by John McCormick

NASHVILLE -- After his debate appearance Tuesday evening, Sen. Barack Obama made a quick fundraising stop at a home of one of the nation's most popular Democrats, Al Gore.

The stop was at Al and Tipper Gore's home in the exclusive Belle Meade section of Nashville.

It was billed as a surprise, according to a pool report of the event, although local media had reported it was likely.

Gore said the 300-350 people at the post-debate dessert reception contributed more than $900,000. According to the campaign, tickets were $2,500, a joint venture of Obama for American and the Democratic National Committee.

"First of all, we had a great night tonight," Gore said. "I am so excited about what is lying ahead for our country. We can't take anything for granted, we've got a lot of hard work to do, but ladies and gentlemen, I take such pleasure and pride in saying these words: the next president of the United States of America, Barack Obama.''

Obama spoke less than five minutes, and did not mention the debate.

"The main thing I wanted to do is acknowledge the extraordinary legacy and the ongoing work of Al and Tipper Gore," Obama said. "They have been an inspiration to Michelle and myself.''

Obama apologized upon arriving that they would not be staying long, partly because of Michelle, who he called "the hardest-working person in show business," had a busy schedule with media appearances and other events.

by Frank James

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by Mark Silva

For the record, the federal budget defict reached a new record in the 2008 budget year, which ended last week: $438 billion.

For the new year, the president's Office of Management and Budget already has projected another new record of more than $480 billion. And that projection is likely to be shelved soon, in the midst of a $700-billion bailout of the financial system authorized by Congress.

But for the year past, the government has surpassed its past record of $422 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The reason: Spending. The war and more.

The estimated 2008 budget deficit of $438 billion well surpasses the deficit of $276 billion last year. It had been declining after reaching its peak of $422 billion under President Bush.

"Relative to the size of the economy, that deficit was equal to 3.1 percent of Gross Domestic Product, up from 1.2 percent in 2007, CBO Director Peter Orszag reports.

(The average deficit over the preceding five years, 2002-2006, was 2.6 percent of GDP.)

The big expenses that helped drive the deficit highher: $62 billion in tax rebates (from the economic stimulus legislation) that were recorded as offsets to revenues. In contrast, receipts of social insurance (payroll) taxes rose by about $31 billion (or 3.5 percent), and other receipts increased by about $9 billion (or 5.4 percent).

"Spending rose by about 8 percent,'' Orszag notes. "Contributing significantly to the growth in spending were outlays for tax rebates (those rebates that were recorded on the spending side of the budget because they exceeded the recipients' income tax liability), for deposit insurance, and for national defense.

Also for the record, Bush promised to cut the budget deficit in half by the end of his final term. Bush also inherited a budget surplus from President Clinton, but is preparing to hand his successor a runaway new record in the deficit.

Code Pink protesters give former AIG CEO Martin Sullivan piece of their mind. (Photo by Alex Wong, Getty Images.)

by Frank James

Yesterday it was Lehman Brothers, the bankrupt investment bank, that got the congressional autopsy treatment. Today it was AIG, the insurance giant saved from Lehman's fate by the kindness of strangers, that is, taxpayers who ponied up $85 billion to bail them out long enough so the company can be disbanded in an orderly way.

It was also a chance for Congress to rake a couple of AIG executives-- Martin Sullivan and Robert Willumstad--over the coals which they did, though it wasn't the most brutal coal-raking ever witnessed on Capitol Hill.

Congressional outrage settled on a few choice areas:

One, huge pay packages received by senior AIG executives even though it was clear the company's earnings would take a hit because of bad financial-market bets made by some of its executives.

Two, the overly optimistic reports some of those same executives made to the public and investors at a time when the company's financial situation was deteriorating.

Three, the failure of top managers to accept blame for the company being put in such perilous financial straits. Listening to them, it was all the fault of the accountants who made them mark down the value of investments few people wanted to buy who caused AIG's woes.

Four, an executive in AIG's London office who was fired for making many of the bad financial bets that eventually swamped the company's finances but who was given a $1 million a month consulting contract with the company and

Five, the $500,000 or so AIG spent on a week-long retreat orchestrated by one of its subsidiaries for executives. It occurred a week after the federal government's bailout of the company. Even the former AIG execs had to admit the retreat held at a very pricey resort was probably a bad idea.

by Mark Silva

On that question of who's "ready to lead'' - as John McCain maintains he is and insists that Barack Obama is not - the answer, for many voters, may lie more with vision than with experience.

