EdCone.com

Anyone know details of a possible visit to Greensboro by Sarah Palin on Oct 16? If it's at the residence of Ambassador Wos, as I've heard, then I guess it's a fundraiser, but maybe there will be other appearances.

UPDATE: Binker makes a phone call, pretty much confirms what you read here.

A good chunk of my article on the campaign ground game looks at volunteers in the Triad area.

A stock trader who lives on a farm outside of the small town of Madison, N.C., [Michael] Adamson is a volunteer for the Barack Obama campaign. He leads a team of about 15 local volunteers in Rockingham County, a largely rural area of the Carolina Piedmont with a population of just over 90,000 people. Adamson's group is responsible for five precincts, home to about 6,000 registered voters, in the western part of the county. Other teams, all supported by just one paid staffer, are active across Rockingham, which went decisively for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. Similar operations are in place across North Carolina, a state Democratic presidential candidates have not seriously contested in years, and in other states around the country.

Their first order of business is registering new voters, which they seem to be doing with some success. When the registration deadline comes next week, they'll focus on get-out-the-vote efforts.

From the article: "As of late September, 3,465 new voters had registered across all of Rockingham County, including 1,575 Democrats, 922 Republicans, and 965 unaffiliated, according to Elections Director Janet Odell. In a county that is about 19% African-American, about 27.6% of newly-registered voters are black."

The Hagan campaign says it's raised more than $120K online in the past five days. The polls are strong. And Dole is reeling from reports that she spent a total of just 33 days in North Carolina over two years of her term (the focus of Hagan's online fundraising at the moment).

Now Hagan is battering Dole's record on the Senate Banking committee, pointing to legislation Dole advanced as recently as March of this year that would have loosened regulation of financial firms, and noting large contributions by the financial industry to both Dole and the NRSC under her leadership.

Meanwhile, the NCDP and the Obama campaign seem to have a strong ground game underway. An Obama win here may still be a stretch, but Hagan clearly has a good shot at becoming the first NC Democrat since Sam Ervin in 1968 elected to the Senate in a presidential year.

Oh no!

"Dow Theory, created by Wall Street Journal co-founder Charles Dow in 1884...suggest[s] the industrials' biggest point decline ever won't mark its bottom."

But wait!

"Another indicator may show stocks are poised to rally. The VIX, as the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index is known, rose 34 percent."

No word yet on what the entrails portend.

Part of the public's skepticism is a natural reaction to the now-transparent language of deception and hysteria. When you've trafficked in mushroom clouds and Persian Hitlers for eight years, "imminent financial Armageddon" loses a bit of its edge.

Well said.

Today's hangover is not from New Year's Eve excess: "The cost of borrowing in dollars overnight surged the most on record after the U.S. Congress rejected a $700 billion bank rescue plan, heightening concern more institutions will fail."

Blaming Paulson. Blaming "nihilist" House Republicans. Obviously the Lamest. Duck. Evar. is part of the problem, and the Maverick Who Couldn't Shoot Straight. Frank and Pelosi, get in line.

Then again, a lot of people don't think the failure of the plan is a bad thing: "The defeat in Congress of a proposed $700 billion economic-rescue package followed an intense outpouring of voter anger, fanned by politicians, interest groups and media on the left and right, that overwhelmed calls from the president and top lawmakers to pass the deal."

And some people who want to do something didn't want to do this.

I'm hoping for a nice, dull new year.

More photos from the Obama rally, from Dan Routh.

Previously.

Gas lines and shortages in Asheville and Charlotte have been much in the news, but I had to drive past several stations today in GSO before finding one with fuel to sell.

"It's essential to have a strong presence in Charlotte, N.C."

Somehow the fact that Vikram Pandit feels the need to explain the whereabouts of this Charlotte place is not encouraging.

Also scary: the word "synergy":

The sale likely means big layoffs for Wachovia’s workforce of 120,000, which includes 20,000 here in Charlotte. In a statement, Citi said it expects to realize "more than $3 billion of annualized expense synergies through the consolidation of overlapping functions." Those cost reductions would amount to about 15 percent of Wachovia’s nearly $20 billion expense base in 2007, likely translating to thousands of job cuts.

