The dollar figure they’re putting on it has been dropping almost as fast as the stock market did a couple of weeks ago. Will it be down to $100K by election day?

Wow. Just wow (h/t: GP):

On the stump this week, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has pushed back against Sen. John McCain’s description of his tax policies.

“The reason that we want to do this, change our tax code, is not because I have anything against the rich,” Obama said in Sarasota, Florida, yesterday. “I love rich people! I want all of you to be rich. Go for it. That’s the America dream, that’s the American way, that’s terrific.

“The point is, though, that — and it’s not just charity, it’s not just that I want to help the middle class and working people who are trying to get in the middle class — it’s that when we actually make sure that everybody’s got a shot – when young people can all go to college, when everybody’s got decent health care, when everybody’s got a little more money at the end of the month – then guess what? Everybody starts spending that money, they decide maybe I can afford a new car, maybe I can afford a computer for my child. They can buy the products and services that businesses are selling and everybody is better off. All boats rise. That’s what happened in the 1990s, that’s what we need to restore. And that’s what I’m gonna do as president of the United States of America.

“John McCain and Sarah Palin they call this socialistic,” Obama continued. “You know I don’t know when, when they decided they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness.”

Here’s the video:

If the McCain campaign doesn’t saturate the airwaves with this this weekend, they’re crazy.

Jennifer Rubin responds:

Aside from insulting voters who think it isn’t selfish to use their own money to build businesses, raise children, and give to charity (ask Joe Biden about that!), his formulation shows an appalling lack of understanding about how people get rich. The government is going to give people goodies and then they’ll have more money to spend? Wow. Who knew it could be so easy? No working, earning, saving, building businesses, hiring more people, investing and the like. Money just comes from thin air, from the government.

Yeah, and not only are you “selfish” if you oppose socialism, you’re not being sufficiently “patriotic”, either.

Via Brit Hume’s Political Grapevine:

Average Joe

Time Magazine writes that one of the few things that could derail the Barack Obama campaign is his running mate, so it says the campaign is “hidin’ Biden.”

Karen Tumulty compares traveling with Joe Biden to “reporting on a politician packaged in shrink-wrap” and that he is “leashed to a teleprompter even when he is talking in a high school gym that is three-quarters empty.”

Tumulty says the campaign is so cautious that when she requested an interview, a spokesman said Biden was suffering from a cold that made interviews difficult.

Tumulty added, “I didn’t glean evidence of any symptoms during the four speeches that I watched him give over two days.”

And here it was I was thinking that the only veep candidate who was, according to the mediots, having to have her ‘hand held’ these last two months was Gov. Palin …

You can read the rest of Tumulty’s article on Biden here.

This is an intriguing report (via Memeo):

Journalists from three major newspapers that endorsed John McCain have reportedly been booted from Barack Obama’s campaign plane for the final leg of the presidential race.

The Washington Times reported Friday that it was notified of the Obama campaign’s decision Thursday evening — even though the paper has covered Obama from the start.

Executive Editor John Solomon told FOXNews.com that the Obama campaign said it didn’t have enough seats on the plane, but “I don’t think the explanation makes sense to us.”

“We’ve been traveling since 2007 with him. … We’re a relevant newspaper — every day we break news,” Solomon said. “And to suddenly be kicked off the plane for people who haven’t covered it as aggressively or thoroughly as we are … it sort of feels unfair.”

He said the newspaper protested but was turned down again by the campaign.

“I can only hope that the candidate who describes himself as wanting to unite the nation doesn’t have some sort of litmus test for who he decides gets to cover the campaign,” Solomon said, noting that the Obama campaign’s decision came just two days after the paper endorsed McCain.

The New York Post and Dallas Morning News also have been kicked off Obama’s plane, according to the Web site The Drudge Report. It said the three reporters were told to find alternative transportation by Sunday so that the plane could accommodate “network bigwigs” and reporters from two black magazines, Essence and Jet.

There have been no official confirmations from either the Dallas Morning News or the NYPost, but according to Media Bistro, the NYPost has said it will not be doing a write-up about this, so that sounds like a confirmation to me.

From making reporters pay for good access to their campaign on election night, to cutting one news station completely off after an ‘uncomfortable interview,’ to this. A sign of things to come under a (potential) Obama admin?

Let’s not forget that the Bush administration was routinely accused by critics of only wanting “admin-friendly reporters” to do interviews with, “outraging” The Usual Suspects. Will we see the same level of condemnation from that same crowd now - and on down the line if Obama and Biden are elected? Don’t hold your breath.

Ed Morrissey makes a great point (emphasis added by him):

It also looks a little self-indulgent. Obama’s clearing room on the plane for — what? Documentarians who will produce hagiographies about his historic importance. That fits into another pattern we’ve seen for months, one marked with fake presidential seals, The Barackopolis, and infomercials. In the coming Age of Obama, only the worshipers will get front-row seats to history.

Yep.

Update: Obama spox Bill Burton has confirmed the news here.

Related/Prior:

• Gov. Palin’s traveling press availability better that Obama’s or Biden’s

Trick or treat!

(Via NRO’s Media blog)

Having a busy morning - be back later.

TGIF!

After reading this, I see another RNC/McCain ad with Bill Clinton featured prominently coming soon (via ST reader NC Cop):

Barack Obama cultivated the image of a cool and collected leader during the height of the economic crisis last month, when lawmakers on Capitol Hill scrambled to draft a workable bailout package after a meltdown on Wall Street.

And when John McCain suspended his campaign to dive head first into the fray, Obama’s campaign accused the Republican of being “unsteady.”

But to hear Bill Clinton tell it, the Democratic nominee didn’t quite have a handle on the situation himself.

“I haven’t cleared this with him and he may even be mad at me for saying this so close to the election, but I know what else he said to his economic advisers (during the crisis),” Clinton told the crowd at a Wednesday night rally with Obama in Florida. “He said, ‘Tell me what the right thing to do is. What’s the right thing for America? Don’t tell me what’s popular. You tell me what’s right — I’ll figure out how to sell it.’”

Clinton said when the crisis broke, Obama called his own advisers as well as those of the former two-term president, Hillary Clinton, Warren Buffet and others.

“He called those people. You know why? Because he knew it was complicated and before he said anything he wanted to understand,” Clinton said. “That’s what a president does in a crisis.”

Here’s the video, via CollegePolitico. The relevant comments start at the 8:25 mark:

Truly, the Bubbinski can be a Republican’s best friend sometimes

You might be a racist if … you vote for Obama, or don’t vote for Obama.

Yeah, I know - that one’s a headscratcher, but the Open Market link explains it well.

Oh, and the guy who said it? He could be in line to be the DOJ’s Asst. Attorney General on Civil Rights under an Obama administration.

Yippee.

Here’s some Thursday afternoon humor for you:

They’re convicted streetwalkers, escorts and brothel babes collared in 2000 and from 2003-2006, uncovered during a Trib special report on local prostitution that will be published after the election.

Based on the prostitutes’ voter registration cards, they’re destined to become Obama girls in November. That’s because 78 percent of them registered as Democrats. Countywide, Dems make up only about 62 percent of voters, according to the Division of Elections.

The Illinois senator also has the advantage with local “johns” — 72 percent go Democratic. And convicted pimps: Four out of every five register Democratic. And for the most special of special interest groups — male transvestite hookers — they’re batting a thousand for Dems, albeit in drag.

Question: Wonder if they’d be eligble to receive a “tax cut” under Obama’s tax plan?