By Catharine Skipp

As the Republican Party struggles to find its footing and craft a message it is in search of new national leader. Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer is considering making a bit for that role along with jockeying from Republican Party chairs Saul Anuzis of Michigan and South Carolina's Katon Dawson. Michael Steele, a self-described Lincoln Republican and the first African-American to hold statewide office in Maryland as Lt. Gov., is also believed to be in the running; he is said to be announcing as early as today.

The choice of RNC head will signal whether the party's emphasis is going to be conservative, following the lead of stars like South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford or Sarah Palin, moderate in the image of Florida Gov. Charlie Crist or Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty or somewhere in between, like Louisiana’s Gov. Bobby Jindal. “We need to discuss within the party who will be the RNC chair and where the philosophy will come from--the North or South, Conservative or Moderate,” Greer says “and what the party should push over the next four years as a message. Someone like Katon believes that the message needs to be more focused on social issues as much as with government issues.” Greer and Gov. Crist are more moderate “live and let live” voices. Greer believes that for the party to grow it needs to nod to the values issues and then move on. “We need to say ‘yes’ loud on pro-life and faith and family issues but then move on and focus on important American issues. No one is sitting at home talking about abortion or the gay movement. We have to be about employment opportunity, economic issues and challenges, the education of our children and retirement. My position is you can’t go either direction [moderate or conservative] without responding to the other group first. You cannot build a house with a weak foundation.”

By Jessica Bennett

Outside the Apollo Theater on Harlem's 125th Street, chants of "Obama U-S-A" echo through subway tunnels and roadways as the final words of the next president's speech--that familiar "Yes We Can"--broadcast through open windows and car radios. To describe the scene here almost sounds like a Lifetime special, except it is real: streets have been blocked off, while black, white, Latino, young, old celebrate peacefully, in multiple languages and urban dialects. "I honestly never thought I'd see this day," says Roland Jackson, a lifelong Harlem native who moved to Indiana six months ago, but came back today to vote. "It's the fulfillment of Martin Luther King's dream," says Richard Washington, 45. "Now we have a new legacy."

Beside me, two friends embrace--"change, man, change," one says, patting the back of his friend. "I'm going to cry," says Elana King, a 36-year-old Harlem native. "Not only is this historic because its a black man, but it's the first time we feel like we truly affected change."  

Amid the clanging of pots and pans, the constant blare of car horns and scattered showers from a broken fire hydrant shooting water into the air off Broadway, camera phones are almost as abundant as the Obama paraphernalia: home-made posters, self-designed T-shirts, stickers, flyers and  fountains of confetti. "Its like Mardi  Gras," says a woman.

Just a lot more historic.

By Suzanne Smalley

At the Marriott Hotel in Glen Allen, Virginia, a despondent crowd watched Fox News call Pennsylvania and then Ohio for Senator Barack Obama. But it wasn't until Fox called Virginia for Obama at around 10:45 p.m.-- with 91 percent of precincts reporting and just 50,000 votes separating the candidates -- that the remaining two dozen or so people at the state Republican Party's "victory" celebration expressed the full extent of their disappointment. "I'm devastated," said Carl Woo, a 54-year-old CPA from Richmond. Woo's friend, a furniture store owner named Ed Barden, tried to reassure him. "It's not over yet," Barden said. "But the patient's on life support," a dejected Woo replied.

While Barden still held out hope, the so-called celebration inside this suburban Richmond hotel ballroom hadn't felt like a party since 9 p.m., when the extremely popular local congressman, Deputy Whip Eric Cantor, won his race for Virginia's 7th district in the U.S. House of Representatives. Cantor blamed the Republican free fall on a terrible environment for Republicans and the tremendous resource advantage Obama held over Senator John McCain. "This was a terribly, teribly challenging environment for anyone to run for office in and we delivered because you delivered in the 7th district," Cantor said in his acceptance speech.

