CNN's Candy Crowley reports the Obama campaign is pulling out the stops, including an infomercial, in the final days.

John P. Avlon
Author, Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics

Yes, Barack Obama broke his promise to take tax-payer matching funds. And he raised almost three times more in the month of September than McCain did in the entire primary campaign. The only thing that stops the disparity from being democracy-disturbing is that his average donation is less than $100 – at least that’s a grass-roots funding movement.

Last night, he put that money into a half-hour closing argument that was unprecedented not only in scope and cost, but in the way it straddled biography, detailed policy, and spoke to real people’s lives - culminating with a live campaign shot in Florida.

Opening with video of Kansas wheat fields and music that echoed the “John Adams” miniseries, the film weaved together all the key themes of his campaign. Most important was the return to the post-partisan, problem-solver tone by which he introduced himself to the American people. The testimonies were from centrist leaders of the Democratic Party – Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, Kansas Governor Katherine Sebelius and Virginia Governor Tim Kaine. These are the leaders of the party he is going to need to depend on to stop Congressional democrats from defining his administration, if he should win on Tuesday.

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John Avlon
Author, Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics

Back when this presidential election began, John Edwards was criticized by many conservatives for using the slogan “Two Americas.” It was a vision of America divided between the haves and the have-nots – evidence, many said, of Democrats’ instincts toward divisive class warfare.

But recently Republican surrogates have begun using their own equally divisive framing device: “real America”.

A McCain adviser argued for their electoral edge in Virginia by saying their candidate would do well in “real Virginia” rather than northern parts of the state – unconsciously echoing former Virginia senator George Allen’s infamous “Macaca” moment captured on YouTube when he invited a dark-skinned volunteer for the Webb campaign to visit the “real world of Virginia.”

Then Sarah Palin got in the act: “We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation.” So if real America is pro-American, than there is an unreal America – by implication, the urban areas where most Americans now live – which is somehow inherently anti-American.

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John Avlon
Author, Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics

This is big - rarely do endorsements matter - but Colin Powell’s announcement that he is endorsing Barack Obama for president was a bombshell that will reverberate throughout the last 16 days of this race.

It is not the unprecedented sight of an incumbent administration’s former Secretary of State crossing party lines to endorse the opposition’s nominee. It is not just that Powell’s record of military and government service lends credibility to a candidate whose lack of executive experience and military service is a subject of doubt for many undecideds.

It is that Colin Powell has unparalleled credibility with Independent voters, and his performance on “Meet the Press” today reaffirmed why. He is thoughtful and measured, he puts patriotism and principle ahead of partisanship.

He, like many independents, has wrestled between support for Obama and McCain. He respects them both. He honors McCain’s personal and political courage over decades of service. But what ultimately helped push him over to Obama was the selection of Sarah Palin and the negative and divisive tone of the play-to-the-base attacks from the Republican operatives surrounding McCain.

Today, Powell reaffirmed his leadership of the “common sense center” in American politics. Obama will need to keep faith with this constituency to win this election and be the truly “transformational leader” that Powell sees in him.

John P. Avlon
Author, Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics

At last night’s Al Smith Dinner in New York, John McCain and Barack Obama sat at the same table. Each gave funny, self-effacing speeches that reaffirmed what it is often too easy to forget in the final month of presidential politics – that our opponents are not our enemies.

Activists from the far left and far right take pride in forgetting that. I know you’ve seen them on TV in what I call the “Split-Scream” – the screen divided in two, left and right, surrogates screaming predictable talking points past each-other, sucking up all the oxygen in the conversation, refusing to acknowledge any imperfections on their side or any virtue in their opponents.

They are the reason American politics feels more polarized than the American people actually are. They are the reason the moderate majority feels alienated and politically homeless.

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John P. Avlon
Author, Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics

The McCain campaign’s latest round of attacks on Senator Obama’s association with Weather Underground founder Bill Ayers represents an unwelcome return to a constant distraction in American politics over the last 40 years – reigniting the culture debates of the 1960s.

The baby-boom generation’s coming of age was tumultuous and at times violent. The counterculture chaos and at times outright anti-Americanism of the far left led directly to the election of Richard Nixon in 1968 and the ascendance of the conservative movement that has won seven out of ten presidential elections over the past 40 years.

It’s no surprise then when things get desperate the Republican Party tries to re-litigate the 1960s, sticking a knife in the cultural divide to reopen the wounds and air old grievances.

