Free Republic

The presidential race continues to tighten in Wisconsin, where Barack Obama now leads John McCain by just two percentage points, 48% to 46%, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of voters in the state.

John McCain has worked himself back into a tight race with Barack Obama in Wisconsin, a state that Democrats had hoped would be a stronghold for the Illinois senator.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain and his running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will be in Green Bay on Thursday... Free tickets are required for the McCain event, with doors opening at 4 p.m..

MADISON, Wis. - Sen. John McCain is sharply increasing his number of campaign aides and offices in Wisconsin, where he has worked his way back into a tight presidential race with Sen. Barack Obama. Through a barrage of television ads, campaign events and the selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate, McCain has pulled closer in a state some Democrats hoped would be an Obama stronghold this cycle. Now McCain is working to catch up to what Democrats say is Obama's biggest strength in the state -- organization -- by increasing the number of offices from 10 to 18...

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is opening up four more offices across Wisconsin this weekend. Campaign spokesman Matt Lehrich says the campaign is opening offices in Baraboo, Beaver Dam, Monroe and Sun Prairie. He says the four additions means the campaign has a total of 36 offices up and running, covering all corners of the state. Sen. John McCain's campaign has 10 offices open in Wisconsin, but a Republican Party spokeswoman says that will increase to 18 soon. Obama and McCain are in a tight race for Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes.

(CNN) — CNN has learned that John McCain and Sarah Palin plan to hold joint town hall meetings next week. A McCain adviser says early plans are to hold the town halls in western Michigan and Wisconsin, although the exact details of where and when they will be held are still being worked out. These events would likely mark the first time Palin takes questions from voters.

Madison - The lawsuit against the state's election authority could lead to a spike in provisional ballots, which an election expert said greatly increases the chances of a fight after Nov. 4 over who won the presidential race in Wisconsin. Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen sued the state this week to require more checks of voter information against driver's license records - a move that critics say could force people off the voter rolls and require them to cast provisional ballots. Provisional ballots are counted only when voters provide proof of residence by the next day. Van Hollen asked...

WI: http://www.strategicvision.biz/political/wisconsin_poll_091008.htm PA: http://www.strategicvision.biz/political/pa_poll_091108.htm MI: http://www.strategicvision.biz/political/michigan_poll_091008.htm

It’s as tight as it’s ever been. That’s the upshot of the first public poll in a month on the presidential contest in Wisconsin and the first since the two political conventions. Democrat Barack Obama leads Republican John McCain 46% to 43% in the survey taken Friday through Sunday by Strategic Vision, a firm that has polled regularly in the state in recent years. The new poll shows little change in the race overall since before the conventions and McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. The same firm polled in August, and Obama's lead then...

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin talks a lot about being a hockey mom, mayor, and now governor in Alaska, but it turns out she has roots in the Badger State. Local historians traced Palin's family heritage back five generations to the western Wisconsin town of Stanley. Sarah Palin's great-great grandparents, Homer and Gussie Strong, are buried in Stanley. That's about 130 miles from St. Paul, where Palin accepted the Republican V.P. nomination. Stanley native Al Brown says a history buff called him after tracing Palin's lineage to Chippewa County. Brown says Homer Strong played an important role in establishing...

The latest polling numbers in Wisconsin out Wednesday show John McCain and Barack Obama are neck and neck. The survey from the Public Relations Group Strategic Vision interviewed 800 likely voters in Wisconsin from September 5th through the 7th. The main question was, "If the election for president were held today would you support the Democratic ticket or the Republican ticket?" 46 percent said they would vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden, while 43 percent would vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin. Eight percent said they were still undecided. But McCain appears to be leading in two of...

GREEN BAY -- Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden on Monday stressed his middle class upbringing, his ties to the Roman Catholic Church and his appreciation of the Green Bay Packers in this blue-collar, heavily Catholic region of the state. Biden talked about the difficulties the Fox Valley region is facing, referencing the closing of the NewPage paper mill in Kimberly. "You lose a job, you not only lose your ability to care for your family, you lose a sense of human dignity, you lose a sense of your own self worth," Biden said. "This used to be a country...

The McCain Street USA rally in Cedarburg started early for me because I was determined to wear just the right shirt. DollyCali helped me get a logo ready, and I made shirts using my computer, my printer, my iron, and an iron-on transfer. This is the logo I chose: The reason I did them myself is that we had such short notice about this Cedarburg rally that there was just no time to get shirts from the usual sources -- even with overnight delivery. So, the 2 days prior to the event were spent finding just the right base shirts...

In its coverage of John McCain and Sarah Palin in Cedarburg Wi. today, the Associated Press reported: "More than a thousand people jammed the streets to see McCain and the Alaska governor, his suprise choice for the vice presidential nomination who proved to be the hit of the convention." Elsewhere, the Wisconsin State Patrol estimated that over 12,000 people were in the "attendance area" at the event and that up to THREE TIMES that number were surrounding the "attendance area."

At a packed Cedarburg street rally Friday, the GOP ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin used their first post-convention campaign stop to promise a war on special-interest influence and excessive partisanship in Washington. Along with McCain's wife Cindy, the two appeared in front of an ice cream shop on a well-preserved main street that the city says is virtually unchanged since 1900. Police said there were at least 12,500 who were admitted to the secure area and another 5,000 who did not fit. Much of what McCain and Palin had to say Friday was drawn from their convention speeches....

Hundreds of angry people in this small town outside Milwaukee taunted reporters and TV crews traveling with Sen. John McCain on Friday, chanting "Be fair!" and pointing fingers at a pack of journalists as they booed loudly...

In a sweep through the swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin, Mr McCain was met by the kind of near-hysterical crowds previously seen only at campaign events for his Democratic rival, Barack Obama. More than 6,000 exultant supporters turned out on Friday night in Sterling Heights, a town in Michigan's Macomb County, home of the Reagan-Democrats, the small town blue collar voters who propelled Ronald Reagan to the White House in the 1980s and hold the key to victory this year. Where he once played to a few hundred people, Mr McCain was greeted by an electrified crowd chanting "Sa-rah,...

At a packed Cedarburg street rally Friday, the GOP ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin used their first post-convention campaign stop to promise a war on special-interest influence and excessive partisanship in Washington. "We're going to start working for the people of this country," McCain shouted. "It's over for the special interests. It's over!" Palin, who has instantly electrified her party's conservative voting base, said she and McCain wanted to go "right to small-town America" after their convention, a nod to the kinds of communities where the Alaska governor is likely to campaign heavily between now and election day....

A link to a photo gallery of shots taken at the McCain-Palin rally in Cedarburg, WI - the first post-convention stop for the candidates. Media estimates put the event at 10,000 or more in attendance and long lines remained outside the area even after the event had concluded.

So crowed a couple thousand can't get in. They expected 8000. Standing next to Demcrat who will be voting McCain-Palin. Enthusiasm is high.