AP-Philadelphia, PA

PHILADELPHIA, PA — On the eve of what he and his running mate hope will be a big victory, Joe Biden took the stage with a man who just earned the biggest win of his professional life - World Series champion short stop Jimmy Rollins of the Philadelphia Phillies.

“Ready to celebrate one more time?” Rollins asked the crowd of 2,000 gathered for this late night rally in South Philly — which kicked off at 11:15 pm. “We took the curse off by winning a championship. Now it’s time to take the curse off America.”

Jill Biden, a huge Phillies fan who attended the series clinching game 5 at nearby Citizen’s Bank Park, took the microphone in a red Phillies jacket, whooping and waving a Phillies towel like she was in the audience. “One of the best nights of this campaign was watching the Phillies win the series. But with your help we can win another big victory tomorrow night!” she said, punctuating her remarks with a loud “Wooohoo!!”

“I feel good tonight, because you know. You know, things end well when you’ve got Jimmy Rollins leading off the batting order here tonight,” Biden said as he took the podium. But as he often does when talking baseball, the Delaware senator and self-proclaimed Phillies fan committed an error.

“If Barack Obama’s the Jimmy Rollins of the ticket, I feel like Jamie Moyer,” Biden said — referring to the 45 -year old game 3 starting pitcher. Biden, however, called him “The reliever.”

“A little bit older, you know what I mean? You know, but we make a hell of a team, I tell you.”

Aside from all the baseball analogies, Biden had a simple message for Pennsylvania, a state on which John McCain has placed much of his hope for an electoral upset.

“Pennsylvania is going to decide the next President of the United States of America. It’s gonna be Barack Obama,” Biden said to cheers.

Ridiculing McCain and Sarah Palin for calling themselves mavericks, Biden said “the sidekicks are gonna find out about Pennsylvania tomorrow. They’re gonna find out.”

AP Photo- Gainesville, FL

GAINESVILLE, FL — Democratic VP nominee Joe Biden will try to snare a little winning mojo in his last campaign rally before election day — appearing in Philadelphia with members of the World Series Champion Philadelphia Phillies.

Biden is a Phillies fan, though he’s occasionally mispronounced a name (calling closer Brad Lidge “Brad Ledge”) or gotten a fact wrong (saying his wife attended game 6 of the World Series, when in fact the Phillies won in 5). His wife Jill is a die-hard fan - as are certain Philly natives in the traveling press corps — one of whom got a shout-out from Biden spokesman David Wade in announcing the joint appearance.

“A last minute announcement in honor of ABC’s Matt Jaffe: Monday night in Philadelphia, Joe Biden will appear with members of the World Champion Phillies at his last rally of the campaign season,” Wade wrote.

Biden will sleep in his own bed in nearby Wilmington on Monday night, rising early to vote along with his wife and mother. He and his family will then fly to Chicago, with a stopover in a swing state likely in between.

AP

WILLIAMSPORT, PA — After failing to mention the ongoing World Series during a three day swing through the Tampa Bay Rays’ home state this week, Democratic VP nominee Joe Biden finally gave a shout-out to his favorite baseball team, the Philadelphia Phillies, after their dramatic and controversial championship win last night.

“How about those Phillies?” Biden said as the crowd of 900 cheered wildly in the town that is the spiritual home of Little League Baseball.

While the Delaware Senator’s campaign duties kept him from seeing the big win in person, his wife made it through all of the deciding game 5 - both days of it.

“My wife Jill is from suburban Philadelphia. She is the most rabid Philly fan, most rabid Flyer fan, most rabid – any team in Philadelphia,” Biden said. “I’m on the campaign trail, she says ‘Joe I’m going to the series.’”

“So on Monday night in the rain, hair matted down, sitting outside soaking wet, she sat through the whole deal. And went back, she went back to the game last night and was there. And my, my wonderful wife, who has her doctorate in education, is a school teacher, is, looks like – I mean, you wouldn’t expect her to be a great fan.”

Mrs Biden even took a star turn on sports radio - and even gleaned some campaign advice from watching her beloved Phils. “I hear today, my wife is on WIP this morning on sports talk. And she’s talking about Brad Lidge,” said Biden, referring to the Phillies closer who didn’t blow a save in 48 tries all year. Addressing a nun in the audience, Biden joked “worries me a little, sister.”

“That must have given her an idea because when I called her to say look, she said Joe, you have to do what this campaign needs, what Brad did that night. Lights out tonight. Lights out. Lights out Lidge,” he continued. “Well let me tell you something I’m not going to be able to live up to that, but I tell you what — here we are in Pennsylvania, in a battleground state. And let me tell you this. The truth of the matter is this state is going to make the gigantic difference in who the next President of the United States of America is.”

Biden has professed allegiances to several football teams on the trail — from the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers to the New York Giants and the nearby Philadelphia Eagles. But he’s never backed away from his Phillies, who are now World Champions for the first time in 28 years.

AP Photo-Pottsville, PA

POTTSVILLE, PA - McCain has a new moniker for his opponent: Redistributionist in Chief.

