Daily Roundup

9/10 Roundup: Stocks Surge (Downward), Bloodthirsty Anti-Socialists, The Foo Democrats

- Stocks Surge in Baghdad! Blares the front page of today's New York Post. 

- Unfortunately, New York, London, Tokyo, and pretty much every other city on earth has been less fortunate, economically-speaking.  Stocks fell for the seventh consecutive day in the U.S., pushing the Dow below 9,000 for the first time in five years.  The S&P 500 is down 42% from a year ago, and 22% from a month ago. The index is on track for its worst year since 1937. Doing what they do best, USA Today has a fun infographic illustrating the departure of capital. 

- Paul Krugman writes "now is the time to act," and points to the British model as a good act to follow. 

- The political world is going sour as well. John McCain is now directly attacking Obama for his connection to one-time domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. More disturbing are the people showing up to McCain's rallies.  Slate's John Dickerson calls the crowds "bloodthirsty," and chronicles the way they whip into a frenzy. Politico covers the same territory: People angry at the "socialists" trying to take over America. Joe Klein has heard some even crazier things shouted at rallies.

- Josh Marshall at TPM attributes it all to John McCain's moral cowardice.

- Obama's admitted cocaine use is now being used against him

- Despite it all, conservative pundit George Will is just about ready to give up on McCain. A Yale economist is predicting 52% of the vote going to Barack Obama.

- State of the Union has a graph (at right) that lays it clean: McCain's fall has closely mirrored the fall of our markets.

- Perhaps the most intriguing announcement of the past 24 hours: Barack Obama has purchased half an hour of network airtime a few days before the election. At 8pm on October 29th, CBS and NBC (and perhaps others) will air a 30-minute ad from the Obama campaign. Take note: half a minute costs something like $100,000. Sounds like fundraising is going well at the Obama camp.

- Ben Smith at Politico writes about McCain's unpopularity among Hispanics.  NDN President Simon Rosenberg is quoted!

- If there's one article you read this week... Make it George Packer's essay in the New Yorker giving voice to Ohio voters. Even if you don't trust my judgment, surely you can trust Ezra Klein.

- Esquire magazine is supporting a candidate for the first time.  Guess who it is?

- The Foo Fighters would like John McCain to please stop using their music.

- You've seen Ralph Nader talking to a parrot.  You've seen his first encounter with Obama Girl. Nader keeps it weird with his second spot, co-starting the Obama Girl.

10/9 Roundup: We're All Socialists Now, Keeping Banks in the Black, Palin v. Palin

- The global economy has continued its tumble. The NY Times reports that the government may take an ownership stake in some banks, to help restore investor confidence.

- Britain announced a similar plan yesterday.  The Telegraph led with the headline "We're All Socialists Now, Comrade." Funny or no, it's not too far from the truth.

- The Times takes a closer look at the legacy of Alan Greenspan.

- John McCain's plan to keep people in their homes made an overnight transformation.  Now it's a plan to keep banks in the black.

- Brad DeLong blogs that McCain's new plan is worse than he had imagined possible.

- The Times has a very disturbing report that thousands of voters have been illegally purged from voting rolls in six key swing states.

- Meanwhile, ACORN is under investigation for questionable voter forms.

- DemfromCT at Kos continues to report huge leads for Obama in the polls. Yesterday's Gallup is the hugest yet, giving Obama an 11-point edge. We could be seeing some post-debate momentum...

- Still, Joe Klein at Time wonders if Obama can keep it up.

- Skepticism may be in order.  Mark Blumenthal writes that pollsters face a perfect storm of unknown variables.

- General Petraeus is on a victory lap, and spoke at the Heritage Foundation yesterday.  Spencer Ackerman thought it sounded like Petraeus was campaigning for Obama.

- The Times calls the McCain campaign "one of the most appalling we can remember."

- Conservative commentator David Brooks called Sarah Palin a "fatal cancer to the Republican Party." Dang that's harsh.

-  If not for the Republicans, Palin is good business for NBC. Fueled by their political satire, Saturday Night Live's ratings are up 42% on last year.  

- And SNL may yet double down on that bet--  rumor has it Palin herself may appear on the show.  Perhaps we'll get to see her debate herself.

- Last, a video.  John McCain addresses his fellow.... prisoners?

If you come across an article, blog post, video or anything else you think should be in the Daily Roundup, send it to me, and I'll try to get it in.  Thanks!

10/8 Roundup: "That One" vs. The Other Guy, Sliding Markets, Sarah's Doodles

- Barack Obama and John McCain squared off last night for the second of three debates.  Who won the town hall-style showdown in Nashville?  Barack Obama.  Or so says, well, everyone:

- The CNN instapolls hand it to Obama, 54% to 30%.  CBS instapolls agree.

