To all the Obama supporters, I just want to say what an honor it has been to work with all of you. We did this together. I’ve never believed in a candidate enough to be involved in a campaign before, so tonight’s win was all the more special. I’ve said from the beginning that the best thing about the Obama campaign is its ability to give you ownership in it.

We can all take pride in that we all had a hand whether it was registering first time voters, that call to Virginia that might have tipped the scale, or that extra $5 that helped buy the radio ad that hammered home the message in Colorado.

We all own a piece of this campaign and it was great meeting so many of you through the process.

Congratulations everybody! Our success is well deserved. Say it with me, President-Elect Obama. How great does that sound?

To all the McCain supporters, I look forward to working together for a brighter future for our children.

It’s morning in America again. Now let’s go fix our country.

You’re going to hear a recurring word tonight: Mandate.

If we can get a commanding popular vote, not only will we see an electoral victory, we’ll see a commanding mandate for change. I don’t want to just beat these guys, I want to devastate and demoralize them. Let’s run up the score on today.

Also, if you have some spare time today, make phone calls. You can easily knock out 25 get out the vote calls in 30-40 minutes. Simply go to http://my.barackobama.com/n2n.

I had a debate, well I think it was a debate, last week with Gov. Palin (wild applause). And last night, Barack had his second debate with John McCain. Now, I realize I’m slightly prejudiced about our ticket, but if this was a best of five series, it’d be over, it’d be done.

(Crowd chants Obama)

Well, folks, speaking of Obama, again in the debate last night, what was most notable to me was what you didn’t hear, what you couldn’t hear. On the middle class, John McCain’s silence was deafening once again. You didn’t hear John mention the words ‘middle class’ one single time, again after the second debate. and more importantly, the questions of the people in that town hall last night reflected, I believe, I personally believe, what the majority of the American people are looking for: looking for a steady hand, leadership, an optimist. Not an angry man lurching from one position to another.

Transcript courtesy of MSNBC.COM

Last Wednesday, Sheriff’s deputies arrived at the home of a woman in Akron, Ohio named Addie Polk, in order to evict her. After 38 years in that house, Ms. Polk had fallen behind on paying the mortgage. It was so bad that the company that held that mortgage, Fannie Mae, had foreclosed.

In fact, it was far worse than anybody knew. Addie Polk couldn’t bear it any more. So, rather than be evicted, she shot herself in the chest.

Evidently she will survive. And, after Congressman Dennis Kucinich brought her plight to the floor of the House, Fannie Mae, the mortgage giant you and I and all the rest of us pretty much own now, agreed it would forgive Addie Polk’s debt and, when she gets out of the hospital, let her go back and live in her home again.

That this is already a gothic horror story, you’ll agree. But I left out one detail. Addie Polk is 90 years old.

In the self-pronounced area of expertise of the Governor of Alaska—energy—the real experts of both parties are at a loss to figure out any way, even’drill, baby, drill’, that might lower gas prices before 2018. We are at war in two countries and a lame duck President with no reason to check his own imbalance still has dreams of one more.

And a 90-year-old woman, trapped in the middle of a financial meltdown, shoots herself and she’s still in better shape than the economy. Yet, the Governor of Alaska wants to talk about somebody Barack Obama doesn’t know very well, and what this somebody Barack Obama doesn’t know very well, did, during the year Obama was eight and the Governor of Alaska was in pre-Kindergarten.

And she wants to talk about Reverend Jeremiah Wright. And she doesn’t object to being introduced with a reference to Barack Obama’s middle name. Well, this is my suggestion. In much the same way we, America, in the corporate persona of Fannie Mae, have forgiven poor Addie Polk of Akron, Ohio.

We, America, also need to forgive poor Sarah Palin of Wasilla, Alaska. They are both in situations that are beyond their ability to cope. They are both stuck in a crucible caused by forces they cannot comprehend. They are both unable to understand what they are doing.

After stumbling through a clumsier version of it at Englewood, Colorado, the Governor of Alaska said Saturday at Carson, California:

“Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country.”

She later defended the remark by adding this was an “association that has been known but hasn’t been talked about.”

Governor, Conservative groups have thus far spent ten million dollars this year trying to make something, anything, out of the brief interaction on a charity board between Sen. Obama, and a rehabilitated former domestic radical from the ’60s and not even Conservatives have been stupid enough to buy the snake oil, that this was either a close relationship or a nefarious one.

But of course, you know better, Governor. You’re smarter than the rest of us. A reporter asks you a horrible gotcha question like’which newspapers do you read’ and it takes you four days to come up with an answer, and somehow it’s the reporter’s fault.

The reporter asks you to name one Supreme Court ruling with which you disagree other than Roe vs. Wade and even though you’d commented on just such a case from Alaska no less not three months ago your eyes turn into a big neon sign reading “Vacancy” and you insist it’s because that evil media asked the wrong question.

