If the economic crisis doesn't open up a significant lead for Barack Obama, then I think nothing will.

Perhaps if McCain became confused or wet himself during the debates... but short of that...

At this moment the polls are hardly moving and we still see masses of undecided voters. What are they so undecided about? McCain has been around for donkey's years, the Republicans have failed at everything they have turned their hands to since Bush stole the election in 2000.

Obviously they are undecided about Obama.

Is this racism?

In some cases, yes, of course, but for that to be a fair question, to cry "racism" for sure, you would have to have an African-American candidate with the credentials of a Colin Powell sputtering in the polls, despite his party's huge generic advantage.

I always liked the Hillaryite appraisal that a woman with a CV as thin as Obama's would never be taken seriously, and I would venture to say that a white man with so little on his stick wouldn't be either.

In the specific case of Obama, I think race has been an essential part of his appeal, his package... what they call now his "story" and it has protected him from a lot of aggressive questioning.

Still, a decisive percentage of potential voters don't seem to feel they "know" him yet and suddenly all of this is getting deadly serious. There is a whiff of panic, a whiff of the Great Depression

So now, with the economy seemingly melting down, are the undecided going to choose the unknown?

They might, if Obama showed the quality that he claimed as his own at the beginning, that of bringing the people together, "uniting" them, above partisanship, to enthusiastically contribute, selflessly, to a common project. However, it is reasonable to say that if he were showing much of that quality these days, he would have broken 50% long ago, be leading by over ten points and he would be drawing the crowds and enthusiasm he drew in the early primary season. That obviously isn't happening.

If Obama doesn't go over 50%, with at least a seven point lead over McCain this weekend, I would say, no, the undecided won't choose the unknown. Most of the undecideds, in my opinion, are people who are not going to vote for Obama, but don't want the poll taker to think they are racists. On Monday we'll know a lot more.

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PS. For me, the joker in the deck is that pollsters don't call people with cellphones. That is the variable that could blindside all us wiseguys. There is an entire generation of potential voters that don't use landlines very much, and although they don't usually vote, they are said to be wild about Obama. But, if these people never get phoned, how do the pollsters know they like Obama so much? A reader of my blog commented that she didn't remember any Obama primary wins with a lot of surprise votes that were attributed to cell phone voters.

A little background
In the run up to the invasion of Iraq, which the then president of Spain, Aznar, enthusiastically supported, Zapatero, then the head of the opposition, led a demonstration against the war in Madrid attended by well over a million people.

Later on Armed Forces day, when a US Marine honor guard invited to Madrid for the big parade by Aznar passed in review, Zapatero did not stand up when the American flag passed. Then, the first thing he did as president was to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq.

For this reason, Bush has put him in the deep freeze and refused to meet with him. This has not hurt Zapatero one bit in Spain, as Bush is about as popular here as wind at a bullfight. everybody here including the right wing is rooting for Obama. Only the far right worries about Bush's cold shoulder.  If Obama gave Spain the cold shoulder, then people would feel hurt.

If Bush ever came to Spain, thousands of people would line the streets to throw tomatoes at him. The attitude to Bush here is that he is welcome to osculate Spain's fundament.

However, contrary to many of the commentaries here, I think that McCain was very aware of what he was saying or not saying on this question. If it the administration's attitude is  to "punish" Zapatero, as a ranking Republican senator, McCain would have been imprudent to take any position on that without first consulting the White House. So he just ran the question, which most Americans could care less about into touch.  I think the Obama camp is really reaching for it on this one.
http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com/

Pakistan's military has ordered its forces to open fire if U.S. troops launch another air or ground raid across the Afghan border, an army spokesman said Tuesday. The orders, which come in response to a highly unusual Sept. 3 ground attack by U.S. commandos, are certain to heighten tensions between Washington and a key ally against terrorism. Although the ground attack was rare, there have been repeated reports of U.S. drone aircraft striking militant targets, most recently on Sept. 12.(...) army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas told The Associated Press that after U.S. helicopters ferried troops into a militant stronghold in the South Waziristan tribal region, the military told field commanders to prevent any similar raids. "The orders are clear," Abbas said in an interview. "In case it happens again in this form, that there is a very significant detection, which is very definite, no ambiguity, across the border, on ground or in the air: open fire."(...) In a rare public statement last week, Kayani said Pakistan's sovereignty would be defended "at all cost." Abbas said Pakistani officials had to consider public opinion, which is skeptical of American goals in the region and harbors sympathy for rebels fighting in the name of Islam. "Please look at the public reaction to this kind of adventure or incursion," Abbas said. "The army is also an extension of the public and you can only satisfy the public when you match your words with your actions." - Associated Press

"Pakistan is an extremely dangerous and unstable country. We need to tread carefully. We need to get the Pakistanis to see this as their war. And that's going to require some major new initiatives on the American side. Commando raids and Predator strikes are not a long term solution to this problem." - Bruce O. Riedel, Brookings Institution

"Without adequate political leadership, eradicating sympathy for the Taliban may prove more difficult than eradicating their hideouts in frontier Pakistan. But as long as NATO and the United States continue unilateral strikes in Pakistan that kill civilians, the real battle - for hearts and minds - will be lost." - Mustafa Qadri, Asia Times