- Mark Halperin of Time gives Obama a B+.  McCain gets a B.

- With the stakes so high for McCain, Politico says he lost by not winning.

- Josh Marshall of TPM thinks the debate reassured everyone that Obama is the better candidate.

- Noam Scheiber of TNR saw Obama as professorial (in a good way).

- Not a game changer, says Chris Cillizza at the Fix. The WIndy concurs.

- John Dickerson of Slate writes that McCain needed a knockout, and didn't get one.

- McCain referred to Obama as "that one" in the debate, which Ezra Klein thinks made him seem cranky.  Klein also wrote that McCain looked like a guy who's about to lose an election.

- The economy was the major focus of the evening.

- And (still) with good reason.  The Nikkei is down nearly 10% today. European markets are all down 4-5%.  Hong Kong's Hang Seng index is down over 8%.

- The Fed and its European friends cut interest rates by half a percent, to slow the fall of the markets.

- The British government will announce their own bailout today, spending 50 billion pounds to partly nationalize failing banks.

- McCain proposed a plan to renegotiate mortgages. His campaign backed it up with details.

- Cindy McCain tells the Tennesean that Obama has waged "the dirtiest campaign in history."  Zing?

- Even in Alaska, more and more people dislike Sarah Palin.

- Last, Sarah's doodles are well-worth a look.

If you come across an article, blog post, video or anything else you think should be in the Daily Roundup, send it to me, and I'll try to get it in.  Thanks!   

10/7 Roundup: Exciting Monday, Mudslinging, Tonight's Debate

- Remember that bailout bill from-- when was it... last week?  Turns out the markets aren't so bullish on the idea. 

- Free Exchange, by the Economist, comments on our exciting Monday.

- Jacob Weisberg writes for Slate about the fundamental challenge to capitalism posed by the current crisis.

- Jonathan Chait at TNR, likewise, foresees the end of conservative economics.

- DemfromCT at Kos reports on the latest poll numbers: McCain seems to have hit a ceiling, and Obama continues his surge. CNN polling comes to similar conclusions, with Obama doing well in key swing states.

- Confronted with their candidate's slide, the McCain campaign has gotten nasty. He's taking the "low road," says Walter Shapiro for Salon.

- Palin, likewise, launched some nasty attacks in Florida yesterday. 

- The mudslinging has been going in both directions.

- Arianna Huffington writes about McCain's desperation.  (Speaking of whom, there's a great profile of Huffington in this week's New Yorker)

- Early voting hasn't been wildly popular so far.

- The second Presidential debate is tonight! The Caucus tells you what to watch for.

- The format will be town hall-style, and you can read about the agreed-upon rules here.

- John Dickerson at Slate warns the candidates how town hall debates can go horribly wrong-- watch out for ponytail guy!

10/6 Roundup: Everything You Thought You Knew is True

- The theme of today's news: Everything you thought you knew is, in fact, true!  The economy is still in shambles-- not just here, where job losses are piling up, but in Europe as well.  (Europeans can take some solace in the fact that they cleaned up in this year's Nobel Prizes for medicine)

- Howard Fineman of Newsweek projects trouble for the next president, when faced with budget shortfalls caused by the bailout.  Jonathan Cohn of TNR thinks an Obama administration should not give up its agenda because of the bailout.

- The Economist reports that the financial crisis is proof that governments increasingly need to work together.

- The presidential campaign continues to slide in Obama's direction. Even Karl Rove is projecting an Obama victory. 

- Sarah Palin was in Nebraska over the weekend, trying to keep Obama from stealing one electoral vote from that state.

- Newsweek has a deeply damning cover story on Sarah Palin.

- Rolling Stone does the same on John McCain.

- Palin will be in Florida today, perhaps trying to rescue her image among Jewish voters there.

- John Heilemann of New York analyzes how McCain lost his maverick brand and his favor with the press. John Schaffer writes in TNR that, after the election, the press will forgive McCain.

- Disappointed by McCain's withdrawal from the state, one Michigan GOP leader had some choice words for the campaign.

- The McCain campaign's latest attempt to defame Barack Obama consists of tying him to the radical Bill Ayers.

- Sarah Palin told Bill Kristol that Rev. Jeremiah Wright should be back in the discussion, too.

- Howard Wolfson says the tactics won't work.  "It's over," he says.

- Barack Obama called the attacks "out of touch." 

- Paul Begala thinks Obama should shoot back, and fight fire with fire.

- It looks like he'll get what he wants, as the Obama campaign cleared tactics to highlight McCain's rule in the "Keating 5" scandal.

- The Decemberists released a new track called "Valerie Plame."  It's pretty good.

If you come across an article, blog post, video or anything else you think should be in the Daily Roundup, send it to me, and I'll try to get it in.  Thanks!  

