PPP's latest Virginia poll (pdf) is out, showing Obama, for the 4th month in a row, continues to have a 2 point lead over John McCain.

One reason: Biden is far more popular there than Gov. Sarah Palin:

Virginia is the only battleground state PPP has polled in where Joe Biden gets better overall reviews than Sarah Palin. Biden has a net 11 point favorability rating with 38% of respondents saying
that his selection made them more likely to vote for Obama while just 27% say his choice made them less likely to choose the Democrat.

Palin has just a two point net favorability,
with 42% saying they are more likely to vote John McCain because of her and 40% saying they are less likely to do so.

40% of those polled say they are less likely to vote for McCain because of Palin. 42% say the opposite. Sarah Palin = Polarizer in Chief.

More...

So sez (besides me), Paul Begala, in a Daily Kos diary. I think he just came out with a book titled "The Third Term" about - you guessed it - McCain running for Bush's Third Term.

This is an Open Thread. Play nice. Should be easy cuz I'll be out for a while.

Ras has no change, 48-47 McCain. DKos/R2000 has no change, 48-44 (but overnight sampling had Obama by 5. Ras does not report his overnights.

Two bits of data make me think Ras is haviong some trouble with his polling. First he says that in his poll, McCain leads on the economy over Obama by 49-45 (Hotline has Obama up 20 on the economy). There is no other poll that has anything close to that result. The second bit of data is translating how McCain could lead on the economy and still only have a 1 point lead. This result seems implausible to me. Remember Ras uses a secret LV model, this is not an RV poll.

The R2000 poll has an interesting geographic point - Obama leads everywhere but the South, where McCain leads by 18 points. Obama leads by 23 in the Northeast (Pennsylvania?), by 8 in the West (the West Coast accounts for that no doubt - the Mountain West looks like a tie at best for Obama now) and by 9 in the Midwest (take your guess on that, Illinois will be big for Obama, but how is he doing in the other states.)

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

On the heels of the AIG bailout, Joseph Stiglitz's article yesterday is important reading:

The new low in the financial crisis, which has prompted comparisons with the 1929 Wall Street crash, is the fruit of a pattern of dishonesty on the part of financial institutions, and incompetence on the part of policymakers.

We had become accustomed to the hypocrisy. The banks reject any suggestion they should face regulation, rebuff any move towards anti-trust measures - yet when trouble strikes, all of a sudden they demand state intervention: they must be bailed out; they are too big, too important to be allowed to fail.

. . . The big question always centres on systemic risk: to what extent does the collapse of an institution imperil the financial system as a whole? Wall Street has always been quick to overstate systemic risk . . . but loth to allow examination of their own dealings. . . .

(Emphasis supplied.) More . . .

Your turn.

This is an Open Thread.

This is good humor in my opinion:

"Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld, a miracle made possible by John McCain."

-- The signature appended to emails sent by Obama spokesman Bill Burton.

Link. I imagine they might. Here's my question - how is it funny? Maybe my stupidity is blocking my sense of humor here, but I do not get the funny.

This is an Open Thread. And I speak for me only. Maybe J or Chris think it is funny.

Jonah Goldberg learns. From his column today:

Now, facing John McCain's blistering ads, Obama seems unable to fight fire with fire. . . . Nonetheless, the Obama campaign has vowed, once again, to take the gloves off and go after McCain hard, linking him to President Bush and highlighting the fact that the Arizona senator is out of touch.

One flaw with this supposed course correction is that it isn't one. McCain-Bush-Economy has been Obama's message for months now. Indeed, ABC News' Jake Tapper wrote on his blog that this is actually the fourth time Team Obama has pledged to engage in a bracing round of fisticuffs.

Time to revise and extend those remarks Jonah. Of course, "the economy is fundamentally sound" may be a winning soundbite. But I doubt it. It did not work for Hoover.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Reports tonight are emerging that the Feds may bail out AIG by providing up to $85 billion in a bridge loan.

Doesn't that mean we, the taxpayers, ultimately are going to foot the bill? Adding that to what we will have to pay for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that's a huge sum of money.

The reason apparently is that AIG is just too big to fail.

Thoughts?

Here is video of "the speech"

Update (TL): Full text of speech here.

I haven't seen any news today, or even opened my e-mail, but I can tell from BTD's last post, it's still being dominated by Gov. Sarah Palin. I hope he noticed I did not write about the tanning bed even though I read about it last night -- I agree it's petty, silly and has zero to do with her governing, since her spokesman said she paid for it with her own money.

I'm still at work and the TL kid is coming over for dinner, so here's an open thread for those of you that were paying attention to the world at large today.

When you write posts like this, you forfeit the right to complain about the lack of substance from the Media. On a day when Barack Obama gives a fantastic speech on the economy, that is what some blogs choose to write about.

Somerby says:

WE’RE ALL SEAN HANNITY NOW: Josh Marshall’s descent into Hannity Land has been a dizzying ride. But even by Josh’s declining standards, this gruesome post by Kate Klonick represents a new low in rube-running. (David Kurtz linked to the piece, on page one.) Do you enjoy being treated like fools? If so, you’ll love Klonick’s opening: On the campaign trail, Sarah Palin likes to brag about how she put the Alaska state jet on eBay and fired the governor's personal chef. One item that doesn't appear in her stump speech, however, is the personal tanning bed Palin had installed in the governor's mansion.

Yep. You sometimes become that which you claim to hate.

Speaking for me only

I got the chance to watch Obama's speech on the economy in Golden, Colorado (on TV of course.) Great speech. Great delivery. As close to being like Bill Clinton on the economy as I have seen him. The Barack Obama I saw today will win this election easily. I hope to get a video up for you to see it yourself. Some of the text on the flip.

This is an Open Thread.