Palin Avoids Free Media

Most candidates love getting free television time, especially long interviews where they can make their points at length and have the voters get to know them better. The Sunday talk shows are a favorite. Today John McCain will get a full half hour on CBS' Face the Nation, Barack Obama goes on ABC's This Week, and Joe Biden takes the hot seat at NBC's Meet the Press. Sarah Palin is avoiding free media when every network would love to have her. All it would take is one phone call to CNN, for example, and she'd be on there for half an hour, for free. This behavior gives the impressesion that the McCain campaign is afraid to have her interviewed in depth by experienced reporters for fear of what she might say. The problem is not gaffes--Biden makes them from time to time, but will still be grilled. The real problem is she might say something intentionally that she really and truly believes (like victims of rape should be forced to bear their rapist's child) and this will shock the viewers. It will be interesting to see how long Palin can avoid giving interviews and whether the media starts to point out this behavior.

Intrade State Contracts Predict an Obama Win

The betting site www.intrade.com has contracts on who will win individual states. Thanks to Frank Solensky for collecting the (rounded) prices yesterday for the individual contracts, as listed below. For example, if you want to bet that McCain will win Alabama, you can buy contracts for $96 and if McCain wins, you collect $100. A contract that Obama wins Alabama costs $5. Clearly a lot of people are expecting a McCain win there. The last column is positive if Obama is leading the state, negative if McCain is leading. The sum is 84, which means the bettors are expecting Obama to win a net 84 electoral votes, that is, an Obama win 311 to 227.

Here is how the bettors are expecting the swing states to break:

Biden's Son and Brother Sued

Yesterday we had a story about John McCain's son being on the board of a bank being shut down by state and federal authorities. Legal difficulties are apparently bipartisan. Joe Biden's son, Hunter, and Biden's brother James are involved in a business dispute with a former partner of theirs. They are accused of defrauding their former partner. The Bidens say that the partner defrauded them by misrepresenting his experience in the hedge fund industry. Each side is suing the other. More here.

Today's Polls

No polls today except for the two tracking polls. Rasmussen has Obama ahead 49% to 46% and Gallup has Obama ahead 47% to 45%.

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