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The polls now all indicate an Obama win on Nov. 4; some even suggest a landslide. But there's a strong chance the race will tighten back up this month. Anger over the Wall Street mess has been pushing voters to Barack Obama in droves. And John McCain's effort to get involved in the solution only hurt him.

LAST night was a big, big win for Sarah Palin. She showed originality, charisma and sass - a style that is refreshing and different in our politics. She didn't just win the vice-presidential debate, she showed that she belongs with Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton as among the best communicators of our modern political times. Her sallies against big government were brilliantly conceived and well executed. Her line that she didn't understand how Washington worked because politicians vote for something right after they vote against it, for example, was just wonderful. Another classic came when she bit back at moderator...

Your humble correspondent, as diligent as ever, carefully checked out much of the post-debate analysis and spin last evening. Perhaps the highlight of all such activity, chock full of drama, was this heated exchange between Dick Morris and Alan Colmes on FOX News. The first part of this video shows Morris giving effusive praise of Sarah Palin's performance in last night's debate. The sparks begin to fly soon after the two-minute mark when Colmes cuts in to robotically attempt to run through his list of obvious talking points which Morris took great offense to (emphasis mine):

Click the link to see the exchange between Morris & Hannity, then Colmes. Morris gushes about Palin's performance, then backs the truck over Holmes and leaves him as road kill. Priceless!

Dick Morris Just said Palin is unbelievable and the new reagan. He says we have seen a new superstar.

MUST SEE: Morris vs. Colmes After Debate O'Reilly Goes Ballistic with Barney Frank

John McCain isn't dead in the water. But he sure is dying. He lost the debate and the polls are dismal. Gallup has him down 50-42. Rasmussen has Obama ahead 50-44. And both polls are only partially after the debate. Obama won the debate. When the polls come in fully after the debate, the picture won't get any prettier for those of us who favor McCain. His gambit of suspending his campaign and going to Washington has failed because he did not think it through adequately or correlate it with what was happening in Congress. The Republicans teed up a...

Dick Morris on Fox: McCain is bungling the bail-out issue so badly that he has basically lost the election by "a lot; will be 12 points behind Obama next week." McCain "is giving this issue away to Obama" by being ineffective and not pinning it rightfully on Pelosi, ACORN, and the Dems. Pro-Obama ads are running 3-1 vs. McCain ads. Obama videos/Yoytube are running ten to one against McCain. I can't understand how a brave warrior like McCain can be so blind and go down with no fight. HOW can McCain let the ACORN issue just slide away?

During Friday's debate, John McCain assiduously and inexplicably avoided using the issue that might have won him the debate and the presidency: opposition to a taxpayer-funded bailout of the financial crisis. Congress is about to pass - and the president is about to sign - a bill that the American people detest by 2:1 margins. When Americans realize that there is, indeed, an alternative to handing over $700 billion to financial institutions as a reward for their failure, opposition to the idea will swell even further. The bailout ideas proposed by the House Republicans and trumpeted by former Speaker Newt...

During Friday's debate, John McCain assiduously and inexplicably avoided using the issue that might have won him the debate and the presidency: opposition to a taxpayer-funded bailout of the financial crisis. Congress is about to pass - and the president is about to sign - a bill that the American people detest by 2:1 margins. When Americans realize that there is, indeed, an alternative to handing over $700 billion to financial institutions as a reward for their failure, opposition to the idea will swell even further. The bailout ideas proposed by the House Republicans and trumpeted by former Speaker Newt...

Dick Morris is predicting that the Democrats will pass the Republican version of the bailout, which most will view more favorably, and McCain "comes out of the process as the hero who made it happen." Dick Morris says "This bold move by McCain is about to work. Big time." I know, I know. It's Dick Morris. But I hope he is right.

Facing a postconvention fall in the polls, John McCain once again reshaped the dimensions of the race by suspending his campaign and calling for postponement of tomorrow’s debate. This bold move could have an impact on the race akin to McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate. Defensively, McCain had to act to stop the fall in his poll numbers. Offensively, he has placed himself at the epicenter of the only issue on the national agenda - proactive action to stop a total international financial collapse. Obama’s response to McCain’s initiative is lame. As with his initial reaction...

