Senator Barack Obama significantly outspent Senator John McCain in August as the two campaigns ramped up their general election fight, with the Obama campaign spending $53 million that month, $32 million of which went to advertising. That compared with the $41 million spent by the McCain campaign, $23 million of which went to advertising.
The main thrust of the McCain campaign has been to cover up his history of economic malpractice. Senator McCain has largely pulled it off so far, under the guidance of Steve Schmidt, a Karl Rove protégé. A Rovian political strategy by definition means all slime, all the time. But the more crucial Rove game plan is to envelop the entire presidential race in a thick fog of truthiness.
The Obama and McCain campaigns have agreed to an unusual free-flowing format for the three televised presidential debates, which begin Friday, but the McCain camp fought for and won a much more structured approach for the questioning at the vice-presidential debate, advisers to both campaigns said Saturday.
It turns out that the Republican enthusiasm for Sarah Palin is just as superficial as she is. They were so eager for someone to cheer for (because they really don’t like John McCain) that they dove face first into the Palin mirage. But, on the issues, even they worry about her.
It wasn’t a good week to be an Alaskan vice-presidential candidate, an online publication or even a multinational science project — as all were compromised by hackers this week.
The Palins have long denied wrongdoing, and the governor initially said she would cooperate with the bipartisan legislative inquiry. Now that she is Senator McCain’s running mate, however, the campaign says the inquiry has become a partisan political circus. It has accused Alaska Democrats of using it to hurt the Republican ticket.
Sarah Palin has spent most of this month out of state, campaigning with Senator McCain, and has endorsed neither Senator Stevens nor his opponent. But that has not stopped both candidates from trying to benefit from her enormous popularity in Alaska, which has only grown since she joined the McCain ticket.
Sarah Palin’s good looks are all very well if you are single and your dating pool consists only of vice-presidential candidates. But for the rest of us the question we’d ask is less likely to be “are you lonesome tonight?” and more likely to be “what are you going to do about this flailing economy? Iraq? Pakistan? Afghanistan? The health system?”
Nobody had warned the Ohio crowd that John McCain had just morphed into a new persona — a raging populist demanding more regulation of the nation’s financial system. Unfortunately McCain’s willingness to make speeches that have nothing to do with his actual beliefs is not matched by an ability to give them.
In a reversal of position, a key Democratic lawmaker said Wednesday he may convene the committee that is conducting the investigation into whether Palin dismissed her public safety commissioner when he would not fire a state trooper involved in a bitter divorce with her sister. This may be the first move in a push to delay the probe.