Finally, the fight is on....

Finally, it begins for real....

No more puff pieces and lob-ball interviews.  No more "anchors" being allowed to opine during the "news". Real Questions, real follow-ups.  The inevitability of any one candidate is no longer assumed.  The fight is finally on, and let the best fighter win. 

McCain leaps ahead in NC

RALEIGH (WTVD) -- In an election for President of the United States in North Carolina Tuesday, Republican John McCain suddenly and breathtakingly surges to a 20-point win over Democrat Barack Obama, 58% to 38%, according to this latest exclusive SurveyUSA election poll conducted for ABC11-WTVD.

SurveyUSA NCtracking polls, McCain had led by 8, 5, and 4 points. Today: 20. McCain has gained ground in every demographic group. Among men, McCain led by 9 last month, 27 today. Among women, Obama led by 2 last month, trails by 12 today. McCain holds 9 of 10 Republican voters; Obama holds 3 of 4 Democratic voters; independents, who were split last month, break today crisply for McCain, where, in the blink of an eye, he is up by 25.  MORE....

McCain Now Winning Majority of Independents

Majority of independents now prefer him over Obama, 52% to 37%

PRINCETON, NJ -- John McCain's 6 percentage-point bounce in voter support spanning the Republican National Convention is largely explained by political independents shifting to him in fairly big numbers, from 40% pre-convention to 52% post-convention in Gallup Poll Daily tracking.

By contrast, Democrats' support for McCain rose 5 percentage points over the GOP convention period, from 9% to 14%, while Republicans' already-high support stayed about the same.  MORE....

McCain Rings Up $5M At Chicago Fundraiser

Amount Averages To $1 Million Per Hour Spent Here

Republican John McCain raised about $5 million in Chicago Monday night, or about $1 million for each hour he spent in Democrat Barack Obama's home town. 

CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports the only glimpse of McCain the public got came as his motorcade departed. Like every Republican presidential nominee since 1984, McCain appears to regard campaigning in heavily Democratic Illinois a waste of time. 

Raising Money is why national Republicans come here, and McCain took away an astounding $5 million. Several dozen of the biggest contributors who had dinner with him told CBS 2 McCain's elated by new voter opinion surveys showing that, for the first time, he's ahead of Obama.

"Everybody in the room said 'wow.' This was even beyond what many expected. He is wonderfully self-confident but not cocky," said McCain contributor Craig Duchossois.  "The senator is clearly ecstatic about the polls," said Ronald Gidwitz. "He's very comfortable right now in his own skin. He sees the momentum going in his favor. He is the man who looks like a winner."MORE....

Straining to reach money goal, Obama presses donors

After months of record-breaking fund-raising, a new sense of urgency in Senator Barack Obama's fund-raising team is palpable as the full weight of the campaign's decision to bypass public financing for the general election is suddenly upon it.

Pushing a fund-raiser later this month, a finance staff member sent a sharply worded note last week to Illinois members of its national finance committee, calling their recent efforts "extremely anemic."

At a convention-week meeting in Denver of the campaign's top fund-raisers, buttons with the image of a money tree were distributed to those who had already contributed the maximum $2,300 to the general election, a subtle reminder to those who had failed to ante up.

The signs of concern have become evident in recent weeks as early fund-raising totals have suggested that Obama's decision to bypass public financing may not necessarily afford him the commanding financing advantage over Senator John McCain that many had originally predicted.

ObamaTax 3.0

The good news is that Barack Obama said on ABC Sunday that he might not go through with his plans to increase taxes.

The bad news is that the economy has to be mired in recession to avoid the largest tax increase in the nation's history.....

For the record, here is what he told ABC's George Stephanopoulos.

Mr. Stephanopoulos: "So even if we're in a recession next January, you come into office, you'll still go through with your tax increases?"

Senator Obama: "No, no, no, no, no. What I've said, George, is that even if we're still in a recession, I'm going to go through with my tax cuts. That's my priority."

Mr. Stephanopoulos: "But not the increases?"

Senator Obama: "I think we've got to take a look and see where the economy is. The economy is weak right now. The news with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, I think, along with the unemployment numbers indicates that we're fragile. I want to accelerate those tax cuts through a second stimulus package, get more money into the pockets of ordinary Americans, see if we can stabilize the housing market, and then we're going to have to reevaluate at the beginning of the year to see what kind of hole we're in."

Even individuals staring down the barrel of Mr. Obama's tax increases should not wish for an economic recession to give them a reprieve. The relevant point is that it was early last year, when the "Bush economy" was still humming, that Senator Obama first proposed pushing taxes sharply upward on "the wealthy," while giving what he calls "tax cuts" (actually they are credits, not rate reductions) to "the middle class."

At the time, Mr. Obama was the long shot in the Democratic Presidential sweepstakes, and it made some political sense to reassure the party's intensely liberal primary voters with class-war boilerplate on taxes.....

The reality is that the creators of new jobs in the economy are more likely to be rising entrepreneurs or filers under Subchapter S, who typically pay taxes at individual rates. Hanging three or four tax millstones around their productive necks in January if the economy is weak will likely produce unimpressive growth and job numbers in the first year of the new Obama Presidency, and likely beyond. That in turn could drag down the Democrats in Congress who will get credit for voting these higher taxes into law.....

Thus Mr. Obama's unambiguous answer Sunday to whether he'd insist on his tax increases if the economy is in an official recession: "No, no, no, no, no." It seems Mr. McCain is right that taxes do matter.

Mr. Obama's most ardent primary supporters may not like it, but we'll take the five "Nos" as evidence that Senator Obama may be learning the difference between liberal doctrine and sensible governance.  MORE....