So you’re the genius Governor, and it’s your supporters and the undecided voters who are the dopes who are now going to believe the same mickey-mouse crap that Sen. Clinton couldn’t get to stick, and Sean Hannity couldn’t get to stick, just because it’s you adding that word “terrorist” and that phrase “palling around” and dropping the “g” in pal-ling.

And of course, Governor, those same dopes, and we media morons, we are not smart enough to ask about that pesky Alaskan Independence Party, and why you recorded a speech for its convention last March, and why your husband remained a registered member of it until 2002, even though it was founded by a man named Joe Vogler who wanted Alaska to secede from the United States. The way the South seceded, precipitating the Civil War.

The same Joe Vogler who once said:

“The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government, and I won’t be buried under their damn flag.”

And who also said:

“I’m an Alaskan, not an American. I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions.”

Shoot, Governor, them’s strong words, hah? Did he wink as he said ‘em? You betcha! So, where does Joe Vogler rank on the scales of “terrorists who would target their own country?” Your opponent’s guy Ayers wound up on a volunteer anti-poverty committee in Chicago.

But your guy Vogler wound up founding a group that wanted to rip one of the stars off the American flag! Well, ok, Governor, Vogler’s more your husband’s guy. So it’s your husband who’s been “palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

But I’m assuming you’ve been “palling around” with your husband. But, gee willikers, Governor, you know what’s best. You’re not one of these Washington insiders who would notice that though that’s a straight line connecting you, your husband, and this Alaskan secessionist, you’re*standing under a banner with the campaign slogan “Country First” and if somebody out there puts two and two together they might just ask, “which Country dja mean? The Country of Alaska?”

“The heels are on,” you said with another smile. “The gloves are off.”

Well, if you’re telling William Kristol you want to talk about Jeremiah Wright fer sure! So, Governor you don’t mind addressing whether this Pastor Muthee is a terrorist? Do you? We’ve told you before about Pastor Thomas Muthee.

He’s the preacher who visited the Wasilla Assembly of God church a couple of times while the Governor was there, ironically enough, just about as many times as Bill Ayres has met Barack Obama and, see, there was this one time where Pastor Muthee actually laid hands on the Governor.

And I’m sure that sounds like just some crazy anecdote, except there’s videotape. And of course the Governor talked about this moment, the laying on of hands, just last summer.

It was in October, 2005, as the video indicates, when Muthee put his hands on Sarah Palin’s back and said, “make a way for Sarah, even in the political arena. Make a way, my God. Bring finances her way, even if for the campaign in the name of Jesus.

“Every form of witchcraft, it will be rebuked in the name of Jesus. Father, make her way now. ”

And the Governor said that “bold” approach of Pastor Muthee was one of the reasons she became Governor and she gives him just oodles of credit for puttin’ her on the path.

The problem for the governor is that in 1999 The Christian Science Monitor reported that Pastor Muthee had gotten his start a decade earlier in Kenya, in the Nairobi suburb of Kiambu.

Kimabu was crime-ridden. So this character Muthee showed up, and announced it was the fault of this woman in town who he had decided was a witch. And Muthee gave the witch a choice: either be saved, or get out of town.

And the woman initially chose none of the above, but this became less than a viable option when Muthee got 200 of the townspeople together and they decided, heck, you know, Muthee’s right, she probably is a witch, and the next thing you know the police are raiding her house and reportedly shooting her snake because if she was a witch, the snake had to be a demon, and then the woman left town and everybody said crime went down and most of the bars closed and this is not only how Pastor Muthee got started but he’s proud of it and he tells the story in his testimonial videotapes and people in that church in Wasilla where he laid hands on the Governor knew all about it.

And they think it was just a Joe-Six-Pack, Hockey Mom kinda thing to do, to let a guy who branded some woman in Kenya a witch, demand that God make some different woman the Governor of Alaska!

Governor, what would you call someone who arrives in a suburb, blames a resident for the local crime, organizes a mob to threaten the woman, convinces the authorities to go and raid her home, and then chases her out of the suburb?

C’mon Governor, just give us one answer that has something to do with the question you were just asked. That’s right you’d call him a terrorist. And since it was in his own country, that would make himmmm? Yes, very good, a domestic terrorist.

So, you, Governor, you’ve been “palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.” Say it ain’t so, Gov! Say it ain’t so! Of course it is.

The Governor of Alaska ignores Addie Polk and the American tragedy that is a 90-year old woman shooting herself out of shame and panic and who knows what else. Over the mortgage!

Instead the Governor of Alaska wants to start calling people terrorists and insisting of Sen. Obama that quote “this is not a man who sees America like you and I see America” and whose rhetoric like that, and the “pallin’ around with terrorists” line were rightly described by the Associated Press yesterday as a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing kind of way of slipping racism into the equation, because it’s a nifty trick to remind the white folk that (psst) Obama is black.

But overriding this sleaziness and dog-gone it, the Governor of Alaska has got to be the sleaziest politician working the stage at the moment, there is the sheer blessed stupidity of letting herself become the bomb-thrower when her own life is full of domestic terrorists.

