early and often

The Candidate’s Second-to-Last Words

Festival founder Meir Fenigstein.

Even though the polls open early tomorrow, there’s still time for the presidential candidates to make their final pitches to the electorate. Over the weekend, Barack Obama and John McCain positioned themselves to deliver these final jabs and talking points, exchanging a flurry of attacks and giving final polishes to their résumés. Here’s what we heard from them:

• In Pennsylvania, which the McCain campaign has decided is key to victory in recent weeks, a 527 and the state GOP have released ads attacking Obama for his relationship with Jeremiah Wright, something McCain has said he himself didn’t want to do. [WSJ]

• Robo-calls in that state also mention Obama’s aunt who is “living here [in the United States] illegally.” [Time]

• Robo-calls there and elsewhere have also used audio clips of Hillary Clinton during the primary campaign slamming Obama (a practice she decried over the weekend). [AP]

• Even though Cheney has long publicly supported McCain, the Obama campaign seized upon recent remarks by the vice president and called them a late “endorsement” in a new ad aimed at linking the candidate to the unpopular war architect. [Boston Globe]

• In stump speeches, McCain has taken to repeating, “I know we’re going to win!” [LAT]

• It’s precisely seven weeks since McCain said at a rally that he believed the “fundamentals of our economy are strong.” In one of his last rallies today in the same place (Jacksonville), Obama will highlight this comment. [Politico]

• In The Wall Street Journal today, both candidates have opinion pieces touting their own economic reforms. Each repeat their tax talking points, with Obama insisting the middle class is key to economic recovery, and McCain pointing to businesses small and large. [WSJ , WSJ]

• Perhaps trying to remind people of all those hot, badass-looking pictures of him in the rain, Obama told a crowd at a rally yesterday in Cleveland (where Bruce Springsteen played) that they shouldn’t mind the rain that had started to fall. “It’s Okay, we’ve been through an eight-year storm,” he said. “Sunshine is on the way.” [Time]

• On the stump, Sarah Palin seized upon a Drudge-drudged quote Barack Obama gave to the San Francisco Chronicle in January about his coal policy. “He said that, sure, if the industry wants to build coal fired power plants, then they can go ahead and try, he says,” she proclaimed in Ohio. “But they can do it only in a way that will bankrupt the coal industry, and he’s comfortable letting that happen.” [Fox News]

• On the Russ Parr Morning Show, Obama told radio listeners that right now, he’s not frantic. “I feel pretty peaceful, Russ, I’ve got to say,” he said. “It’s up to the people to decide and the question is going to be who wants it more, and i hope that our supporters want it bad, because the country needs it.”

The Candidate’s Second-to-Last Words