Later, in an interview with NEWSWEEK, Cantor, perhaps the biggest rising star in the Republican Party, added: "One of the things that I think has struck people as kind of odd is that all of a sudden you hear Obama, Rahm Emanuel, and Chuck Schumer talking about the middle class as if the Democrats own the middle class issue. Frankly, the middle class is, really was, our playing field. That’s how Ronald Reagan came into power, that’s how Newt Gingrich came into power, is to stick up for the working families. So we’ve got to get back in the mode of being able to talk to people about things that they care about, offering up solutions that are based on our conservative principles. I think there's all kinds of explanations for this year, obviously. Again, the resources obviously played a part in this election…If nothing else, we couldn’t get the message out. Look, Barack Obama ran as a conservative. He's talking about giving a tax cut, in his language, in his parlance, to 95 percent of the people of this country. That’s a conservative message."

I left the house to vote at 6:30 this morning--and here's what greeted me at the corner of St. John's and Sixth Ave. in Park Slope, Brooklyn. "I've been voting here for 20 years," one guy told me. "Usually, you just walk right in." Another fellow--slightly older--interrupted. "I've been voting here for 30 years," he added. "Never seen anything like this."

Now, my neighborhood--a patchwork of aging Bobos, deeply-rooted African-Americans, young creative types, yupster families and lots and lots of lesbians--is probably the furthest thing from a bellwether in the entire country. But the hour-long line, which covered an entire city block, was probably a good sign for Obama. If he can turn 'em out in a 'hood as safe as Park Slope--and yes, the crowd was probably 99 percent Democratic--I imagine he'll fare pretty well in the places where he's actually making an effort.

Developing, as they say.

Oh, and please let me know below what you're seeing and hearing out there. I'll post the most interesting anecdotes as they come in...

(Alex Brandon / AP)

Obama: You guys have been gracious, outstanding, reasonably easy for our crack team here and you know whatever happens tomorrow it’s extraordinary you guys have shared this process with us and I just want to say thank you and I appreciate you.
 
Kathy Kiely: How are you feeling Senator?
 
Obama: I am not going to come back and answer any questions here, Kathy.  Even though you can feel free to keep your tape recorders on. Get some sleep starting on Wednesday.
 
Reporter:  I’m sorry about your Grandmother.
 
Obama: I know you guys have sent a lot of emails individually, collectively. It is very gracious. Embeds—they have been there for the start. Thank you guys, thank you guys.
 
(Walks to the back of the plane)
 
Obama: This is finally starting to look like the original plane.  It took a while to get that old feeling again. Is everyone giving [NEWSWEEK's Richard] Wolffe a sufficiently hard time about being a feature on Saturday Night Live?
 
Reporter: Scout—It's her birthday you know.
 
Obama: Let me give you a birthday kiss. OK guys, let's go home. It will be fun to see how the story ends.

Amen.
 

By Suzanne Smalley  

Sarah Palin knows the way to the hearts of conservative Ohioans. In Lakewood, an affluent bedroom community 10 minutes from downtown Cleveland, Palin on Monday married two of her favorite attacks into one anti-Obama soliloquy that framed the Illinois senator as a creature of San Francisco--a city as hated by Republican voters for its congresswoman, Nancy Pelosi, as it is for being an overall bastion of liberalism. The crowd responded to Palin's enthusiastic attacks and promise of victory, at one point interrupting her to chant over and over, "We will win!"

Palin reminded the crowd of several hundred that San Francisco was the venue for Obama's remarks this spring that rural Americans cling to guns and religion because they are bitter. What a coincidence, then, that Obama was also in the City by the Bay when he disclosed that under a cap and trade plan he supports, polluters who disregard carbon emissions could "bankrupt" the coal industry. (Incidentally, John McCain also supports cap and trade, a program that would charge polluters for carbon emissions, giving companies financial incentives to reduce pollution). "There must be something about San Francisco," Palin said. "It's like a truth serum where when he's there he seems to be more candid. Remember it was there that he talked about, there you go, the bitter clingers, the Klingons, all of us, I guess, you know holding onto religion and guns."

The linking of Obama's January remarks about the coal industry with his comments about bitter rural Americans at a San Francisco fundraiser this spring, represents a departure for Palin, whose speeches tend to be extremely repetitive. After Palin's new attack on Obama's comments about the coal industry back in January provided a much-needed jolt on Sunday, joking about San Francisco became the topic du jour on the press plane Monday. (Though Obama's comments about coal have been publicly available on the Web site of the San Francisco Chronicle for more than nine months, they have only made their way onto conservative blogs in the part 48 hours, raising questions about the competence of McCain's opposition research department, among other things).

