Poll: Palin may be hurting more than helping McCain
(CNN) - A new national poll suggests that Sarah Palin may be hurting John McCain more than she's helping him.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Sunday indicates that McCain's running mate is growing less popular among voters and may be costing the Republican presidential nominee a few crucial percentage points in the race for the White House.
Fifty-seven percent of likely voters questioned in the poll say that Palin does not have the personal qualities a president should have. That's up eight points since September. Fifty-three percent say that she does not agree with them on important issues. That's also higher than in September.
"Just after the GOP convention in early September, 53 percent said they would vote for Palin over Joe Biden if there were a separate vote for vice-president. Now, Biden would beat Palin by 12 points if the running mates were chosen in a separate vote," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
And what if voters were allowed to vote for president separately?
Biden unprompted = off-message?
GAINESVILLE, Florida (CNN) – If you listen carefully, every so often Joe Biden will slip a few words into his speech not intended for those he’s giving the speech to.
“Stop moving the prompter.”
He’s talking about the two glass panels on either side of his podium - the teleprompter with his speech scrolling down that - controlled by Biden’s speechwriter and an assistant.
Typically, he can slip the line in without his supporters noticing - but Sunday, afternoon when the crowd laughed, Biden revealed the goal isn’t just to help him remember his remarks, but to keep him on message.
“I believe the possibilities for this country are absolutely amazing, and stop moving the prompter,” Biden told a laughing crowd of over 4,000 on the University of Florida campus. “There’s a prompter I hardly ever read here. They don’t want you to know that. They put it up to make me sound disciplined.”
Obama's final push for votes starts in Florida
(CNN) – Barack Obama will start the final full day of the 22-month presidential campaign in the state that cost Democrats the White House eight years ago.
The Democratic nominee's day begins with a rally in Jacksonville, Florida, followed by an event in Charlotte, North Carolina. He holds his final rally of the day before a much-anticipated election night event in Manassas, Virginia.
Florida and North Carolina are up for grabs, according to CNN’s electoral map. Virginia, which has historically voted Republican, is leaning Obama.
Joe Biden and Michelle Obama will hit other crucial states on Monday. Biden will campaign across Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania, while Obama’s wife meets with voters in Nevada and Colorado.
Palin knocks Obama over months-old coal comments
MARIETTA, Ohio (CNN) - Campaigning in coal country just two days before the presidential election, Sarah Palin is highlighting an interview Barack Obama gave to the San Francisco Chronicle in January in which the Democrat suggested coal plants would be bankrupted by his cap-and-trade proposal.
Audio of Obama’s comments began bubbling up on major conservative blogs over the last 24 hours, and Palin wondered why voters were only now hearing about the remarks. The insinuation that the Chronicle had been hiding the coal comments from the public brought about shouts of “Liberal media!” from the crowd.
“Why is the audio tape just now surfacing?,” Palin asked. “This interview was given to San Francisco folks many, many months ago. You should have known about this, so that you would have better decision-making information as you go into the voting booth.”
Contrary to her attempts to portray a media cover-up, audio and video recordings of Obama’s January 17 sit-down with the Chronicle editorial board have been freely available online for more than nine months.
In the interview, Obama said that his “aggressive” cap-and-trade plan would charge polluters for every unit of carbon or greenhouse gas they emit, a plan that would render polluting coal plants financially unviable.
“So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can,” he said. “It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”
In the interview, Obama also made the case for alternative energy sources, adding that he does not believe coal production will be eliminated, and that he supports carbon capture and sequestration technologies.
John McCain also supports a market-based cap-and-trade proposal to reduce carbon emissions.
Regardless, Palin sought to use Obama’s words against him in a part of the country where coal has long been king.
“He said that, sure, if the industry wants to build coal-fired power plants, then they can go ahead and try, he says, but they can do it only in a way that will bankrupt the coal industry, and he's comfortable letting that happen.”
HAPPENING NOW: McCain holds town hall in Peterborough
(CNN) - John McCain is holding a town hall event in Peterborough, New Hampshire this hour.
Watch the event on CNN.com/live
Fact Check: Was McCain the "biggest cheerleader" for launching Iraq war?
