* McCain tried hard to grab the spotlight, but he has clearly been upstaged by the showy running mate he selected in a distinctly panicky decision one week ago. In comparison to Palin, McCain was flat, his delivery mechanical, and his audience out-of-synch with his message.

* My 80-year-old mother-in-law's reaction to Palin's speech was that "she didn't have to be so nasty." This is in line with other anecdotal reactions I have been hearing, reacting negatively to Palin's sarcasm and divisiveness. (Focus groups in Michigan and Nevada showed similar reactions among independents and Hillary supporters.) Now polling data appears to confirm that Palin's mean-spirited speech energized McCain's base but did not sway independents or bring more women from across the political spectrum into the McCain camp. A ABC Poll taken yesterday, after Palin's speech, shows that Republicans love her (85% favorable), Independents are mixed (53% favorable, compared to 52% favorable as to Biden), and Democrats don't like her much at at all (24% favorable). In other words, a highly partisan reaction.

* So Palin did a good job of firing up McCain's conservative base, but how well did McCain do last night in reaching out to the middle and to Democrats? Aside from his limitations as an orator, he was challenged by internal contradictions to his message: he says he wants to put partisan pickering aside, but he has attacked his opponent viciously and relentlessly over the last three months; he claims to want to challenge Washington, but he has been a Washington insider for decades; and he calls himself an agent of change but his policies and voting record tie him inexorably to the current administration. I don't think last night's speech will prove to have made much progress toward its intended goal.

The government says the nation‘s unemployment rate zoomed to a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August as employers slashed 84,000 jobs.

The Labor Department‘s report, released Friday, shows the jobless rate jumped to 6.1 percent in August, from 5.7 percent in July. And, employers cut payrolls for the eighth month in a row. The figures are worse than economists were expecting; they were forecasting the jobless rate to rise to 5.8 percent and a loss of 75,000 jobs.

June and July were revised to show bigger declines. June's revision was particularly large, to a 100,000 loss in jobs from a prior estimate of just 51,000.

But this Labor Day, we are reminded why many Americans aren’t out there picnicking. Maybe it’s because their hours have been cut back as their company downsizes. Or maybe their pension was cut when the plant closed. Or worse yet, maybe they lost their job completely when it was shipped overseas as the city’s manufacturing plant closed because it simply couldn’t compete with companies in China.

If you are preparing your picnic, you probably realized how much of a hit your pocketbook took when you bought the hot dogs and buns, potato salad and baked beans. The cost of groceries is soaring. Maybe you had to give up on that dessert because the eggs and milk were too costly. ...

This Labor Day, we are reminded that our country is in an economic crisis. If you are not experiencing hard times, you surely know someone who is. Communities throughout Ohio are hurting. We cannot go on with communities losing more factories, more jobs, and more people. We must work together to bring business back to Ohio. We must make more jobs available.

Our government needs to take steps to improve labor protections. Too many working families are struggling and too many neighborhoods have become ghost towns. We must do better to protect American jobs because our workers are the backbone of our economy and the key to ensuring that our nation remains competitive in the global economy.

For many months, Republicans have been warning us against candidates with thin résumés introducing themselves on the national stage. Ignore Barack Obama's lofty language, they've said. He's just offering words. And definitely don't pay attention to the screaming crowds. They're only proof that he's an empty-suit celebrity.

Never mind. On Wednesday night, the Republican Party tried to catapult Sarah Palin past her rocky rollout and into legitimacy in a single speech wrapped in thunderous applause.

Plagiarism is theft.

As a professor who has taught writing and research methods for thirty years, I can assure you that the article “126th Anniversary of Labor Day Celebrates American Workers,†supposedly penned by Steve Austria, is a spectacular example of plagiarism. Turnitin.com shows it at 59%, but a line-by-line comparison shows that the entire piece is either copied or paraphrased from a Department of Labor document.

This intellectual theft exposed by blogger Jeff Coryell (ohiodailyblog.com) is so blatant that according to the rules endorsed by educational institutions around the world, were he a student he would not only flunk the assignment but probably go up for disciplinary action. In many universities, he would be expelled -- particularly if he tried to justify it as does his campaign manager; according to your article, the latter said that “a citation was inadvertently missed†and that there was “no intention to deceive anyone.†In fact, dozens of citations were “missed†as were quotation marks, and pretending that this column was on original piece written by Austria is the definition of deception.

My 11-year old son knows better. How can I impress upon my students and my children that stealing words is as serious as stealing property if our public figures do not respect one of the basic principles of modern education?