By a margin of 56-41 percent, more likely voters say McCain would do a better job as president of handling the problem of terrorism, a new poll today shows.

But, by a margin of 53-42 percent, more say Obama would do a better job of handling the economy. It tips even further among registered voters: 57-37 percent. And on the question of handling the current financial crisis - it's Obama 53 percent, McCain 36 percent, among registered voters.

And the economy is what's largely on peoples' minds tonight, as the candidates for president debate each other in a nationally televised "town-hall'' styled meeting in Nashville.

Voters are fairly evenly divided in this survey conducted by CNN and Opinion Research Corp. over which candidate would do a better job of handling the war in Iraq - McCain 51, Obama 48. And most say they oppose the war, by a margin of 65 to 34 percent.

They're also divided on the question of who might display better judgment in an international crisis: 50 percent of likely voters say McCain, 47 percent Obama.

But there's no question on the question of health care: 60 percent Obama, 35 percent McCain.

On the question of which candidate has "the right experience'' for the job, 55 percent of those likely voters surveyed said McCain and just 35 percent said Obama.

Yet on the question of which has a "clear plan for solving the country's problems,'' it's Obama 45, McCain 34. And, asked which candidate "cares about people like you,'' it's Obama 52 percent, McCain 36 percent.

Experience versus problem solving. The home front versus the world stage. All of this will figure into a vote less than one month away, and a debate four hours from now.

by Frank James

How bad has the damage to the retirement savings of Americans been due to the financial markets meltdown and the slowing economy? Peter Orszag, head of the Congressional Budget Office told a congressional committee today that retirement funds are an estimated $2 trillion lighter than they were 15 months ago.

Here's an excerpt from the Associated Press report:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans' retirement plans have lost as much as $2 trillion in the past 15 months, Congress' top budget analyst estimated Tuesday.

The upheaval that has engulfed the financial industry and sent the stock market plummeting is devastating workers' savings, forcing people to hold off on major purchases and consider delaying their retirement, said Peter Orszag, the head of the Congressional Budget Office.

As Congress investigates the causes and effects of the financial meltdown, the House Education and Labor Committee was hearing from retirement savings and budget analysts on how the housing, credit and other financial troubles have battered pensions and other retirement funds, which are among the most common forms of savings in the United States...

... Public and private pension funds and employees' private retirement savings accounts -- like 401(k)'s -- have lost some 20 percent overall since mid-2007, he estimated. Private retirement plans may have suffered slightly more because those holdings are more heavily skewed toward stocks, Orszag added.

by John McCormick

NASHVILLE - The media teams for Barack Obama and John McCain will be on cable television all afternoon and evening trying to set expectations for tonight's second presidential debate and then later spin the outcome.

The early view from the Obama camp was shared by David Axelrod, the campaign's top strategist, on a campaign charter flight here this afternoon.

"This is his preferred format," Axelrod started, referring to the town-hall style that has long been a favorite of the Republican nominee for campaign events.

"He wanted to do all these debates in a town hall format and we understand that," Axelrod said. "He's also signaled to his supporters that he's going to be very aggressive in this debate. He's going to take the gloves off and so on. I hope in the course of that he's also has time to speak to the state of our economy, which is in deep trouble right now...We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the issues that are important to the American people, but we're prepared for a very aggressive debate."

The top Obama spinner also tweaked the McCain campaign for its advertising, an Axelrod specialty.

"We're the campaign that is actually running positive ads," Axelrod said. "The McCain campaign doesn't even pretend to make a case for John McCain anymore. They're running all negative ads."

Axelrod said McCain is "desperately throwing lefts and rights, hoping to score a knockout because he thinks he's behind in the game."

But he said Obama and his campaign are not becoming overly confident because they are doing well in state and national polls.

"Obviously, we like the position that we're in, but we understand that we have to battle everyday," Axelrod said. "This is going to be a very, very pitched battle...If I took the polls to heart, I would have jumped off a tall building about a year ago when we were 30 points behind for the nomination."

And remember to buckle up your seat belt.

"It's going to be an active month and we're prepared for that," he said. "We're ready to deal with whatever comes."

by Mark Silva

With so many people today suggesting that John McCain needs a "game-changer'' in his debate with Barack Obama tonight, the Democratic Party is happy to hold the GOP's presidential nominee to that standard.

