Republican Party leaders from several states – including tightly contested, must-win battlegrounds – have begun privately voicing reservations about McCain strategies and the campaign's failure to return phone calls or respond to suggestions and offers of volunteer support.

"They ignore you. They don't keep their commitments. And word is that the party has a clock counting down the days till it can throw the McCain people out of state party's headquarters," said one state party leader, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The leaders also question Mr. McCain's decision to embrace the "$700 billion Wall Street bailout," which riled voters, and his reluctance to make issues out of his Democratic rival's relationships with his inflammatory former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and with Bill Ayers, a 1960s radical and a founder of the violent Weather Underground that was blamed for a series of domestic bombings during the Vietnam era.
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Lots of complaints about Mac

In the face of adversity, she's clearly bucking up. Consider something else when judging whether she's a good team player: Todd told me that the presidential campaign has torpedoed Palin's once stratospheric approval rating in Alaska. It's down 20 points since she's assumed the partisan pit bull role. As for those urging her to go "rogue," there was no evidence during my three hours with her campaign yesterday that she was going to stage a mutiny and certainly nothing close to the day 1988 GOP running mate Dan Quayle announced to his press corps that he was taking charge of his effort from heavy-handed Bushies
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Sarah Palin will be fine when she returns to Alaska and governs.

Allies of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin are now trying to throw McCain aide Nicolle Wallace under the proverbial bus, and as they do so those in McCain’s circle are wary of the impact on Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., himself.
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Nicole Wallace strikes back. So, who bought the fraking clothes and billed the RNC?

McCain aides continue to go viciously negative—on their vice presidential candidate. Mike Allen has a McCain aide calling Palin a "whack job." This is part of the problem with Palin getting assigned aides with no loyalty to her. I've never been a "Free Sarah Palin" type. I'm in the Krauthammer school that the McCain campaign probably let her do big high-stakes media interviews too soon and should have waited while she was more fully briefed-up. But the mishandling of Palin that's been evident over the last week—from the clothes fiasco that wasn't her doing to the sniping at her from within the campaign—has been appalling.
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Thank God we are almost done with McCain and his Team of Losers. McCain should step in and kick some of his staff's ass including giving some the boot.
Now, this is Flap's straight talk.

I’ve heard from one well-placed source that McCain has snubbed her on one long bus ride aboard the Straight Talk Express, to the embarrassment of those sitting nearby. It has surely been implied to the governor that she should be eternally grateful to have been plucked from obscurity. And yet the high water mark of John McCain’s campaign for the presidency unquestionably began on September 3, when Palin gave her nomination speech—and ended precisely twelve days later, when McCain went off-script—I have that on the authority of the person who participated in the writing of said script—and told an audience that he still believed the fundamentals of the economy were strong.
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McCain and long time staff have sunk their own campaign with help from the 8 years of George Bush and now they plant this piece to blame Palin. I mean will anyone believe it?

The cable news channel is "completely out of control," said writer-producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, a self-proclaimed liberal
She added that she would prefer a lunch date with right-leaning Fox News star Sean Hannity over left-leaning MSNBC star Keith Olbermann.

Olbermann was criticized by many who attended Monday's luncheon sponsored by the Caucus for Producers, Writers & Directors at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The event was dubbed "Hollywood, America and Election '08."

Bloodworth-Thomason and others seemed especially critical of the way MSNBC — and other media — has attacked Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin while demeaning her supporters.

"We should stop the demonizing," she said, adding that Democrats have been worse than Republicans as far as personal attacks on candidates are concerned. "It diminishes us," she said of her fellow Democrats. She stressed, though, that its Palin's small-town American roots she wishes to defend and not her politics or policies.

The Christian Science Monitor, which turns 100 years old this year, is announcing on Tuesday, Oct. 28, that it will cease daily publication next April. The newspaper will shift to a weekly print format while increasing its emphasis on its Web site, says its editor, John Yemma.

In doing so, the Monitor will become by far the most prominent newspaper to scale back its print edition substantially.
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The web makes better sense, now doesn't it?