Palin has long featured San Francisco congresswoman and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a favorite conservative target, in her stump speech. Rep. Barney Frank, one of the very few openly gay members in Congress, is also a favorite (even though he lives on the other side of the country, in Massachussetts), and mentions of both of them almost always generate boos. Monday was no different as Palin sought to emphasize what she sees as the dangers of one-party rule. "Barney Frank," Palin told the crowd in Lakewood, "according to him, the leadership, what's gonna happen, the first thing on the chopping block, one of the first things to go, will be one quarter of your U.S. defense budget. … Please let us not entrust all the powers of your federal government to the one-party rule of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid."

The only group on the receiving end of more bashing than San Francisco liberals was the media. As the press filed through the crowd in Jefferson City--the second stop in a six-city sprint that will take Palin to the swing states of Ohio, Missouri, Nevada, Iowa and Colorado in less than 12 hours Monday--the taunting started with people telling reporters to try and be fair for a change. Minutes later, country singer Hank Williams took the stage and crooned, "Left-wing American media, always a close knit family," before going on to compliment Palin. The lyric that got the most laughs--and the biggest reaction from Palin had particular resonance given the attention that has been paid to Palin's pregnant teenage daughter. "If you mess with her cubs, she's gonna take off the gloves. That's an American female tradition!"

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. Then there's a sign for Bethlehem Catholic School. Next up is LifeQuest Nursing Center on the left. Soon, you've sped past a smattering of small businesses—large appliances, lawn furniture, heating oil—and a billboard touting the "Light Sippin'" vehicles for sale at a nearby Ford dealership. By the time you finally arrive at 601 Mill St., site of Quakertown Memorial Stadium and, not coincidentally, the afternoon's John McCain and Sarah Palin rally, you've got a pretty decent idea which voters the GOP ticket is targeting in Bucks County: ex-urbanites, white ethnics, senior citizens, small-business owners and blue-collar workers. 

The only problem? No one—including McCain and Palin—is actually in the stadium.

Shortly before Barack Obama struggled on stage this morning amid a chilly, steady rain, the McCain campaign announced it was postponing its 1:15 p.m. Quakertown event "due to weather." I decided to drive the 80 miles from Chester anyway—you know, to survey the lay of the land. If McCain wants to win on Election Day, he'd be well-advised to return as soon as possible.

In fact, this is the one keystone-state stop McCain can't afford to miss. 

Bucks County is like Pennsylvania in miniature. It's technically a northern suburb of Philadelphia, completing the "collar" of counties that begins with Chester to the southeast and extends up through Delaware and Montgomery. But "suburban" doesn't really describe its notably diverse—and strikingly representative—population. The Wall Street Journal's Matthew Kaminski recently mapped the county's political topography well: "Rural northern 'upper Bucks' is socially conservative, clinging—as Mr. Obama famously said this year—to guns and religion; the center around Doylestown is fiscally conservative and socially liberal, once dominated by Republican 'moderates'; and "lower' Bucks around Bristol is blue-collar, formerly industrial, depressed and tends to vote Democratic."

As a result of this heterogeneity, Bucks has become something of a bellwether county in recent years. In 2000, Al Gore beat George W. Bush 50 percent to 46 percent in both Bucks County and greater Pennsylvania; four years later, Kerry's 51-48 margin in Bucks was almost identical to his statewide split (51-49). So it doesn't bode well for McCain that he's losing 43-46 in a new countywide poll by Politico/Insider Advantage.  

Why, then, should the Arizona senator hurry back? Because if McCain wants to win the keystone state, Bucks is both his best place to start—and his best hope. As Michael Barone of U.S. News and World Report recently noted, Obama's entire 11-point lead in Pennsylvania comes from the population-heavy southeastern part of the state. The latest stats from SurveyUSA, for example, show the Democrat ahead 64 percent to 32 percent in the region. Right now, McCain's carrying the rural, pro-Republican west-central and south-central counties and polling within the margin of error in the traditionally Democratic areas around Pittsburgh and Scranton. If he weren't running so far behind Obama in metropolitan Philadelphia, he'd probably be within striking distance statewide. And he won't win unless he starts doing better.