The United States has just invaded Cambodia. The name of Cambodia this time is Pakistan, but otherwise it’s the same story as in Indochina in 1970. An American army, deeply frustrated by its inability to defeat an anti-American insurgent movement despite years of struggle, decides that the key to victory lies in a neighboring country.(...)The eventual outcome of the American intervention in Cambodia in 1970 was Communist overthrow of the American-sponsored military government in that country, followed by genocide. The future consequences in (nuclear-armed) Pakistan await. There is every reason to think they may include civil protest and disorder in the country, political crisis, a major rise in the strength of Pakistan’s own Islamic fundamentalist movement, and conceivably, a small war between the United States and the Pakistan Army, which is the central institution in the country, has a mind of its own, and is not a negligible military force. - William Pfaff

The Democratic candidate had raised hackles in Pakistan by suggesting he would authorize U.S military incursion into Pakistan if there was information about Osama bin Laden's presence there and Islamabad did not act on the information. Administration officials and foreign policy mavens, including Obama's current running mate Joesph Biden and John McCain, had criticized such a public utterance, preferring the policy to be unsaid. In the past week, the Bush administration has begun doing precisely what Obama recommended -- covert attacks inside Pakistan aimed at eliminating terrorists. But according to Pakistan, they are resulting only in civilian deaths. - The Times of India (emphasis mine)

What exactly are meant by the words "experience" and "judgment"?

These words have been thrown around a lot during this campaign

The Obama camp has insisted that Obama's "judgment" trumps McCain's "experience". This gives the impression that in some way these two qualities are in conflict. In the case of the quotes above, it is obvious that the border of Pakistan is the most dangerous place in the world. American soldiers are for the first time in history attacking targets in the territory of a country armed with nuclear weapons. This in itself calls into question the judgment of anyone ordering or even suggesting such an attack.

However, at times, very dangerous things have to be undertaken. There are two basic risks when this occurs: that first is that things go very wrong and the other  is that people talk about it. In the case, of attacking in Pakistan it is also very negative that people talk about a cross border attack even if it were "successful". Successful meaning, in this case, the public humiliation of the military establishment of an unstable, nuclear armed country whose cooperation is essential.

If it is questionable that such attacks are useful, what is beyond any question is that publicly advocating these actions and introducing them into the echo chamber of a presidential campaign is the height of irresponsibility and poor judgment.

It is not difficult to surmise that Bush, a wickedly foolish man, one whose judgment is poor beyond doubt, has taken these extremely dangerous actions in response to Obama's prodding.

So even before becoming president, Barack Obama has made a critical foreign policy error, one which may have unbelievably terrible knock on effects...

Even if he isn't finally elected, he still may have left an indelible mark on American foreign policy, one that may mean the death of many thousands of human beings and the destabilization of south Asia and beyond.

The only reason that Obama could possibly give to excuse such irresponsibility and lack of judgment is... inexperience.

http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com/

    "What we are facing now if the beginning of the unraveling and collapse of the entire shadow financial system, a system of institutions (broker dealers, hedge funds, private equity funds, SIVs, conduits, etc.) that look like banks (as they borrow short, are highly leveraged and lend and invest long and in illiquid ways) and thus are highly vulnerable to bank like runs; but unlike banks they are not properly regulated and supervised, they don’t have access to deposit insurance and don’t have access to the lender of last resort support of the central bank (with now only a small group of them having access to the limited and conditional and thus fragile support of the Fed). So no wonder that this shadow banking system is now collapsing.(...) This is indeed the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression and occurring at a time when the US is falling in a now severe consumer led recession. The vicious interaction between a systemic financial and banking crisis and a severe economic contraction will get much worse before there is any bottom to it. We are only in the third inning of a nine innings economic and financial crisis. And the only light at the end of the tunnel is the one of the incoming train wreck." Nouriel Roubini
"Ignored in Georgia and under attack by its closest allies in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, the United States is somewhat unhappily entering the realities of the post-Cold War world, in which it has to play by new rules that it seems to find rather unpalatable." Immanuel Wallerstein

The United State's biggest problem is not racism, creationism, the media, or even the economy... it is America's obsession with controlling everything, everywhere,  all the time: tapping phones, invading countries, drones, spy satellites, giving lectures and sermons, leveling sanctions... and then not controlling that which needs to be controlled and which it could control.

In a country where a person can go to jail for possessing a minute quantity of cannabis or get fined for not mowing his lawn, the American financial system is going to damage the lives of millions of people in America and around the world for lack of sufficient regulation.

In short America's biggest problem is incoherent stupidity.

Now Americans are American enough to know that people who are not up to life's struggles are going to be left by the wayside... "owdada way, bud, comin' though" could be tacked right up there with "In God We Trust".

The world has no more patience than Americans do with losers.

The consolation is that the United States of America is so big, so well populated, with such productive agriculture, with so many natural resources and so far from dangerous neighbors, that it is basically unsinkable.

However, fatheaded hubris is going to take a severe hit in the years to come and Americans are going to want someone to blame it on. I think that they will blame it on whichever poor, helpless, sap wins the White House this year.