The GOP nominee took aim at a recently surfaced Obama interview Monday in which the Democrat says that civil rights leaders failed to take the best avenue toward redistributing wealth in society and were too dependent on federal courts.

“You see, Senator Obama believes in redistributing wealth, not in policies that grow our economy and create jobs,” McCain said to about 5,000 enthusiastic supporters. “He is more interested in controlling wealth than in creating it (cheers) … in redistributing money instead of spreading opportunity.”

After toying with calling him “Barack the Redistributor” at an earlier event in Dayton, Ohio this afternoon, McCain settled upon a new nickname tonight in the Keystone State.

“Senator Obama is running to be Redistributionist in Chief. I’m running to be Commander in Chief,” McCain said. “Senator Obama is running to spread the wealth. I’m running to create more wealth. Senator Obama is running to punish the successful. I’m running to make everyone successful.”

In the 2001 interview with Chicago Public Radio, Obama noted that the Supreme Court “never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of basic issues of political and economic justice in this society,” and lamented that civil rights leaders failed to pursue other means for the same end goal.

“I think one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was that the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and organizing activities on the ground that are able to bring about the coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change, and in some ways we still suffer from that,” Obama said.

For it’s part the Obama campaign said the interview is being taken out of context and suggested that Fox News is conspiring with the McCain campaign to creating a controvery.

“This is a fake news controversy drummed up by the all too common alliance of FOX News, the Drudge Report and John McCain, who apparently decided to close out his campaign with the same false, desperate attacks that have failed for months,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a written statement Monday. “In this seven-year-old interview, Senator Obama did not say that the courts should get into the business of redistributing wealth at all.”

MOON TOWNSHIP, PA — As he traveled westward across Pennsylvania Tuesday, John McCain followed Tip O’Neil’s mantra that “all politics is local.”

The plan: Begin the day with an appeal to local baseball fans at a rally outside Philadelphia, make his economic pitch in Harrisburg and finish off at a rally outside Pittsburgh with a shot at controversial comments the local Democratic Congressman, John Murtha, made recently labeling western Pennsylvania a “racist area.”

As McCain was concluding the day he hit a slight snag as he botched his attack line by accidentally saying he agreed with Murtha–drawing silence from the more than 2,000 supporters in attendance– but sought to recover by heaping the praise on and labeling it the “most patriotic part of America.”

“You know, I think you may have noticed that Senator Obama’s supporters have been saying some pretty nasty things about western Pennsylvania lately,” McCain said. “And you know, I couldn’t agree with them more. I couldn’t disagree with you. I couldn’t agree with you more than the fact that western Pennsylvania is the most patriotic, most God-loving, most patriotic part of America, and this is a great part of the country.” (video above)

Murtha told a local Pennsylvania news outlet last week that there is “no question that western Pennsylvania is a racist area.” Making things worse, when he tried to correct himself in a subsequent interview, Murtha referred to the region’s residents as “rednecks.”

For his part, McCain recovered from initially stepping on his line to take aim at what he says is the underlying problem with the Democrats: they say “different things to different people.”

“I’ll give some of Senator Obama’s supporters some credit, at least they’re saying these things openly instead of behind closed doors at a San Francisco fundraiser,” he said refering to Obama’s spring comments that some Pennsylvanians cling to guns and religion because they are bitter. “My friends, the people of western Pennsylvania love their second amendment their amendment rights, their constitutional rights and their religion because they love their country and their love they values and they love their families and they believe in the future of this country. That’s what the people of western Pennsylvania are all about.”

DOWNINGTOWN, PA — While John McCain said he did “pretty well” at his most recent showdown with Barack Obama, he told supporters today that “the real winner of last night’s debate was Joe the Plumber.”

“He won and small businesses won across America. They won because the American people are not going to let Senator Obama raise their taxes in a tough economy. They are not going to let em do it, my friends,” McCain said at a rally outside Philadelphia today. “Small businesses provide 16 million jobs in America and Americans know that raising taxes on small business will kill those jobs at a time when we need to be creating more jobs.”

The GOP nominee picked up where he left off last night and chided Obama for telling the Ohio plumber, who questioned the Democrat’s plan to increase taxes on those making $250K and above, that it is necessary to “spread the wealth around.”

“Now what does that mean? He wants government to take Joe’s money and give it to somebody else-his hard earned dollars. We are not gonna stand for that. America didn’t become the greatest nation on earth by spreading the wealth. We became the greatest nation on earth by creating new wealth,” he added today after mentiong Joe’s name 21 times last night.

McCain also deviated from planned remarks today to repeat his line from last night explictly declaring his differences with President Bush.

“We cannot spend the next four years as we have spent much of the last eight: waiting for our luck to change. As I mentioned last night to Senator to Obama. I’m not George Bush and if he wanted to run against George Bush he should have run four years ago,” he said to cheers.

For his part, Sen. Joe Lieberman, who gave an intro speech at the rally today, kept his praise focussed on McCain’s performance and declared the debate a gamechanger.

