by Jill Zuckman

John McCain stopped by his Victory phone banking operation next to his campaign headquarters in Virginia's Crystal City neighborhood and promised to "whip his you know what in this debate."

McCain acknowledged what everyone has seen in the polls, telling his volunteers that "the economy has hurt us a little bit in the last week or two."

But McCain added that "in the last few days we've seen it come back up because they want experience and they want knowledge and they want vision and we'll give that to America and I know we're going to win this race."

The Republican nominee said he's "very grateful" for the work people are doing at the phone bank.

"The only reason why we're going to win it is because of your effort, everybody here had something else to do on this Sunday afternoon and I'm very grateful," he said. "And I'm telling ya, we're coming on and we're going to work 24-7 for the next - who's counting - 22 days."

McCain's volunteers laughed and applauded him, and the senator acknowledged that Virginia will be challenging, along with Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico.

"It's closing up in Virginia, but we're gonna win in Virginia and we're going to have to get out our vote and that's what a lot of it's going to come down to. Tomorrow Sarah and I are going to be down in the Norfolk area...and we'll be spending time campaigning in Virginia too," he said. "We also gotta cross, go across Ohio, Pennsylvania, as you know. And I don't have to tell you what - not insulting your intelligence - but Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico are also going to be important. So we're spending a lot of time and after I whip his you know what in this debate we're going to be going out" as his words were drowned out by laughter.

Although the race has gotten tense as McCain supporters have become increasingly incendiary, McCain insisted he would be respectful of Obama and everyone else should, too.

"I want to emphasize again, I respect Senator Obama. We will conduct a respectful race and we will make sure that everybody else does too and that's important, but there are stark differences between us," McCain said. "The difference between big and small government, between cutting taxes and raising them, and certainly a big difference on who is most prepared to be commander-in-chief."

by Jill Zuckman

Barack Obama jetted back to Ohio today to spend three days preparing for his final debate with John McCain. But before he holed up with his advisers, the candidate began knocking on doors in Holland, Ohio, making his way through a neighborhood of modest ranch and split-level homes.

His move to the Toledo area comes as a new Ohio Newspaper poll puts the race at a dead heat, 48-46 for McCain. That's tightened considerably since the group's September survey had Obama down six points, 48-42.

Sue Sekel, a 43-year old healthcare worker dressed for a day of Sunday housecleaning, opened her front door to discover Obama standing before her.

He asked her what she did for a living and how she was managing in the economic downturn. Sekel said she was doing fine and that she voted early.

Later, she declined to tell reporters who she voted for, but she said, "I told him what I did." She also said Sunday was "the one day I come home to clean ceiling fans and look like crap, and then this happens."

Despite her fluster at finding a presidential candidate on her doorstep, Sekel still snapped a cell phone photo with Obama and said she thought his visit would help him in this working-class neighborhood.

As word spread that Obama was in the neighborhood, a few dozen people gathered across the street to watch, as three teenage girls raced across the street in bare feet and socks, armed with cameras.

"Where are your shoes?" Obama asked them, before taking photos with them and crossing the street. There he shook hands with about a dozen neighbors, asking them what they did for a living and offering words of concern.

Shelly Kretz, a 38-year old Proctor & Gamble worker who lives around the corner, said that she had been on the fence, but that Obama made her a believer with his answers to her neighbors' questions.

"It's really awesome that he takes the time to talk to the middle class and answer questions," she said, adding that her brothers, who live in the neighborhood, were in the group and also were swayed by Obama's appearance.

With 20 electoral votes, Ohio is considered a bellwether battleground state. Since 1944, Ohio has voted for the presidential winner with one exception - the state voted for Richard Nixon over John F. Kennedy in 1960.

In 2004, President Bush edged Democrat John Kerry by just two percentage points, dashing Kerry's hopes for ousting a sitting president.

For the previous two debates, Obama settled in North Carolina and Florida to prepare. This time, he'll be staying in Oregon, Ohio on the banks of Lake Erie.