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Program Note:
It’s the showdown everyone’s been waiting for.
Sarah Palin and Joe Biden face off on the issues.
Join the best political team on television for your front row seat!

Debate Night in America: Vice Presidential Debate
Tonight, beginning 8p ET
 
 
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John P. Avlon
Author, Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics

Is Sarah Palin ready for Prime-Time?

That’s the question Americans will be looking to answer tonight at the first and only Vice-Presidential debate in St. Louis.

Rarely are VP debates consequential – the first rule is “do no harm” to the top of the ticket.

But the combination of one of the least nationally-known picks in history, paired with the oldest nominee in history, has Americans paying uncommon attention to the person who could be one chicken-bone away from the presidency.

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John P. Avlon
Author, Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics

After a historically bad day on Wall Street, the underlying economic anxiety of this election has taken on new intensity.

Historians will write that the Bush administration went in with Enron and out with Lehman.

Some economists believe that second quarter results form voters’ perceptions of the economy – but bad news has dripping out for so long, that it has almost faded into the background, like a movie theme separate from the action on screen.

That should change after today – when the liquidation and sale of two of America’s pre-eminent investment banks added urgency to what Allan Greenspan has already called a “once in a century financial crisis.”

After yesterday, there is no false comfort to be found in ‘dead cat’ bounces. The American economy will be fine in the long-run. But right now we are in a seismic financial crisis – and as in every crisis there may be opportunity to be found.

Elections are won by the candidate who connects with moderates and the middle class – and even after a wasted week focused on the manufactured scandal of “lipstick on a pig”— wallet-issues motivate voters like nothing else.

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Editor’s Note:
We are devoting many posts today to the anniversary of 9/11, with first-hand accounts, insight, and commentary dedicated to that day seven years ago that changed our world.
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John P. Avlon
Author, Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics

A brief posting on the 7th anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Congratulations to both Senator Obama and Senator McCain for putting politics aside to attend the memorial service at Ground Zero together.

This day is much bigger than politics. It must not be a partisan remembrance, just as winning the wider war on terror cannot be a partisan goal – it is an American responsibility.

Terrorists did not care on September 11 whether their targets were Republicans, Democrats or Independents. All that mattered was that they were Americans. And in the more than 20 terrorist attacks stopped at home and abroad since then, differences of domestic political affiliation remain irrelevant and absurd in our enemies’ eyes.

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John P. Avlon
Author, Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics

Barack Obama has a new problem with Independent voters. Yesterday’s Gallup Poll showed John McCain opening a new 15-point lead with that key demographic.

Here’s how Obama can start to regain his edge with Independents:

Imagine an ad playing The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. The theme dovetails with the music: a vote for McCain is a vote to extend the Bush administration.

Now, direct attempts to connect Bush to McCain won’t stick because they’re not credible. Bush and McCain are very different people, with entirely different political perspectives and life experiences. (And if you ask me, the country would be a lot better off if John McCain had won the nomination in 2000).

But the larger parliamentary point still stands: a McCain administration could not be staffed entirely with maverick independents. The same Republican resumes would be circulating. So the Obama camp can make a credible argument that the McCain administration will draw from the same Bush talent pool – and administration that is intellectually exhausted and instinctively trends toward the kind of right-wing partisan hackery embodied by Monica Goodling.

The strongest argument Obama has for Independents is to run against the Bush administration record over the last eight years - which has led to a 29% approval rating and 81% of Americans believing that the country is moving in the wrong direction.
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John P. Avlon
Author, Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics

John McCain has opened up a 15-point lead among independents, according to a new Gallup Poll – and Barack Obama has a problem.

This is a decisive shift that builds off McCain’s historic brand-name credibility with Independent voters. McCain was their favorite political figure for most of this decade. He fought the Karl Rove play-to-the-base politics on the campaign trail in 2000. And he fought with Tom Delay’s conservative congress which was kicked out in 2006 after unprecedented pork barrel spending and indictments for corruption.

But Independents’ identification with John McCain suffered greatly when he began his latest presidential campaign by running as the Republican establishment candidate.

Independents and centrists voters have been deeply alienated by the Bush administration – after a centrist campaign as a “compassionate conservative,” the Bushies governed as conservative partisans. Where most Independents and centrists can be described as fiscally conservative and socially liberal – the Bush administration has been the opposite: fiscally liberal and socially conservative.

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