After all, the DNC suggests, the "town-hall'' styled format of tonight's debate at 9 pm EDT in Nashville is signature McCain -- the sort of format in which he has campaigned for many years. McCain called out Obama for more of these sort of town-hall encounters earlier in the campaign.

In other words, it's McCain's comfort zone, his home-field advantage.

To make the point, the party has assembled all the pundit-babble about what a great venue this is for McCain, how tonight's stage is perfectly suited to the Republican (see the mindless repetition of the theme in the video clips pasted together above).

In other words, as the DNC puts it, "Since McCain is the undisputed champion of the town hall, anything less than a game-changing performance tonight would be major disappointment.''

They are happy, in other words, to set the bar of expectations for tonight isomewhere at about the altitude of the Moon, so that anything else launches a dud.

by Mark Silva

The "gender gap'' in support for Barack Obama and John McCain is particularly pronounced in some of the "battleground'' states where the Democrat and Republican are vying for the presidency.

And the apparent initial impact that Sarah Palin -- the first female Republican nominee for vice president - had on support for McCain among women is "settling out'' now, according to a scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. "It seems the effect of Sarah Palin is not one that seems to be long-lasting,'' the center's Susan Carroll said today.

In Florida, for instance, a state which few Democrats - and only Southern Democrats - have carried since the 1960s, Obama's apparent advantage over McCain is buoyed by women - women sided with Obama over McCain there by a 12-point margin in a recent Quinnipiac University poll, Obama 57 percent, McCain 42 among women surveyed.

Obama also held a nine-point edge over McCain among women in Pennsylvania and seven-point edge among women in Ohio in recent Quinnipiac surveys in those states. And a new network television poll today is showing an 11 percentage point gender gap favoring Obama in Ohio.

"A review of recent polls in 14 states where the contest is expected to be very close finds gender gaps in every state,'' the Center reports. "In each case, women voters support the Democratic ticket more strongly than men do. Even where voters overall are equally split or favor the Republican ticket, a majority of women voters favors the Democrats.''

Nationally, that gap has appeared somewhat smaller - 49-45 for Obama among women in a CBS News-New York Times poll taken before the debate between Palin and Obama running mate Joe Biden. It was 56-47 for Obama among women in an ABC News-Washington Post poll a few days before that.

Yet that tends to correspondent with the gender gap between the parties in past elections, the center notes - "Despite all the talk of disaffected Hillary Clinton voters and the fact that Sarah Palin might pull some women voters from the Republican ticket to the Democratic ticket,'' notes Caroll, a senior scholar at the center, part of the Eagleton Institute for Politics at Rutgers.

She predicted today that the "gender gap'' will fall in Obama's favor somewhere between four and 11 percentage points on Election Day .

by John McCormick

NASHVILLE - Running for president is a tough business. Sometimes you don't even get to watch your favorite team lose in the playoffs.

The nation's highest-profile Chicago White Sox fan -- Sen. Barack Obama -- was apparently too busy to watch his team get knocked out last night.

"The senator was actually working during the game, but was dismayed to hear the news," David Axelrod, Obama's top adviser, said on a flight here from Asheville, N.C., where Obama has been in debate preparations since Saturday evening.

Did he see any of the playoff games?

"He saw very little," said Axelrod, who is more of a Cubs fan than a Sox fan. "You know, running for president is a demanding thing, man. You gotta make sacrifices.''

by John McCormick, updated

NASHVILLE -- Barack Obama has since condemned the Vietnam war-protest tactics of William Ayers, though a top adviser said today Obama didn't know of his past when Ayers hosted a campaign reception for Obama in 1995.

So when did Obama learn that Ayers, now an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was a founding member of the militant Weather Underground in the 1960s?

"It was sometime after their first meetings, you know, he became aware of that,'' David Axelrod, Obama's chief campaign strategist, said on board the Obama campaign plane on a flight from Asheville, N.C., to here for tonight's debate. "I don't know the exact moment."

Obama just was not familiar with the name when he first met him?

"Yeah,'' Axelrod said. "I mean the fact is, like a lot of people who, you know, didn't live through that era, particularly who didn't live through that era in Chicago, it just wasn't, I mean, when he came to Chicago, Ayers was advising Mayor Daley on school reform issues and that was his profile was that he was an expert on education issues."

