Yes, I think you need to evaluate McCain's associations, including the ones you mentioned. One of the reasons I like Palin (no laughter, please!) is that she is not part of the Republican D.C. establishment. For the likes of McCain, that means associations going back through Watergate, Iran Contra, and all the rest of it. I liked Huckabee and Romney in the primaries for much the same reason.

Someone asked earlier, was it wrong to be on a board with Ayres? I don't think I would sit on a board with Timothy McVeigh or Terry Nichols, if they had been released on a technicality. Ayres is similar to McVeigh and Nichols. He did not just throw an errant grenade at a protest rally -- the papers are saying his group tried to assassinate a judge and his family by setting their house on fire in the middle of the night during a 1970's black panther trial. That's scary stuff, folks.

Now, the difference here is not right vs. left, but money vs. no money. Ayres is rich. McVeigh and Nichols were not. Ayres is a player in the south side of Chicago. I actually feel for Barack - he was trying to get started there back in the 90's and may have had to compromise himself to get plugged in. This, in turn, is the real problem - it makes Barack both a good guy and heart and a conflicted figure. He goes down the road with Rezko, Ayres, and Wright, always convinced of his own good, yet getting deeper into some very strange relationships, and equally strange financial dealings.

This is the problem I see with Barack. As he likes to say, he gave up cush suburban jobs opportunities to make his way with Rezko, Ayres, and Wright. He wants us to think that is saintly - I think it is objectively problematic.

Ok, folks. I agree McCain is encouraging aids to say some pretty silly things. I don't mean that flippantly - McCain is intentionally flaring up emotions, to be sure. Not sure about "violence," however. That's a very serious point, and here, I think a stretch.

Three further points. One, the Democrats could have avoided this by having superdelegates choose Hillary. They pulled the plug on re-votes in Michigan and Florida because they knew Obama couldn't win much of anything post-Jeremiah revelation, and they did not want Hillary to have the propoganda point of winning the popular vote. The Democrats are to blame for forcing Barack's past into a general election discussion instead of the primaries, when he could have been defeated.

Second, I agree McCain's associations could prove problematic. He is more likely than Barack to engage in a Rambo covert operation like Iran Contra, and have it blow up in his face. I am still voting for him, though, because I think that is but one of many issues to consider.

Third, let me share a short story about the South Side of Chicago. I was there once and passed by a school building. Instead of the American flag on its flagpole, it had an African National Congress type flag. It struck me as kind of a Rasta statement - "we are exiles here, waiting to go home." It did not offend me, by the way (it's not my place to say who is an exile, whether it be a Zionist Jew in Europe c. 1900 or African Americans in America or the Caribbean today). It was just vintage South Side. And in hindsight, Vintage Ayres. Vintage Wright. And vintage Barack Obama.

Barack is trying manfully to bury all that and run as a New Man born yesterday who adopted the Democratic Platform and is too concerned about the economy, stupid, for anything else. It might work. If it does, I think his past associations would hurt him some going forward, and his lack of any connection to middle America would hurt him more. But as I said many times before, that does not make him a bad person. It just makes him a mediocre candidate for president. And not someone for whom I have much affinity.

I agree a lot can happen in 23 days.

I know some life long Democrats - people who have never once voted Republican - whose stomachs are tied in knots over Obama. I even know one who answered a national polling firm, and said she was for Obama, then told me afterward she just didn't know. Most of these people will fall in line for Obama, but the Ayres/Wright stuff will push serious buttons for some of them.

I also know some Rotary type Republicans who are mildly, at most, pro-life, and who like to see a standard bearer run against economic issues like the union secret ballot bill. These people presume the unions are against them anyway, so why not pander to anti-union sentiment? It's worked before. McCain is not pursuing that strategy.

I can't tell if these people will fall in line or not. Ayres/Wright helps here too, but not as much as conventional Republican issues.

McCain is running a very unusual campaign: pander to the center and undecided Democrats on most issues; push culture buttons like Barack's middle name to stir up passions; put a smashingly charming pro lifer at the VP spot who inflames the entire media establishment against him; and somehow remain viable, even thriving, in a very inhospitable anti-Bush, anti-incumbent climate through sheer grit and ambition. He gets my vote. We'll see how he does with others.