Governor? Bill Ayres? Your hubby was in this secessionist hate group for which you recorded a video.

Governor? Jeremiah Wright? That pastor you credit with helping you become Governor, is either a con man or a psycho who believes he can tell which woman in the village is the witch, and which woman is the governor.

And Governor, there’s also “The U.S. Council On World Freedom.” You should ask Sen. McCain about that outfit and why he had to scat away from it 22 years ago.

Or, ask him why yesterday his own brother Joe referred to Northern Virginia as quote “communist country.” Or you could ask him about Pastors John Hagee and Rod Parsley. Or about why Sen. McCain said about introducing Jeremiah Wright into this campaign, “there’s no place for that kind of campaigning, the American people don’t want it, period.”

Or don’t ask. You know best. You’re the one selling the patent medicine. Those of us out here, we’re just the suckers pulling out our greenbacks. Go on talking about this man Ayers and trying to link Obama to that word “terrorist.”

But be prepared for others to ask you about your pastor and terrorism. And for still others to ask you about the First Dude and terrorism. But not me, Governor.

I forgive you. You are about as guilty here as poor Ms. Addie Polk in Akron. And I hope that after what you’ve done to yourself, you recover as well as she seems to be doing, and that you too get to go back and live in your own home again.

Because if you think the terrorism con, and the racism sting are going to do anything but bury you and Sen, McCain, you need to pick up one of those how-many-ever newspapers you reed and check the headlines to find out what people are really worried about right now.

Otherwise, when you said “the heels are on, the gloves are off,” you got as close to telling the truth as you’ve ever gotten, and without really knowing it.

Because, for you and Sen. McCain, Governor, it’s not the gloves that just came off.

Obviously—it’s the wheels.

The Couric-Palin interview:

The VP Debate:

“It’s a dangerous road, but we have no choice,” a top McCain strategist told the Daily News. “If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we’re going to lose.”

Another top McCain adviser told the Washington Post that McCain needs to shift away from the economy:

“We are looking for a very aggressive last 30 days,” said Greg Strimple, one of McCain’s top advisers. “We are looking forward to turning a page on this financial crisis and getting back to discussing Mr. Obama’s aggressively liberal record and how he will be too risky for Americans.”

Translation: We can’t win on issues because Obama has a better plan for America, so we’re going to use the politics of fear and smear.

It didn’t take them long, already Sarah Palin has started with the Ayers and Wright smears. Conservative cowardly lions Cal Thomas and Thomas Sowell made sure to coordinate their attack message over the weekend.

I’ve got news for Gov. Palin. America has heard this song before and it was sung by someone with more grace and class in her pinky than you’ll ever have. It didn’t stick then and the American people are tired of this crap.

We’re in the middle of two wars, an economic crisis, an energy crisis, a food crisis, a healthcare crisis, a burgeoning water shortage, an unemployment report that gets worse month over month, a weak dollar, record deficits, and THIS IS WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT?!?!?

We deserve better. God willing, Nov. 4, we’ll get it.

So who won?

Despite what the conservative pundits say, every single post debate poll says: Joe Biden.

http://pol.moveon.org/barackstickers/?id=-10509013-kMLCPLx&rc=homepage

After his somewhat incredulous charge of sexism and how it will lead to a boost in the polls, he claimed Sarah Palin received more votes as mayor than Biden received as President.

Well… Huckabee’s wrong of course, Biden received about 79,754 votes during his brief run earlier this year, while according to NBC News, “as of the 2000 census, the population of Wasilla was 5,469. It has been reported at currently more than 9,000. That would mean, conservatively, the entire town of Wasilla would have had to have had a 100% turnout for nine years at 9,000 to top Biden’s primary numbers.”

Another example of trying to oversell Palin. Come on, Huck, you’re better than this.

As veep chatter about him started, I wanted to do some digging and I have to say, I am a Biden fan. This is somebody that doesn’t just pretend to be the regular guy that got elected to the Senate. This IS a regular guy that got elected to the Senate.

This is a guy that shares the same kind of values as any father or husband. This is a guy who came up and beat the odds. This is a kid with a stutter that grew up to be one of the most prolific voices in the Senate. Last night, America got to hear the embodiment of the American dream.

Obama-Biden may not be the ‘Dream Ticket’, but it is the ‘American Dream Ticket’. These aren’t the Washington elite, in fact, they’re not Washington at all. These aren’t two guys with famous fathers or family members of means. These aren’t sold out partisan hacks. These are two guys that truly embody the American Dream that if you work hard and put your mind to it, you can be anything you want.

And he rips John McCain a new one. I’m not going to go through piece by piece, just watch the clip, but for me, the line of the night came here, because my Paw Paw told me the same thing when I was in kindergarten:
“When I got knocked down by guys bigger than me, she sent me back out and demanded that I bloody their nose so I could walk down that street the next day.”