"A coalition pushing a ballot initiative that would have provided seven days of paid sick leave for certain Ohio workers said Thursday it will remove the issue from the fall ballot.

Service Employees International Union District 1199 President Becky Williams said the Coalition for Healthy Families will ask to have the proposal taken off the ballot.

Ms. Williams said the decision "was not easy nor made lightly," but was reached after "it became clear that a shrill and vitriolic ballot campaign marred by misinformation and disinformation would be impossible to avoid."

Palin's teleprompter text showed the word nuclear spelled phonetically: new-clear. That word will follow the GOPers forever.

The speech that Governor Palin gave was well delivered, but it was written by George Bush's speechwriter and sounds exactly like the same divisive, partisan attacks we've heard from George Bush for the last eight years. If Governor Palin and John McCain want to define 'change' as voting with George Bush 90% of the time, that's their choice, but we don't think the American people are ready to take a 10% chance on change," said Bill Burton, Obama Campaign Spokesman.

What an amazing night. Sarah Palin gets the opportunity to introduce herself to the country she wants to secede from and rather than show she's up to the challenge of being president, she and Rudy waste an hour tossing hate bombs and insults about Barack Obama. And the faithful loved it! The anger in their eyes. The screaming. It was all very nice. Like a lynch mob.

The highlight of the evening? The introduction of the newest code phrase for "uppity negro," Community Organizer! This is the hook to rural voters who don't understand Midnight Basketball, Block Clubs, and Community Development Organizations. They don't understand black churches. They don't understand why people march in the streets when the police aren't dispatched to their neighborhoods.

They want to make this hate vs. hope. Because, "if you're not with us, you're against us" worked so well with our allies, they figured it'll play really well back home. Ugh. Nothing like inciting a race war at a time when we need to be coming together.

"Anyone who knows Senator Reid knows he never backs down when he's fighting for what's right and that he always stands up to John McCain when he is wrong," Jim Manley, Reid's press secretary, told CNN. "Shrill and sarcastic political attacks may fire up the Republican base, but they don't change the fact that a McCain-Palin administration would mean four more years of failed bush-Cheney policies."

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth. [Kuhnhenn then lays out facts debunking Palin's claims that she has opposed earmarks and wasteful spending, that Obama hasn't passed legislation, and that Obama plans to raise taxes on the American people.]

The mockery went too far. They played the “Obama doesn’t love America, just himself†card, over and over and over. For people already inclined to believe that (i.e., the hardcore Republican base), the speech was a smashing success. Maybe they will work a little harder, volunteer a few more hours, dig a little deeper into their pockets. But so will partisan Dems, who are far more plugged into watching the election coverage.

So my reaction: St. Paul loved this speech… and so did Chicago. Palin swung for the fences, mocking the very notion of community organizing. So did Giuliani. This was the day after “Service†was the theme, and Republicans fell all over themselves praising their party’s commitment to give back to the community. Jarring.

Where's Ken Blackwell?

The 2006 Republican gubernatorial candidate and former secretary of state is not with the Ohio Republican delegation in any capacity, according to the party's communications director, John McClelland.

When asked if Blackwell was invited to join his own state party's delegation, McClelland said he didn't know.

"I have nothing to do with Ken Blackwell," McClelland said.

"If you elect John McCain, you're going to get exactly what you got with Bush, and maybe not as stable mentally," Strickland said. "Look what he's done with his VP pick."

Strickland said he was wary of McCain's veep choice of Sarah Palin, who served as mayor of Wasilla, a small town in Alaska, and only has served as governor for less than two years. Strickland said he also was concerned about Palin's ties with the Alaskan Independence Party, for whom she once gave a speech.

"The Independence Party wants to hold a vote to see if citizens in Alaska want to secede from the Unite States," Strickland said. "It's an insult to the American people he would make a choice like that."

Strickland also said he wanted to open a dialogue with voters to openly discuss certain elements about Obama that make people uncomfortable. Strickland said the giant "elephant in the room" was Obama's race, and Internet rumors meant to soil his reputation.

"There are good people who won't vote for Obama because he's a black man," Strickland said. "I don't want people to vote against their own interests because of an unwillingness to vote for a black man."

The governor said he believed Obama could win Ohio, but it would be close, and talking with people in Southern Ohio openly about race would be important for Obama's success.

"I'm from here, we grew up playing with and working with only white people," Strickland said. "There was only one black person in my graduation class. We need to talk about it."

Strickland urged those in attendance to go to their churches, families and workplaces and start to talk openly about race and stand up against the Obama rumors that allude to him being a non-Christian or growing up in a jihad school.