McCain will play the proactive role. Obama will come to Washington, but will keep one foot outside the Beltway. Even though the president has called both candidates to Washington to save the country, Obama continues to campaign. Politics as usual. He doesn’t want to cancel the debate. He would debate while the markets burn. McCain is going to work while Obama is phoning it in. Oddly, McCain and Obama agree on the bailout package. But it is only McCain who can pass the bill. Only McCain can deliver the administration and the Republicans. McCain will be at the center of...

The primaries are over. Obama's European tour is over. The conventions are over. The VP selections have been made and, incredibly, this race is right back where it has been since the spring: a narrow Obama lead. When the financial crisis overshadowed the Palin bounce, you could almost hear the race clicking back into its former position with Obama between one and three points ahead of McCain. (Don't worry about the margin of error. With 50 polls showing the same thing, the cumulative chance of error is negligible). Except for an Obama bulge after Hillary's withdrawal and on his return...

Dick Morris has offered his advice on the presidential campaign once again with a dramatic red-blue map showing Obama beating McCain by almost 100 electoral votes. His advice to the McCain campaign seems entirely myopic and hyperbolic at the same time, which is often true when someone tries to create wisdom from simple-minded statistical analysis. I agree with Morris that the Palin bounce is over, but only for now. The Palin essence has a lot more muscle left that hasn't been tapped, could have been, and should be. ... cont.

Political analyst extraordinaire DICK MORRIS plots out the critical states that may determine whether John McCain or Barack Obama becomes the next president. This week’s poll results indicate that the Sarah Palin effect has run its course.

Whatever is left of the economy after the current round of crisis interventions by the Fed could go down the drain if Barack Obama is elected and carries out his plans for sharp increases in taxation. Even if Obama does not understand the linkage, most Americans do and will turn sharply against Obama’s tax plans if John McCain hammers away at the risk they pose for us all. During the Great Depression, Congress raised taxes sharply in the Revenue Act of 1932. The top rate went from 25 percent to 63 percent. As a result, the real Gross Domestic Product...

There appears to be a gap of between 10 and 20 points between how voters see the parties and what they think of the candidates. Between one-tenth and one-fifth of America’s voters feel that the Democratic Party would be the best for the country but like the McCain-Palin ticket better. • By seven points, they identify as Democrats more than Republicans. But by 16 points, they say that if they faced the “toughest decision of your life” they would go to McCain rather than Obama for advice.• They think the Democrats will do better on healthcare by 19 points, but...

There was a gigantic turn toward John McCain in the two weeks immediately after the GOP convention. In large part this was due to the Sarah Palin nomination, and the tremendous miscalculation by the Democrats in attacking Palin — particularly on issues important to women, such as her caring for her children. That backfired massively. The anti-Palin attack by the Democrats showed a cultural disconnect with America that is remarkable.

Political analyst extraordinaire DICK MORRIS plots out the critical states that may determine whether John McCain or Barack Obama becomes the next president. McCain is pulling ahead in several states, while six others are tossups.

FOR two weeks, Democrats and their media allies have leveled scorching fire at Sarah Palin. It's not having much effect, but they keep at it anyway. The latest Fox News poll shows Palin with a 54-27 favorable/unfavorable ratio, which compares well with Barack Obama's 57-36, John McCain's 60-33 and Joe Biden's 51-29. (Of the four, she's the most popular). Why do Democrats feel so threatened? They've even stopped attacking McCain and President Bush to launch a vicious and sexist barrage at her that would normally make a feminist angry and a Democrat blush. Basically, it's this: John McCain only endangers...

Sarah Palin is an "authentic model of feminism" and her vice-presidential candidacy "could well" lead to an historic all-female White House race in 2012 against Hillary Clinton, according to a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton. Dick Morris, who was a top aide to Bill Clinton from 1994 to 1996 and has since become a harsh critic of the former president and his wife, said that a John McCain victory in November would make the two women the front-runners for 2012. "McCain will be 76 in 2012," he said. "I wonder if he'll even run for re-election. And Obama...