"It's very, very much a body blow to the city," said retired Bank of America chieftain Hugh McColl Jr. "Wachovia has been very important and very generous in all their work around education, the arts, everything you can think of."

Memories of Shea Stadium. I moved to New York the same summer as Dwight Gooden, and my friends and I took the 7 train out to Queens fairly often during those great years for the Mets, so I have a lot of memories of Ks hanging from the stands and suchlike good things. The most vivid image in my mind, though, is sitting with my uncle and my cousin when Terry Pendleton hit that 9th-inning homer the year after the Series win, a shot that only tied the game but somehow is recalled by everyone as the end the dynasty.

Lucky for us McCain took control of the situation!

Justice for the Justice Dept:

An internal Justice Department investigation concluded Monday that political pressure drove the firings of several federal prosecutors in a 2006 purge...

...Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey appointed the Acting United States Attorney in Connecticut, Nora Dannehy, to continue the inquiry and determine whether anyone should be prosecuted.

Paul Jones and I will talk about the interwebs and other technological wonders at the Greensboro Public Library on Church Street, Weds Oct 15, 6:30 PM. More here.

See if you can guess the approximate time that word of the House's likely "no" on the bailout bill hit Wall Street.

Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina will premiere in Raleigh on Sunday, October 12th at the North Carolina Museum of History; in Greensboro on Sunday, October 19th at the Carolina Theater; and in Charlotte on February 22, 2009.

More info here.

I have no idea how much of the interview footage they shot with me made the final cut, but I hear my contoversial nude scene will be shown only in Europe.

"Given where the housing market is headed, millions of workers may be locked in place in the years to come, throwing yet more sand into the gears of America's market economy." Another dose of cheer. I think I'll focus on the Panthers and the Tar Heels.

Dave DeWitt came to Greensboro on Saturday to speak with Barack Obama about the race in North Carolina and other topics.

Meanwhile, Ryan Shell interviewed some NObama folks.

"It's the difference between open and closed source." That's how Cyrus Krohn, director of the eCampain division of the Republican National Committee, describes the approaches of the Obama and McCain campaigns.

The Democratic campaign is using technology to create a very large, relatively unstructured army of local volunteers to register voters and get out the vote; the Republicans are relying on a more conventional, top-down approach.

The stakes are high: the better ground game can be worth 2-3% on Election Day, says veteran strategist Joe Trippi. That means that in a close race, the field organization could make the difference. And even if the presidential election is decided by a wider margin, turnout will have a big impact on other races to be decided November 4.

I posted a draft of my article about the ground game and presidential politics over at the DJB.

Buck a share. That's what Wachovia shareholders get. Losses across NC must be huge, including GSO -- lots of old Wachovia and First Union shares out there. Remember, as with AIG, people borrow against these assets, and margin calls can be brutal. I wouldn't be surprised to see some fancy real estate up for sale in leafy neighborhoods and swell vacation spots from Murphy to Manteo.

"Citigroup has agreed to buy Wachovia’s banking operations, a move that that would concentrate power within the nation’s banking industry in the hands of a few giant lenders." The great old Wachovia culture of the John Medlin era died with the First Union deal. Now even the name seems likely to disappear.

Charlotte is emerging as a big loser in this mess.

Previously: "If Wachovia was a cartoon character then Golden West would be the bomb hidden inside a giant piece of cake that it ate in one bite."

An exploration of A.I.G.'s demise and its relationships with firms like Goldman offers important insights into the mystifying, virally connected — and astonishingly fragile — financial world that began to implode in recent weeks.

Although America’s housing collapse is often cited as having caused the crisis, the system was vulnerable because of intricate financial contracts known as credit derivatives, which insure debt holders against default. They are fashioned privately and beyond the ken of regulators — sometimes even beyond the understanding of executives peddling them.

The lede quote from Cassano should be chiseled in granite.

