Third-party candidates to debate on Sunday (McClatchy)
WASHINGTON — Third-party presidential candidates finally will have their own debate: at 8 p.m. Sunday at Columbia University in New York.
For REAL change.—Caro

Gaming A New Platform For Political Ads; Obama Ad Shows Up On Xbox (Paid Content)

We're being bombarded with political ads on TV and radio, but now, video games? Ads for presidential hopeful Barack Obama have turned up in the Xbox Live racing game, Burnout Paradise, GamePolitics.com first reported and GigaOm confirmed. The in-game ad takes its form as a billboard—complete with Obama's photo and a plug for VoteForChange.com—featured in the backdrop of one of the levels, and GameSpot confirms it will appear in 10 states: Ohio, Florida, Iowa, Colorado, Indiana, Montana, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, and Wisconsin.

'Gossip Girl' stars have lead roles in anti-McCain ad (On Politics, USA Today)
MoveOn.org Political Action takes a satirical approach in its latest campaign-related TV ad -- a spot that features two stars of the CW network's Gossip Girl, and other actors, urging young people to "talk to your parents" about Republican presidential nominee John McCain" and then urge them to vote for Democrat Barack Obama. MoveOn says the ad will be on MTV and the Comedy Central, and on the CW network during broadcasts of Gossip Girl (8 p.m. ET on Mondays).
Yes, let’s start using children to bully their parents, as they did in Mao’s China during the “Cultural Revolution” and in Nazi Germany. If you didn’t like authoritarianism from the right under Gingrich and then W. Bush, you won’t like it any better if it comes from MoveOn and Obama. Unless, of course, you have drunk the Kool-Aid and are under the mistaken impression that if the authority claims to be benevolent and acting in your best interest, there could be no harm. But, gee, that’s what the Gingrich fanatics and the W. fanatics thought, too. Look how that turned out.—Caro

Laugh at a Campaign Pitch? Sure. Visit the Grandparents? Not So Much. (New York Times)
MIAMI — When Sarah Silverman told young Jews to get their lazy rotund rear ends to Florida to persuade their grandparents to vote for Senator Barack Obama, one question loomed: Would they go? This weekend was the first big test, a kickoff for the so-called Great Schlep, and so far, momentum has been building with the pace of a nice brisket. Though about seven million people have watched Ms. Silverman’s four-minute Web video explaining why “visiting your grandparents could change the world,” the schlep remains mostly virtual. Mik Moore, 34, co-director of Jewish Council for Education and Research, the nonprofit group behind the project, said 100 people visited Florida this weekend to convince older Jewish voters that Mr. Obama should be president, while about 100 more visited relatives in other swing states.
Wait until the grandparents find out what Jesse Jackson had to say recently about Obama's intentions for Israel. See below.—Caro

Jesse Jackson: Obama will end Zionist rule in America. (by garychapelhill at The Confluence)
Jesse Jackson may have wanted to remove a part of Obama’s anatomy recently when he chided African American fathers to be more responsible. And even before that he accused Obama of “acting like he’s white”, but he’s still on the kool-aid train as far as his support for The One… Jackson, whose Rainbow/PUSH Coalition is based in Chicago, has publicly endorsed Obama, most recently in a piece published Tuesday in the Chicago Sun-Times, and said he enjoys a close relationship with the Obama family. So I wonder what Obama and his campaign think about Jackson’s latest description of what American foreign policy might look like under a President Obama. And more interestingly, I wonder what Jewish Americans will make of it. Here is what The Rev. Jackson had to say at a World Policy Forum in France: “The most important change would occur in the Middle East, where ‘decades of putting Israel’s interests first’ would end.”

InsiderAdvantage: Obama Leads in Key Bush Counties (Political Wire)
Sen. Barack Obama "has erased traditional Republican advantages in four key bellwether counties that President George W. Bush won in 2000 and 2004, according to a new Politico/InsiderAdvantage survey."
Is it supposed to be a good thing that voters who liked George Bush like Barack Obama?—Caro

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Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com