Hope everything works out well and I truly hope that such a situation doesn't work to Obama's detriment or benefit politically; ill family members are not something that should be a political issue.  Following this political campaign for a whole year leads me to believe this will be politicized.

"Florida and Indiana Clue

Here's one to let your heads spin until tomorrow: Obama is doing better in our Indiana poll than our Florida one."

http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/

That could be interpreted in two different ways, one good and one slightly bad.

is the one who loves talking about Ayers while she would rather be talking about Wright and ACORN.  I guess McCain is hesistant to talk about Wright and ACORN b/c of the race undertones but is more comftorable with Ayers because of the Vietnam connection.  It'll be interesting to see where this leads...

Palin and McCain; she just threw him under the bus regarding the very robocalls that McCain defended this morning.

"The Alaska governor said if she ran the campaign she would meet with more Americans about the economy and the war in Iraq and not rely on 'old conventional ways of campaigning that includes those robocalls and includes spending so much money on the television ads that I think is kinda draining out there in terms of Americans' attention span, they get a bit irritated with just being inundated, and you're seeing a lot of that of course with the huge amounts of money that Barack Obama is able to spend on his ads and his robocalls also.'"

http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/

in the first place?  Is the Minnesota Congressional district really that conservative?

for: McCain's performance at the Alfred E. Smith dinner.  Now, McCain absolutely killed as comedy seems to be his forte these days given this Joe the plumber theme (when you get HRC rolling on the ground laughing, you know you hit it out of the park), but to attribute a shift of 8 points to a speech that nobody watched at a dinner is pretty curious to say the least.

overreacts to that rap segment; it was amusing to see her with moving with the beat or whatever (not a rap guy).

but I wouldn't say it went awful for her.  Of all the politicians to go on SNL this cycle, I think Hillary got the best of it.  Obama and Palin's appearances really didn't advance any particular narrative like the HRC one did.

Exit polls, if you believe them, showed Perot voters had Clinton as just as much a second choice as Bush.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.ht ml?res=9E0CE0DB1F3FF936A35752C1A96495826 0

Obama doesn't need a hidden vote; he has enough support right now with non-hidden voters, though the pubs from Zogby and Kos show McCain at over 90% in support from the party, which isn't a surprise given the zombie-aspects of that party.

is due to women (by Rasmussen movement, I don't mean from yesterday but over the course of a week).  Obama no longer has the Bill Clinton lead among women, but closer to the Al Gore lead but much greater than the John Kerry lead.  Obama still performing great among men

According to Kos (a poll that is only worth its salt if the advantage among dems over pubs really is 9%), the tigheting is due to dudes drifting over to McCain.  Obama is still performing at Bill Clinton levels among women.

As for Hotline, who knows with that poll?  I'm expecting McCain to tie Obama in Hotline by Wednesday and for Obama to jump back to a 10 point lead by the end of next weekend.

of Washington as well; I hear he's holding a rally, presumably it's for fundraising primarily but he wants to give seattle some love.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar ticle?AID=/20081016/NEWS0502/810160565

"Murray Clark, chairman of the Indiana Republican Party, said Palin's visit will pump enthusiasm into the GOP base. 'There is a certain celebrity factor with her,' Clark said. 'Twenty-thousand-some people there will be energized to participate more and volunteer more.'"

Someone should ask McCain if he still disdains celebrities....

after McCain's digs....comedy ain't really Obama's specialty.  If you gave me a choice, I'd rather be better at debating than at delivering comedy.

that some "surveys" show Obama getting hammered in SW Virginia.  McCain internal surveys?  Rasmussen is the only pollster showing a statistical tie in Virginia at this point, though Rasmussen could very well be right.

The key may be to see whether Warner hits 60%; if he does, then Obama has probably got it as I don't envision too many Obama/Gilmore voters.

I've got to admit, Mac had some pretty funny lines in there, especially the lines about Hillary, MSNBC, and Matthews.  McCain had to finally beat Obama at something.....