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With Democrat Barack Obama holding a clear financial advantage, Republican John McCain is fine tuning his advertising message and increasing his television spots going into the final two weeks of a presidential contest that is shattering spending records.

McCain spent $37 million in September, leaving him $47 million for October. His monthly financial report filed with the Federal Election Commission shows he spent nearly two-thirds of his money, $22.5 million, on advertising as he tried to keep up with Obama’s ad blitz in battleground states.

McCain is seeking to narrow that gap. He spent about $9.4 million on ads in key battlegrounds last week, according to the political ad monitoring firm TNS/CMAG, and is expected to spend more this week. The Republican National Committee is set to spent $1 million a day over the next two week on ads helping McCain.

“For McCain this has always been about threading the needle down the stretch,” said Evan Tracey, the head of TNS/CMAG.

But Obama, who reported raising $150 million in September, retains the upper hand.

A schedule of anticipated Obama ad buys obtained by The Associated Press show that Obama plans to spend about $30 million in contested states during the next two weeks. Last week, he also spent about $12 million on national networks and national cable channels — a rate that he is expected to sustain, if not increase.

Obama also is buying a half hour of air time on Oct. 29 on NBC, CBS and Fox — an expensive commitment of time — to address the nation in prime time five days before Election Day, Nov. 4.

McCain is no longer buying time on national networks or national cable.

Locked in a close contest in Virginia, McCain has begun buying advertising on Washington, D.C., stations, a costly market that he had avoided while he concentrated on less expensive areas in southern Virginia.

Obama, however, has been able to spend in markets that are financially out of reach for McCain. For instance, Obama is buying air time in Chicago to reach a portion of northwestern Indiana, and is buying expensive time in Boston to reach southern New Hampshire.

“Obama can blow him out of the water in markets where they are head to head in,” Tracey said.

McCain, who is participating in the public financing system for presidential elections, is limited to spending a total of $84 million in the two months before the election. Obama bypassed the public finance program and has continued to raise private donations.

McCain has received significant help from the Republican National Committee, which raised $66 million in September and will report $77.5 million cash on hand at the start of October.

That means that together, McCain and the party began the month with more than $124 million.

The party can spend up to $19 million in coordination with the campaign. In addition, the party and McCain also have split the costs of “hybrid” ads that criticize Obama as well as Democrats in Congress.

But McCain ads are now beginning to be exclusively paid for by his campaign, which gives McCain a chance to sharpen his message. He is now airing a 60-second ad that features him speaking into the camera about the economy.

“The last eight years haven’t worked very well, have they?” McCain says. “I’ll make the next four better.”

The RNC also has set up an independent expenditure operation to run ads that help McCain, but which cannot be coordinated with the candidate’s campaign. The RNC budgeted about $18 million for those types of ads during the final two-week stretch of the campaign.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis predicted that by Election Day the McCain campaign and the RNC will have spent nearly $400 million for the two-month fall campaign. He downplayed the impact of Obama’s money on the advantage Obama currently enjoys in polls.

“The lack of money in Wall Street has had more to do with the outcome of this last month politically than the money in Barack Obama’s bank account,” Davis said. Jokingly, he added: “Maybe he could invest a little of that and increase our chances by helping the recovery. That’s our new strategy — make him buy stock.”

Obama is advertising in a number of Republican states that have not been considered competitive presidential battlegrounds in the past, including Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, Indiana, Montana and West Virginia.

Meanwhile, the party stopped airing its independent ads in Wisconsin, though McCain has continued. Some Republicans have begun to privately question why McCain also continues to advertise in Iowa, where polls show Obama with double-digit polling leads.

“We make decisions based on where we think we can play,” Davis said, noting that polls he has seen place McCain closer to Obama. “The Iowa numbers look pretty good to me.”

Outside groups also were stepping into the advertising fray. The liberal MoveOn.org planned to spend $1.6 million on advertising during the final two weeks. The group’s ads included one of a talking moose criticizing McCain’s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. The Republican Jewish Coalition is spending more than $1 million in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Nevada criticizing Obama for expressing a willingness to meet with leaders of “rogue” foreign countries.

