The Filter: September 2, 2008

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories, coming to you live from the Holiday Inn in sunny East St. Paul.

MCCAIN TEAM SCRAMBLES TO RESCRIPT SHOW
(Monica Langley, Wall Street Journal)
With Hurricane Gustav hitting the U.S. Monday, Mr. Davis drastically altered the four-day "serial drama" he had developed to feature presidential candidate Sen. John McCain. Out: President George W. Bush and many Southern governors, who decided not to join the Republican hoopla with a potential tragedy looming, as well as half of the videos now deemed too "celebratory." In: hurricane reports and even a hotline flashing on stage to raise money for victims... The McCain campaign's dramatic moves in recent days, which included adding Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to the ticket, have helped shift the spotlight from the Democratic convention last week in Denver. Early polls gave mixed readings on how much of a bounce Sen. Barack Obama got from the Democratic convention. Still, the moves carry high risks alongside possible high rewards.

GOP DEALS WITH THE STORM--AND THE STORK
(Dana Milbank, Washington Post)
Hurricane Gustav made landfall on the Louisiana coast about 10:30 a.m. Monday. Hurricane Bristol made landfall in Minnesota at 11:43 a.m. "Palin says daughter, 17, pregnant," announced the article by Steve Holland on the Reuters news wire. Sarah Palin, John McCain's running mate, disclosed this bombshell about her daughter Bristol "to knock down rumors by liberal bloggers that Palin faked her own pregnancy to cover up for her child." Upward of 10,000 reporters in and around the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, idled by McCain's decision to truncate the Republican convention because of Gustav, suddenly discovered that their plans for the day had been knocked up. Scores of them surrounded Steve Schmidt, McCain's senior adviser, as he walked through the media area outside the convention hall. "Was it good judgment to select Sarah Palin, given her daughter's situation? . . . Why didn't you just say it, Steve, at the time when you picked her? . . . Did this question of how she will handle and balance her own personal responsibilities with the responsibilities of running the country come up?" Schmidt sparred ("Your question is offensive"), parried ("I'm not a psychic") and fled. "I've got to run," he told the mob. "Not like this isn't fun."

SARAH SURPRISE
(John Dickerson, Slate)
Sarah Palin sure is an exciting candidate—to you, to me and maybe even to John McCain. Monday we learned that Palin's 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. The news probably won't change the political landscape—especially since Barack Obama declared it out of bounds—but the pregnancy is a fitting metaphor for the gestating and growing surprises associated with the Palin candidacy. Each new fact we learn about Sarah Palin—her reversal on the bridge to nowhere, her disagreements with McCain on issues from windfall profits to global warming, emerging facts about troopergate—contribute to the feeling that this whole Palin thing is being made up as we go along. It may be fun to read about, and it sure is fun to cover, but it also supports the judgment of the Palin pick that I first heard from a Republican veteran shortly after the announcement: "Reckless."

WHAT THE PALIN PICK SAYS
(David Brooks, New York Times)
My worries about Palin are not (primarily) about her lack of experience... My worry about Palin is that she shares McCain’s primary weakness — that she has a tendency to substitute a moral philosophy for a political philosophy. There are some issues where the most important job is to rally the armies of decency against the armies of corruption: Confronting Putin, tackling earmarks and reforming the process of government. But most issues are not confrontations between virtue and vice. Most problems — the ones Barack Obama is sure to focus on like health care reform and economic anxiety — are the product of complex conditions. They require trade-offs and policy expertise. They are not solvable through the mere assertion of sterling character. McCain is certainly capable of practicing the politics of compromise and coalition-building. He engineered a complex immigration bill with Ted Kennedy and global warming legislation with Joe Lieberman. But if you are going to lead a vast administration as president, it really helps to have a clearly defined governing philosophy, a conscious sense of what government should and shouldn’t do, a set of communicable priorities.

A NEW TWIST IN THE DEBATE OVER MOTHERS
(Jodi Kantor and Rachel L. Swarns)
When Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska was introduced as a vice-presidential pick, she was presented as a magnet for female voters, the epitome of everymom appeal. But since then, as mothers across the country supervise the season’s final water fights and pack book bags, some have voiced the kind of doubts that few male pundits have dared raise on television. With five children, including an infant with Down syndrome and, as the country learned Monday, a pregnant 17-year-old, Ms. Palin has set off a fierce argument among women about whether there are enough hours in the day for her to take on the vice presidency, and whether she is right to try. It’s the Mommy Wars: Special Campaign Edition. But this time the battle lines are drawn inside out, with social conservatives, usually staunch advocates for stay-at-home motherhood, mostly defending her, while some others, including plenty of working mothers, worry that she is taking on too much.