For two weeks, Democrats and their media allies have leveled scorching fire at Sarah Palin. It's not having much effect, but they keep at it anyway. The latest Fox News poll shows Palin with a 54-27 favorable/unfavorable ratio, which compares well with Barack Obama's 57-36, John McCain's 60-33 and Joe Biden's 51-29. (Of the four, she's the most popular). Snip Why do Democrats feel so threatened? Snip Basically, it's this: John McCain only endangers Democratic chances of victory this November, but Sarah Palin is an existential threat to the Democratic Party. Snip Democrats can't stomach seeing the feminist movement's impetus...

Now that the conventions are over, it is evident that the battle of John McCain is over (McCain won), and the battle of Barack Obama will determine the outcome of the election. Now that McCain has definitively, and I suspect irreversibly, separated himself from Bush, he has become an acceptable alternative to Obama for voters seeking change. The question now is whether Obama's extra quotient of change — or the different direction that change will take — is worth the risk of electing him. Obama was wrong to invest so much in the Bush-McCain linkage. Any candidate can define himself...

THE convention floor was abuzz all yes terday with the news of the CBS poll showing a dead tie (42-42) in the presidential race. And the poll, conducted through Wednesday, couldn't reflect the impact of John McCain's speech, or the full impact of Sarah Palin's late Wednesday night. It reflected opinions only after the Democrats' convention, Barack Obama's incredible speech, the Palin selection and the early, Gustav-depressed GOP gathering. That augers ill for the Democrats. Tonight's polling could bring evidence that the Obama candidacy is in big trouble. First, the GOP convention managed to disprove the central premise of the...

The dominant question at the GOP convention is: Will John McCain make the huge mistake of abandoning Sarah Palin? Some claim he made a mistake in choosing the Alaska governor. My bet is the reverse - that she'll turn out to be a big win. Even if I'm wrong, dropping her now would doom him in November. If McCain lets baseless, sexist smears set his course, he'd turn all the good Palin has already done for him, and should do in the weeks ahead, into a negative - demoralizing the GOP base and losing independents. Understand: Palin is under attack...

Or is he foretelling something important? The occasion of this article was a quick interview with Dick Morris on Fox News awaiting the Wednesday evening events at the Republican National Convention. Questions were focused on VP pick Sarah Palin. According to Morris, we have had elections that were about soccer moms and hockey moms, now this one is going to be about single moms. Well, I thought – somebody had to say it, but I had imagined it would be just another of those goofy feminist professors pretending to take an objective look at American politics. What could he...

Sarah Palin's selection will end up as a big win for John McCain. He has to stay with her and quell any talk of pulling an Eagleton (after the time when 1972 Democratic nominee George McGovern yanked the plug on Missouri Sen. Tom Eagleton, who had been his choice for vice president). McCain and Palin will confound their critics and gain good yardage in the presidential race. None of the criticisms of Sarah Palin amounts to any misconduct on her part. Her daughter got pregnant. Her husband had a DWI 20 years ago. Her sister married a bum -- a...

Republicans shouldn’t mourn the loss of the first night (at least) of their convention. Sarah Palin’s warm reception by the American people and the relative success of preparations to contain the damage of Hurricane Gustav seem to have given the GOP far more bounce than it would’ve gotten from a "conventional" first night in St. Paul. We’ll never know just how much Barack Obama gained in the polls from his magnificent acceptance speech. He spoke too late on Thursday for any post-speech polling to be effective — and John McCain announced his selection of Palin the next morning. So the...

Political analyst Dick Morris tells Newsmax that neither Hurricane Gustav nor the pregnancy of Sarah Palin’s daughter will have a negative effect on Republican efforts as the November election draws closer.

It is incredible, but the designation of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate seems to have totally obliterated Barack Obama's bounce from his convention and after his magnificent speech. Zogby actually has McCain two ahead and Rasmussen's Friday only data shows Obama only three up! This confirms what we have suspected -- that the linkage of McCain and Bush was the weak link in Obama's convention. By showing how different he is and by taking the step of choosing an independent, outspoken, gutsy, reformist candidate like Palin as vice president, McCain has shown how much he is the un-Bush....

