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Markos and his team have been hard at work developing a tracking map for the rest of this election season, and it is even embeddable on sites. They deserve major kudos for this thing. Being a Flash developer myself, I know how much work can go into something like this.

They keep getting nastier and nastier:

Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

How long before they just start using the more famous derogatory words to describe Obama? I got a feeling any day now.

Well isn't that just marvelous. Republinomics work so well.

The hatred continues at the McCain rallies and the campaign appears to love it. Why is John McCain and Sarah Palin so hateful?

Barack Obama is still a U.S. Senator and under Secret Service protection. Regardless, if anyone at any candidates campaign rallies shouted "kill him" it is the responsibility of that candidate to immediately denounce the comments. John McCain did nothing. Again - JOHN MCCAIN DID NOTHING!

This is sick and a look into how McCain feels about American politics and America as a whole. I really hope that Obama finds a way to work this in to tonight's debate. The American people should know that McCain is apparently content with people wanting to murder our leaders. That's terrorism you can believe in.

Really? Should we start talking more about her pastor problem? Oh but wait. The Republicans want you to be pissed off because Jeremiah Wright said "God damn America" at a sermon Obama wasn't even present for.

So did Wright say something like, "The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government"? How about "I won't be buried under their [America's] damn flag"? Nope. ThosAlaskan Independence Partye were all by the founder of the Alaskan Independence Party, and Todd Palin was a member of them. Here's even a video of Palin praising the group that hates America:

So does she really want to get into this game? I got a feeling Obama could really unleash and destroy and political future she thinks she has outside of Alaska.

Oh I love these numbers:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows Barack Obama attracting 52% of the vote while John McCain earns 44%. This is the highest level of support ever recorded for Obama and is his largest lead of the year. It also continues a remarkable twenty-five days in a row where the Democrat's support has never declined by even a single point.

McCain is going to get so nasty now. Welcome to the fourth quarter!

Welcome to the Bush economy:

Afghanistan is now the United States neighbor. Just ask Sarah "men rode dinosaurs" Palin.

Obama has launched a new ad and it is one of my favorites so far:

I have been busy migrating Crooks and Liars over to the new system and that has taken tons of time. Hopefully after today and a little bug crushing, I will be back to a more normal posting schedule. Meanwhile - check out the new stuff at C&L.

Following up on my previous post of John McCain's temperament and admission to not being congenial, I would be wrong not to bring up the latest news from the McCain campaign. For the final month of this campaign season, McCain plans to go 100% negative against Obama.

At first read you might take that as bad news, but I beg to differ. I have heard tons of bloggers and pundits call for a much more aggressive Obama and Obama has ignored those calls. Instead we have seen Obama stay on his message of change and talk about his policy and that has resulted in Obama surging fast in the polls.

Yes the economy helped Obama some in the polls, but I don't think that accounts for the entire reason of his newly found success. Instead we saw a man who kept his cool at a time of crisis. While Obama was making his case, he maintained his composure. McCain played a very big political card. He took an unprecedented move of suspending a Presidential campaign, which resulted in an extra feel of panic in Washington all the way down to Main Street.

After eight years of having a President who couldn't keep his cool, we are looking to a future of a President who defines the word. This is the kind of President who can address a nation during an economic disaster and instill a level of comfort in the American people. George Bush doesn't have that temperament, but he looks like Mary Poppins compared to John McCain.

I find the news that McCain wants to go negative as good news. Let him show America he is nothing but a grumpy old man, unfit to be President. We just endured eight years of a man who was very similar, but at least a little likable. McCain had that trait at one time, but has since lost it. I got a funny feeling McCain's tactic of going negative is going to result in two things happening. For one it will help him with his base, those die hard neo-cons who salivate over negative campaigns, along with the racists out there. Secondly it will turn off the independents who don't care about political alignment, but chose to vote depending on the issues. McCain won't be spending time on those issues since he has just scheduled himself a month of defending the attacks. That means more of those independentsThe will now slide towards Obama.

There is a third benefit of this new tactic. It's going to help solidify the Obama base against these attacks. Some people who may be suffering campaign fatigue are going to be reinvigorated, pushing them harder to get out and vote.

Also, these new negative ads will open Obama up to just mentioning the questionable past of John McCain. "Obama has ties to Freddy and Fannie". Well what about McCain's lobbyists, and while we are on the subject of banks, what about the Keating Five? Things like that allow Obama to get some digs in while maintaining a higher level of congeniality that the American people want today.

We have just endured eight years of "cowboy diplomacy" by George Bush. This has given us such zingers as "bring it on" and "we are going to conduct a crusade". Bush's mentality has further alienated this country from the rest of the world and extinguished our status as the shining city on the hill.

One thing you do have to admit though is that Bush can pull off these stunts and still maintain some appearance of likability. Disagree with him 100% on policy, but he is still the guy you would want to have a beer with.

Now enter John McCain. Josh reminded me this morning of a very testy exchange between Obama and McCain back in 2006. McCain was upset that Obama wouldn't support his plan for a bipartisan commission to come up with lobbying/ethics reform, instead choosing for such reform to go through normal committee. This led to McCain firing of a very nasty letter to Obama for not supporting him.

While refreshing my memory on this little exchange, I noticed something that sounds very familiar:

"That's why I am not going to win Miss Congeniality again this year in the Senate."

As you can guess, John McCain said that. It's something he repeats on the campaign trail still and even brought up in the first debate.

There are a couple of issues here that should be taken up by the media and pundits. First off is John McCain's admission that he isn't congenial. We need someone who can lead our country by understanding and working together, not someone who wants to strong arm any objections into submissions. No matter how you slice it, the Democrats will retain control of Congress this year and probably end up with a more solid majority. Having a President McCain, who admits to not being congenial, is a perfect recipe to have a Congress less effective as we do now.

Second, we need our world face of leadership to have some congeniality. If he strong arms Congress then we just don't get legislation. If he strong arms other nations then we risk further alienation or even total isolation. While Bush gave us cowboy diplomacy, McCain would be more out to give us mafia diplomacy. That's a step backwards, not forward.

Health care is where the battle is this week and I love it:

And not the sound bites you might think. Instead let's rewind to 100 years ago and here the sound bites from William Howard Taft and William Jennings Bryan.