Did Obama know of Ayers' history before or after the event, a small reception for Obama's state Senate campaign in 1995 at Ayers' home?

"My understanding was that he, when he went there, he did not know, so I would say after,'' Axelrod said -- confirming that he has asked Obama about this. "Yes, yeah."

"No one is suggesting that he never knew,'' Axelrod notes of Obama, who has since repudiated Ayers' protest tactics. "I mean that's not, we weren't offering that."

Does Obama expect to speak about Ayers at the debate tonight, in light of all the criticism that Republican running mate Sarah Palin has voiced for the relationship on the campaign trail over the past four days?

"The senator is going to be prepared to speak about whatever comes up,'' Axelrod said. "If Sen. McCain or anyone else chooses to bring that up...If that comes up, he'll be ready to discuss that, but one hopes that the focus of this debate will be the issues that touch on the lives of the American people."

by James Oliphant

In a stinging rebuke to the Bush administration, a federal judge Tuesday ordered the Pentagon to immediately release a small group of Chinese Muslims from Guantanamo Bay into the United States.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina said in a landmark ruling that it would be wrong for the Bush administration to continue holding the 17 detainees, known as Uighurs, since they are no longer considered enemy combatants.

The Uighurs have been in custody for almost seven years and have been cleared for release since 2004, but the government has not been able to find a country willing to take them in. Bush administration lawyers argued Tuesday that Urbina did not have the authority to order the Uighurs released into the United States.

Urbina called the detention unlawful saying the Constitution prohibits indefinite imprisonment without charges. The detainees are to be placed into custody of a small, immigrant community of Uighurs in the Washington, D.C. area.

The detainees at issue are Muslims from western China, picked up in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks on suspicion of having ties to the Taliban. Some Uighurs (pronounced WE-goors) are part of a movement that seeks separation from China to form their own Islamic nation.

by Frank James

The second presidential debate between Senators Barack Obama and John McCain comes at a time in the race when the Democratic presidential nominee has taken a significant lead in national polls though it's still in the single digits.

As the two men meet in Nashville at Belmont University tonight, their backdrop is a nation of rising economic worries, with companies shedding jobs, rising housing foreclosures, tight credit markets and declining values on Wall Street .

Thus, the economy will likely be the debate's main focus though not exclusively.

The debate, which starts at 9 pm ET, will be take the form of a town-hall meeting. This is McCain's favorite format so that would argue for him having a lot of confidence tonight. But Obama has done town-hall meetings too, so the format shouldn't necessarily give the Republican nominee that big an advantage.

So what are five things Obama and McCain need to do tonight besides avoiding any obvious gaffes?

-- Obama will help himself hugely if he connects with the voters in the room and the greater television audience beyond. He's no Bill Clinton, he's not warm and folksy by nature. But if he can make a connection tonight, that could help him win over some undecided voters. Look for him to approach members of the audience tonight as he answers their questions in an attempt to show he feels their pain. As he tries to make that connection, however, Obama can't shift too much. By most polls, he won the first debate. Clearly what he's doing is working. So he doesn't need to make any major changes since one of his strengths is his calm and collected demeanor. In 2000, Al Gore made the respect of markedly changing his approach from one debate to the next, which turned a lot of voters off.

-- Both candidates have to present a credible approach for reviving the financial markets and the overall economy that goes beyond the recently passed $700 billion bailout legislation. In the last debate, they allowed it to become a competition over their respective campaigns' economic talking points which got lost in the weeds. Without getting too granular, they need to tick off a few major points about what they would do. But most importantly, they need to project confidence and courage about the economy. McCain particularly has to do more to convince voters that he's got real answers for the current economic plight since as economic concerns have risen, his polling numbers have fallen.

by Mark Silva

The McCain campaign has denounced a racially charged, anti-Barack Obama newspaper column written by one of the Republican campaign's organizers in Virginia, and has removed the author-activist from his post as a member of the candidate's statewide leadership team, our colleague at the Top of the Ticket reports.

"The column by Bobby May appeared in a southwestern Virginia newspaper, The Voice, and drew attention after it was cited in a Sunday Los Angeles Times report about how voters in that mostly white region were reacting to potentially electing the country's first black president,'' the Times' Peter Wallsten writes.