Related: Blind squirrel finds nut. "The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, a longtime proponent of deregulation, acknowledged on Friday that failures in a voluntary supervision program for Wall Street’s largest investment banks had contributed to the global financial crisis, and he abruptly shut the program down."

Oh, and it looks like you're about to buy a bunch of crap.

Tina Fey is good, but some of her answers may be too close to the real transcript to be funny.

Thrift, that once-great American value, passed away at roughly the same moment as my father, one of its most fervent practitioners, who died in 1987. Just a coincidence, of course, but one that struck me as the world copes with a financial crisis that stems in some large part from our thriftless culture.

My newspaper column is about the death of thrift. You can read the whole thing after the jump.

A nice reminiscence of Paul Newman: "[F]or a race car driver, he was a pretty good actor."

Big crowd for Obama this afternoon in downtown GSO. Cops on the street estimated the turnout at 20,000 -- bigger than the crowd for hometown American Idol star Daughtry, I heard more than once.  At 11:15, an hour before the scheduled start, people were queued up facing south in front of the Children's Museum, so that they could cross Church St. and get in the line headed north to Summit, where the line turned west to Elm and back south to Washington (click on images to enlarge).

It was a diverse crowd, and the pre-event music seemed pitched to the widest possible audience, with everything from Motown to country to Springsteen to the A&T band. Security was tight, including these guys on the roof of the train station.

Biden pounded on McCain, at times getting a smile from his running mate, but nobody comes for the opening act.

Obama gives a very good speech. He freshened it up with references to last night's debate ("John McCain had a lot to say about me, but he had nothing to say about you. He didn't even say the words 'middle class.' Not once.") He went off script with some zingers about McCain portraying himself as the candidate of change, saying that McCain needs to get his own material, and that maybe he (Obama) should start calling himself a maverick. The crowd loved it.

Afterward, Obama worked the crowd.

The Obama campaign says it wants volunteers to knock on 100,000 doors across North Carolina this weekend. It just might happen. A staffer said Obama would be back in Greensboro.

UPDATE: More here from Kim.

No word yet on her predictions for last year's Super Bowl: "Sen. Elizabeth Dole came out against President Bush's week-old Wall Street rescue plan on Friday."

I talked recently to a GOP official in NC who said he thought Hagan would win. He lamented the possible loss of a Republican vote in the Senate, but wasn't too upset about it in terms of Liddy's retirement.

Dole just doesn't seem to be trying very hard.

I'd bet the DSCC is teeing up another of those Old Guys Trashing Liddy spots with this report as the script: "Dole spent about two months in the state during her first year in office. Between 2004 and 2006 [...] the records document a total of two months spent in North Carolina. As she geared up for re-election in 2007, she spent 50 days in the state, followed by 97 days so far this year." [emphasis added]

Tight credit hits NC businesses.

Culling the herd: "Wachovia Corp.'s suitors may use a template honed by JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon last week: Wait to see whether regulators will seize the bank, then buy the best assets and let the government sort out the rest, according to analysts."

The worst-case scenario for Charlotte is pretty worst.

"There is no evidence against genetic determinism more persuasive than the children of the rich." -- Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex.

Free speech still allowed in GSO.

Earlier this week I noted the restoration of the old Presbyterian graveyard in downtown Greensboro (more here). That post drew a detailed response from Carol Moore, who served on the restoration committee for almost three years before resigning, as she says, "in frustration."

I understand that compromises are often necessary in big projects, and I'm not up to speed on all the issues involved here. I may be less passionate about the concept of "desecration" than Carol is, although I guess we'll have to wait til someone wants to dig up the White Oak cemetery to see how I really feel on that subject. And I'm on the board of one of the foundations that helped fund the project.

Carol Moore's view, with pics, after the jump.

Kathleen Parker can't keep pretending:

Palin's recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

McCain to debate. Stunt stunted.

The market is always right! Except when it costs Wall Street money, in which case, not so much:

[S]ome of the largest banking and financial services trade groups are aggressively lobbying the SEC to suspend the mark-to-market, or fair-value, accounting standard currently in place, and to oppose any expansion of it.

