by Evie Stone

Good morning! 8 days to go on this brisk and windy DC morning. And happy 150th to McCain role model Theodore Roosevelt. You'll always be our Bull Moose.

Both candidates are making a final push to close the deal — The NYT's Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny have a writeup to kick off the final full week of campaigning, zeroing in on the battleground states of 2008 — with the exception of Pennsylvania, all red states from the last go-round four years ago. The Times calls that targeting "testimony to the increasingly dire position of Mr. McCain and his party as Election Day approaches".

NPR's Ina Jaffe has a terrific primer this morning on how McCain is making his final push (10 audio clips, INCLUDING ROCKY THEME MUSIC, in 3 minutes and 47 seconds?! Ina, we salute you). And the Obama campaign is circulating excerpts from the Dem nominee's "closing argument speech", which actually sounds a lot like Obama's opening argument lo these 19 months ago:

In one week, you can choose policies that invest in our middle-class, create new jobs, and grow this economy from the bottom-up so that everyone has a chance to succeed; from the CEO to the secretary and the janitor; from the factory owner to the men and women who work on its floor.

In one week, you can put an end to the politics that would divide a nation just to win an election; that tries to pit region against region, city against town, Republican against Democrat; that asks us to fear at a time when we need hope.

In one week, at this defining moment in history, you can give this country the change we need.

 

It's still raining newspaper endorsements. Over the weekend, the Arizona Republic, the biggest paper in McCain's home state, came through with an endorsement for the GOP ticket.

We have seen the irascible McCain. The bawdy and irreverent McCain. And, yes, the temperamental McCain. Likewise, we here in Arizona have seen the former Navy pilot and war hero evolve - slowly and with lots of fits and starts - into a statesman.

We have witnessed John McCain become a leader - not only of a delegation from a fast-growing Southwestern state, but into a national leader with a reassuring habit of stepping to the front when things seemed most difficult.

Nobody in the country knows the Republican presidential candidate better than we do. And no one is better placed to judge whether he would serve honorably and admirably as president of the United States.

We are confident he will.

But the Anchorage Daily News went the other way, endorsing Obama-Biden despite the presence of Alaska's popular governor on the Republican ballot.

Yet despite her formidable gifts, few who have worked closely with the governor would argue she is truly ready to assume command of the most important, powerful nation on earth. To step in and juggle the demands of an economic meltdown, two deadly wars and a deteriorating climate crisis would stretch the governor beyond her range. Like picking Sen. McCain for president, putting her one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time.

Ouch.

Also this weekend, Senator McCain (once known in some circles as R-MTP) appeared on his old Sunday standby Meet The Press. He told Tom Brokaw that polling data have undersestimated support for his campaign on the ground:

[T]hose polls have been consistently shown me much further behind than we actually are. It all depends on the voter turnout model. And, and everybody gets bored except for us junkies about the process and aught. We're doing fine. We have closed in the last week. We continue this close through next week, you're going to be up very, very late on election night.

But the storyline that's become almost more prevalent than the horse-race is the widely reported internal discord within the McCain-Palin campaign, between the campaign and the GOP establishment, and possibly even between the running-mates — and it's only gotten increased traction from the Sarah Palin wardrobe budget flap. Complaints from conservative pundits and leaks from disgruntled aides have provided endless media catnip since this weekend's Times Magazine story went online in the middle of last week. One official griped Satruday to CNN's John King that Palin is "going rogue" in an effort to rescue her own political future, and several aides told Politico's Ben Smith that Palin has taken to blowing off her handlers' guidance. Evidently Steve Schmidt is no Karl Rove when it comes to discipline within the ranks.

Elsewhere on the ballot next week, South Dakotans will be voting on a referendum to ban almost all abortions in the state. The state's voters rejected a similar ban in 2006. This time around, the referendum's proponents have added a couple of exceptions for rape, incest, and health of the mother — though, as NPR's Julie Rovner explains, opponents of the ban say the exceptions are so narrowly defined (and the burden of proof on doctors so great) that the bill would effectively make abortion impossible in South Dakota. Advocates for the ban hope it will pass and inspire a legal challenge that will eventually wend its way to the Supreme Court, giving the Court an opportunity to overturn, or at least severely undercut, Roe vs. Wade.

And finally — via Shenanigans — in perhaps the most amazing campaign moment ever, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) dances on a stripper pole during a radio interview. No further comment necessary.