The following is a complete list — with links — of the editorial endorsements of California's ten largest newspapers: the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Sacramento Bee, Orange County Register, The (San Jose) Mercury News, The (Riverside) Press-Enterprise, Contra Costa Times, The Fresno Bee and Los Angeles Daily News.

For half of the dozen measures on the Nov. 4 ballot, the papers' editorial boards all agreed.

All of the largest papers opposed Propositions 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.

Only for Proposition 11, the redistricting measure, did the papers all agree to support an initiative. The redistricting overhaul would strip state lawmakers of the power to draw their own districts — long a favorite reform of the state's editorial boards.
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Who the frak cares?California newspapers are failing and will be gone in a decade.

But he can’t be a gadfly now, at least not for another week or so. McCain’s character and background still might see him through somehow, despite a lackluster effort for which he, the gadfly as nominee, bears most of the blame.
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And, why the GOP which did not develop alternatives to Bush in the last 8 years will have the next 8 years in the wilderness.

I don't mean to pick on any particular anti-Palin righty voice, I'm just going to pick David Brooks because he called Sarah Palin a cancer, and because, at the New York Times, he has one of the most prominent perches in opinion journalism. He can pick his column topic, and several times in recent weeks he's felt the need to detail the flaws he sees in Palin, and McCain, and the conservative movement, and Republicans in general, etc., as well as what appeals to him about Obama (he's a "homeostasis machine.")
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A re-ordering ot RIGHT opinion will be in order after the election.

The Columbus Dispatch reports that at least one culprit has emerged from the misuse of public information to attack Joe Wurzelbacher — and to no one’s surprise, she’s a Democrat and a big Barack Obama supporter. Helen Jones-Kelly decided to check on Wurzelbacher as soon as he became an issue in the third presidential debate.
No reason to believe that Wurzelbacher got politically vetted for dirt? What reason existed to look up his information at that particular point in time? Had someone filed a complaint against Joe? The act of opening his court records by a public agency has to have some motivation, and if no reason for a legitimate investigation exists, then by deduction the reasons were illegitimate — and almost certainly a Dumpster Dive for Dirt.

Change You Can Believe In — The State Will Own You. You’d better believe it.
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The upcoming crack down on Obama dissent will be worse.

Helen Jones-Kelley, pawing through the records of anyone who challenges Barack Obama…
Ohio residents be warned: You're being watched

Update: Yes, Helen Jones-Kelley (two e's in Kelley) just happens to be a maximum $2300 contributor to Barack Obama.

What a f**king shock, huh?

But she provides this sort of illegal intrusion into personal records for anyone who "comes into the public light." It's a public service, you see.

Right.

Riiiiight.

But here is the good news: women, citizens of America's high and low culture, the Economist and People magazine readers, will get it. They got it with Hillary even when feminist leaders were not supporting her or doing so half-heartedly. Yes, Palin is a harder sell, she looks and sounds different, and one can rightfully oppose her based on abortion policies. If you only vote on how a person personally feels about abortion, you will never want her to darken your door. If you care about anything else, she will continue to intrigue you. As Time's Nancy Gibbs noted a few weeks ago, quoting bioethicist Tom Murray, “Sympathy and subtlety are seasonings rarely applied to political red meat.” Will Palin's time come next week? I don't know. But her time will come.
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Sarah Palin's time is just developing……

Cohen is still the dumbass Lefty he always has been. Palin's record will speak for itself and two bad interviews does not a careerr kill.
Cohen will have many more columns to trash Sarah Palin in the next decade.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is very critical of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama's positions on Iran, according to reports that have reached Israel's government.

Sarkozy has made his criticisms only in closed forums in France. But according to a senior Israeli government source, the reports reaching Israel indicate that Sarkozy views the Democratic candidate's stance on Iran as "utterly immature" and comprised of "formulations empty of all content."
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Yet, American Jews will line up in lockstep to vote Obama into the White House. They may regret this vote in a few years.

The person who initiated the Daily Kos campaign to look into the lives of Mormon donors is Dante Atkins, an elected delegate to the state Democratic convention who said he's the vice president of the Los Angeles County Young Democrats.