To ask for a suspension in fair-value accounting is to ask the market to suspend its judgment.

Previously: Level 3 assets.

The long version of my interview with Vint Cerf is now posted here.

More lightly-edited elements of the conversation here.

Things have changed a lot since 1907. We don't call financial crises "panics" anymore, although it may be time to revive the term. And one man can't have the influence that J.P. Morgan had back in the day. Still, it's interesting to watch Warren Buffet as he maneuvers through the wreckage.

WaMu becomes "by far the largest bank failure in American history."

Silver lining: "[F]ears of the fallout from the government takeover of a big bank were balanced with the removal of one of the largest remaining clouds looming over the banking industry."

Dealbreaker covers the JP Morgan call. "Yummy deposits!  Now with 89% less liabilities!"

Longtime socialist Bernie Sanders speaks with recent convert Larry Kudlow.

Lisa Scheer took this photo quite recently in Greensboro.

"Tina Fey couldn't possibly improve on this."

E.J. Graff is wowed by Sarah Palin, in a way.

Update: Or not. Is McCain helping, or hindering?

Way to go, McCain! "Top House and Senate Democratic and Republican lawmakers have reached a tentative agreement on a $700 billion plan to bail out U.S. financial markets, with some predicting the measure would pass both chambers of Congress."

It's almost as if the key battles had been won earlier in the week and some sort of deal was a foregone conclusion...but that would make the suspension of the campaign a stunt, and we know that couldn't be the case.

I'm reporting a feature on the use of technology in the presidential campaigns, with a focus on the ground game -- registration and getting out the vote. McCain and Obama are going about this very differently, with McCain volunteers following tight scripts and Obama volunteers given much more latitude to act on their own with the info they get via the webs. "It’s the difference between open and closed source,” as one RNC official put it when we spoke.

Anyway, I called a McCain "Victory Center" in North Carolina to get the local angle. A guy answered, I introduced myself as a reporter, and he launched: Obama volunteers are "stupid." They're "wandering around like Moonies in an airport." "You have to be stupid to vote for Obama." "We know who the enemy is."

I asked if he was a volunteer or a staffer. "I'm the chairman," he said. A local chair, not a county chair, as it turns out.

Does this strike you as a good way to run a campaign?

Wake and Durham [county] leaders say the national financial crisis is making it nearly impossible to borrow from banks to pay for schools and other projects.

...Their struggles are notable because both counties enjoy the highest AAA credit rating -- meaning they are among the safest institutions to lend money to.

More: "The credit shortage also is affecting [North Carolina's] borrowing. The variable interest rates on about $855 million in state debt [...] are now almost fivefold what they were two weeks ago...the difference in the monthly debt payment will be about $1.4 million more than it would have been."

Gross says $700 billion is $500 billion short -- we need $1.2 trillion with T.

From his September letter: "[A] rarely observed systematic debt liquidation is what confronts the U.S. and perhaps even the global financial system."

He's volunteering to help, too.

News & Record sold? As with all rumors, discount it heavily, unless it turns out to be true, in which case you heard it hear first.

More on the day-after-ConvergeSouth instacon: "If anyone in your audience has technical things they want to do but aren't sure where to start, somewhere in the room will be someone that can help with that. Show up, teach and learn and hang out with us. It will be a party - a geeky, new media socializing pedagogical party!"

Macworld says Apple's walled garden is a dangerous place...for iPhones.

Gas shortage in western NC. It's kind of a problem.

Free-conference culture at its best: a day-after ConvergeSouth event creates itself online. Type-A Mom and the Evil Genius seem to be involved.

Speaking of which, ConvergeSouth is, like, soon.

You can register here for the free web-user conference, to be held at NC A&T on Ocbober 17.

Still some spaces left for the video walking tour; info here.

McCain calls time-out.

UPDATE: More here.

UPDATE: "The deal on the 'bail out' is 98% done. Treasury has capitulated on almost every point. A draft is circulating on the Hill now. No one needs McCain to help do the remaining 2%."

His last stunt isn't aging well, time to try another one...

Obama to DC.