Taking a break from debate prep, he is expected to hold a rally in Toledo Monday afternoon.

by Frank James

I say forget this week's last presidential debate between Senators Barack Obama and John McCain. Let's instead schedule a cage fight between David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, and Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager.

The two were on Fox News Sunday and had themselves a verbal prize fight. Host Chris Wallace even had to tell the two political operatives to break their "clinches."

Talk about nasty. Based on the way these two clashed, we shouldn't expect to see a ratcheting down of the animus between the campaigns in the next few weeks before Election Day. Anything but.

Here's an excerpt that gives a flavor of how Axelrod and Davis beat each other, rhetorically, to a pulp:

WALLACE: David, you get the last word. And talk, if you will, about this argument that, you know, if you -- if you elect Obama and you have a strong Democratic majority in both the House and the Senate, you're giving total control of the government to the Democrats.

DAVIS: ... the patronage politics...

by Jill Zuckman

Barack Obama jetted back to Ohio today to spend three days preparing for his final debate with John McCain.

His move to the Toledo area comes as a new Ohio Newspaper poll puts the race at a dead heat, 48-46 for McCain. That's tightened considerably since the group's September survey had Obama down six points, 48-42.

Shortly after landing, Obama headed to Holland, Ohio to knock on voters' doors.

With 20 electoral votes, Ohio is considered a bellwether battleground state. Since 1944, Ohio has voted for the presidential winner with one exception - the state voted for Richard Nixon over John F. Kennedy in 1960.

In 2004, President Bush edged Democrat John Kerry by just two percentage points, dashing Kerry's hopes for ousting a sitting president.

For the previous two debates, Obama settled in North Carolina and Florida to prepare. This time, he'll be staying in Oregon, Ohio on the banks of Lake Erie.

Taking a break from debate prep, he is expected to hold a rally in Toledo Monday afternoon.

by Frank James

A thought about Rep. John Lewis statement on the McCain-Palin campaign's tactics.

Few members of Congress have John Lewis's moral authority which comes from his repeatedly placing his life and limb on the line during the Civil-Rights era to shame the nation into living up to the true meaning of its creed.

And so his statement which had the power of a thunderous sermon.

"As one who was a victim of violence and hate during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, I am deeply disturbed by the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign. What I am seeing today reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.

"As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Governor Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all. They are playing a very dangerous game that disregards the value of the political process and cheapens our entire democracy. We can do better. The American people deserve better."

The McCain campaign rejected Lewis's statement and called for Sen. Barack Obama's campaign to denounce the congressman's implied comparison of McCain with Wallace which the Obama campaign did in part though it did share the congressman's concerns with how Sarah Palin whips up crowds.

Lewis's words rang true however. He was talking about demagoguery, a word you don't hear a lot these days but which is still a very present part of the American political scene.

According to the Random House Webster Unabridged dictionary, a demagogue is "a person, especially an orator or political leader, who gains power and popularity by arousing the emotions, passions and prejudices of the people." When used as a verb as in "to demagogue" it means "to treat or manipulate (a political issue) in the manner of a demagogue; obscure or distort with emotionalism, prejudice etc."

by Jim Tankersley

WOODBRIDGE, Va. -- For most of this decade, even when polls looked gloomy, Republicans entered Election Day with a swagger from their not-so-secret weapon: a voter turnout machine powerful enough to swing close races.

Democrats have matched that confidence this year, thanks to Barack Obama's massively expensive field organization. The Democratic nominee has broken his party's tradition of leaving turnout to labor unions and rolled up statistics Republicans concede they can't match: millions of new voters registered, hundreds of campaign offices in key states, an army of door-knocking volunteers.

Here in battleground Virginia alone, the Obama camp has opened 49 offices and claims to have signed up more than 165,000 new voters. That's more than half President George W. Bush's victory margin here four years ago, when Democrats barely contested the state. "I've never seen an organization like this," said Mitch Stewart, Obama's Virginia director and a veteran of Democratic campaigns.