That's where Bucks County comes in. Heavily urban Philly won't budge—nor will the posh Main Line suburbs of Delaware County or the ascendant exurbs of Chester County, which both voted for Obama in April's Democratic primary by double-digit margins. Once a Republican stronghold, Montgomery County, where Clinton won 51-49, may lean a little further to the right. But it's Bucks County that holds the most promise for McCain. There, Clinton clobbered Obama 63-37—a striking result considering that Chester County, a mirror image of Bucks County in 2004, chose Obama 55-45. What that suggests is that there's a different kind of Democrat in and around Quakertown—the kind that's notably less enamored of Obama than the rest of his metro Philly peers. Given that Bucks belongs to the Philly media market and ranks as the fourth most populous county in the state, it makes perfect sense for McCain to center his efforts here (in addition to driving GOP turnout in the west and center of the state). Target those Clinton Democrats in person. Get on Philly television as a result. Hope your message spreads across the rest of the "collar"—and boosts your broader metro margins on Election Day. 

This isn't news to McCain. It's why he appeared in the suburbs twice the week before last and kicked off a cross-state bus tour in nearby Bensalem last Tuesday—a day after his wife Cindy campaigned in Bucks County. And it's why he was planning to return today. For now, McCain's intense focus on the region seems to be paying off: today's Bucks County Politico/Insider Advantage poll (which shows McCain losing by three) is an improvement over its Oct. 14 predecessor (which showed him losing by six). What's more, Obama has yet to approach the 50-percent threshold—meaning that undecideds could still swing the county for McCain. Ultimately, it's unlikely that a boost in Bucks County alone would erase Obama's double-digit lead in Pennsylvania. But as Bucks goes, so goes the state—or at least it has in past.

Which is why McCain would be wise to steer the Straight Talk Express down John Fries Highway. Pronto.

Spotted on American Airlines Flight 840 from St. Louis to New York-LaGuardia: Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman. Fresh from representing close friend and favored presidential candidate John McCain last night at Washington University's "Spin Row"--he told reporters that Sarah Palin "did great"--the Independent legislator was seated (gasp!) in the middle of the coach cabin. (FOX News' Alan Colmes, on the other hand, was in business class. The indignity.) Here's the best shot my BlackBerry could muster (Lieberman's the fuzzy figure stowing his luggage in the overhead compartment):

NEWSWEEK's Sarah Kliff reports from Washington University in St. Louis--her alma mater--on the run-up to tonight's much-anticipated vice presidential debate. 

ST. LOUIS--At Washington University in St. Louis, hosting a presidential debate has become a bit of a routine: this is the fifth time the school has been selected, and the fourth showdown it has actually had (the 1996 showdown here was canceled at the last minute). The campus feels much as it did in 2004, when I was a student here, and President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry were in town to throw down. Chris Matthews has set up his Hardball stage in the exact same location as before. The campus dining halls are running the same donkey vs. elephant cookie contest. (Predictably, students have purchased more donkey cookies). They even have a special “debate door:” created during the 1992 debate, its sole purpose is providing reporters with easier access to the media filing center. It’s unlocked a few days prior to each debate and shut the day after, not to be opened until the next war of words.

But even for a university accustomed to the media maelstrom that goes with hosting a presidential debate, Thursday night's showdown poses special challenges. The school simply never expected a running mate match-up to be such a circus. “It definitely hasn’t gotten easier,” says Fred Volkman, vice chancellor for public affairs, who has been through all four of the university’s debates. “We’ve never seen interest like this.” The Commission on Presidential Debates has credentialed 3,100 journalists to cover the show--up 300 from the university’s 2004 debate and up 600 from the last cycle’s veep contest. As Joani Wardell, media director for the commission, said at a recent media briefing, “We had a large contingency from Alaska and Delaware who suddenly decided they needed to be here. I think I heard from every single radio station in the state of Alaska.” Forty television trucks have parked outside the debate site—about double the number that turned up for the Bush-Kerry clash in 2004.