The Statement:
At a rally Sunday, Nov. 2, in Columbus, Ohio, Sen. Barack Obama cited Sen. John McCain's "endorsement" from Vice President Dick Cheney. "He worked hard for it," Obama joked, pointing to McCain's support for the vast majority of the Bush administration's policies. And, Obama added, "He had to serve as Washington's biggest cheerleader for going to war in Iraq."
Get the facts!
Biden to appear with Phillies Monday night
(CNN) – At his last rally before the election, Joe Biden will appear with players from the World Series champions Philadelphia Phillies, his campaign announced Sunday afternoon.
Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania and a longtime resident of Wilmington, Delaware, Biden is a big Phillies fan. Though his love for the team seems to be outmatched by his wife Jill’s, who attended the final games, and whom Biden describes as a ‘rabid’ fan of all Philadelphia teams.
It is unclear which Phillies will attend the late-night rally in Philadelphia, his final campaign rally before heading home to Wilmington, Delaware to vote Tuesday morning.
Bush absent from campaign trail
WASHINGTON (CNN) - In the waning days of the election season, as both parties campaign fervently for their candidates, one man has been notably absent - President George W. Bush.
Reporters began asking questions immediately after the White House schedule last week noted Bush had no public events Friday through Monday, and would spend most of his time at Camp David.
Watch: President Bush in 'hiding'
"The president is pretty focused on the activities that we have here, especially getting this economy back in order," White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said Wednesday.
"We canceled a lot of our fundraisers, and he's going to focus on being with Mrs. Bush and others this weekend at Camp David."
But Perino couldn't list any fundraisers that had been canceled recently.
Friday, Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto offered a more detailed explanation.
"The truth is we're also trying to stay out of the public limelight during this period of the election season," said Fratto. "There are two individuals out there running to be president of the United States, and we don't want to complicate that for them."
Political experts acknowledge the reality that a lame-duck president with record low approval ratings - 28 percent according to the latest CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll - is a political liability for Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
ON THE TRAIL: I'm 'feeling good,' Obama says
(CNN) - Barack Obama held a campaign rally in Cleveland, Ohio earlier Sunday during which he said he's starting to feel good about his prospects on Election Day.
"I have to tell you the last couple of days I’ve just been feeling good," he said. "And part of the reason that I’m feeling good is because sometimes it’s, sometimes it’s lonely on the road but when you’ve got a wife like Michelle Obama – when you’ve got daughters like Malia and Sasha Obama and when they are with you on the road boy everything look a little better. The crowds seem to grow, and everybody’s got a smile on their face and you start, you start thinking that maybe we might be able to win an election on November 4th."
Protesters make noise at Biden event
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN) – Just two days after completing a three-day bus tour of central and southern Florida, Joe Biden is back in the state for three events Sunday, this time in the north as part of campaign’s final battleground state push before Tuesday’s election.
On the campus of Florida State University Sunday morning, Biden continued to deliver the campaign’s ‘closing arguments’ that include a plea to supporters to reach out to Republicans after the election in order to bridge the partisan divide.
For the first time since being named the Democratic vice presidential nominee, a small group of McCain and Palin supporters tried to interrupt the Delaware senator’s remarks from the public sidewalk about 150 yards from the podium. Their chants inaudible through a megaphone, they took to using the device’s siren to disrupt.
Biden referred to “the people in the parking lot” four times, using them as an example of those that Democrats will have to reach out to after Tuesday.
“I mean it literally. Not a joke. I know you find some of that obnoxious,” said Biden. “We gotta end this. Somebody's got to be big enough to stand up and end this.”
There’s also a practical reason, Biden argued, legislation won't be able to pass without bi-partisan support.
“You think we're going to get education reform? You think we're going to re-establish and end this war and re-establish our place in the world without getting a significant portion of Republicans to agree with us as well? No one party can do this.”
Barack Obama and Biden have been targeting McCain and Palin over the past two days for the endorsement they received from Dick Cheney on Saturday, asking if any more proof is needed that this Republican ticket would be a continuation of the Bush-Cheney administration.
“Folks, John McCain and Sarah Palin can have Dick Cheney’s endorsement,” said Biden, We’ll settle for people like Warren Buffett and Colin Powell.”
After Sunday in Florida, Biden continues the swing state tour in the campaign’s final hours, heading to Missouri Monday morning, Ohio in the afternoon and Philadelphia at night. After voting at home in Wilmington Tuesday morning, he will visit at least one more swing state before joining Barack Obama in Chicago.
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