may be due to the debate in which, although he did not “win”, McCain was favored (due to his apparent knowledge in foreign policy). This lack of a victory for McCain may have been viewed by some as a sort of victory for Obama, causing him to poll higher.

Barack Obama, who was campaigning in Wisconsin at the time, announced this morning that he would be “flying back to Washington today to cast my vote to safeguard the American economy,” which he insists should be a bi-partisan priority.

In other news, Obama’s ‘veep’ candidate, Joe Biden, is preparing for the vice presidential debate which takes places tomorrow, Oct 2.

Banking Shakes Up Campaign

The collapse of Lehman Brothers and government buyout of AIG drastically changed the nature of the campaign for both Obama and McCain. The Democratic nominee enjoyed a boost in the polls due to McCain's fumbling of the crisis. Obama blasted the Republican nominee for saying that "the fundamentals [of the economy] are strong," just hours before the upheval in the markets. In response to the Bush Adminstration's $700 billion plan to buy up bad securities from Wall Street, Obama said that it must not be a "blank check," and should include provisions for tighter regulation of the market, support for international recovery, and have a focus on Main Street as well as Wall Street. The Senator from Illinois has been spending time in North Carolina, a state historically Republican, but which is predicted to be a close contest in this election.

In other news, Vice Presidential running mate Joe Biden warned Obama not to "fool with my Beretta" as he was campaigning in Virginia.