But if the presidential race comes down to the ground game, GOP leaders are betting their technology will trump Obama's troops.

McCain's 20 Virginia "victory centers" are stocked with voice-over-Internet telephones, which volunteers use to survey voters and record detailed information about them in a central computer. It's the latest improvement on a data-driven, surgically targeted turnout operation.

Democrats "have taken a page out of the Bush-Cheney 2004 playbook," said Rich Beeson, the political director for the Republican National Committee, which is partnering with John McCain's campaign on field strategy. "The problem is, we're four years ahead of that."

In a pair of counties both sides call critical to Virginia, the differences are plain to see. It's a battle of carpet bombs against smart bombs.

By Jim Tankersley and Andrew Zajac

News analysis

It wasn't technically an October surprise -- because it should not have been, by any definition, a surprise to the GOP presidential ticket -- but an Alaska investigator's declaration that Gov. Sarah Palin abused the power of her office was still ill-timed for Sen. John McCain.

For the second time in as many months, McCain's choice of running mate risks undermining his attacks on Democratic rival Barack Obama.

"It's just an awful end to an awful week for McCain," said John Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College in California.

The Republican presidential and vice presidential nominees spent last week pummeling Obama on questions of character and judgment. They called the Illinois senator "blinded by ambition" and "too risky for America." Then came Friday's report from investigator Stephen Branchflower which threatened to throw those questions right back at Palin and McCain.

Read the rest of the analysis in today's Chicago Tribune.

by William Neikirk

A major economic stimulus package, including funds to rebuild the nation's infrastructure, is shaping up as one of the top ideas for responding to the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.

Asked to name key measures that would enable the U.S. to get out of the current distress, several analysts cited the need for a big government spending program that might include tax rebates, even if such a plan could drive the budget deficit over $1 trillion.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures," said Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. Others said the economic damage inflicted by a deep recession could lead to tremendous human cost and push the deficit higher anyway. It is a time to be bold, counseled Brookings Institution economist Barry Bosworth.

"This is the time for the federal government to 'revenue-share' big time with state and local governments, which are concer ned about laying off teachers, policemen and others," said David Kotz, economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, echoing others. Providing more funds for unemployment insurance should be part of the package, he said.

Extricating the country from a severe credit crisis will require a series of unprecedented steps, many of which are already being taken as the stock market swoons, the analysts said. In addition to the spending package, here are other ideas:

Watch CBS Videos Online

by Frank James

A man holding what looks to be a Curious George monkey doll bearing an Obama bumper sticker around its head was caught on camera at a Gov. Sarah Palin rally today.

The CBS News "From the Road" blog was kind enough to share the video with the world.

In his posting, Scott Conroy wrote:

(PHILADELPHIA) As the crowd cheered at a Sarah Palin rally this morning in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a man in the audience grinned as he held up a stuffed monkey doll with a Barack Obama bumper sticker wrapped across its forehead...

After Palin finished her remarks this morning, the man holding the stuffed monkey seemed to notice that a video camera was pointed at him, at which point he removed the Obama sticker from the doll's head and crumpling it up in his hand. He then handed the doll to a young boy who was watching the rally from his father's shoulders. The boy's parents later told CBS News that they weren't acquainted with the man who gave their son the stuffed monkey.

Wonder what our fellow citizen would have done if the little innocent hadn't been there to transform the doll from a racist symbol back into a doll?

by Jill Zuckman

This is a story about pie. Except that it's a little bit like a fish tale. With each retelling, the story gets a bit more dramatic.

Sen. Barack Obama likes pie. Over the last three days of campaigning, it's become clear that he's given a great deal of thought to pie. He's talked about the kinds of pie he likes, about having a pie contest where he'll be a judge, and how pie fits into the larger economic difficulties of our time.