Alan said, "Don't you need somebody that's ready Day 1 to be President of the United States?" Morris responded, "Yeah, it would be nice if the Democrats nominated somebody like that..."

FARMINGTON - A Somers man is to be arraigned in Hartford Community Court Wednesday after he allegedly made about 900 lewd phone calls to employees of several stores at Westfarms mall, police said. Mark Batiste, 34, of Rye Hill Circle, told police he'd been belittled by a female employee of Banana Republic at the mall, police spokesman Lt. William Tyler said. In retaliation, police said Batiste used his cell phone to make 891 calls between July 5 and July 16 asking female employees if he could lick their feet and suck their toes. The victims were working at Banana Republic,...

McCain has reached for the stars and grabbed one. On a recent cruise to Alaska, I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with Sarah Palin. She is brilliant and articulate and, in Alaska politics, is a breath of fresh air as an alternative to their corruption epitomized by Alaska Republican Senator Ted Stevens. Now Obama, who has spent two years preventing a woman from being president, will spend two months preventing one from becoming vice president – and hopes to do so with women votes. The entire premise of the Democratic convention was the fungibility of Bush and McCain....

But this year we saw an eloquent, sincere woman speaking of her dreams and aspirations. She gave a speech that sounded real with anecdotes that seemed genuine. Michelle Obama last night became a political plus, not a problem.

It doesn't take a political genius to realize that Barack Obama needed to nominate a woman for vice president. Obama's key problem is that there is no gender gap. In the most recent Zogby poll, he runs only 2 points better among women than among men. A Democrat should be running 10 to 15 points better among women. If Obama is to have a hope of winning, he needs to improve his performance among female voters. The Fox News poll indicates that only about half of those who backed Hillary Clinton in the primaries are voting for Obama and that...

Last week raised important questions about whether Barack Obama is strong enough to be president. On the domestic political front, he showed incredible weakness in dealing with the Clintons, while on foreign and defense questions, he betrayed a lack of strength and resolve in standing up to Russia’s invasion of Georgia. This two-dimensional portrait of weakness underscores fears that Obama might, indeed, be a latter-day Jimmy Carter. Consider first the domestic and political. Bill and Hillary Clinton have no leverage over Obama. Hillary can’t win the nomination. She doesn’t control any committees. If she or her supporters tried to disrupt...

LAST week raised important questions about whether Barack Obama is strong enough to be president. On the domestic political front, he showed incredible weakness in dealing with the Clintons, while on foreign and defense questions, he betrayed a lack of strength and resolve in standing up to Russia's invasion of Georgia. This two-dimensional portrait of weakness underscores fears that Obama might, indeed, be a latter-day Jimmy Carter. Consider first the domestic and political. Bill and Hillary Clinton have no leverage over Obama. Hillary can't win the nomination. She doesn't control any committees. If she or her supporters tried to disrupt...

Hillary and Bill have hijacked the Denver convention, making it into a carbon copy of what it would have looked like had she won until the last possible moment. ...

"Every speech should contain a line [saying that] you were born in the middle of America to a middle class family in the middle of the last century." On May 10, 2007, Time magazine reported that Hillary's stump speech included the lines: "I was born into a middle class family in the middle of the country in the middle of the last century." After Penn's memos were released to the media this week, Hillary's people spread the word that she did not take Penn's advice. But it is evident that she did. The strategy Penn recommended was ridiculous. He somehow...

HARDCOVER NONFICTION Top 5 at a Glance 1. THE OBAMA NATION, by Jerome R. Corsi 2. WHEN YOU ARE ENGULFED IN FLAMES, by David Sedaris 3. STORI TELLING, by Tori Spelling with Hilary Liftin 4. ARE YOU THERE, VODKA? IT’S ME, CHELSEA, by Chelsea Handler 5. FLEECED, by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

On Oct. 3, 1938, Adolf Hitler's armies marched into Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia. Germany said it was responding to separatist demands from the large German population that lived there and that she was merely honoring their desire for reunion with Germany. Hitler's tanks took over a vital part of an independent country that had largely rejected his overtures and allied itself with the West. Neither Britain nor France nor the United States did a thing to stop him. On Aug. 7, 2008, Vladimir Putin's armies marched into South Ossetia, a part of Georgia. Russia said it was responding to...

