Afternoon Open Thread

Some headlines:

• John McCain's campaign is rapidly trying to turn the campaign focus away from the economy -- since John McCain knows nothing about it and seeks advice from guys like this.
• Fighting back: Recently retired admiral John Natham, on behalf of the Obama campaign, is pushing back against the latest lying attack ad from John McCain on the military.

  "As a recently retired Admiral, I know who has the strongest record of supporting the men and women currently serving in our military. Senator Obama has consistently voted to fund our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and, just as importantly, a proven record of support when they return home. That's why independent veterans organizations give Senator Obama higher marks than Senator McCain. Despite consistent distortions of his record, thousands of veterans like myself support Senator Obama because he has the judgment, character and integrity to be a great president. We will need a great president to lead us in these very challenging times."

• Medicare cuts: A top economic adviser to John McCain, Doulgas Holtz-Eakin, says that in a McCain administration, there would be big cuts to Medicare.

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Keating Economics

Find out more -- visit www.KeatingEconomics.com.

Dow Plummets to Lowest Point Since 2004

This weekend, campaign advisers to John McCain say they want to "turn the page" on the economic crisis and explore new depths of dishonorable and sleazy campaigning. This morning, the Dow Jones sank below 10,000 points for the first time in four years.

Wall Street joined a “selloff around the world” today, with the Dow Jones dropping more than 400 points and falling to below 10,000 for the first time in four years. As the AP reports, the “markets have come to the sobering realization that the Bush administration’s $700 billion rescue plan won’t work quickly to unfreeze the credit markets, and that many banks are still having difficulty gaining access to cash.”

Think about it -- while untold thousands of Americans lose their life savings or retirement funds because of the greed of Wall Street, John McCain wants to "turn the page" on the financial crisis.

Then again, we've seen this before from John McCain. He knows a thing or two about thousands of Americans losing their life savings.

Hoosiers Fired Up and Ready to Go

Check out this FiveThirtyEight.com field report from Indiana. Hoosiers are ready for change, and the bustling Obama field offices there are a testament to that energy.

Here in Lafayette, in Mia Lewis' "alternate universe," the volunteers have begun to run out of turf -- because it's already been canvassed. Although John McCain has only one field office open in the state, Barack Obama has two on the same block. One is a large phone bank office, and a few doors down on the corner is the canvass staging area. We heard stories from volunteers who sometimes canvass because the phone bank is so frequently packed to capacity that if they want to volunteer, knocking on doors is the only option. [emphasis added]

And one of Senator Barack Obama's strongest voices in the Hoosier state is former senator and civil rights champion, Birch Bayh.

Retired Senator Birch Bayh has been on a surrogate tour of Indiana, and spoke to approximately 40 volunteers here in the Lafayette office a short while ago. Bayh, legendary for his support of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the primary architect of both the 25th and 26th Amendments (not since the founders can one man claim that distinction), gave a moving speech to the assembled group. Bayh was the principal sponsor of the Equal Rights Amendment and highly influential in getting Title IX passed. He is also the guy who pulled a seriously injured Ted Kennedy from the wreckage of a small engine plane crash in 1964. The guy has been around.

He talked about his own grassroots campaign that first elected him to the US Senate in 1962. What he's seen with Barack Obama's operation in the state of Indiana this time around reminds him of that grassroots surge that won him the Senate seat in this traditionally red state. After speaking about the value of an engaged citizenry, and the consequences of detaching from the public policy arena (the previous eight years being his primary example), Bayh made a prediction.

On the night of November 4, at that early six o' clock hour that is almost always an immediate blot of red in a largely empty map (Indiana reports early), America is going to see something different this time.

A dot of blue.

Morning Open Thread

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Sunday Open Thread

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Saturday Open Thread

Watch this powerful new video on the mounting job losses.

We cannot afford more of the same.

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Evening Open Thread

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Gov. Howard Dean on MSNBC

Watch Democratic National Committee chairman Gov. Howard Dean on MSNBC this afternoon:

Twice as Many Jobs Cut in September

And John McCain wants four more years of this?

Employers cut 159,000 jobs in September, more than twice as many as in August or July, the Labor Department reported. It was the biggest monthly decline since 2003, when the economy was still losing jobs in the wake of the 2001 recession.

Forecasters had been expecting a loss of about 100,000 jobs in September.

Afternoon Open Thread

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Former Freddie Mac Lobbyist Now McCain's Senate Aide

Washington Post reports that Mark Buse, the former staff director for McCain's Senate Commerce Committee in 2001 and 2002, lobbied for Freddie Mac and is now back on the McCain payroll in his Senate office.

When mortgage giant Freddie Mac feared several years ago that Sen. John McCain was too outspoken on the issue of executive pay, it pinpointed a lobbyist known for his closeness to McCain and hired him to work with the senator.

Mark Buse, a longtime McCain adviser who had been staff director of the Senate commerce committee, signed on as a Freddie Mac lobbyist, and his firm, ML Strategies, earned $460,000 in lobbying fees in late 2003 and 2004, according to lobbying disclosures. Buse is now chief of staff at McCain's Senate office.

While McCain made noise about executive pay, as chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, he did not hold any hearings on the matter due to "lack of jurisdiction," his campaign says.

McCain continued to talk about the compensation issue. But inside Freddie Mac, Buse's effort was viewed as "hugely successful," a former Freddie Mac lobbyist said. "The statements didn't go away completely, but in terms of Senator McCain doing anything about it, it just never materialized. As far as I know, Buse was the only person working that issue for Fannie or Freddie, so he got a lot of credit internally for the results." [emphasis added]

And McCain's relationship to Buse?

Buse was nicknamed "The Ferret" because he helped his boss, McCain, find pork-barrel provisions buried in legislation. McCain has said he considered Buse to be like a son.

Buse left the commerce committee staff to lobby, signing on clients as diverse as oil giant Exxon Mobil, Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, according to the government records. He also represented telecommunications clients affected by the committee.

Buse returned to McCain's office this year as chief of staff.

Wasn't it John McCain who said that "access is influence"?

''Can't Explain''

Last night at the vice presidential debate, Senator Joe Biden informed the American public on what John McCain plans to do with healthcare -- deregulate it like he deregulated the financial industry and then tax health benefits to pay for a $5,000 tax credit per family that will not even cover half of the healthcare costs of the average American family.

Watch the latest national television ad entitled, "Can't Explain."

Morning Open Thread

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Evening Open Thread

Don't forget -- Vice Presidential Debate tonight at 9PM Eastern. Until then, chat away...