Joe Biden gave fresh ammunition to Republicans yesterday by condradicting the campaign’s position that they would define wealthy as those making above $250,000 and not place taxes on those making less. Biden instead said:

“What we’re saying is, that $87 billion tax break doesn’t need to go to people making an average of $1.4 million… It should go to middle-class people, people who make $150,000 a year.” blockquote>

The McCain campaign jumped on the remark saying:

“It’s interesting how their definition of ‘rich’ has a way of creeping down,” McCain said.

“Senator Obama has made a lot of promises. First, he said people making less than $250,000 would benefit from his plan.

“Then, this weekend, he announced in an ad that if you’re a family making less than $200,000 you’ll benefit – but yesterday right here in Pennsylvania, Senator Biden said tax relief should only go to ‘middle-class people’ – people making under $150,000 a year.

“At this rate, it won’t be long before Senator Obama is right back to his vote that Americans making just $42,000 a year should get a tax increase.

The Obama campaign responded by calling McCain’s attack desperate:

“No family making less than $250,000 will see their tax increases one cent, and if your family makes less than $200,000 – as 95 percent of workers and their families do – you’ll get a tax cut.”

I have written about the polling data coming out of this race a few times now and always with skepticism. There was a sudden bounce for Obama around the time of the economic crisis and until late last week that bounce was holding. Something strange happened though late last week into early this week, a set of polling data came out showing that the race was in Obama’s favor but within the margin of error. Increasingly it the polls showed tightening with independent voters becoming somewhat more receptive to McCain.

The difficulty is that there are still polls showing Obama with huge gains. Most of these polls assume large turnouts among African Americans, young voters and a shrinking Republican population. The question becomes, are they oversampling and overestimating the turnout with youth and the effect of African American turnout or are they dead right?

A Pew Research Center poll released yesterday shows a 15-point lead for Obama, a result based on relaxed criteria for when to consider an African American respondent a likely voter, said Andrew Kohut, president of the center. He said the poll shows that roughly 12 percent of the electorate this year is black, up from 2004, with a similar increase among younger voters. Kohut defended this approach, saying there are historically high levels of interest in this contest among both demographic groups. At the same time, he added, “we’ve consistently shown less enthusiasm and engagement among Republicans than is typical, and the composition of the electorate shows that.” (Washington Post

Likewise state polling appears to have the same problem. Many of the estimates are placing Obama well above three hundred in the electoral vote. The same problems with the national polls exist with the states and so these polls are showing traditionally Republican states, including McCain’s homestate of Arizona, close to turning over for Obama. This seems unlikely unless you consider that in the last few years large portions of the population have moved. There has been a resurgence in the city populations of many Southern and some midwestern states as people seek jobs. Is this shift enough when mixed with the dislike of the president to turn conservative voters over to a liberal Democratic candidate? It could be or it could also be a sign of trouble in predictions.

This normally wouldn’t be too much of a problem as it wouldn’t be the first time Americans have had an election called a few weeks ahead by pollsters and pundits only to see a massive shift of expectations near election day. The race this year is altogether different largely because of race.

Many pundits are already building up the case that if election results don’t mirror the polls it will be because of voter racism. These voters seemingly would have told pollsters they were undecided or supporting Obama because they felt that was the socially correct answer, when left alone in the voting booth though some believe they will switch.

It seems likely with all of the evidence that Obama will win Tuesday, but there is enough reason to doubt the polling to hold off. Unfortunately many in the media and online haven’t done so, instead giving the perception that there is no discrepancy in the polls and instead that the race is already decided. My personal fear is that the polls are wrong and the only conclusion offered on election night will be one that puts race front and center instead of the perceptions of pollsters.

Lets just hope for the best.

Reminder Senator Barack Obama will have a half hour campaign commercial tonight on all of your network stations except for ABC. No one really knows what will be happening but it should be interesting. It probably won’t look like this unfortunetly:

You don’t need polls to tell you when a campaign is truly in trouble, you need only to watch the leaks coming out of the massive cracks in a campaign. In the late days of the Clinton machine the sights were set on Mark Penn after campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle had already been tossed under the bus. The message was clearly lost, the strategy wasn’t working, the anger inside was boiling as everyone worked hard not to take the blame. Fighting for their future careers and reputations while publically grinding axes the Clinton machine turned on itself in the final days while still projecting the “we can win, everyone is wrong, we can win” face. The same is now transpiring in the McCain campaign, the last signal that everything we know on the outside is similar to everything they know within.