"May, who in July was named his county's Republican representative on the McCain statewide campaign team, offered a spoof of Obama's platfrom and plans in his recent column,'' Wallsten reports.

"Examples: Obama would hire the rapper Ludacris (a prominent supporter) to paint the White House black. And the Democrat's administration would divert more foreign aid to Africa so "the Obama family there can skim enough to allow them to free their goats and live the American Dream."

"May also joked that Obama would replace the 50 stars on the U.S. flag "with a star and crescent logo," an Islamic symbol, and that his policy on drugs would be to "raise taxes to pay for Obama's inner-city political base."

McCain campaign spokeswoman Gail Gitcho, issuing a written statement announcing that the campaign is dropping May from its team, called his attempts at humor "are offensive'' and "insulting. They "have no place in political discourse,'' the spokeswoman said. "Mr. May's comments in no way reflect the views or opinions held by John McCain or his campaign. The McCain campaign wholeheartedly disavows Mr. May's column."

The campaign first learned of May's column from the author himself after he had been contacted by The Times. "The moment the campaign learned of Mr. May's comments, we immediately removed him from his campaign position," Gitcho said. "Mr. May is no longer a part of our campaign organization."

By Andrew Zajac

Is there any doubt that Sarah Palin is the transcendent pop cultural figure of the moment?

Think about her portfolio: Alaska governor, Republican vice-presidential candidate, homemaker, hockey mom, moose butcher, and muse to Tina Fey AND Larry Flynt.

Yes, him. Flynt, the bottomfeeding pornographer and self-styled crusader against government hypocrisy, was last scene in political precincts in 1998 during the Monica Lewinsky scandal offerng $1 million for the goods on sexually straying members of Congress. Louisiana Republican Rep. Bob Livington resigned just as he was poised to succeed Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House after Flynt dug up dirt about an alleged extramarital affair.

Now, Flynt has a film in the works 'inspired' by Palin, titled Nailin' Paylin.

by Mark Silva

Sarah Palin, waging the Republican Party's presidential campaign in a state that she and John McCain count on for victory, kept up an assault today on Democratic rival Barack Obama's association with William Ayers, a Chicago education professor and onetime radical war protester in the Sixties.

Palin also accused Obama of campaigning with "a left-wing agenda packaged and prettied up to look mainstream.'' And, Palin accused Obama of lying - or, as she put it today, a lack of "truthfulness.''

"One of Barack Obama's supporters is Bill Ayers, an unrepentant domestic terrorist,'' Palin said at a campaign rally this morning in Florida, home to 27 electoral votes, where the polls portray an election contest far more competitive than Republicans thought it would be.

"Now, our opponent's campaign is claiming for the first time that Barack Obama wasn't aware of Ayers' radical background,'' said Palin - though Obama has denounced Ayers for his militant Weather Underground activities in the 1960s.

Obama also has served in recent years on civic boards with Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and got camapign help from Ayers in 1995, with a small reception for the then-state legislative candidate in the professor's home.

Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod said this week that Obama "didn't know the history" of Ayers' radical past when he first went to his home in '95, but Obama has since denounced the protest bombings of Ayers' "Weathermen'' as "detestable.'' Obama also was eight at the time of those Sixties protests.

"You mean he didn't know that he had launched his own political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist?'' Palin asked her crowd today.

Obama also has denounced the Ayers-attack line, which Palin started Saturday on the West Coast and has repeated for four days now, as a "smear'' tactic by a desperate campaign. And in Florida, the two campaigns are struggling for an electoral prize that has eluded most Democrats for several decades.

"This election is about the truthfulness and judgment needed in our next president,'' Palin insisted. "John McCain has it and Barack Obama doesn't.

"Tonight the nation gets another look at the contrast,'' she said of the second presidential debate tonight in Nashville. "Tonight it's town-hall live from Nashville...

by Mark Jacob

Q. Why did Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin accuse Barack Obama of "palling around with terrorists"?

A. She was referring to Obama's association with 1960s radical Bill Ayers, now an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Q. How are Ayers and Obama associated?

A. They both live in the Hyde Park area on the South Side, and Obama visited Ayers' home for a meeting at the start of his first state Senate bid in 1995. They were active in the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an education reform group, and attended meetings together from the mid-1990s to 2001.