On October 3, 1938, Adolf Hitler’s armies marched into Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia. Germany said it was responding to separatist demands from the large German population that lived there and that she was merely honoring their desire for reunion with Germany. Hitler’s tanks took over a vital part of an independent country that had largely rejected his overtures and allied itself with the West. Neither Britain nor France nor the United States did a thing to stop him. On August 7, 2008, Vladimir Putin’s armies marched into South Ossetia, a part of Georgia. Russia said it was responding to...

Sen. Barack Obama has a long history of close associations with radicals, extremists, socialists, communists, and terrorists. When his long trail of these associates is encountered in bits and pieces, it is more easily dismissed. But when the whole pattern is viewed, it becomes more shocking and more devastating. That's why the three recent books on Mr. Obama are so important. They put all the pieces of the Obama puzzle together. And that's why those three books are must reading for any voter: Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, Fleeced; Jerome R. Corsi, Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of...

The electoral tide is beginning to turn against the most radical extremist and most inexperienced candidate ever nominated by a major political party. Despite the attempt of the mainstream media to sell Sen. Barack Obama as a virtual Messiah, the truth is finally beginning to leak through to the public. That truth is devastating and should prove to be fatal to his candidacy, showing the would be Democratic Messiah to be a world-class phony and fraud. Four factors started turning the election around: * First, Sen. John McCain shifted to hard-hitting and relentless criticism in the last week, and in...

When is the McCain campaign going to get serious? It seems to be marking time with softball ads, more appropriate to the soundbites campaign media spokespeople exchange with one another than to strategic paid media hits. One ad talks about how the media loves Obama. Another mocks him as a celebrity. Each throws pitty-pat punches, far short of the kind of knockout blows one would expect from a presidential campaign. Were I a donor to McCain's campaign, paying for these pathetic spots, I would demand a refund. Or sue for malpractice. Yet despite this softball nonsense, Obama remains vulnerable, no...

When is the McCain campaign going to get serious? It seems to be marking time with softball ads, more appropriate to the soundbites campaign media spokespeople exchange with one another than to strategic paid media hits. One ad talks about how the media loves Obama. Another mocks him as a celebrity. Each throws pitty-pat punches, far short of the kind of knockout blows one would expect from a presidential campaign. Were I a donor to McCain's campaign, paying for these pathetic spots, I would demand a refund. Or sue for malpractice. Yet despite this softball nonsense, Obama remains vulnerable, no...

I distinctly remember when my phone at my Washington hotel room rang at 1 AM during the spring of 1996. A distraught President Clinton was calling. “We’re getting killed on radio,” he blurted into the phone as soon as I picked it up. “What do you mean?” I answered blearily trying to get a grip on what he was talking about. “Hillary’s mothe r just drove here from Pennsylvania and all during the trip she heard them saying the most awful things about me on radio,” the president explained. “On whose show?” I probed. “Rush Limbaugh,” Clinton replied. “He’s been...

You've probably heard the story about the tycoon who wanted to bring out a new kind of dog food. He spent lavishly. He hired the best marketing person, the top PR firm, the best ad agency, the No. 1 packaging expert, the most powerful distributor -- but the sales were flat after six months. He summoned his consultants to a meeting and asked why the food wasn't selling. "The dogs won't eat it," was the answer that came back. And so it is with Mitt Romney. Despite outspending his rivals by huge margins throughout the primaries, the dogs won't eat...

IRAQI Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has cut the legs out from under John McCain by basically endorsing Sen. Barack Obama's troop-withdrawal plan. Just when McCain had Obama on the defensive over the Democrat's plan to surrender after we've won in Iraq, Maliki has made McCain look the naif for opposing a timetable for withdrawal. Unless McCain changes his approach, he's lost the use of this issue. He can't come out for staying in Iraq longer than the government we support wants. The Republican needs to shift the debate to Iraq's future. Neither Obama's belaboring of his previous opposition to the...