The veep debate initially seemed a consolation prize. “At first, administrators at Wash. U. kind of felt like they had been shafted,” says junior Greg Allen, who edits the Washington University Political Review. “They kind of just expected a presidential debate” after having been selected consistently over the past 16 years.” In fact, the school's role as host of top-of-the-ticket debates has become a selling point in its admissions strategy, along with nice dorms and good food. (When I was a tour guide here a few years back, the likelihood of seeing a presidential debate was one of the talking points in the script we read to prospective students.) “We were told that we were going to get a presidential one,” says junior Scott Statman, who lives in the Kappa Sigma fraternity, about 10 yards from Thursday night's debate site. “It was kind of cool [when we got a vice presidential debate], but also kind of a let down.”

And, then, enter Sarah Palin. “All of a sudden, it was like we had the best one that everyone wanted to see,” says Statman. “We had gone from the debate no one wanted to the debate everyone wanted.” The campus was suddenly energized, he says; his house has been plastered in Obama posters. “I sent out the second Palin skit from SNL earlier today and everyone is watching it,” says Statman.  And it's not just the students who are homing in. “News-wise, I think this is it," says Allen. "McCain and Obama are so known, and so well-versed, that the debates aren’t going to reveal much about them. Here you have the potential for things to get a lot more confrontational and to learn a lot more about the candidates.”

Those candidates, meanwhile, are still thousands of miles from St. Louis. The Palin team has been prepping the GOP candidate on how to handle Biden’s strengths--most notably foreign policy. The Alaska governor has been using McCain's top foreign-policy aide, Randy Scheunemann, as a stand-in for Biden. Meanwhile, the Democrats are hunkered down at a Wilmington Sheraton Suites, using a converted gym with two podiums;  Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm is playing Palin. Press secretary David Wade describes the preparations as less focused on specific subjects than on Palin’s debating style. "It's clear watching Gov. Palin's past debates that she's kind of like Sollozzo in The Godfather: 'very good with a knife,'" says Wade. "This Cicero of the Snow delivers these jabs with a smile. She comes from broadcast journalism and she shouldn't be underestimated."

Twenty-four hours out, many Washington University students looked like they were having trouble passing the time. Forty or so clustered around a half-built Hardball set Wednesday afternoon to catch a 4 p.m. sound check. Others watched a Clinton event on the flat-screen TVs in the student center. Only a diligent handful studied for exams. Janice Warren, who has worked at the university during the 2004 debate, says this contest “is all that students are talking about.” “Everyone just wants to see Palin,” says sophomore Seth Feldman. “Whether you want to see her do well or want to see her get ripped apart, you want to see her.” He hasn’t decided where he’ll watch the debate. He’s not among the 300 students chosen from a lottery of 7,300 to receive a ticket, so he’ll likely hunker down at his frat house or a friend’s apartment--or one of the half-dozen debate watching parties sponsored by university groups. But he knows he'll be tuning in. “Everyone,” he says, “has got to be watching this one.”

With Holly Bailey
 

Here's Richard Wolffe reporting from the Obama caravan in Colorado on the candidate's feisty new style.

Back in late December – about nine dog years ago – Barack Obama was proud of the fact that he had resisted the urge to go negative against his rivals. He was so proud that he turned his positivity into a punchline in his stump speech.

“Folks said there’s no way Obama has a chance unless he goes and kneecaps the person ahead of us, does a Tonya Harding,” he told one crowd in Iowa. “We decided that’s not the kind of campaign we wanted to run.”

Tonya Harding, meet Barack Obama. Over the last few days, Team Obama has released several new ads directed against the former lobbyists who now take leading positions in the McCain campaign. A third, released on Monday, accuses him of running a dishonorable, deceptive and dishonest campaign, citing several recent media headlines that find McCain ads are all three.

The same day saw Joe Biden finally playing Tonya's role, lamenting how McCain had morphed into the 2000 Bush campaign that took him down in South Carolina. “When Senator McCain was subjected to unconscionable, scurrilous attacks in his 2000 campaign, I called him on the phone to ask what I could do,” Biden said. “And now, some of the very same people and the tactics he once deplored, his campaign now employs.”

If the kneecapping process needed a third blow, it came from the candidate himself. Speaking in Grand Junction, Colorado (last visited by a presidential candidate called Harry Truman in 1948), Obama unveiled what his aides suggested may well become his new stump speech. Some of the lines were borrowed from earlier speeches, including his acceptance speech in Denver. He even accused McCain of stealing his lines, including the slogan “the change we need.”