"We need to stand up for him and speak out," Strickland said. "Ask people how they would feel if someone got on the Internet and spread lies about you."

Chuck Todd: Mike Murphy, lots of free advice, we'll see if Steve Schmidt and the boys were watching. We'll find out on your blackberry. Tonight voters will get their chance to hear from Sarah Palin and she will get the chance to show voters she's the right woman for the job Up next, one man who's already convinced and he'll us why Gov. Jon Huntsman.

(cut away)

Peggy Noonan: Yeah.

Mike Murphy: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys -- this is how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it's not gonna work. And --

PN: It's over.

MM: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

CT: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.

PN: Saw Kay this morning.

CT: Yeah, she's never looked comfortable about this --

MM: They're all bummed out.

CT: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

PN: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this -- excuse me-- political bullshit about narratives --

CT: Yeah they went to a narrative.

MM: I totally agree.

PN: Every time the Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it.

MM: You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.

CT: This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.

MM: Yeah.

Ohio:
47% Obama
45% McCain

Iowa:
55% Obama
40% McCain

Minnesota:
53% Obama
41% McCain

There was a flutter of attention when McCain campaign manager Rick Davis told a group of Post reporters and editors yesterday that his team was having to rework the vice presidential acceptance speech because the original draft, prepared before Gov. Sarah Palin was chosen, was too "masculine." While we all wondered to ourselves what might make a speech masculine or feminine, no one batted an eye at the underlying revelation: that the campaign was writing the nominee's speech before knowing who the nominee would be.

So when you watch Sarah Palin tonight, expect to learn something about how well she handles a Teleprompter. Expect to learn something about the McCain campaign's assessment of its political standing with women, or working families, or social conservatives. Whether you're learning what Sarah Palin really thinks or feels is anybody's guess.

The founder of the Alaska Independence Party -- a group that has been courted over the years by Sarah Palin, and one her husband was a member of for roughly seven years -- once professed his "hatred for the American government" and cursed the American flag as a "damn flag."

The AIP founder, Joe Vogler, made the comments in 1991, in an interview that's now housed at the Oral History Program in the Rasmuson Library at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

"The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government," Vogler said in the interview, in which he talked extensively about his desire for Alaskan secession, the key goal of the AIP.

"And I won't be buried under their damn flag," Vogler continued in the interview, which also touched on his disappointment with the American judicial system. "I'll be buried in Dawson. And when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home."

Palin has courted the group over the years.

Three years after the controversial interview, in 1994, Palin attended the group's annual convention, according to witnesses who spoke to ABC News' Jake Tapper. The McCain campaign is disputing her presence there, but Tapper found two people to attest to it.

The McCain campaign today produced Palin's voting registration records, and said they proved she was never a member of the party.

But she has repeatedly reached out to the group. The McCain campaign has confirmed she visited the group's 2000 convention, and she addressed its convention this year, as an incumbent governor whose oath of office includes upholding the Constitution of the United States.

Palin's husband, Todd Palin, was a member of the party from 1995-2002 with a brief exception in 2000.

Today, the nature of the Labor Day celebration has undergone change. Labor Day is now celebrated with picnics, barbeques, firework displays, water activities and public art events, local community parades and families with school-age children who take advantage of Labor Day as the last chance to travel prior to the end of summer. In addition, one of the largest modern traditions of Labor Day in United States is the annual telethon of the Muscular Dystrophy Association, hosted by Jerry Lewis to fund research and patient support programs for the various diseases grouped as muscular dystrophy. Each year, this telethon raises tens of millions of dollars.

Nor, unfortunately, has [Austria] impressed many observers as a future major force in Congress. He has no compelling record.

He's no Dave Hobson or Mike Turner. He doesn't have Rep. Hobson's tough independence of mind and political incisiveness. He doesn't have Rep. Turner's record of building a political career from scratch in a hotbed of the opposing political party.

A Congressman Austria is not likely to crash and burn in Washington, any more than he did in Columbus. In fact, what he's most likely to do is settle into a long, long career of keeping people back home happy, while remaining on the congressional back benches.

From the current Wikipedia entry 'Labor Day':

Today, Labor Day is often regarded as a day of rest and parades. Speeches or political demonstrations are more low-key than May 1 Labour Day celebrations in most countries, although events held by labor organizations often feature political themes and appearances by candidates for office, especially in election years. Forms of celebration include picnics, barbecues, fireworks displays, water sports, and public art events. Families with school-age children take it as the last chance to travel before the end of summer.