The target of these attacks are focused on Sarah Palin where writers throughout the media are apparently getting earfulls from those representing McCain strategist Steve Schmidt and senior aide Nicolle Wallace and probably from those two individuals as well. Calling Palin a “Diva” the two have been fighting off suggestions that Palin’s horrible rollout following her triumphant convention speech was due to the candidates lack of knowledge. They have repeatedly claimed Palin is “off message” and give the impressiont hat she is a lone wolf who holds no trust in the campaign or even her family.

All of this may be believable if it were not so reflective of the campaign leadership itself. The McCain campaign, like Clinton’s, has been a stunning example of how not to organize. There appears to be no ground operation, no understanding of how the Internet works, no vision and no message. Day in and out the campaign seems to constantly be in a state of chaos, shifting messages, positions and struggling hard to define their candidate.

Reading between the lines many of the accusations hurled against Palin are probably true of McCain himself and those on his staff. The candidate is often completely absent on weekends turning this into a five day campaign that gets to a slow start on Sunday and is often puttering around by Friday. The power structure seem complacent, stale and incapable of seeing beyond their own wants and desires. They want to drive the media in directions and rarely adapt when it won’t go along.

McCain himself, destined to live up to the Maverick image, appears to go off what little “message” the campaign has, often throwing his own party, supporters and longtime friends under the bus for no apparent reason. While his party was chomping at the bit to exploit the Democratic record on Freddie & Fannie; McCain was hitting free market capitalism.

When he party won over the excitement of the population by opposing the bailout, he was charging forward a path that would add more pork to the bill completely shattering his claim to fiscal conservancy. McCain continually seems out of touch with his own campaign. When he is the attack dog, his campaign often is pushing a bipartisan message. When McCain goes into bipartisan mode his campaign is often running with very negative attacks.

Unable to simply blame their candidate directly, Palin seems to perfect scapegoat to lay all of their internal strife. Unfortunetly for Palin her entrance came at a moment that gives those seeking to lay their blame a perfect in. As Palin was entering the national stage, the economy tanked throwing the campqaign into a worldwind of negative press and sent their candidate off on an odd adventure that saw a suspension of activities and a weird backroom deal that still defies explanation.

At that moment Palin was bringing new life and the Convention saw a unified vision of McCain being broadcast to the people. The polls were up and it looked likely McCain was heading toward an electoral victory. The past few weeks have destroyed that trip to the top. Now those who oversaw this destruction are looking for ways not to be blamed.

I don’t know what Sarah Palin is like behind closed doors. Folksy may truly be replaced with Diva and its possible the McCain campaign really did have some kind of message after six months of drifting to nowhere. Maybe she did in two weeks destroy their plans. I find it doubtful though.

Instead we can probably read a lot more into this internal destruction, that they know what we all suspect, this race is coming close to being over and everyone inside is looking at how to jump ship.

Breaking news from the Associated Press, keep an eye out for more info on a plot by “skinheads” that was broken up by ATF to assassinate Barack Obama.

From the AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal agents have broken up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree, the ATF said Monday.

In court records unsealed Monday, federal agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target a predominantly African-American high school by two neo-Nazi skinheads. Agents said the skinheads did not identify the school by name.

Jim Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of the Nashville field office for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the two men planned to shoot 88 black people and decapitate another 14. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.

The men also sought to go on a national killing spree, with Obama as its final target, Cavanaugh told The Associated Press.

From the Columbus Star Disptach:

“State and local officials are investigating if state and law-enforcement computer systems were illegally accessed when they were tapped for personal information about “Joe the Plumber.”

Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher became part of the national political lexicon Oct. 15 when Republican presidential candidate John McCain mentioned him frequently during his final debate with Democrat Barack Obama.

The 34-year-old from the Toledo suburb of Holland is held out by McCain as an example of an American who would be harmed by Obama’s tax proposals.

Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher’s driver’s license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate.

Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.

It has not been determined who checked on Wurzelbacher, or why. Direct access to driver’s license and vehicle registration information from BMV computers is restricted to legitimate law enforcement and government business.

Wondering why some polls have Obama racing away with a 14 point lead, while others show a virtual tie? Alan Fram writing for the Associated Press has a nice set of answers to many question you probably have about polling and why things are looking a little crazy right now.

From the article:

Q: Don’t pollsters simply ask questions, tally the answers and report them?

A: No. After finishing their interviews – usually with about 1,000 people, sometimes more – they adjust the answers to make sure they reflect Census Bureau data on the population like gender, age, education and race. For example, if the proportion of women interviewed is smaller than their actual share of the country’s population, their answers are given more “weight” to balance that out. But some pollsters make these adjustments differently than others. And while most polling organizations including the AP do not modify the responses to reflect some recent tally of how many Democrats, Republicans and independents there are, some do.

Q: Are those the only changes made?

A: No. As Election Day nears, polling organizations like to narrow their samples to people who say they are registered voters. They often narrow them further to those they consider likely voters. That’s because in a country where barely more than half of eligible voters usually show up for presidential elections, pollsters want their polls to reflect the views of those likeliest to vote.

Q: Is that hard to do?

A: Quite hard, since no one will truly know who will vote on Election Day until that day is over. In fact, virtually every polling organization has its own way of determining who likely voters are.

Like many polling organizations, the AP asks several questions about how often people have voted in the past and how likely they are to vote this year, and those who score highest are considered likely voters.

A new gallup poll says about 11% of registered voters have already voted with anothr 19% saying they plan to vote before election day. Those voting run “roughly equal” between McCain & Obama voters. That information does not equate to actual votes however as the poll also indicates “while equal percentages of Obama and McCain voters have voted early, there are more of the former than of the latter, meaning that early voting generally reflects the same Obama lead evident in the overall sample. Thus, if McCain gains rapidly in the days left, Obama benefits, since Obama can’t lose votes he has already received. If McCain loses support rapidly, Obama will not have the chance to pick up even more support from those who have already voted.”

To put it another way, if this poll is like Gallups other polls more Democrats were sampled to reflect a perceived trend that voter registration is heavily favoring Dems. Because of this based on the people in the sample there is no disparity between the liklihood to vote early and candidate preference. There is, however, more Obama supporters who have voted early based on the polls because more Democrats were sampled and nationally the polls show Obama gaining greater overall support than McCain.

The pace of early voting so far appears to be roughly on par with 2004. At about this time before that year’s election — Oct. 22-24 — 9% of registered voters said they had already voted. However, in that 2004 poll, only an additional 13% said they intended to vote early, lower than the 19% who say so in the current Oct. 20-22 average. Thus, early voting this year may end up being higher than it was in 2004. (In Gallup’s final poll before the election that year, conducted Oct. 29-31, 17% said they had voted early, and another 4% claimed they were still going to vote before Election Day.) As noted above, projections from this year’s data are that as many as 30% of voters could end up voting early.

Scott McClellan Former White House press Secretary to George W. Bush is supporting Barack Obama.

“From the very beginning I have said I am going to support the candidate that has the best chance for changing the way Washington works and getting things done and I will be voting for Barack Obama and clapping,” McClellan told new CNN Host D.L. Hughley

McClellan, a onetime Bush loyalist whose scathing critique of the president sent shock waves across Washington last spring, has long hinted he was leaning toward the Illinois senator.

“It’s a message that is very similar to the one that Gov. Bush ran on in 2000,” McClellan said in May about Obama’s campaign.

The New York city council has approved the extension of term limits from 8 to 12 years. Current Mayor Michael Bloomberg had noted his desire to run for a third term and have the limit raised. He released a statement after the decision.

Today, the majority of the City Council decided to give the people of New York a fuller choice in the November, 2009 election. I believe that was the right choice, and I want to thank Speaker Quinn for her leadership.

“Those of us who work on both sides of City Hall must now move forward with the important decisions that face us, particularly finding ways to soften the fallout from the economic downturn and balancing our budget as revenues decline. We have a lot of work to do together to get New York through these tough times.”