Cheat Sheet

According to polling, Barack Obama is positioned to win the highest share of white voters of any Democratic presidential nominee in the past three decades. Gallup's most recent two weeks of polling showed Obama with the support of 44 percent of non-Hispanic whites, the most since Jimmy Carter won 47 percent in 1976. An even larger amount trust Obama to handle the economy better than McCain. And more than eight in ten white working class Dems, the bane of Obama's primary existence, now support him.

Might we be seeing a tug of war over leadership in the financial crisis? In a take-charge move, President Bush has called a summit of the Group of 20 on the global economy for November 15 in Washington, but The Washington Post reports that China is assuming a leading role in resolving the crisis at the close of a two-day summit in Beijing. “We are very glad to see that many countries have taken measures that have initially proved effective. But this is not enough given the current situation, and more needs to be done,” said Prime Minister Wen Jiabao at the Asia-Europe Meeting. Meanwhile, the Post reports that the Beijing meeting is a victory for French President Nicolas Sarkozy, “who has taken the lead in representing his European Union colleagues in pushing for an overhaul of the world’s financial systems and the creation of a new ‘regulated capitalism.’”

“Yuri M. Luzhkov is a mayor with a foreign policy. A former Soviet apparatchik who yearns to restore Russia’s regional hegemony, he has supported ethnic Russians and stoked separatism in nations along the country’s borders,” writes New York Times Moscow bureau chief Clifford Levy in his profile of the Moscow mayor. The article, the latest in The Times’ relentlessly bleak Kremlin Rules series, paints a sinister picture of Luzhkov, focusing on his support for the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia and the Russian population in Crimea, as well as the aura of corruption that surrounds him and his wife.

“We're proud to stay off that juggernaut,” writes Bill Kristol in the new Weekly Standard. The juggernaut he’s referring to is the coalition of Democrats, elite media snobs, and estranged Republicans who are bent on electing Barack Obama. Kristol is unmoved by the mob. He’s standing with McCain “for the sake of the country,” of course, but also on the chance that he’ll witness the dejection of all of the above on November 4. And if the unthinkable happens and Obama is elected? “We, of course, have confidence that the nation would survive such an interlude.”

Might Joe the Plumber soon be trading in the plunger for the ballot box? Joe Wurzelbacher, John McCain's favorite everyman, announced on Laura Ingraham's radio show that he was mulling a 2010 congressional run. "I'll tell you what, we'd definitely be in for one heck of a fight," he said, channeling Sarah Palin, "but, you know, I'd be up for it." Should he run, Joe will challenge Marcy Kaptur, the Democratic congresswoman who has represented the Toledo area since 1982 and is expected to easily win reelection this fall. Still, is it too early to start dreaming about a Palin-Wurzelbacher "Real America" ticket in 2012?

A former brother-in-law of Oscar-winning actress and singer Jennifer Hudson is in police custody but has not yet been charged in the deaths of her mother and brother, who were found murdered yesterday in their Chicago home. William Balfour was separated from Hudson’s sister, and Hudson’s mother, Darnell Donerson, 57, had ordered him to move out of the family’s home in the South Side of Chicago last winter, CBS News reports. Authorities are describing the shooting of Donerson and Jason Hudson, 29, as domestic violence, and an amber alert has been issued for Hudson’s nephew Julian King, 7, who is missing.

The sun doesn't shine equally on all in Florida. Barack Obama has made significant headway in the Sunshine State, where he didn’t even campaign during the primaries and where he now has a small lead, while John McCain finds himself unexpectedly on the defensive. The state is “a case study of the troubles of the McCain campaign,” The New York Times reports. The particularly hard blow of the economic crisis and an early confidence about the state that has proven ill-founded have put McCain on the defensive. Meanwhile, Obama has outspent him 4-to-1 on advertising, and the Democratic Party has registered almost 400,000 more new voters.

Chalk it up to the law of unintended fashion consequences: Sarah Palin’s hairstyle has found unlikely popularity among Orthodox Jewish women. Politics aside, they like the look. “In Brooklyn’s Borough Park, an area heavily populated by Hasidic men, stylist Gail Rosenzweig said half of her Orthodox Jewish clients want Palin’s style,” Reuters reports. The story makes the point the attraction is unexpected, given that Jews make up less than 1 percent of Alaska’s population, but neglects to speculate on the possible “smoked salmon connection.”

In space, no one can hear you scream, weep, complain about your spouse. Well, that was before the unveiling of the Virtual Space Station, a project designed to provide astronauts with counseling while they’re in space. The Guardian reports that the new project—budgeted at just under $2 million—will allow astronauts to listen to the recorded musings of a Dartmouth psychologist named Mark Hegel. Astronaut depression is a rare but potentially serious problem: “In 1985, a mission on Russia's Salyut 7 space station was scrapped because the commander was spending hours looking out of portholes.”

Success comes with a price. For Robert Szasz, the Tampa Bay Rays’ “happy heckler,” that means his jeers, which were audible during the regular season in the Rays’ near-empty Tropicana Field, are now drowned out in sold-out postseason games. Szasz has been a mainstay of Rays games since 2003, and his heckling has earned him significant attention: He’s published a book, started a blog, and done promotional work for the team. His heckling rules include no profanities or personal insults, and the targeting of only a single player each game. Despite the noise competition, Szasz seems to be enjoying the Rays’ newfound success. “I can relax now, just watch the game,” he said. “But if they ever need me again, they know where to find me.”

Roberto Saviano should be sitting on top of the world. His expose of the Neapolitan mafia, the Camorra, is a runaway bestseller in Italy, and has been made into a film that Italy has submitted to the Oscars. One problem: His success has provoked the Camorra to put a price on his head. Ian McEwan is the latest author to sign a petition in support of Saviano. Its 200,000 signatories include Martin Amis, Jonathan Lethem, Paul Auster, and Jose Saramago. “I personally make no distinction between the Camorra and certain extremist religious groups,” McEwan said, “which try to close down discussions with threats of violence.”