McCain Slams Door on Media Straight Talk

(NEWSER) - Most also-ran candidates slip off quietly once the presidential campaign is over, and yet the media is still interested in what John McCain has to say. The attention is undeserved, Paul Waldman writes in the American Prospect. McCain’s signature issue, earmarks, is “as substantively empty as could be,” and represents his “larger modus operandi” of cultivating journalists as a way to power. More»

History shows that McCain can surge

(NEWSER) - With Obama pulling well ahead of the Straight Talk Express, "the 2008 campaign seems poised to enter its Harry Truman phase," writes Walter Shapiro in Salon. But a November comeback isn’t out of the question. Shapiro runs down four factors that could push McCain into the White House:

1. The elastic electorate: There are likely more “undecideds” out there than polls show. Plus, "it is ludicrous to believe that public opinion will be frozen in amber" for the next 3 weeks.

Attacks haven't and won't work, so it's time to go back to basics

(NEWSER) - John McCain’s campaign isn’t working, and if he’s smart, he’ll “junk the whole thing and start over,” William Kristol writes in the New York Times. McCain’s current “combination of strategic incoherence and operational incompetence has become toxic,” the high-profile conservative argues. McCain should pull all of his attack ads (“they’re doing no good anyway”) and go back to being a "cheerful, open" candidate. More»

Times scribe banned after Palin diss; stranded in Pittsburgh

(NEWSER) - Straight talk not only got New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd banned from the McCain-Palin campaign planes, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, it got her marooned in Pittsburgh. After writing a scathing satire of Sarah Palin's candidacy—harsh but hardly unprecedented for the gleefully snarky writer—a stunned Dowd was left behind in the middle of a campaign swing, forcing her to overnight in a local hotel while the rest of the press pack traveled on. More»

Jealousy of Obama drives Mac's gutter campaign: Dowd

(NEWSER) - Why is John McCain, "a man who prides himself on honor," taking the low road in his campaign against Barack Obama? For Maureen Dowd, the reason is clear: the Arizona senator is "pea-green with envy." Even more than Bill Clinton or Jesse Jackson, McCain can't stand that a younger, more handsome politician has usurped his place and become the "new wunderkind in town." More»