10/3 Roundup: VP Debate Responses, House About to Vote

- Everybody's chattering about last night's VP debate.  The general consensus? Sarah Palin exceeded expectations, but Joe Biden won anyway.  The upshot? It probably won't affect the race very much.  Responses from around the web:

- Mark Halperin of Time gives out report cards: They both get a B.

- Andrew Romano at Newsweek: Joe Biden beat John McCain, and Sarah Palin beat Tina Fey.

- Daniel Politi of Slate: Nobody blew it, nobody blew us away.

- The New York Times: She didn't flunk, but Sarah Palin was still a terrible pick.

- DemfromCT at Kos: Not a gamechanger.

- Joan Walsh of Salon: Palin blew it.

- Ezra Klein at TAP: Expectations shmexpectations, Biden won.

- The Washington Post: Nobody won, nobody lost.

- Joe Klein of Time: Palin held her own, but Biden won.

- Greg Sargent of TPM: Obama is on the right side of the issues and Biden made that point well.

- David Brooks of the Times: Where was last night's Palin during Couric's interviews?

- John Dickerson of Slate: Winners: Palin and Biden.  Loser: John McCain.

- Howard Fineman at Newsweek: Palin scored points, but didn't win.

-  James Fallows at the Atlantic: Biden made no mistakes, Palin beat expectations.

- Ben Smith at Politico: Palin passed a pass/fail.

- Undecided voters: Biden won!

- In other, more consequential news, everyone is holding their breath as the House votes on the bailout proposal today. It's likely to pass, but Time says the Blue Dogs could be the key to the bill's fate. Paul Krugman says we're standing on the edge of the abyss, here.

- McCain pulled out of Michigan, and now his campaign is saying that it's all hanging on three states.  Three state's he's losing.

- Homer Simpson wants to vote for Barack Obama, but is eaten by a biased voting machine.

- Obama's got his priorities straight: If it's a double-Chicago, Cubs-White Sox World Series, he's suspending his campaign. 

If you come across an article, blog post, video or anything else you think should be in the Daily Roundup, send it to me, and I'll try to get it in.  Thanks! 

10/2 Roundup: The Senate Says Yes, DebateMaina, Angry McCain

- The Senate passed the bailout bill, by a vote of 74-25, and a whole lot of people breathed the first half of a sigh of relief.  It will likely go up for a vote in the House tomorrow morning.

- The NY Times editorial board has pushed for the bill as a first step, but today they point out a crucial point it misses: It fails to keep people in their homes.

- Daniel Gross at Slate has an interesting (if scary) piece comparing the bailout to a hedge fund.

- Paul Krugman describes two narratives of the bailout saga, both of which turn out to be wrong.

- Enough about all that.  The fun news today is all the anticipation of tonight's VP debate.  NDN has you covered with a guide to the coverage.

- Other good backgrounders and forecasts have been published by: Salon, which says the shootout will be fun, but reminds us that a matchup between the political second bananas isn't likely to decide anything; The Caucus, where they tell you what to look for; Politico is wondering if this debate will matter, even if it's a "barrel of gaffes"; TNR's Michelle Cottle warns us not to underestimate Palin; and Jack Shafer at Slate thinks the format is stupid.

- The NY Times talked to people who know about Vice Presidencies, and collected a batch of questions that should be asked tonight.

- Time has collected video from the 10 most heated moments in VP debate history.

- Obama has surged ahead in polls across the country in the past day or so.  Nate Silver at 538 analyzes some of yesterday's returns. Marc Ambinder calls it an ObamaPollSplosion.

- Maybe that's what McCain has been so angry about lately.  He was short with the editors of the Des Moines Register yesterday (video here), and Chris Cillizza at the Fix has picked up on McCain's rage as a theme, and Time's Joe Klein writes about his "mercurial temperament."

- The latest installment of the Palin-Couric interview is loaded with laugh/cringe lines. Most notably, she takes an curious stance on Roe vs. Wade, and then can't think of any other Supreme Court decisions she opposes. People are becoming increasingly skeptical of Sarah Palin, the Washington Post reports.

- Her accent has confused many, but Slate has done the research, and it turns out to be genuine: Sarah Palin's accent is a Wasillan accent.

- Leonardo DiCaprio, Halle Berry, Jennifer Aniston and others implore America's youth: Please don't vote!

- And Slate publishes The Collected Poetic Works of Sarah Palin.

10/1 Roundup: More Bailout Fallout, Early Voting, Sarah Palin Isn't Reading This.

- The bailout bill is still ruling the news cycle. The Senate will vote on a slightly-altered version of the bill today, and it will likely pass. The new version includes tax breaks-- particularly for businesses-- that will probably cost a few Democratic votes, but should bring enough Republicans on board for it to pass the House on Thursday or Friday.

- Politico makes a list of twelve members of the House who just might switch their votes.

- David Leonhardt has a great essay in the Times today taking the broad view on the financial trouble.

- Tom Friedman fears for his country if the bailout bill doesn't pass.

- FT Columnist Martin Wolf says we're watching the disintegration of our financial system.

- Newsweek does an interesting investigation of how Obama and McCain developed their views of the world.

- Voting begins in Ohio today! Republicans fought to make it harder to vote, but lost the battle. Greg Giroux at CQ Politics says early voting makes voter-turnout strategies a whole lot more complicated. Brian Montopoli at Horserace looks at how early voting could help Obama in decisive states.

- New polls suggest that Sarah Palin is a leading cause behind John McCain's drop over the past week. As someone who reads a lot of news, her latest gaffe-- in which she can't name a single newspaper or magazine that she reads regularly-- horrifies me to no end.

- CNN did the research, and it turns out you can, in fact, see Russia from one tiny island in Alaska.  And no, Sarah Palin has never been there.

- Operating mostly below the radar, Barack Obama has been waging a ferocious campaign of attack ads on the radio

- Everyone in a Scranton, PA diner (except for one man whose arm gets slapped down by his wife) is voting for Barack Obama.  Fox News calls it a split decision.

If you come across articles, blog posts, videos or anything else you think should be in the Daily Roundup, send it to me, or post it as a comment to the previous day's roundup, and I'll try to get it in.  Thanks! 

9/30 Roundup: Bailout Fallout, Double Dates with Joe

- As you might have heard, the House rejected the bailout bill yesterday by a vote of 228 to 205, and the Dow Jones plunged 777 points-- the biggest single-day drop in two decades.

- Why did it happen? The Times sees a failure of leadership in Congress, and David Brooks calls the no-voters "nihilists."

- The best answer, however, comes from Chris Cillizza at The Fix: The bill was so massively unpopular among voters that those congresspeople facing tough elections couldn't afford to vote yes.

- The Post backs up Cillizza's idea, illustrating just how much most Americans distrusted the bill, and distrusted their leaders who wrote it. The Journal also documents how voter fury killed the bill.

- Courtney Martin at the American Prospect writes that voters have good reason to rebel. The middle class has been ignored for too long.

- In Mother Jones, former Wall Streeter Nomi Prins says "good riddance." The bill was a bad deal for average people, and voters were right to oppose it.

- The early word from the Republican camp in congress was that they couldn't vote for the bill because Nancy Pelosi hurt their feelings with a partisan speech.  Barney Frank let 'em have it.

- John McCain, by contrast, blamed the bill's failure on... Barack Obama.  McCain accused him, once again of "phoning it in."  This was shortly after McCain, literally, phoned it in.

- The Fed and the Treasury are weighing their options. The Times editorial board writes that work can be done to fix the failed bill.  A flawed bill, they say, is better than none at all.

- Remember last week when Simon joked that perhaps McCain was evading the debate because he had a dinner date on Friday night with Joe Lieberman? Well, guess where McCain was on Saturday night, rather than in negotiations at Congress.  On a double date with Joe Lieberman.

The Daily Roundup is a new feature that I will publish each morning to our blog. Welcome! If you come across articles, blog posts, videos or anything else you think deserves mention here, send it to me by 8 am, or post it as a comment to the previous day's roundup.  Thanks!

9/29 Roundup: Bailout Plan, The Obama Era, Worrying about VPs

- After a long weekend of negotiations, Congress has a bailout plan, ready for vote.

- The details are at The Gavel, Nancy Pelosi's blog.

- Paul Krugman holds his nose and votes yes on the plan.

- Larry Summers warns us: this is only the first step.

- John McCain, in case you didn't know, is largely responsible for the plan.

- Barack Obama, meanwhile, doesn't love it.  But he'll take it.

- Whether he likes it or not, the bailout marks the beginning of the Obama era, says Howard Fineman.

- The latest bank to go is Wachovia-- Citgroup outbit Wells Fargo to buy it.

- After keeping us waiting with bated breath, McCain agreed to debate after all.  Obama won.

- Obama has since been hitting McCain for ignoring the middle class.

- In Ohio, Obama is targeting traditionally underrepresented voters: the young and the homeless.  

- Bill Clinton will be shocked if Barack Obama doesn't win.  But will he be disappointed?

- Fareed Zakaria would like Sarah Palin to step down, please.

- Looking forward to the VP debate, Democrats are worried about Joe Biden.

- Joe Biden, if you believe him, is worried about Sarah Palin.

- Come to think of it, John McCain is worried about Sarah Palin, too.

- Already this week, McCain has had to walk back a remark of Palin's about Pakistan.

- Michael Tomasky speculates on John McCain's next stunt.  Will Bristol and Levi take their vows?

- John McCain likes gambling in the literal sense, as well.

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