Andrew Romano

Welcome to Standard time... and the last 48 hours of the 2008 presidential race. Here's what I'm reading (and watching) this morning: 1. Adam Nagourney's bird's-eye view of the final sprint, via the New York Times. "Mr.

With only 72 hours to go, Stumper will periodically highlight "on the trail" dispatches from my fellow NEWSWEEK bloggers Holly Bailey and Richard Wolffe, who will be traveling with McCain and Obama (respectively) through Election Night. Here's Holly on McCain's final countdown:

For the past five months or so, Barack Obama relentlessly harped on a single message: You don't like George W. Bush. John McCain is George W. Bush. So vote for me instead.In contrast, McCain has careened between at least eight different themes--in the past 48 hours alone.

(Charlie Neibergall / AP) If you'd fallen asleep on Nov. 2, 2004 and awoken, a la Rip Van Winkle, on Oct. 31, 2008, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Iowa is a battleground state.

The end is nigh. For political junkies, the prospect of going cold turkey on Nov. 4 is terrifying--understandably so. In a new series for NEWSWEEK.com, a group of the magazine's political scribes went on camera to discuss life after Election Day--including yours truly.

Everyone knows that Barack Obama has built an unprecedented Democratic field organization this election cycle. But the big question as Nov. 4 approaches is how well McCain--who trails by massive margins in the money race and has invested far fewer resources in field offices and get-out-the-vote efforts--will be able to mobilize his voters.

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories. WHICH OBAMA WOULD AMERICA GET? (Stuart Taylor, National Journal) The first Obama has sometimes seemed eager to engineer what he called "redistribution of wealth" in a 2001 radio interview, along with the more conventional protectionism, job preferences, and other liberal Democratic dogmas featured in his campaign.

From John McCain's rally this morning in Defiance, Ohio: [youtube:j1TT7gt5F0w] Where was Joe, you ask? Perhaps he was meeting with his new, Nashville-based manager, Jim Della Croce.

(Stephan Savoia / AP) Could McCain be--brace yourself, people--coming back? That's the argument members of hopeful right (and paranoid left) are making this afternoon.

Over at Sprint to the Oval, my NEWSWEEK colleague Holly Bailey has some ominous color from the McCain caravan. Sign of trouble? Or mere coincidence? We report, you decide: If a reporter wanted to craft a dire lede about the final days of John McCain's campaign, the signs are coming in droves—although it's something more akin to a satirical movie like "Airplane!" or "Hot Shots." It all started on Monday, when McCain's motorcade had to pull over almost immediately upon arrival in Fayetteville,...

[youtube:GtREqAmLsoA] When Ross Perot pioneered the half-hour presidential-campaign infomercial back in 1992, he used pie charts to make his points. Last night, Barack Obama relied on apple pie instead.

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories. DEMOCRATS VIE TO SHAPE AN OBAMA LEGISLATIVE AGENDA(Jonathan Weisman, Wall Street Journal)Democrats inside Sen.

Posting over at her new Sprint to the Oval blog, my NEWSWEEK colleague Holly Bailey reports on the McCain campaign's outrage du jour--i.e., demanding that the Los Angeles Times release a video (mentioned in its own pages last April) that captures Obama's remarks at a 2003 banquet honoring Rashid Khalidi, a Columbia University professor and Palestinian scholar who has been critical of Israel.

WARNING: Supergeeky content ahead. Despite all my-blabbering and bloviating about "the latest polls,"the only polls that matter are still the ones that close on ElectionNight.

Call them the Icing States. The candidates aren't visiting. The reporters aren't calling. And the rest of the country barely knows they exist. With six days until Nov. 4, the political world is focusing on traditional battlegrounds like Florida, where both Barack Obama and John McCain are campaigning today—and understandably so.

