As Josh wrote yesterday, the crowds at McCain/Palin rallies have been getting more and more virulent in their reactions to Barack Obama, a sentiment that has been, to say the least, encouraged by the irresponsible rhetoric of McCain and Palin themselves. With some real pushback against this by Barack Obama, Joe Biden and even many in the media, and perhaps the glimmer of a conscience, John McCain stepped back some of his criticisms on the stump today, even praising and defending Obama at a couple of points.

From The AP:

"If you want a fight, we will fight," McCain said. "But we will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments." When people booed, he cut them off.

"I don't mean that has to reduce your ferocity," he said. "I just mean to say you have to be respectful."

TPM has the video:

At another more dramatic moment,

"I don't trust Obama," a woman said. "I have read about him. He's an Arab."

McCain shook his head in disagreement, and said:

"No, ma'am. He's a decent, family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with (him) on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign is all about."

TPM has yet another moment where he literally said "you don't have to be scared" of Barack as president.

John McCain seems to be realizing the monster he has created and appears to be trying to undo some of the damage. Let's hope this is the first of many campaign events where McCain and Palin walk back some of their irresponsible fearmongering.

As for McCain's motives for doing the right thing, they may not be entirely selfless in nature. Sure it could be out of a hidden store of decency, or it could simply be political expediency. Take a look at the new Newsweek poll of RVs and you see what his shameful attacks on Obama have gotten him: Obama leads McCain by 11 points, up from a tie a month ago.

And then there's the matter of this:

The poll suggests that the McCain campaign's strategy of sharp attacks on Obama's character have not yet had their desired effect and may, in fact, be backfiring. In recent days, McCain's campaign--and, in particular, his running mate, Sarah Palin--have sought to highlight Obama's ties to the '60s radical William Ayers and paint the Democratic nominee as outside of the mainstream. But 60 percent of voters said they have a favorable view of Obama, while 36 percent said they viewed the Democratic candidate unfavorably. That's actually an improvement from a month ago, when Obama's favorable to unfavorable ratio was 57 to 37. In the same period, McCain's favorability rating has decreased, from 57 percent in September to 51 percent today, while his unfavorable percentage have risen, 36 to 45.

Yesterday Carnacki highlighted polling from the generally unreliable American Research Group showing Barack Obama leading in West Virginia by a 50 percent to 42 percent margin. While I think there's no way the race actually looks like that -- if you take ARG polling out of the mix, John McCain leads in the state by a 47.5 percent to 40.8 percent margin -- there are some indications that the state is closer than many believed it would be. However, even more important than the polling is the make up of the group believing the state to be in play -- a group that apparently includes the McCain campaign.

n what may be another signal that the troubled economy is forcing John McCain's campaign to play electoral map defense, Sarah Palin has scheduled a bus tour for Sunday through West Virginia, a state that's been leaning red throughout this presidential race.

Palin had already scheduled a bus tour of Pennsylvania on Saturday, but she will now repeat that act on Sunday by making various unannounced stops throughout West Virginia, culminating in a campaign event in southeast Ohio. It's a swing geographically reminiscent of Hillary Clinton's effort during the Democratic primary to court white working class voters in Appalachia. Clinton won the West Virginia primary over Barack Obama by a whopping 67-26 margin.

If you had told me two weeks ago, two months ago, or even two years ago that the Republican Vice Presidential nominee was going to be campaigning in West Virginia three weeks out from election day, I wouldn't have believed you for a second. First of all, if the GOP ticket was hitting the hustings in West Virginia, that would mean that the marginally blue states basically weren't in play, and that even the states that have been close but have swung towards the Republicans in recent years were moving too close to the Democratic column.

But beyond that, there aren't a whole lot of states in the nation that are trending away from the Democrats and towards the Republicans, but West Virginia has sure looked like one of them, going from a comfortable 51.5 percent to 36.8 percent win for Bill Clinton in 1996 to a comfortable 56.0 percent to 43.2 percent win for George W. Bush in 2004. What's more, the chattering class quickly settled on the narrative following Hillary Clinton's big win in the West Virginia primary in May that there was no way that Obama could carry the state in the general election. But it increasingly looks like the conventional wisdom was wrong and West Virginia is in play.

Coleman, is disarming-- unilaterally:

Now, Franken's numbers are not all that great either, at 42, but it looks like its only going to take a plurality to win.

I just had a thought-- of waiting up for the Alaska returns to see if we hit 60.

Update [2008-10-10 18:26:14 by Todd Beeton]:Only 14 more donations to our Road To 60 ActBlue page to reach our goal of 200. Give Al some more love.

The other day I posited that Barack would see an uptick in the polls as a result of his debate performance this week and certainly we're seeing some (albeit minimal) evidence that that may be the case in the tracking poll averages. On Wednesday, Obama's average lead in the tracking polls (for the final pre-debate period) was 7%. Today, as Jonathan posted earlier, with approximately 2/3 of the polling taken in the aftermath of the debate, his lead is now 8.5%. Over at 538.com, Nate Silver digs deeper and finds "hints" at a post-debate surge for Obama:

The Zogby-Reuters poll is already out. From reading Zogby's write-up, it sounds like Obama must have had about a 9 point lead in Thursday's interviewing and, oh, a 5-6 point lead in Wednesday's interviewing. This compared with a 2-point lead over the Sunday-Tuesday window, before the debate occurred. (Zogby's party ID weightings are screwy, but we'll discuss that at another time; the poll should be fine for inferring trendlines).

