Almost Over

It looks as if Al Franken is going to win the Minnesota Senate race after all.

It's interesting to note that Al Franken played Senator Paul Simon on many Saturday Night Live sketches. As it turns out, I worked for Senator Simon for about three years and he was the first person to introduce me to then State Senator Barack Obama, whom I would later work for. Senator Simon passed away five years ago this month.

Here's a nice Sun Times story on Senator Simon's influence and legacy in Illinois politics especially in relation to President Obama. You were a good man Paul.

Campaign Notes

Look for the trend line on the Pollster graph to the right to tighten up. With the McCain-Palin Camp refreshing and heightening their calls that Obama's a socialist terrorist, some voters will undoubtedly be persuaded by the lies. I don't think we're going to see any relaxation from the McCain Camp on this either. Their only hope to cling to power is to spread fear and lies. Running on their George Bush policies isn't going to work. The only way to rile their base is to spread far-right wing fascist talking points. Just like what happened in Miami this morning.

"People were screaming 'Terrorist!' 'Communist!' 'Socialist!'" Sorando said when we caught up with him. "I had a guy tell me he was gonna kill me."

Couldn't imagine what the media would be saying if an Obama supporter was yelling kill John McCain.

Obama needs to have one heck of a 72 hour plan. So far they've kept their cool throughout and keeping to the game plan is and has been the deciding factor all along.

It's probably going to get uglier and uglier with right wing Republicans becoming furious that the socialist label isn't sticking and that it can easily be turned back around on them.

But It's So Serious

The three most serious issues facing our country right now are ACORN and its rampant voter fraud, Obama's relationship to Bill Ayers and Joe the plumber. The ACORN voter fraud scandal is so serious that Republican Gov. Charlie Crist said the GOP is probably exaggerating the claims of voter fraud. Insult to injury the Ohio Supreme Court today reversed the decision of the lower court that would have thrown out over 200,000 new registrations in that state. I'm not sure if we all are going to survive or not.

Crunch Time

Three weekends left until election day and it's crunch time for both Camps. Pollster's compilation above gives us a nice overlay of the current standing. Also, this Pollster.com embed is about the coolest thing ever. The trend line is a great way to quickly view current status and with Pollster.com's newest interactive charts it's much easier to weed out skewed polling or filter for specific results. I could spend all day interacting with this thing.

Just a couple quick items. Look for the trend line to narrow in the next two weeks. And two, look for the McCain Camp to step up their claims that Obama is a Muslim, terrorist, islmaofascistliberalcommie America hater. Clinging to power is their only hope. It will get dirtier.

Campaign Notes

I guess I fail to see the strategy behind McCain's negative celebrity ads. It's not only the ads, though, it's the primary answer for anything the McCain Camp has for a challenge to an Obama presidency. I don't know how many times I've heard McCain surrogates and spokespeople call Obama the biggest celebrity in the world. It's definitely their intended rhetoric.

What I'm not understanding is why would you want to run ads calling Obama a celebrity with hundreds of thousands of people calling for him. To me it's the opposite of what you would want to do.

A celebrity in itself isn't really a bad thing as we all know. By all means Reagan was a celebrity through and through. He was a movie star, a charismatic speaker, a symbol of American grace and strength, he brought out huge cheering crowds when he gave speeches; he was a celebrity no doubt. So there is such a thing in the GOP World as a good celebrity. For Obama they want to make him a bad celebrity, the kind that is in and out of rehabs (Brittney), or the kind that is famous for no reason whatsoever (Paris). It's emptiness mixed with huge personal problems that makes Obama a celebrity, at least that's what the Republicans want everyone to believe. I see this as a huge gamble but I also see it as a very successful way to take the campaign away from issues, which is probably what the GOP wants more than any celebrity talk.