Say hello to Dr. Vino and the Bush-Kerry 2004 election guide for wine lovers. There's even an unscientific poll as to which candidate you think would be better for wine enthusiasts.

As for picking a wine to go with their public image, Dr. Vino says Bush is a big, bold Aussie shiraz while Kerry is a subtle white Burgundy. He ranks those a tie.

What a hypocrite. Yesterday in Colorado Bush stumped for Marilyn Musgrave, the Republican Congresswoman primarily responsible for the failed Gay Marriage Amendment. Today on Good Morning America he said he's okay with civil unions and with states making their own choices on marriage discrimination. Brutal Hugs has more.

Oh, to live in a big swing state. The Kerry campaign just sent out this announcement:

Madison, WI – The Kerry-Edwards campaign announced today that rock legend Bruce Springsteen will hit the campaign trail for the Kerry-Edwards ticket in the closing days of the 2004 campaign.

Springsteen will join John Kerry at campaign rallies in Madison, WI, and Columbus, OH, on Thursday, October 28th, and join the Democratic nominee for an election-eve rally in Cleveland, OH, on November 1st.

Springsteen is expected to perform one or two songs. Further details on the appearances will be released in the coming days.

Voter registration is no longer the issue. It's all about getting out the vote. The Boss will be great for that. Bring him on.

Update: Bon Jovi too.

How does a blogger get on the campaign press bus?

For the first time in 80 years, the New Yorker has endorsed a presidential candidate. In one of the longest and strongest editorial endorsements we've seen, the New Yorker editors blast Bush and comes on strong for Kerry. It trounces Bush on virtually every front...from the war in Iraq to Ashcroft and the excesses of the Patriot Act, to its secrecy in the war on terror, to the economy and more. And it blows off claims that its endorsement is Anti-Bush rather than pro-Kerry:

The damage visited upon America, and upon America’s standing in the world, by the Bush Administration’s reckless mishandling of the public trust will not easily be undone. And for many voters the desire to see the damage arrested is reason enough to vote for John Kerry. But the challenger has more to offer than the fact that he is not George W. Bush. In every crucial area of concern to Americans (the economy, health care, the environment, Social Security, the judiciary, national security, foreign policy, the war in Iraq, the fight against terrorism), Kerry offers a clear, corrective alternative to Bush’s curious blend of smugness, radicalism, and demagoguery. Pollsters like to ask voters which candidate they’d most like to have a beer with, and on that metric Bush always wins. We prefer to ask which candidate is better suited to the governance of our nation.

Read it all, then read it again and e-mail it someone you know who is still undecided. Or who thinks their vote won't matter. If you don't have time and need a cheat sheet, here's the short version.

Looking good, sounding better...former President Clinton "rises from his sick bed" to campaign with John Kerry in Philadelphia today.

Check out the size of this crowd. Estimates are 100,000 and higher.

And where was Bush? In Greeley, Colorado, stumping for Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave, chief sponsor of the Gay Marriage Ban Amendment. Musgrave's seat is critical, and it's no lock. Stan Matsunaka has been catching up --he needs more money for the final week of ads--please, throw him some change.

Update: Here is the link to the Washington Times yawn yarn. (take your pick.)

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Original Post:

Right wing blogs and Drudge have been cooing since Sunday about a spectacular revelation to come out in Monday's Washington Times about Kerry's foreign policy statements. Daily Kos has the story and it's a non-starter:

About a year ago, Kerry said in a speech that he had met with all the members of the Security Council prior to voting to authorize Bush's Iraq War.

"So I sat with the French and British, Germans, with the entire Security Council, and we spent a couple of hours talking about what they saw as the path to a united front in order to be able to deal with Saddam Hussein."

The Mooney Times piece is going to state that several of the ambassadors on the Security Council allege that Kerry did not, in fact, meet with them....here's nothing else to it. That's the Big Story. The one that will knock the wheels off Kerry's campaign.

Putting aside for a moment the "big deal" aspect, as in "who cares?," Kos says Kerry's statement is true--he really did meet with everyone. Sounds like desperate times for Bush, desperate measures.

One other caveat: In the days to come, beware of more articles labeled "news" written by right-wing partisan hacks. They are not news, they are opinion pieces. Google the author and you'll see what we mean.

Hunter Thompson is back with a vengeance. It's Fear and Loathing Campaign 2004, published in the latest issue of Rolling Stone. It's classic Hunter, the man doesn't miss a beat.

Did you see Bush on TV, trying to debate? Jesus, he talked like a donkey with no brains at all. The tide turned early, in Coral Gables, when Bush went belly up less than halfway through his first bout with Kerry, who hammered poor George into jelly. It was pitiful. . . . I almost felt sorry for him, until I heard someone call him "Mister President," and then I felt ashamed.