Research 2000 had Obama winning Wednesday's daily sample by 12 points, as compared with 9 on Monday and 8 on Tuesday.

He also sees some evidence of a post-debate Obama surge in the Rasmussen state polling.

But what's perhaps more notable than whether Obama's uptick is a function of his debate performance or not is the fact that he's rising at all, as it's happening in the midst of the escalated Ayers attacks on Obama's character and "associations." It's becoming more and more evident that, to borrow a phrase from John McCain himself, these attacks are about as effective as nailing Jello to a wall.

The ineffectiveness of this line of attack is confirmed in the new FoxNews poll (h/t TPM):

There has been some discussion of Barack Obama's relationship with the former radical activist William Ayers. Because Ayers is linked to plots to bomb the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol in the 1970s, and because Ayres recently said he wished he had done more, some people say Obama's association with Ayers calls into question his judgment. Does Obama's connection with Ayers make you less likely to vote for him for president or does it not really make a difference to your vote?

Less Likely 32%

No Difference 61%

As Greg Sargent notes, most of those who respond "Less Likely" are Republicans who wouldn't have voted for Barack anyway.

Also, the Fox poll finds that the attacks could potentially be backfiring on McCain.

Meanwhile, the poll suggests that McCain's attacks could be blowing back on him: A majority -- 51% -- say he's running a negative campaign, as compared to only 21% who say that about Obama.

Our handy TPM Election Central calculator tells us that the number of voters think McCain is running a negative campaign is nearly double that of the number who care about McCain's primary attack line right now. Go figure.

Which begs the question of whether we're seeing Obama surge or McCain plunge. Of the 1.5% average net gain Obama has made over McCain since before Tuesday's debate, 1 full point of it is a result of McCain's numbers falling and just 1/2 point is due to Obama's rising.

Yglesias asks a simple question in a headline: "Does Norm Coleman Support Privatizing Social Security?"

Simple answer: yes.

Back in 2005, Republicans got crushed trying to convince the country that putting a portion of retirement money into the market was a good idea. And back then, the Dow wasn't routinely dropping 200-400 points a day.

But instead of changing bad policy, Republicans just ran from the label. So while politicians like Norm Coleman still support private accounts (the policy core of privatization), they refuse to call it by the unpopular name.

Case in point: Norm Coleman's campaign manager telling reporters the sky is green:

Let's throw Al Franken $10 or $20 for his private account to beat Norm Coleman.

Here are today's numbers:

In today's other polling, the Battleground tracker (.pdf) is largely in line with the four-poll average above, with Barack Obama leading John McCain by a 51 percent to 43 percent margin. The latest survey from Time (.pdf) isn't too far off either, pegging Obama's lead at 50 percent to 44 percent.

So what do we know now? With at least two-thirds of the interviews upon which the data above are based taking place after Tuesday night's presidential debate, Obama's lead is as big, if not bigger, than it was before the debate, when his four-poll average lead stood at 49.75 percent to 42.75 percent. In fact, there has been very little movement in the last 13 days, with Obama's average showing ranging from 49.25 percent to 50.25 percent, and McCain's average showing ranging from 41.75 percent too 43.00 percent even through a window of time that included two presidential debates and one vice presidential debate. In other words, despite the seeming ups and downs of the campaign, the race has actually remained somewhat static as of late, interestingly enough, which isn't a great sign for the GOP.

These numbers, caught a few days ago by Marc Ambinder, are just stunning:

In the ABC News / Washington Post poll of Ohio, 37% of those who made it through the likely voter screen said they had been contacted by the Obama campaign in some way or another. That's ten points higher than the number who say they've been contacted by the McCain campaign.

And adding in e-mails or texts, the Obama figure rises to 43% of voters -- probably a record for a presidential campaign.

Think about this number for a moment. About three in eight voters deemed likely to show up to the polls in Ohio on November 4 have been contacted by the Obama campaign. Considering that hardcore Republicans -- say 40 percent or so of the electorate -- is out of play for Obama, that means that upwards of 72 percent of likely voters who could even conceivably vote for Barack Obama have heard from his campaign, whether through a knock on the door, a piece of direct mail delivered to the house, a call on the phone, a text to the cell, or an email sent to the computer. All of this, of course, about a month away from election day.

The ground game metrics may not come through in the top like numbers from polling around the country, but when it comes to election day -- when it actually counts -- the team with the far superior GOTV organization generally is able to pull out the victory. How exactly these efforts can and will swing the numbers, both nationally and in the key states, remains to be seen, but I would be very surprised if this seeming organizational divide between the two campaigns isn't apparent in the ultimate results of the election.

Even as Bush's boy Henry Paulson (you might remember him from such bailouts as Bear Sterns and AIG) considers radical measures:

Boy that's reassuring ain't it. The guy who used to be the CEO of Goldman Sachs is now about to step in and use our money to nationalize them.

Paulson is, of course, the architect of both Goldman's failed strategy and the utter disaster that has been the last two years of Bush administration financial policies (since his appointment as Treasury Secretary in 2006.)

But don't forget, its not really the U.S. taxpayers who are financing this bailout. From a a NewsDay Op-Ed by James Ludes and Bernard Finel:

And owing money to "our friends" has serious implications:

They go on to outline the Suez Crisis of 1956 when President Dwight Eisenhower used America's financial power over Britain and France to force them to pull their troops out of the Suez Canal. Now we're the ones with global strategic delusions of grandeur that we're letting other countries pay for. As Ludes and Finel conclude: