100,000 people showed up at a rally for Barack Obama in St. Louis, Missouri on Saturday -- the same Missouri that has traditionally been a red state. These folks didn't show up to see Sen. Obama because he's a "celebrity." They were there because they are yearning for change.

If this can happen in Missouri, there is hope for America.

VERY funny! Ya gotta love Barack Obama.

Not only do we have to talk to our kids, but also to our parents...

During last night's final presidential debate, Sen. John McCain took more than one swipe at Sen. Barack Obama as someone who wants to "spread the wealth" in America. It was codespeak for "Sen. Obama will raise taxes on the rich and force them to 'redistribute' their wealth to the middle class." If John McCain has such a big issue with spreading the wealth, then why is he just fine with having the American taxpayer spread the wealth to corporate America in the form of bailouts for Wall Street, AIG, banks, airlines, on and on? it's okay for ordinary Americans to subsizide Wall Street while the rich, many of whom live AND work on Wall Street, don't have to subsidize anyone?

Sorry, John, but you can't have it both ways. Mama says so. If we subsidize you, buddy, then you're gonna have to subsidize us. Trickle-down economics, I think you call it.

Hillary (L) and Barack, the two newest members of the family.

A group of Los Angeles-based Mamas For Obama are creating some wonderful videos that are collected here at http://mamasforobama.net/videos/

There is a link to them in the top "About" box -- I just wanted to make sure that you see them, as they're not to be missed.

You don't have to take it from me, folks -- the conservative American Enterprise Institute confirms that if you make less than $227,000/yr., Barack Obama WILL reduce your annual tax bill. It's only the top 5% of earners who'll pay more under Sen. Obama's plan. Hey, if I earned over $227,000 a year, I sure hope I'd be willing to pay a bit more in taxes -- after all, Mom told us that it's the haves who need to help the have-nots.

Specifics on both candidates' tax plans are here:

http://www.parade.com/news/intelligence-report/archive/how-much-would-yo...

Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin, what if things were switched around? Would the country's collective point of view be different? Could racism be the culprit?

• What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?
• What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review? What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?
• What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?
• What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his standards?
• What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?
• What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?
• What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?
• What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)
• What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?
• What if Obama couldn't read from a teleprompter?
• What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing five planes?
• What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem?
• What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money from beer distribution?
• What if the Obamas had adopted a white child?

You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

Educational Background:

Barack Obama:

• Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations.
• Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:

• University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
• Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

John McCain:

• United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:

• Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
• North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
• University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
• Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
• University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

Education isn't everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world. You make the call.

Thanks to Henry Poole for collecting and formatting this information.

See the local Channel 11 (WPXI) coverage of the Pittsburgh Palin Protest.

That's me with the yellow "Hockey Mamas for Obama" sign.

Note that the station spends a lot of time covering how Palin is completely sequestered from the media, making no public comments or interviews.

From Michael Kinsley on DailyBeast.com. Pass on to your undecided mothers and aunts and grandmothers:

How the Senator Lost it at a Puerto Rican Casino

For this entire presidential campaign, the media have been waiting for John McCain’s famous temper to explode. A few small examples have been reported without anyone trying to make a big deal about it. The rule seems to be that if he can keep it bottled until November 5, he’s home free. But if he explodes in the interim, it becomes an official issue. This isn’t completely nuts. If he can’t hold it in for just the few months he is under maximum scrutiny, then he has a real problem. Otherwise, hey—Bill Clinton also had a temper, it was said, along with other uncontrollable passions.

Until recently this anger business didn’t bother me much. There is a lot to be angry about. Furthermore, I was not confident that McCain’s anger passed the whose-ox-is-gored test: As an Obama supporter, would I be equally alarmed if my preferred candidate had anger issues? (Which some folks say he does, by the way.) Then I heard the following story.

“DON’T TOUCH ME,” he repeated viciously. “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO?”

It comes in an email from my friend Jeff Dearth, a media investment banker and former publisher of The New Republic. We also went to junior high and high school together in Michigan. He would not make this up. In 2005, Jeff attended a magazine industry conference at a casino hotel in Puerto Rico. (I was there, too, though not a witness to what follows.) The guest speaker was McCain. He put on a terrific performance, breaking up the friendly crowd by referring to journalists as “my base.” (To anyone who remembers this period in McCain’s history, his attempt this year to paint Barack Obama as Britney Spears or Paris Hilton because Obama is now the media darling seems especially cheap.)

McCain’s game is craps. So is Jeff Dearth’s. Jeff was at the table when McCain showed up and happily made room for him. Apparently there is some kind of rule or tradition in craps that everyone’s hands are supposed to be above the table when the dice are about to be thrown. McCain—“very likely distracted by one of the many people who approached him that evening,” Jeff says charitably—apparently was violating this rule. A small middle-aged woman at the table, apparently a “regular,” reached out and pulled McCain’s arm away. I’ll let Jeff take over the story:

“McCain immediately turned to the woman and said between clenched teeth: ‘DON’T TOUCH ME.’ The woman started to explain...McCain interrupted her: ‘DON’T TOUCH ME,’ he repeated viciously. The woman again tried to explain. ‘DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO?’ McCain continued, his voice rising and his hands now raised in the ‘bring it on’ position. He was red-faced. By this time all the action at the table had stopped. I was completely shocked. McCain had totally lost it, and in the space of about ten seconds. ‘Sir, you must be courteous to the other players at the table,’ the pit boss said to McCain. “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? ASK ANYBODY AROUND HERE WHO I AM.”

This being Puerto Rico, the pit boss might not have known McCain. But the senator continued in full fury—“DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO? DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?”—and crisis was avoided only when Jeff offered to change places and stand between McCain and the woman who had touched his arm.

What is bothersome about this story, if it’s true, is only partly the explosive anger. More, it’s the arrogance. At the craps table, who cares who he is? And there’s the recklessness of such a performance in a casino full of journalists (unless McCain absolutely couldn’t control himself, which is even scarier). But this gamble paid off. Although there were published reports that McCain had gambled late into the night, which properly treated that matter as charming, this particular episode has gone unreported until now. Maybe no journalist saw it. Or maybe this illustrates the unwritten rule of political journalism that all human-interest anecdotes must reaffirm a previously established belief. Arrogance is something McCain is not known for. Quite the opposite. Logic might dictate that an anecdote showing that, say, Obama has webbed feet would be more interesting than one showing that he is a skinny guy with big ears. But that’s not how it works.

Jeff Dearth is not an extreme partisan or an activist for either candidate. He supports Obama, in part because he is truly alarmed at the thought of the arrogant hothead he saw becoming president. (“I’d happily gamble with Senator McCain again,” he says, “but I definitely wouldn’t gamble on him.”) It alarms me, too. John McCain is the best Republican presidential candidate of my lifetime. But a performance like this would give me pause about supporting a candidate of either party.