Karl Rove, the president's political wizard, felt even worse. There is angst in the heart of Texas today, and panic in the bowels of the White House. Rove has a nasty little problem, and its name is George Bush. The president failed miserably from the instant he got onstage with John Kerry. He looked weak and dumb. Kerry beat him like a gong in Coral Gables, then again in St. Louis and Tempe -- and that is Rove's problem: His candidate is a weak-minded frat boy who cracks under pressure in front of 60 million voters.

Bush signed his own death warrant in the opening round, when he finally had to speak without his TelePrompTer. It was a Cinderella story brought up to date in Florida that night -- except this time the false prince turned back into a frog.

Who did Hunter call for reaction after the first debate debacle? Muhammed Ali:

In an interview Monday in the Guardian, former President Jimmy Carter says that George Bush has exploited 9/11:

...our country suffered, in 9/11, a terrible and shocking attack ... and George Bush has been adroit at exploiting that attack, and he has elevated himself, in the consciousness of many Americans, to a heroic commander-in-chief, fighting a global threat against America," Carter says. "He's repeatedly played that card, and to some degree quite successfully. I think that success has dissipated. I don't know if it's dissipating fast enough to affect the election. We'll soon know."

"When your troops go to war, the prime minister or the president change overnight from an administrator, dealing with taxation and welfare and health and deteriorating roads, into the commander-in-chief," he says. "And it's just become almost unpatriotic to describe Bush's fallacious and ill-advised and mistaken and sometimes misleading actions. The press have been cowed, because they didn't want to be unpatriotic. There has been a lack of inquisitive journalism. In fact, it's hard to think of a major medium in the United States that has been objective and fair and balanced, and critical when criticism was deserved."

Carter moves on to Bush and nuclear weapons:

Bush's tendency to speak before he thinks surfaced again today.

In a television interview, Bush said it is "up in the air" whether the nation can ever be fully safe from another terror attack and suggested terrorists may still be contemplating ways to disrupt the election.

Later, realizing his gaffe, Bush reversed himself.

The president quickly backed away from the earlier remark, asserting that the war on terror could be won, even if not in a conventional sense, and that he "probably needed to be more articulate."

What will Team Rove think of next? Bush's latest ad, being broadcast in Spanish in Florida, casts John Kerry as an infidel -- charging that he supports Fidel Castro. The truth, as always, is quite different.

The spot whacks Kerry for voting against the 1996 Helms-Burton Act to beef up sanctions on Cuba, and charges he and the "liberals in Congress ... don't understand what a dictator is."

But Kerry spokesman Phil Singer said Kerry opposed one provision that would have led to frivolous lawsuits. The Bush administration has opposed the same provision. "So now they are taking issue with a provision that they want removed from the law," Singer said.

Cheney is taking a similar tack. Yesterday in Colorado, he accused Kerry of supporting totalitarian regimes.

Saying Kerry opposed weapons systems in the Cold War and voted against chasing Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, Cheney claimed the Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein would be stronger than ever if Kerry got his way.

Team Kerry response:

"The desert heat is making Dick Cheney come unglued," said Kerry spokesman David Wade. "Soon he'll be arguing that John Kerry lost the Battle of Gettysburg and sank the Lusitania."

The editorial endorsements for John Kerry keep rolling in. Several are from papers that endorsed Bush in 2000. Here are a few that stand out:

The Des Moines Register goes with Kerry in a state that is a must win battleground for Bush.

"Yes, Kerry is liberal. But what's to fear from a liberal president? That he would run big deficits? That he would increase federal spending? That he would expand the power of the federal government over individuals' lives? Nothing Kerry could do could top what President Bush has already done in those realms."

Another must read is the Orlando Sentinel which endorsed Bush in 2000. This is important because it is in the Tampa Bay/Orlando corridor which is critical to determining Florida's outcome:

by TChris

Apparently deciding not to interfere (again) with a state's election process, the Supreme Court declined to order Pennsylvania to place Ralph Nader's name on the November ballot.

Nader's request for a review went to Justice David H. Souter, who referred the matter to the full court. The justices on Saturday denied the appeal. Nader wanted the justices to put him on the ballot while they considered whether to hear an appeal of the Pennsylvania ruling.

Nader contended that Pennsylvania violated the First Amendment rights of people whose signatures on his nomination papers weren't counted because they weren't registered voters. Lack of voter registration, however, may not have been the only problem with the signatures.

On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld a lower court that had found the petition sheets were "rife with forgeries." The lower court determined that fewer than 19,000 of the more than 51,000 signatures submitted were valid; Nader needed at least 25,697 to be listed on the ballot.

Nader may still play a spoiler's role as his name will be on the ballot in at least 34 states and in the District of Columbia.