On Thursday afternoon, in Georgetown, Ohio, Obama and Gov. Ted Strickland stopped at a diner for pie. He's been talking about the visit ever since. He waxed on about his pie during a rally in Portsmouth, Ohio that night. He reminisced about it the next morning in Chillicothee and again in Columbus, Ohio. And today, he talked about his stop for pie at four separate stops in neighborhoods across Philadelphia.

"I was in this small town in Ohio, Georgetown, Ohio," the story begins. "We went to a diner because I decided I wanted some pie."

"You going to make me some pie?" Obama asked his audience in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. "What kind of pie do you make? Sweet potato pie? Alright. We might have to have a sweet potato pie contest. I'll be the judge. Cause I know my sweet potato pie."

In West Philadelphia, Obama offered to put anybody's sweet potato pie up against his mother-in-law's.

[Although he didn't have sweet potato pie on Thursday, after three days of mentioning sweet potato pie, it's become apparent that Obama has a craving for the Southern specialty.]

"But they did not have sweet potato pie at this particular establishment. So, instead, I got coconut cream pie," he said. "I'll take a cream pie, I don't mind. I like all kinds of pie. But the governor of Ohio, he had lemon meringue pie."

"So we had ordered our pie and the employees there decided they wanted to take a picture with me because they said 'our boss, the owner of this diner, he's a die hard Republican. So we just want to kind of tweak him a little bit. We want to take a picture with you and we'll show him the picture,' " Obama recounted.

Well, who should walk out with Obama's coconut cream pie and Strickland's lemon meringue pie, but the Republican owner of the diner.

"I said, 'How do you do sir? I said, I hear you are a die hard Republican.' He said, 'that's right.' I said, 'How's business?' He said not so good. My customers, he said, they don't have any money to eat out," Obama told his laughing audience. "I said, well that's the problem when you've got an economic policy that gives everything to the folks at the top and doesn't give folks who are working hard every day a break."

"I said, by the way, who's been in charge of this economy for the last eight years? He said, the Republicans," said Obama, a bit gleefully at this example of the Socratic method. "I said, but you vote Republican. He said that's right. I said, if you keep on hitting your head against the wall, at some point, do you stop?"

According to Obama, the owner told him he had a good point. "I said you might want to try Democratic this year. We can't get any worse than these Republicans have been doing," he said. "So I think I might get his vote, along with his pie. Here is my point Philadelphia, we can't have four more years of this economic theory that just helps folks at the top and doesn't help ordinary people."

But with all that talk of pie, Republicans said Obama forgot to mention that he plans to raise taxes. "Barack Obama offered more pie in the sky rhetoric," noted Tucker Bounds, spokesman for John McCain.

by Mark Silva

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin today denied any abuse of her powers as governor, as a state legislative inquiry into her firing of the state's public safety commissioner has found.

"If you read the report, you will see that there was nothing unlawful or unethical about replacing a cabinet member," Palin said as boarded her campaign bus in Pittsburgh, Pa., today. "You got to read the report."

The report says this: Palin violated state ethics law by attempting to get her former brother-in-law fired from the state police. "Gov. Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda," the report concludes.

Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan's refusal to fire State Trooper Mike Wooten, the ex-brotherr in law, was "likely a contributing factor" to Monegan's July dismissal, but Palin had the authority as governor to fire him, the report by former Anchorage prosecutor Stephen Branchflower finds.

The report concludes that Palin's efforts to get Wooten fired broke a state ethics law that bars public officials from pursuing personal interest through official action.

Attorneys for Palin and her husband Todd have issued a three-page rebuttal to the state report, in the saga which has come to be known as "Trooper-gate,'' contending that the state Ethics Act only covers acts that have a financial "potential gain, or the avoidance of a potential loss."

by Johanna Neuman

For more than four years, the Bush White House has run against any changes in the law that would allow gay Americans -- even his vice president's daughter -- to marry.