“Change isn’t about slogans, it’s about substance, and if Sen McCain now wants to talk about who can bring change to Washington, that’s a debate I’m happy to have,” he said. “It’s great he now wants to talk about putting corporate lobbyists in their place, But he needs to explain why he put seven of them in charge of his campaign – lobbyists for the insurance industry, and the oil industry, and for Freddie Mac, and for foreign governments. And if you think those lobbyists are working day and night for John McCain just to put themselves out of business, well I’ve got a bridge to sell you up in Alaska.”

The scrappier, punchier Obama may be welcomed by his anxious Democratic supporters, and is certainly welcomed by his scrappier, punchier aides. But the new tactics do pose a simple question: what’s the difference between a kneecapping ice-skater and a pitbull of a hockey mom?

You knew it was coming. Steve Duprey, John McCain's travel buddy and the campaign's self-proclaimed "Sultan of Swag," came back to the press cabin on McCain's plane this morning in Florida to introduce his latest creation: the McCain/Palin hockey puck. "Hockey moms rule!" it says. He also showed off a new t-shirt in honor of Palin. "Sarah Palin Can Hunt, Dress, Cook and Serve Her Own Dinner," the shirt says, its words superimposed over an outline of moose antlers. "Joe Biden Can Order Takeout. Enough Said."
 

By Sarah Kliff

The blogs lit up over pigs with lipstick. But Joe Biden?

As America spent the week deconstructing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the spotlight seemed to skip over the senior senator from Delaware--i.e., the other vice-presidential nominee. One recent poll asked Americans which candidate they would most like to have dinner with; only 7 percent chose Joe as their dinner date.

The media wasn't exactly clamoring to get cozy with him either. This week, I spent four days in Biden's traveling press entourage. I was one of  just seven reporters following him--two from print publications and the rest from major television networks. We took to calling ourselves the JV team. One morning a rumor spread among us that the Straight Talk Two (one of McCain’s chartered planes) was overweight and the campaign was asking reporters to volunteer to fly commercial. Meanwhile, Air Biden usually hovered around one-third occupancy. Each of us took up our entire row--and we gave a life-sized cardboard cut out of McCain, picked up somewhere on the trail, his own row, too.

While Biden may have a longstanding reputation in the Senate for political incorrectness, his stump speeches by and large went off without a hitch. For us reporters, that meant little news. Biden stuck to his anecdotes, and we memorized them: the time that his granddaughters and Obama’s kids had a sleepover, how his late father measured success not by whether you fell down, but how quickly you got back up. Aside from one widely-reported moment--when Biden told a crowd in Nashua, N.H. that he thought Hillary “might have been a better pick"--the stories we sent back to our editors weren’t exactly making waves.

Still, we kept blogging, no matter how minute the details. One reporter created a series of blog posts timing Biden’s windy answers to policy questions. Some clocked in at over 13 minutes. I wrote about the night that the Green Bay Packers shared a hotel with us. Another opined on the arrival of cardboard McCain. Meanwhile, our colleagues covering Palin were scoring cover stories. When I got back to New York yesterday I scanned the newsstand outside my apartment. There was no sight of ol’ Joe.
 
The JV reporters are having a fine time on Air Biden--enjoying the food, filling our blogs. But the campaign has a pressing decision to make: what do you do when the national media doesn't seem to care? Right now, the Biden camp says you don’t do anything at all. “[Palin's] sort of a celebrity, and I think [Biden's] a vice president,” says David Wade, Biden’s press secretary. “Those are two very different things.” Wade doesn’t want his candidate to receive the same kind of coverage as Palin. “Having looked at a lot of those covers, most of them don’t scream vice president to me,” he says. “Voters don’t make decisions on personality. They make quantitative decisions about who feels like they can do the job.” Instead, Wade says--half-convincingly--that Team Biden is content with the current situation: minimal national coverage, high local visibility.

“Were you with us in Green Bay?” he asks (I tell him I was). “That’s one of the most important markets. We got in at like 10 p.m., the next morning everybody watching television is showing his arrival in Wisconsin, tossing a football. They were treating it like a news story, Biden getting off a plane in Green Bay. That’s exactly what we need.”

