Briebart today ran an AFP article with the misleading headline "US election: If Iraqis could vote it would be for McCain". I say misleading because it mentions in its first few paras exactly three Iraqis who prefer McCain - and in its last paras mentions two who prefer Obama.That's hardly all or even a representative sample of all Iraqis. That hasn't stopped a couple of rightwing bloggers grasping at straws - including Ed Morrissey, who continues his downward spiral of judgement at Hot Air and who I don't think would ever have linked such thin gruel at Captain's Quarters. Ed can count, but he chose not to mention the small sample size to his click-shy readers.

FWIW, back in July, Reuters did much the same thing in reverse. They interviewed two dozen Iraqis and came to the conclusion that Iraqis liked Obama better than McCain because "a black man would understand their plight." (Something only one of the seven quotes they printed even mentioned.) Back then, an Obama story was the one the media wanted to tell, coming off his close-run and exhaustingly covered primary contest with Clinton they needed to make it seem like Obama vs McCain was a real step up, not down, in tension and expectations. Now, they need to do build McCain again to make for an interesting nailbiter of a finish.

What it comes down to is that the media want a close horse-race because that sells better than a romp-home landslide victory. The news networks have been worrying what they're going to do election night if it's all over by teatime so they've been very relieved that McCain has been telling them that there'll be an upset in a close race and everyone's going to be up late watching election coverage.

That explains, entirely, the media push to describe McCain as closing the gap - which every indicator except some hyped outlier polls says he isn't, he's just solidifying his base support. It explains ridiculous speculation like whether or not Osama bin Laden will endorse a candidate, and whether he or AQ in general will actually mean it if he does. McCain's meant to be stronger on foreign policy -especially Iraq and the "War on Terror", so they're hyping these stories.

There'll be more of this kind of nonsense as the last few days tick by, and the media frantically tries to spin the story as one they think they can sell more of. Remember, because of the collapse of Voter News Service, the networks will be relying solely on AP exit poll data for Elections 2008. That's Ron Fournier in charge of what the networks will report, in other words. So even after the voting is over, we're likely to see a last run of hype about a close-run race.

But don't panic - Obama's got this.

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Crossposted from Newshoggers

   In an op-ed at Murdoch's London Times, associate editor Anatole Kalestsky writes that America must give the Republicans "a good kicking" to reassert the most important facet of democracy - not just to elect good governance but to get rid of bad governance. It's an op-ed that is highly critical of the Democratic party's choice - Murdoch's UK papers preferred Clinton - and of Dem tactics to date. But it really gets the message across on McCain and the GOP.

Whether or not Mr McCain would continue the policies of President Bush (and much of the evidence suggests that his would be a Bush presidency on steroids), he would keep in power the coalition of interests that the Republican Party represents: the energy and military-industrial lobbies, the religious conservatives, the anti-environment interests and the neoconservative think-tanks. These groups - which have gained enormous influence, both financially and intellectually, under President Bush - are as responsible for the blunders of the Bush Administration as Mr Bush himself, arguably more so, given the President's notorious lack of interest in the details of any of his own policies.

If a Republican is again elected president, these same centres of power will continue to dominate Washington. However many wars they encouraged, however high the price of oil rose, however many tax dollars were redistributed in their favour, the neoconservatives and Pentagon contractors and religious fundamentalists and oil and Wall Street lobbies would conclude that there would be no political price to pay for failure. They would be justified in concluding that there is no longer any democratic check on their ambitions.

It is only by ejecting the Republicans from the White House that American voters can send the message that they are still in charge of their country and that gross government incompetence will not go unpunished. Accountability - not personality or rhetoric or colour or age or gender - should be the overriding issue in this election.

That's exactly right - and it's great to see Bill Clinton, Biden and Kerry all do so very effectively rather than trying to keep the brand pristine. (Even the Right is admitting they did good - albeit with weasel words.) I'm a bit of an outside observer on US elections, being a "furriner' and all, and it has disappointed me until now that the Dem campaign after the primaries had seemed rather flat. That's changed, and while the Dems are still sticking to the moral high ground by not descending to the kind of lies and smears of McCain's campaign, they're now obviously in no mood to let the Republicans have the field to themselves. As my pal Kyle Moore writes, if the Dems had pulled out these kinds of performances four years ago the Dems would be working on Kerry's re-election. More of this, please.