VIDEO: Barack Obama and John McCain Supporters In Last-Minute Campaigning On Long Island; How Presidential Politics Works on the Grassroots Level

Here are two mini-documentaries about the different presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and John McCain on Long Island, and how folks are working at the grass-roots level on their behalf. This appears on the Newsday.com website.

VIDEO: Call Me Lucky: Sarah Palin Wins the VP Gamble, and Maybe the Biggest One of All

Who needs all those CNN audience meters, rolling up and down with approval and discontent? We know what we saw here at this website, where we can spot true Americans and true blarney with hawk-eye clarity. So our result after the VP debate? Well, it wasn't exactly Kennedy-Nixon or Lincoln-Douglas.
Joe Biden was OK but looked a little sleepy, missing a few chances to punch and counterpunch. Without doubt, the true champ tonight was Sarah Palin, the Mauler from Wassila, who gritted her teeth and flashed a wink or two at the crowd while poking away. (No friendly winks for any of the mainstream media, though). She was remarkably effective against the Pride of Scranton or Wilmington or wherever Biden says he's from. There are lot of people betting she'd stumble and lost that heavy-favorite bet, at least tonight.
Palin may have taken a step or two towards the vice-presidency.
But the most remarkable news today is that Palin may be even closer to the presidency than we think.
According to some wise-aleck who looked up the Social Security actuarial tables, Palin would have a 1 out of 6 or 7 chance of becoming president if the Republican ticker prevails. (We won't spell out how that exactly might happen, but you get the picture). This was, of course, bad news to the sourpuss Mainstream Media. Roger Cohen, in the NY Times, underlined the McCain-Palin gamble in today's pages:

I know one thing: this is no time for further gambling. John McCain rolled the dice on Sarah Palin. I’m grateful to Bob Rice of Tangent Capital for pointing out that the actuarial risk, based on mortality tables, of Palin becoming president if the Republican ticket wins the election is about 1 in 6 or 7. That’s the same odds as your birthday falling on a Wednesday, or being delayed on two consecutive flights into Newark airport. Is America ready for that? The lesson of the last eight years is this: when power is a passport to gamble, people can end up seriously broke or seriously dead.

So McCain may be the gambler, but who can say they are more lucky than Sarah Palin?
No one thought Lyndon Johnson had a chance of becoming president, either.

Sarah Palin and Joe Biden Watch-out: Just Try Calling Your an Opponent an Elephant (or a Donkey) JFK-style.

In the Book of Debates, it is written that no candidate in their right mind should resort to name-calling. Those who violate this commandment are condemnded to purgatory in the public's mind and to the media's hell. Be like JFK, everyone advises, cool and in control, never resorting to name-calling.
Certainly Barack Obama and John McCain in this year's race, for all of the bile toward each other, have not resorted to any heavy doses of name-calling. But here's a little YouTube evidence that suggest Saint Jack wasn't quite all pure. Imagine, comparing Richard Nixon to an elephant!
As we head into the Vice-Presidential Debate (aka, The Super Bowl of Potential Gaffes), our head is swimming with the possibilities posed by Mooseburger and the Motor Mouth (Sarah Palin and Joe Biden).

For Obama, Is the Key to Success 'Be More than Irish than Harvard'? Will Poet's Inscription to JFK Hold a Key to This Year's Race?

This year, in places like Scranton Pennsylvania and other rust-belt locales, is the old inscription from poet Robert Frost to JFK at his 1960 inaugural still applicable: Be more Irish than Harvard?

Of course, readers of a certain biography, soon to be released as a Warner Bros. documentary, are very familiar with this phrase which held some of the key to Kennedy's success. But Catholic University professor Tim Meagher wonders in this essay if Obama's style on the stump might turn off Catholics who are pivotal in these swing states, pointing to Hillary Clinton's success with white Catholics over Obama during the primary season. That would very ironic given Obama's strong support from the Kennedy family during this election campaign.
But Meagher's essay really doesn't consider the changes in the institutional Church itself between JFK's time and now. Back in 1960, there was a lot obvious ethnic pride surrounding JFK's candidacy, becoming the first U.S. president from a minority background. The priests of this era of Pope John XXIII rallied to Kennedy's cause, at a time when priests and nuns were generally liberal on political matters and the church was a leader in the fight for racial equality. These days, church leaders tend to be more conservative and seem more concerned with Right-to-Life concerns than whether Catholics might not pull the ballot lever for Obama because of his race. McCain's appeal to white Catholics in places like Scranton might succeed in the same way as Hillary Clinton's --  benefitting indirectly from an underlying racism toward Obama dressed up as some cultural problem.
Obama's dilemma in overcoming long-held biases by some voters is much the same as was Kennedy's challenge as an Irish Catholic in 1960. But it seems unlikely many Catholics will see this historical connection and even more unlikely that parish priests in Scranton will address the immorality of voting against a candidate simply because of his race.

"Jack" McCain More Like JFK Than Obama? John McCain's GOPers Jump Into "Compare-Alot", Say Kennedys More Like Their War Hero Than Ted and Caroline's

Everyone wants to get into the JFK comparisons, even supporters of John McCain. In this NY Daily News essay, Bartle Bull -- whose pedigree describes him as a former publisher of The Village Voice and New York State chairman of Democrats for McCain -- makes the case that McCain's background of service in the military is more like President Kennedy than the current Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, supported by JFK's daughter Caroline and brother, Sen. Ted Kennedy. Since we've written much about the Camelot comparison -- what we call "Compare-Alot" -- we were a sucker for this one too.

Like Jack Kennedy, McCain is grounded by heroic service as a naval officer. His patriotism requires no parsing. Like JFK, McCain understands that you cannot conduct foreign policy without understanding history. No person of that background could suggest a unilateral strike on Pakistan, as Obama did last year, apparently forgetting that this United States ally has nuclear weapons. Calling Obama's threat to Pakistan "misguided" at the time, Sen. Joe Biden also said the freshman Illinois lawmaker was unprepared to lead America. Calling McCain "my hero," Biden has stated that he would be delighted to share a ticket with the Arizona senator, whom he has suddenly begun to denounce.

But Bull's analogy may have even more significance regarding RFK, suggests Mr. Bull. As he writes about a Robert Kennedy-McCain comparison:

When Robert Kennedy ran for President in 1968, Eugene McCarthy was the darling of our party's "limousine liberals," as Obama is their cocktail today. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote that Bobby became "the hate object in sections of the intellectual left, at least in New York." RFK turned to the blue-collar Democrats, some of whom are now shifting their support from Hillary Clinton to McCain. As Robert Kennedy's New York campaign manager, I recall his concern about young voters who believed they saw inspirational "hope" and "change" in McCarthy.

JFK, Lyndon Johnson, and Picking a Vice-President: Obama, McCain Won't Have Easy VP Choices, So Ask a Relative

Picking a VP candidate isn't easy, so maybe Sens. Obama and McCain should ask their relatives. As described in "The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings," when JFK picked Lyndon Johnson, his brother was upset but his father considered it a key to winning Texas and the presidency. The old man was right. And after the election, where did everyone meet to plan the next administration? As this video show, at Joe Kennedy estate in Palm Beach Florida!