Over at "Race to the Finish," my fellow NEWSWEEK blogger Howard Fineman takes a look at the latest "traditional" Gallup tracking poll--which shows "Obama lead[ing] McCain by only two percentage points, 49 to 47 percent"--and explains why we still have a battle on our hands:By all accounts and by all odds, Obama is fairly comfortably ahead in the Electoral College—which, as Al Gore will tell you, is what matters.On TV Wednesday night, Obama will give what one aide described to me as a "meaty"...

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.HOW JOHN MCCAIN RAN AGAINST HIMSELF(Walter Shapiro, Salon)Just over the horizon lies an alternate universe in which John McCain is locked in a tense nail-biter of a presidential race with Barack Obama, one in which the polls gyrate daily and "too close to call" describes most of the contested political landscape...

QUAKERTOWN, Penn.—Driving on John Fries Highway through Quakertown is almost like taking a guided tour of the local electorate. First you pass a few farms—the last remnants of a fading way of life.

Spotted this morning on the I-95 overpass outside Obama's windy, rainy, 45-degree rally in Chester, Penn.:  GREENPEACE VOLUNTEERS:  [Shivering, dripping, rubbing hands together] STUMPER: Have you won any converts?  GREENPEACE VOLUNTEERS: Not really. STUMPER: Perhaps you should try "Increase Global Warming" instead. GREENPEACE VOLUNTEERS: [Silence, more shivering]  

Obama rallies at Widener University in Chester, Pa. CHESTER, Pa. -- Appearing this morning on the main quad of Widener University here in suburban Philadelphia, Barack Obama braved the blinding rain, rising mud and whipping, 40-degree wind to make one last push for the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

(Mary Altaffer / AP Photo) As longtime Stumper readers will recall, I suffered this past summer from an affliction that could only be described as Ridgemania--that is, the feverish belief that John McCain would be best served choosing former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge as his running mate, despite Ridge's pro-choice views.Now it looks like someone agrees with my previous arguments.

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories. ONE WEEK(Barack Obama)After decades of broken politics in Washington, eight years of failed policies from George Bush, and twenty-one months of a campaign that has taken us from the rocky coast of Maine to the sunshine of California, we are one week away from change in America.

Today in Cleveland, John McCain made an interesting comment: "That's what change means for the Obama administration. They're redistributing. It means taking your money and giving it to someone else." This is interesting for two reasons.

(Stephan Savoia / AP)Speaking this morning in Cleveland, Ohio, John McCain sharpened an argument that has emerged in recent days as a central element of the GOP's case against Barack Obama: that electing him president would give Democrats--or, more ominously, "liberals"--complete control over Washington. "This election comes down to how you want your hard earned money spent," he said. "Do you want to keep it and invest it in your future, or have it taken by the most liberal person to ever run...

Joe Raedle/Getty Images The Bradley Effect is dead! Long live the Obama Effect! Or at least that's the cri de coeur coming from conservative circles as the 2008 presidential race enters its final sprint.

In this week's NEWSWEEK, two of America's smartest policy wonks--Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg--send unsolicited letters to the next president of the United States.

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.CEDING THE CENTER(David Brooks, New York Times)McCain shares the progressive conservative instinct. He has shown his sympathy with the striving immigrant and his disgust with the colluding corporatist.

Sometimes strategists say the darndest things. As Dan Balz reports in this morning's Washington Post...... McCain's team dismisses the most dire polls -- those showing the race nationally with a double-digit lead for Obama.

Funny how a quickly a non-story can become a story. When reports first surfaced yesterday--and by "surfaced" I mean "appeared atop the all-powerful Drudge Report"--that a " 6'4", 200-lb African-American male" in "dark clothing" punched, kicked and scratched a "B" (apparently for "Barack") into the face of the woman he was mugging outside a Pittsburgh ATM after he spotting a McCain bumper sticker on her car, I made a conscious decision not to comment.

[youtube:FWSEcL9xFQk] After struggling for weeks to present a coherent case against Barack Obama, John McCain has finally found a closing argument—and he's sticking to it.