Obama must answer this:

“Why in the world was Barack Obama still communicating on the phone or via email with Bill Ayers up until 2005 — when in 2001 Ayers gave widely publicized interviews claiming he had no regrets about the bombing, indeed regretted that he had not done enough, and did not necessarily have any remorse either about his Weathermen career?”

(From Victor Davis Hanson). This is not a “distraction.” This is not about something from Sen. Obama’s childhood. This was going on only three years ago. Please read the whole thing.

What might this mean? When a man keeps company with men like that, it means so many things on so many fronts. Here’s one front, one Obama likes to talk about: Afghanistan.

“The real position of these latter-day traitors is to stop the War on Terror completely, humiliate the United States, and lull the country back into a September 10th state of mind. Neither Obama or anyone else in his sniveling cohort give a tinker’s damn about Afghanistan. What they do know is that if they can get the War in Iraq shut down to “send more desperately needed resources” to Afghanistan, then shutting down and surrendering in Afghanistan will be child’s play.”

Think that’s too strong? Again, read the whole thing (from American Digest).

And why if this is so serious, aren’t you hearing more about it? Many reasons. Here are some, from Roger L. Simon.

You will probably watch the evening news today, for 1/2 hour at least. Why not spend 10 minutes reading the articles I have linked? There’s much more out there. Just start with these and ask if you really want Sen. Obama to be President of the United States. He would be making decisions that will influence our entire world, and he will be making them from a mind formed, informed, and conditioned by long-time associations with Ayers, Dohrn, Wright, et al.

You may have your questions about John McCain, but they are nothing like the kinds of questions that are out there, UNANSWERED, about Barack Obama.

(Cross-posted from blog.conservativa.com).

The Mud Pit shares today that Sen. Barack Obama was once a member of the “New Party”. According to the American Thinker Blog:

The New Party was a radical left organization, established in 1992, to amalgamate far left groups and push the United States into socialism by forcing the Democratic Party to the left. It was an attempt to regroup the forces on the left in a new strategy to take power, burrowing from within. The party only lasted until 1998, when its strategy of “fusion” failed to withstand a Supreme Court ruling, but after, but the membership, including Barack Obama, continued to move the Democrats leftward with spectacular success.

Just when I get depressed about McCain being at the top of the GOP ticket, there is something worse to see in Barack Obama.

Forget holding your nose this Nov. 4…bring a gas mask.

What does McCain have to do tonight to win? What about Obama?

Is this is a make or break for either candidate?

Is bringing up Bill Ayers’ association with Obama a wise move? What about Obama going after McCain regarding the Keating Five?

Should McCain hammer home that it was Democrats who caused the instability in the markets based on Fannie and Freddie? Or, should Obama blame McCain for voting with the Bush administration 90% of the time during which the crisis occurred?

We’ll do a live-blog of the debate right here. Hopefully some of my colleagues will join me. Feel free to chime in yourself.

Consider this post your pre-game tailgate and front-row seat to tonight’s main event.

Also, we’ll have a poll up regarding the winner of the debate here too. So please check back and vote!

Also - please join us on Thursday for “Virginia Politics On-Demand” on BlogTalkRadio for our live discussion with Gov. Jim Gilmore. The governor will be with us for the first forty minutes of the show and will take your calls.

Live Blog:

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Danae, Jason and Jim also share their thoughts in this post-debate podcast (caution, McCain ideologues…it’s not what you want to hear):

 

 VPOD: Post Presidential Debate Reaction, Oct. 10, 2008 [16:53m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (142)

Most of the news we are getting about the negotiations in DC is from the press statements made by the major players. What happens behind closed doors has been pretty invisible, especially once McCain and Obama arrived. That’s what makes this report from Jonathan Weisman in the WaPo a piece of fascinating inside baseball. Lots of secondhand and ’senior Republican aids’ as sources, but it does appear that presidential politics has impacted the negotiations.

MyDebates is a new site created by MySpace in conjunction with the Commission On Presidential Debates.  Through here you’ll be able to watch the debates, discussion the issues, give your opinion and more.

Before the debates you can take a little survey to see where you stand on the issues and express your support.  How’s it looking so far?  Well, if MySpacers voted (which many don’t either for being too young or the usual abysmal turnout of those under the age of 25), John McCain’s in trouble:

Barack Obama wants school kids to serve their country in ways similar to PeaceCorps or AmeriCorps.  Only this would force kids to “volunteer” by making the schools the bad guy:

In a response to Monday’s NYPost article quoting an Iraqi official saying that Barack Obama asked for a delay in US troop drawdowns, the Obama campaign put out a press release more or less saying that’s exactly what he meant:

“The bottom line is this. If you’ve got a rifle, you’ve got a shotgun, you’ve got a gun in your house, I’m not taking it away. Alright? So they can keep on talking about it but this is just not true. And by the way, here’s another thing you’ve got to understand. Even if I wanted to take it away, I couldn’t get it done. I don’t have the votes in Congress” (Barack Obama, Duryea, PA)

“Even if I wanted to take it away”? What exactly does that mean? If he had the votes, would he?

Then again, at least through Nov. 4, Obama probably wants to be oblique on this issue. That way he can pull the wool over the eyes of those of us rubes who “cling to our religion and guns.”

A McCain ad released yesterday has an image of the bankrupt firm Lehman Bros. and calls the economy in ‘crsis’. This matches a statement he made early yesterday: ““The fundamentals of our economy are still strong but these are very, very difficult times. I promise you we will never put America in this position again.” Meanwhile, the Obama campaign of “hope” and “change” used this as an opportunity to attack.

As opposed to lobbying as Barack Obama claims to be, he sure takes a lot of money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  In fact, he’s #2 on the list right after Sen. Christopher Dodd.  No word on if Lehman Brothers are big donors to the two, but seeing the lack of government bailout I’d guess probably not.

UPDATE: Seems I was wrong. 

Bloomberg continues the narrative on Gov. Sarah Palin with a provocative bit of analysis by Caroline Baum. She looks at how Palin exposes the weakness of the Democrats and why, should Republicans win, it would be a travesty for Democrats.

The convention is apparently over and John McCain isn’t necessarily interested in pleasing everyone in the party. But there’s a method to his strategy.

Despite a lot of rhetoric that our troops in Iraq need to come home, especially if the Iraqi people don’t want us there, and about how it’s time for a change in Washington, it seems it’s politics as usual Barack Obama.

On the eve of the Barack Obama campaign’s new ad to paint John McCain as tied to lobbyists, Sen. Joe Biden’s son Hunter quit his lobbying practice.

Rasmussen released Monday that Sen. John McCain now has a two-point lead in the polls over Sen. Barack Obama in Virginia. However, the polling company does not see the four-point swing from last month as significant:

That’s little changed from a month ago. The candidates have not been separated by more than three percentage points since March.

Of course, this is the same poll that says 52% of Virginians are giving Gov. Tim Kaine “excellent ratings”.