Under the guidance of political maestro Karl Rove, George W. Bush even ran against gay rights in his 2004 re-election bid. The strategy: push a constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman and thereby stir the base of evangelicals to the polls. It worked.

Now, four years later, the climate has changed, (as the Swamp's colleague, Johanna Neuman is reporting at Countdown to Crawford ). Both Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, while not embracing the still-politically-radioactive concept of gay marriage, support rights.

Obama and his running mate Joe Biden back civil unions, along with spousal visits in hospitals, insurance benefits as partners and rights of inheritance and adoption. At some political cost, McCain voted against the Bush administration's proposal for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, arguing that states, not judges or the federal government, should make these decisions. He also backs legislation to ban workplace discrimination against gays.

Both presidential campaigns have reached out to gay Americans, seeking their votes. Even Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, an evangelical, sounds inclusive toward gays. "(N)o one would ever propose, not in a McCain-Palin administration, to do anything to prohibit, say, visitations in a hospital or contracts being signed," she said during the vice presidential debate. That's one reason the Log Cabin Republicans, the largest gay Republican organization, who did not endorse Bush four years ago, are backing McCain-Palin this year.

But Bush remains passionately opposed to any movement on the issue.

by Mark Silva

President Bush, meeting with representatives of the world's major industrial nations, maintains that they are making concerted efforts to confront a global freezing of lending that is dragging down markets worldwide.

"I'm confident that the world's major economies can overcome the challenges we face,'' Bush said in an address from the Rose Garden this morning, his second in two days aimed at delivering a message of action and confidence.

"There have been moments of crisis in the past when powerful nations turned their energies against each other, or sought to wall themselves off from the world,'' Bush said. "This time is different. The leaders gathered in Washington this weekend are all working toward the same goals. We will stand together in addressing this threat to our prosperity. We will do what it takes to resolve this crisis. And the world's economy will emerge stronger as a result.''

Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met this morning in the West Wing with the finance ministers of the other G-7 nations - Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy and Japan. They also met with the president of the Eurogroup of countries, the directors of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank and chairman Financial Stability Forum.

"In my country, it is important for our citizens to have understood that which affects Wall Street affects Main Street as well,'' Bush said in the Rose Garden following the G-7 finance ministers' meeting. "And all of us recognize that this is a serious global crisis and, therefore, requires a serious global response for the good of our people...

"The United States has a special role to play in leading the response to this crisis. That is why I convened this morning's meeting here at the White House, and that is why our government will continue using all the tools at our disposal to resolve this crisis. At our meeting, Secretary Paulson and I described the bold actions the United States has taken over the past few weeks:

"To help thaw frozen markets, the Federal Reserve has taken unprecedented measures to boost liquidity,'' he said. "The Securities and Exchange Commission has cracked down on abusive practices in the markets. Federal agencies have significantly expanded the amount of money insured in bank and credit union accounts. My administration worked with the Congress to pass legislation authorizing the government to recapitalize banks by purchasing troubled assets or providing insurance or purchasing equity in financial institutions. These extraordinary efforts are being implemented as quickly and as effectively as possible.

"The benefits will not be realized overnight,'' he said. "But as these actions take effect, they will help restore stability to our markets and confidence to our financial institutions.''

by Frank James

The latest National Journal's Political Insider's poll indicates that Washington types believe Sen. Barack Obama is poised to win the presidency.

Among Democrats 93 percent said Obama had a high chance of winning. Among Republicans 80 percent said Obama's chances for taking the White House were high.

While some of the Republicans and Democrats in the survey group cautioned that the race wasn't over and that the extraordinary circumstances this year (a black candidate) make it unpredictable, the trends all favor Obama.

The anonymous quotes after the poll results come from the insiders who, for obvious reasons, don't want their names attached to the statements, especially on the Republican side.

Q: On a scale of zero (no chance) to 10 (virtual certainty), how likely are the Democrats to win the White House in November?

10. "I love my crazy uncle. I don't like anybody else's."