DISCLOSURES ON PALIN RAISE QUESTIONS ON VETTING PROCESS
(Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times)
Aides to Mr. McCain said they had a team on the ground in Alaska now to look more thoroughly into Ms. Palin’s background. A Republican with ties to the campaign said the team assigned to vet Ms. Palin in Alaska had not arrived there until Thursday, a day before Mr. McCain stunned the political world with his vice-presidential choice... The questions swirling around Ms. Palin on the first day of the Republican National Convention, already disrupted by Hurricane Gustav, brought anxiety to Republicans who worried that Democrats would use the selection of Ms. Palin to question Mr. McCain’s judgment and his ability to make crucial decisions. At the least, Republicans close to the campaign said it was increasingly apparent that Ms. Palin had been selected as Mr. McCain’s running mate with more haste than McCain advisers initially described. Up until midweek last week, some 48 to 72 hours before Mr. McCain introduced Ms. Palin at a Friday rally in Dayton, Ohio, Mr. McCain was still holding out the hope that he could choose a good friend, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, a Republican close to the campaign said. Mr. McCain had also been interested in another favorite, former Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania.

MORE: McCain Vetter Defends Palin Review (Liz Sidoti, Associated Press)
Sarah Palin voluntarily told John McCain's campaign about her pregnant teenage daughter and her husband's 2-decade-old DUI arrest during questioning as part of the Republican's vice presidential search, the lawyer who conducted the background review said. The Alaska governor also greatly detailed the dismissal of the state's public safety commissioner that has touched off a legislative investigation, Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr. told The Associated Press in an interview Monday. Palin underwent a "full and complete" background examination before McCain chose her as his running mate, Culvahouse said. Asked whether everything that came up as a possible red flag during the review already has been made public, he said: "I think so. Yah, I think so. Correct."

FOR MANY ALASKANS, WASILLA IS NO LONGER A FRONTIER
(Michael M. Phillips, Wall Street Journal)
The town Gov. Sarah Palin comes from has long sold itself as the "Home of the Iditarod," the dog-sled race across the Alaskan wilderness. But the Iditarod mushers no longer mush in Wasilla, where Gov. Palin, Republican presidential candidate John McCain's running mate, used to be mayor. In 2003, race organizers moved the start 30 miles to Willow, in large part because real-estate developers in Wasilla have cut too many new driveways through the old sled trail, making it hazardous for the dogs to maneuver. Gov. Palin's 10 years as city councilwoman and then mayor of Wasilla bolstered her reputation as a gutsy frontierswoman willing to fight the old boys' network. That same reputation helped her win a seat on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and catapulted her to the governorship. But these days, the Alaskan town that launched Gov. Palin's political career feels more like the latest suburb than the last frontier.

DESPITE GOP CONVENTION SITE, MIDWEST UNLIKELY TO BE CRUCIAL
(Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post)
When Republican leaders were deciding where to hold their 2008 nominating convention, their final considerations came down to major urban areas in a trio of swing states: Cleveland, Tampa-St. Petersburg and Minneapolis-St. Paul. In settling on the Twin Cities and basing the event in St. Paul, party leaders took a gamble on the electoral map. But while the Upper Midwest is home to a parcel of swing states in the current presidential contest -- Wisconsin and Iowa, more so than Minnesota -- the region is not likely to be crucial in determining the next commander in chief. The next White House occupant probably will be the candidate who performs best in the Rocky Mountain West and traditional battleground states such as Ohio, Michigan and Florida. In picking the location for their own quadrennial gathering, Democrats appear to have won the convention lottery. 

DEMOCRATS, EYEING STORM, PLAY DOWN PARTISANSHIP
(John M. Broder and Jeff Zeleny, New York Times)
On this Labor Day, which has long been the traditional opening to the general election season, the Democratic presidential ticket struggled to draw attention. Mindful of Hurricane Gustav, Senators Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr. pressed ahead on Monday, traveling separately to three battleground states. But they altered their arguments against Senator John McCain, vowing that it was not a day for partisan politics. Before traveling to Milwaukee on Monday evening, Mr. Obama addressed an afternoon crowd in downtown Detroit. “Today is the day for all of us to come together as Americans and send our thoughts and prayers to our brothers and sisters who are worrying at this very hour,” he said. In text and e-mail messages to his list of more than two million supporters, he asked people to send $5 to the Red Cross. Mr. Biden, traveling on his own for the first time as a vice-presidential candidate, canceled his appearance at a Labor Day parade in Pittsburgh to avoid appearing too partisan. He returned to his childhood home in Scranton, Pa.; Mr. Biden’s aides said he would spend considerable time in Pennsylvania and other industrial states in the next two months.

OBAMA'S BOUNCE SMALLER THAN OTHERS
(David Paul Kuhn, Politico)
Obama's post-Democratic National Convention bounce in the polls appears to be slightly smaller than the norm of past conventions, and it's gradually depreciating.  The Gallup daily tracking poll has found that since the conclusion of the convention, Obama has risen 4 percentage points in the polls, to lead McCain 49 percent to 43 percent today. That's a slightly smaller uptick in the polls than the 5- to 6-point bounce earned by a typical party nominee, by Gallup’s measure, since 1964. Obama and McCain were evenly split at 45 percentage points apiece prior to the Democratic convention, according to Gallup.