There is definitely some truth to what Wade is saying: a fair amount of the national media’s coverage of Palin is not flattering. Think of our articles investigating "Troopergate." Or the tagline on her recent U.S. Weekly cover ("BABIES, LIES & SCANDAL"). Or her first major media interview--the one where she couldn’t define the Bush Doctrine. Not exactly the warmest introduction. In fact, new NEWSWEEK polling data shows that even though Palin’s a media darling, she’s not necessarily establishing credibility as a candidate. Forty-six percent of NEWSWEEK respondents think Palin is unqualified to step in as president--the highest number for a running mate in the history of our poll. And that history includes Dan Quayle (36 percent).

Still, Biden can't sail through the election with a "no news is good news" strategy. When asked whom they would choose in a separate election for vice president, voters picked Palin over Biden 46 percent to 43 percent. While vice-presidential candidates rarely hog national media attention, they’re not meant to stay completely out of the spotlight. According to Wade, Biden won't stay invisible for long. Expect more interviews on the Sunday shows, a few major speeches and Q&As with major magazines on specific subjects. “We have a strategy,” he tells me repeatedly. “I know if we want to be doing the national interviews, we have that pipeline in place.” Now would probably be a good time to get it flowing.

By Daniel Stone 

Politics, they say, is about getting things done, or reaching compromises or making sausages, or some political cliché like that. All true, yes. But what it really comes down to? Flipping on the charm and knowing how to work a room.

Some folks are good at it. A lot aren't. Both types showed up for the Funniest Celebrity in Washington contest Wednesday night--the annual evening of laughs that pulls DC types from the high levels of government and media to poke clever, sometimes uncomfortable, fun at themselves and their colleagues. (Don't worry, it was a fundraiser. It was for the children.)

If anyone ever said that politics can't be funny, Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr strongly disagrees. In a remarkable act, Barr sought to promote his candidacy, ding Bush AND get laughs. "You wanna hear a joke?" he yelled at the crowd. "Only Barack Obama and John McCain are in a debate. Get it? That's the joke!" [Uncomfortable laughter.] Certainly wanting to make sure his next joke could pass muster of an eastern elite DC audience, Barr picked things up. "Someone asked me recently how long I've been in Washington. I told them that when I first got to Washington, the Constitution and Habeas Corpus were still in effect." He should have stopped there, really, but he couldn't resist going out with a Libertarian light bulb joke. "How many Libertarians does it take to screw in a light bulb? You give up? None! We let the free market take care of it."

Not long after came Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, former lieutenant governor of Arkansas and former presidential candidate ("This guy has some trouble keeping a job!" cracked the MC), who managed to poke some fun at himself, chronicling the slow deflation of his presidential hopes and all the people he now meets who said they voted for him, although most, he griped, didn't. "If everyone who said they voted for me actually voted for me, I'd be hanging around with Sarah Palin right about now!" [Cue pity laugh.]

Then he sharpened his deprecation...not of himself, but of his fellow GOPers.

On Mitt Romney: "During the campaign, Mitt had more positions than a Chinese gymnast!"

On Fred Thompson: "I heard that Fred Thompson ran with us. Did he? I don't know if he did for sure; I never saw him run."

And on Sarah Palin: "She's shown she can sure shoot a moose. Now if she can go into the woods and shoot a moose with a lawyer, that makes her MORE qualified than Dick Cheney."

Huckabee ended up winning the night, perhaps helped in part by his name recognition. But the real prize should have gone to second placer, hilarious Politico blogger James Kotecki, who performed a perfectly rhymed a timed DC-themed flow that managed to knock Barr, Huckabee and tax-lowering advocate Grover Norquist, who came in fourth. Some of Kotecki's lyrics are probably too hot for a family blog; here are some of the cleaner excerpts:

Every other contestant here is a joke
Bob Barr, yeah good luck with the pothead vote
And Grover Norquist? Man I'm not trying to be mean
I thought your tax policy WAS your standup routine!?

Huck you won 8 months ago
And now you're here telling jokes at a comedy show
It's survival of the fittest I don't mean to be rude
But NOW do you believe in evolution dude?