Up until Aug 21, 2008 the Wikipedia entry also included:

Labor Day traditions
Since 1966, the annual telethon of the Muscular Dystrophy Association has been held on Labor Day weekend. The telethon, hosted by Jerry Lewis, raises tens of millions of dollars each year to fund research and patient support programs for the various diseases grouped as muscular dystrophy.

* McCain's selection of a hard-right Christian conservative is potentially radioactive to the Jewish voters he had hoped to attract, especially when they learn that Palin was present two weeks ago when her church hosted David Brickner, the founder of Jews for Jesus. Palin's minister said the proselytizing organization "is on the leading edge in a pressing, demanding area of witnessing and evangelism," and Brickner described terrorist attacks on Israelis as God's "judgment of unbelief" of Jews who haven't embraced Christianity. H/t Dave at Progress Ohio. Palin herself has described U.S. soldiers in Iraq as "on a task from God," and her minister describes the conflict as a "religious war" for Christianity.

* RNC Chair and former Ohio House Speaker Jo Ann Davidson inadvertently confirmed the relative obscurity of Palin by calling her "Sarah Pawlenty."

* As noted by Paul on this blog last night, Palin failed to disclose her interest in an Anchorage car wash on her financial disclosure forms, and the business venture was an ignomious failure ultimately shut down by the state.

* In addition to Palin's hostility to teaching real science in school (i.e., her support for teaching creationism and abstinence-only sex education and her belief that human activity does not contribute to global warming), we learn that her plan for education in Alaska professes support for schools that teach "patriotism" and says that since "employers know what is needed for the workplace" they can "provide curriculum and expectations for students."

* Marie Wilson, founder of the White House Project, has a thoughtful piece called "Hostage to Abortion Politics" in which she explains that McCain's selection of Palin "reveals a deep distrust in women to make their own decisions about their bodies, and selecting this particular woman largely based on her stance on one issue is the latest insult not just to Governor Palin, but to women as a whole—and to our democracy."

* McCain's claim that Palin's vetting was lengthy and thorough is debunked today by the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. In the latter piece, Dan Balz reveals that Palin wasn't interviewed by McCain's vetting team until the day before McCain announced his pick.

* Palin used her gubernatorial line item veto to slash funding for teenage moms.

* Time reports that Mayor Palin tried to ban books from the library.

* Introduced by McCain as a reformer opposed to earmarks, Palin sought earmarks both as mayor and as governor (31 earmarks worth $197.8 million in next year's federal budget), and she supported the "Bridge to Nowhere" as a gubernatorial candidate in 2006.

* Palin is alleged to have foreign policy experience by virtue of being titular commander of the Alaska National Guard, but its real commander -- adjutant general Maj. Gen. Craig Campbell -- says that neither he nor Gov. Palin play any "role in national defense activities, even when they involve the Alaska National Guard. The entire operation is under federal control, and the governor is not briefed on situations."

* McCain canceled an appearance on Larry King Live last night as a result of Campbell Brown's tough questioning of McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds about Palin's qualifications, and Palin is avoiding the press altogether.

[Crites called the lawsuits] a waste of taxpayer resources because they’re based on flawed legal theory. If elected, Crites said he would file to have the cases dismissed. ...

... [T]here is a state law in place designed specifically to address underperforming charter schools. The law requires charter schools to close if they are in academic emergency either for four years or for three years with no improvement in reading or math for two of those three years. The Ohio Department of Education last month ordered two charter schools to close due to academic failure.

“Using the legal theory put forth in these lawsuits, the American Cancer Society might be sued for failing to find a cure for cancer; food banks could be shuttered for failing to eradicate hunger,†Crites said. “The notion is preposterous. With a state law in place to deal with failing charter schools, further pursuit of these lawsuits is a waste of taxpayer dollars.â€

In addition to being a mayor and raising four children, Sarah Palin found time for another venture in her Wasilla years -- she was part-owner of an Anchorage car wash.

Palin and husband Todd each held a 20 percent stake in Anchorage Car Wash LLC, according to state corporation records filed in 2004.

The car wash venture was not entirely smooth sailing. State records show the business ran into trouble with Alaska's division of corporations business and professional licensing after Palin became governor of the state in 2006.

A Feb. 11, 2007 letter to the governor's business partner advises that the car wash had "not filed its biennial report and/or paid its biennial fees," which were more than a year overdue.

The warning letter was written on state letterhead, which carried Palin's name at the top, next to the state seal.

On April 3, 2007, the state went further and issued a "certificate of involuntary dissolution" because of the car wash's failure to file its report and pay state licensing fees.