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama raised $66 million in August, a record for a presidential candidate that illustrated his continuing appeal to donors and his robust outreach to new contributors.

The campaign said it raised the money with the help of more than a half million, first-time donors. By comparison, Republican presidential nominee John McCain raised $47 million in August, a personal best for his campaign as well. The monthly figures for both candidates were especially noteworthy because August is typically a slow month for fundraising.

Obama’s totals, however, also underscore the challenge he faces in the remaining two months of the campaign. McCain, for now, has a significant advantage because he has accepted $84 million in taxpayer funds under a public financing system that Obama chose to bypass in favor of raising more money.

The combined efforts of the two campaigns and the two national parties left both candidates on nearly equal financial footing with about $94 million at the end of August, according to campaign and party officials who discussed the finances on Sunday.

Obama had $77 million in the bank at month’s end, and the Democratic National Committee had $17.5 million.

McCain ended the month with about $18 million in cash, which he had to transfer to the Republican National Committee because of his decision to participate in the public finance system. The party committee had $76 million in the bank before the transfer. A party official said the party also had about $20 million in a joint fundraising committee and in special state party accounts that can be used to help McCain.

But McCain has a head start over Obama with the $84 million in federal funds. By accepting that money, however, he can no longer raise money for his campaign from donors and is limited to spending only that amount. As a result, any additional fundraising can only be done for the GOP.

Democratic fundraisers say Obama and the Democratic Party must do even better than their August totals to stay ahead of McCain and the well-heeled RNC. Obama and the DNC raised a combined total of more than $83 million, but fundraisers say their joint totals ahead should exceed $100 million a month.

McCain and the GOP have been able to stay essentially even with Obama and the Democrats through August because the RNC has had strong fundraising and low spending. The Democratic National Committee has had lower fundraising and higher spending.

In August, the RNC raised about $22 million, shy of its $26 million sum in July. The Democratic National committee reported raising $17.3 million in August, short of the $20 million raised in July.

Even though he can raise no more money for his campaign, McCain has placed his popular running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, on an aggressive fundraising schedule for the Republican Party. She has about one fundraiser every two days for the remainder of the campaign.

Obama has scheduled a series of fundraisers and has continued to make Internet and e-mail appeals his donors and supporters. The campaign reported that it raised $10 million in less than 24 hours this month, following Palin’s address to the Republican National Convention.

Overall, Obama has raised more than $440 million for his presidential campaign, an unprecedented amount. The campaign said it has more than 2.5 million donors. McCain has raised $194 million.

“The 500,000 new donors to the Obama campaign demonstrate just how strongly the American people are looking to kick the special interests out and change Washington,” campaign manager David Plouffe said in a statement.

McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said the announcement provides “66 million reminders that Barack Obama is willing to stray from reform, break his word to the American people and forgo public financing in favor of his own ambitions. Americans need change, not self-promotion.”

McCain’s campaign reported raising $10 million in the final days in August, a surge the campaign has attributed to Palin’s selection as running mate.

Congress is putting the short-term future of renewable energy companies in jeopardy even as the presidential candidates and most lawmakers hail windmills, solar panels and biofuels as long-term solutions to high gasoline prices and global warming.

Some $500 million in investment and production tax credits will expire Dec. 31 unless Congress renews them. Without that help, solar and wind power companies say they will reverse planned expansions and, in many cases, cut payrolls and capital investment.

Schott Solar has visions of quadrupling its operation in Albuquerque, N.M., to reach 1,500 jobs and $500 million in investment. But the investment tax credit, company spokesman Brian Lynch said, is what makes solar power cost-competitive. Without it, expansion plans must be reconsidered.

“We don’t want to build a giant factory that the market doesn’t need or want,” Lynch said.

The Solar Energy Industries Association says some 20 utility-scale solar power plants, many in California and together capable of producing power for a million homes, are at risk because of the uncertainty in Congress.

Proponents of wind power, a nascent industry that relies on skittish investors, are in a similar predicament. Greg Wetstone of the American Wind Energy Association says his group is predicting a loss of 76,000 jobs and $11.4 billion in investment if Congress allows its production tax credit to expire.