Q. Is Obama "pals" with Ayers?

A. In February, Obama strategist David Axelrod told the Politico Web site that Obama and Ayers are "certainly friendly." More recently, campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt told The New York Times that the two have not spoken by phone or exchanged e-mails since Obama joined the Senate in 2005. Their last encounter, LaBolt said, was more than a year ago when they ran into each other on the street in Hyde Park. In a CNN interview aired Monday, Axelrod said that when Obama went to Ayers' home in 1995, "he didn't know the history" of Ayers' radical past.

Q. Was Ayers a terrorist?

A. He was a founding member of the Weather Underground, a radical group opposed to the Vietnam War. In his 2001 memoir, "Fugitive Days," he wrote that he helped bomb official sites, including the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon. In bombings claimed by the group, no one was killed or injured. But some investigators have suspected the group in an unclaimed 1970 explosion that killed a San Francisco police sergeant. No one was ever charged in that case. Years later, while Ayers was no longer in hiding, fellow members of the group were linked to a Brink's robbery in which two police officers and a guard were shot to death.

Q. Was Ayers ever tried for his activities?

A. No. Federal charges had been dropped after FBI surveillance techniques were ruled unconstitutional.

Q. Has Ayers voiced regret for the bombings?

A. No. "We weren't terrorists," Ayers told the Tribune in 2001. "The reason we weren't terrorists is because we did not commit random acts of terror against people. Terrorism was what was being practiced in the countryside of Vietnam" by the U.S.

Q. What does Obama say about Ayers' past?

A. He has denounced Ayers' "detestable acts." Obama also notes that he was 8 years old at the time.

by Frank James

Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke, one of the world's foremost experts on the Great Depression, has obviously learned much from history and is determined not to repeat it.

One reason the Great Depression became so durable according to experts was that central bankers at the time responded by doing exactly the wrong thing, they tightened access to money.

So Bernanke's Fed has repeatedly pumped vast sums of money into the financial markets in order to lubricate the gears that have essentially ground to a halt due to fear and a lack of trust between financial institutions.

Bernanke's latest move is extraordinary. The Fed has announced that it will be purchasing the short-term loans known as commercial paper, a market that has gotten clobbered by the credit crisis.

Commercial paper is issued by companies to raise money to fund operations, expansions, you name it. They are essentially IOUs.

But the commercial paper market has been drying up in part because the money-market funds that once avidly bought them have been spooked by current conditions and are holding on to their cash.

Ninety percent of the commercial paper is issued by financial institutions. So buy going into the market to buy up commercial paper, the Fed is hoping to kick start banks into lending to each other again since their reluctance to do so has been a major contributor to the current credit freeze.

by Mark Silva

Polls conducted in several states that President Bush carried in 2004 show Republican presidential nominee John McCain "struggling'' with his Democratic rival, according to a report this morning from Time magazine, CNN and Opinion Research Corp, which conducted the surveys.

McCain holds a five-point advantage over Democrat Barack Obama in Indiana among likely voters, 51-46 percent, but is tied 48-48 among registered voters., in a two-way matchup. Add Libertartian Bob Barr to the lineup and McCain's advantage among likely voters shrinks to 48-46, in a poll with a possible margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points in the likely-voter match.

In New Hampshire, it's Obama 53, McCain 45 among likely voters and Obama 52-44 among registered voters. Add Libertarian Barr and it's Obama 51, McCain 43.

In North Carolina: a dead heat, 49-49 among likely voters, Obama 50, McCain 49 among registered voters. Add Bob Barr and it's Obama 50-49 to McCain in both counts.

In Ohio: Obama 50, McCain 47 among likely voters, Obama 50, McCain 46 among registered voters. Add Bob Barr, Obama 48, McCain 45 among the likely. Ralph Nader, an independent candidate, registers 3 percent in the expanded ballot. And there is a 3.5 percent possible margin of error in the likely sample, a virtual tie at the top.

In Wisconsin, Obama 51 percent, McCain 46 percent among likely voters, and the split is 51-45 among registered voters. Nader (4) draws more than Barr (1) in the expanded match, leaving Obama with 50 percent, McCain 42 percent.

And in North Carolina, a state that Bush carried by 12 percentage points in his reelection, it's a virtual tie: Obama 49 percent, McCain 48 percent, Barr 2 percent, among likely voters and registered voters as well, in the Time, CNN, Opinion Research polls.