Independence, MO:

Carl Cameron sat down with John McCain and talked about a wide range of issues including the financial bailout, Gov. Sarah Palin and PBS journalist and Vice Presidential Debate moderator, Gwen Ifil….

On Gov. Palin qualifications for the second highest position in the land, John McCain was unequivocal and utterly confident in her capabilities and dismissed the “press attacks” as not worth responding to.

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McCain also said he was not concerned about Gwen Ifil’s ability to have a fair and objective debate tomorrow between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin following reports that she was writing a book to be released on Inauguration day called “The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.”

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After a quick Thanksgiving trip to Iraq, Senator John McCain is lashing out at Democrats who won’t say the surge is working.

Campaigning in South Carolina, a state with a large military and veterans’ population, McCain insists the U.S. military is making progress in Iraq.

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Senator Biden released a statement Monday saying that the attempt by “John McCain and Rudy Giuliani to defend the Bush-Cheney troop surge in Iraq totally misses the point – and is misleading to the American people. Security in Iraq is better, thanks in no small measure to our troops. But there is no evidence – none – that the surge is succeeding in achieving its stated objective: to allow Iraqis to come together politically.”

McCain maintains there has been some political progress in Iraq, but admits that he’s frustrated by the Maliki government.

Reporters Notebook: The Roar From Iowa

Saturday , November 10, 2007

Per Major Garrett

DES MOINES —

A record crowd — 9,000 paid dinner guests and twice that many revved up Iowa Democrats — packed the Veterans Memorial Auditorium here for the largest Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Iowa history.
For any Republican seeking the presidency and hoping to keep Iowa in the GOP column (President Bush won here by less than 11,000 votes in ‘04), the scene could only provoke pangs of panic bordering on political paralysis.

As the genteel party regulars sat at circular, white linen-covered tables, a raucous crowd of rank-and-file Democrats thundered in the horseshoe-shaped balcony seats up above.

The dinner started nearly 40 minutes late, but the balcony partisans passed it with rhythmic chants and coordinated placard movements and thunderstick pounding reminiscent of a European soccer game or national championship college football game.

Huge placards and hand-painted signs for all the candidates festooned the balcony railings and Barack Obama and John Edwards set off their sections with illuminated signs tucked just beneath the rafters in the nose-bleed seats. The Obama signs were in blue and red miniature lights spelling out Obama in block letters. The single Edwards sign was made up of seven huge blue placards with a white initial spelling out E-D-W-A-R-D-S and each bottom lit with a single portable light.

Hillary Clinton’s sections pounded through the night with bright yellow thundersticks that reverberated throughout the hall.

Movie comparisons sprang to mind: think of the crowd scenes from Hoosiers or High School Musical.

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