“We turned the corner in the debate last night, didn’t we? We changed the momentum, we’re on the road to victory in Pennsylvania and for all America,” the Connecticut Senator said.

New Marist Poll out today showing that Obama has a narrow lead in Ohio, and is pulling away in PA with 9 percentage points among registered voters.

OHIO:
OBAMA HAS A NARROW LEAD OVER MCCAIN IN THE BUCKEYE STATE:
Among registered voters in Ohio, Senator Barack Obama now outpaces Senator John McCain 48% to 40%. Among likely voters including those who are undecided yet leaning toward a candidate, Obama has 49% compared with 45% for McCain.

PENNSYLVANIA:
RACE OPENS UP IN PENNSYLVANIA…
OBAMA PULLS AHEAD BY 9 PERCENTAGE POINTS AMONG REGISTERED VOTERS…
HAS DOUBLE-DIGIT LEAD AMONG LIKELY VOTERS:
The once tight presidential race in Pennsylvania is now tipping in Senator Barack Obama’s favor. He leads Senator John McCain among the state’s registered voters 49% to 40%. Among likely voters including those who are undecided yet leaning toward a candidate, Obama is in front of McCain by 12 percentage points — 53% to 41%.

Scranton, PA - AP Photo

SCRANTON, PA — It was a homecoming of sorts for Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton.

Joined by their respective spouses (one of whom, of course, happens to be a former President of the United States), the two former rivals in the Democratic primary made the case for Barack Obama in a region of the state where he got creamed by Sen Clinton by more than 50 points on April 22nd.

While Scranton is largely Democratic, many natives are of the working class (and white) demographic that McCain’s been targeting — and that’s been slow to warm to Obama.

BIden — who was born and raised in Scranton for 13 years — and Clinton, whose father was born here and who spent summers on Lake Winola, could make a big difference here. While Obama has a healthy lead in state polls, the GOP is hoping to turn Pennsylvania — and its 21 electoral votes — red with a strong performance in the Northeast.

Before either Scrantonite could speak, the crowd heard from President Clinton — who has been accused of less-than-enthusiastic support for the top of the Democratic ticket. Clinton attempted to put that to rest, calling Obama the candidate “who has the best ideas, who’s got the best instincts, who’s got the best ability to understand these challenges, who’s got the best supporting cast.”

Clinton also defended his wife’s efforts on Obama’s behalf. “She has done 50 events for Sen. Obama,” said the former president. “She has not only done more to support him than any runner up in a Democratic primary process in my lifetime, she has more than all the other runners-up combined.”

“The reason that’s important is that more than three-fourths of you supported her,” he said. “You need to remember, if you supported her, why you did it.”

(more…)

BETHLEHEM, PA - Cindy McCain jumped into the political fracas Wednesday as she questioned Barack Obama’s commitment to U.S. troops in Iraq, including one in particular, her son Jimmy.

While Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin have sought to sow doubts about Obama in recent weeks, Mrs. McCain joined in the mix today and held nothing back in noting that Obama’s vote last year against an Iraq funding bill showed a fundamental misunderstanding of the needs of the troops.

“My son, like so many others, and today like the Palins’ son, have served on the front lines, helping keep peace and helping freedom for other people. I’m a blue star mom, just like Governor Palin is. I’m proud of my sons, but let me tell you, the day that Senator Obama decided to cast a vote to not fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body,” McCain said in her introduction of the Alaska Governor before more than 8,000 supporters during a rally at Lehigh University. The McCains have two sons in the Armed Forces; Jimmy, a U.S. Marine who served in Iraq last year and Jack who is currently at the US Naval Academy.

Though Cindy has frequently been out the campaign trail she normally stays away from the daily political squabble, save one comment she made in February about being “proud” of her country in response to Michelle Obama.

Obama cast the no vote against the multi-billion dollar Iraq supplemental last year because it didn’t contain a timeline for troop withdrawal. However, Obama did vote for an earlier version of the bill that would have provided the cash for the troops but also would have established a withdrawal timeline (McCain didn’t vote on the earlier bill but advocated the president veto it).

“I would suggest that Senator Obama change shoes with me for just one day, and see what it means, and see what it means to have a loved one serving in the armed forces, and more importantly, serving in harms way. I suggest he take a day and go watch our fine young men and women deploy, get on those busses and leave with a smile and a charge,” she added as supporters erupted in cheers.

(more…)

SEDONA, AZ — Despite essentially calling it quits in Michigan, John McCain will remain on offense in a number of blue states next week that the Republican is trying to wrest from Democratic hands this November.

Following the presidential debate Tuesday, McCain will hit the trail with Sarah Palin for a rally in Bethlehem, PA the next day and a town hall meeting in Waukesha, WI on Thursday. The GOP nominee will then hold a solo town hall in Lakeville, MN on Friday afternoon.

John Kerry won Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota in 2004 but Camp McCain says they still have a chance to pick off one of the states or they are hoping to at least make Obama continue to spend time and money in those states.