Atkins said his goal was to "embarrass the opposition by pointing out and publicizing any contributors they may have." He said focusing on Mormons made sense. "If one religious group is putting close to the majority of the money and the effort into passing this proposition, it is fair to single them out."
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Typical LEFT-WING type fisking

Individual Mormons in Utah and elsewhere were asked if they would participate in call centers, said David Parker, an LDS businessman who has a house in Sundance and works with the California coalition. "It was clearly stated that [this] had not yet been sanctioned or approved by the church. It was just a preparatory effort."
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Utah Mormons or other Americans have a stake in Proposition 8 and gay marriage. What is so unusual that a religious organization's members ish to take political action?
Meanwhile the LEFT and homosexual lobby are going wild against the Mormons.

Newsroom staffing at the Los Angeles Times is shrinking again.

Newspaper spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan said Monday that 75 staffers are being laid off in the latest round of cuts.

She declined further comment and would not disclose how many journalists will remain at the paper.

The Times, which is owned by Chicago-based Tribune Co., reduced its overall staff by 250 people last summer, including 150 from the newsroom.

Editor Russ Stanton blamed the cutbacks on the economic slowdown.
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Yawn…….What doe the editors of the LAT expect? I mean really…..

McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate. They cited an instance in which she labeled robocalls — recorded messages often used to attack a candidate's opponent — "irritating" even as the campaign defended their use. Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan.

A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.

"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," this McCain adviser said. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.

"Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."
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Being considered a Diva with the inept McCain campaign is really a badge of honor, no?

So let’s get this straight: decisions on where and how much NRCC money is deployed are made not by the committee or its chairman or staff but by a “unit” of political consultants who operate outside the realm of the committee and may very well have their own interests in certain candidates who do get money.

And we won’t know who they are until after the election?
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Is there any doubt why the GOP is losing?

By a California elementary school teacher about Proposition 8 – protect traditional marriage.

Here are the top 25 newspapers ranked by Sunday circulation for the six-month period ending September 2008, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The percent change compares this period to the same period a year ago.
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the Sunday circulation decline

Here are the top 25 daily papers ranked for the six-month period ending September 2008 based on a Monday-through-Friday average, according to the new FAS-FAX from the Audit Bureau of Circulations released today. The percent change compares this period to the same period a year ago.
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the decline continues

The traditional media are playing a very, very dangerous game — with their readers, with the Constitution and with their own fates.
The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I've found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.

But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I've begun — for the first time in my adult life — to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was "a writer," because I couldn't bring myself to admit to a stranger that I'm a journalist.
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When the bloom falls off the Obama Messiah rose there will be a difficult time of intraspection by the MSM while their sales continue to crater.

The man the GOP loves to hate tiptoed out of hiding Sunday – if only to blast Fox News and the rest of the media for his predicament.
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Note the press was barred from attending the event.

William Ayers, the '60s radical who is one of John McCain's talking points in his criticism of Barack Obama, told a Manhattan panel discussion audience he was tired of being used as cannon fodder in America's political wars.

Daily circ at The New York Times fell 3.5% to 1,000,665 copies.

The Wall Street Journal (as we reported last week) was virtually flat, up about 1,800 copies on a daily basis to 2,011,999. USA Today was also up a fraction of a percent to 2,293,310 copies.

But The Washington Post's daily circulation declined 1.9% to 622,714. Sunday was down 3.1% to 866,057. At the Los Angeles Times circ decreased a little more 5% daily and on Sunday to 739,147 and 1,055,076, respectively. Daily circulation at the Chicago Tribune was down 7.7% to 516,032. Sunday declined 5.7% to 864,845 copies.

The San Francisco Chronicle lost 7% of its daily circulation to 339,430 copies while Sunday was down a hair more, 7.4% to 398,116. The San Jose Mercury News was down slightly, 1.9% to 224,199 and Sunday was down much more, 4.3% to 241,518.

On the East Coast, daily circulation at The Boston Globe plummeted 10.1% to 323,983 copies. Sunday circ was down 8.4% to 503,659.
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The end of the print newspaper?