“Investors like to know what tax policies apply when they are putting millions of dollars down on a project. There’s a pretty clear history that these projects are less likely to go forward without a credit,” he said.

Congress let the credit expire in 2000, 2002 and 2004. In those three years, wind capacity installation dropped 93 percent, 73 percent and 77 percent, respectively, from the previous year.

Navigant Consulting, which advises on renewable energy technology, estimated that investments in wind and solar power in 2009 would amount to $26.6 billion with the credits; that would fall to $7 billion without them.

The credits are expected to total $334 million, according to congressional estimates.

“These companies are shutting down projects, firing people and it’s Congress’s fault,” said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Investment tax credits, available to homeowners and businesses that invest in solar power equipment, and the production tax credit, based on kilowatt hours of energy produced by wind, geothermal, biomass and other renewables, are only two of dozens of temporary tax breaks that die out after a year or two if Congress does not revive them.

This year Congress is considering tax-extenders worth more than $50 billion over the next decade. The production tax credit would cost $7 billion and two solar investment credits would cost $2.7 billion over 10 years.

In addition to breaks for renewable energy and energy conservation, several dozen other tax breaks are targeted to businesses and individuals. They include people paying state and local sales taxes; parents with higher education tuition costs; and teachers with out-of-pocket expenses.

Almost all the provisions are popular. But Senate Republicans have blocked consideration of tax-extender plans by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont. GOP lawmakers are protesting efforts to offset the costs with other taxes or other items attached to the proposals. In the House, conservative Democrats promise to block any extension that adds to the deficit.

That’s nothing new.

In 2006, Congress did not come together on a tax-extender deal until December, forcing the Internal Revenue Service to delay processing returns claiming several of the tax breaks. In 2007 Congress never agreed on extenders and again waited until December, causing more IRS disruption, to settle another annual tax crisis, the alternative minimum tax.

That tax was, enacted 40 years ago, was supposed to keep a tiny number of very rich people from avoiding taxes. But it never was adjusted for inflation and now reaches into the pockets of 4 million people, mainly upper middle-income. Millions more are threatened every year until Congress steps in, usually at the last possible moment. The Baucus bill has provisions to keep those affected by the tax from growing to 25 million, at a cost of $61 billion over the next decade.

“A big part of the problem is uncertainty,” said Marie Lee, a tax analyst with the American Electronics Association. “Our companies are getting tired of this game.”

The biggest concern for high-tech companies and manufacturers is the research and development credit, which expired at the end of last year. Some 17,700 corporations claimed $6.6 billion in credits in 2005, according to a recent study by Ernst & Young LLP. About 70 percent of that went to pay wages of scientists and engineers.

The credit has been allowed to expire 13 times since it was adopted in 1981. One repercussion, said Monica McGuire, executive secretary of the R&D Credit Coalition, is that more companies are taking their research dollars overseas.

“It’s a global race for R&D dollars,” she said, and the odds are not good when at least 20 developed nations offer tax incentives and the United States currently has nothing.

Putting expiration dates on tax breaks is a useful budget gimmick for lawmakers seeking to mask the growing federal budget deficit.

Because they are set to expire at a certain date by law, they do not count as revenue losses after that date even though most people assume Congress eventually will act to extend them. The Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 are the biggest extenders of all in this respect. Trillions of dollars will be added to the federal debt if Congress chooses to make them permanent after they are set to expire in 2010.

Democrat Barack Obama ripped into John McCain Thursday saying he was out of touch with economic reality after the Republican confessed to being in the dark about how many properties he owns.

With polls showing the White House race tighter than ever, and the economy by far the top concern of anxious US voters, Obama and other top Democrats pounced on an interview given by McCain to Politico.com.

Asked how many houses he owns, McCain said: “I think — I’ll have my staff get to you.

“It’s condominiums where — I’ll have them get to you,” he said, before quitting the campaign trail for three days to strategize with top aides as both the candidates finalized their choice of running mate.

The senator’s campaign did not immediately confirm the number of houses, but PolitiFact.com said it totalled seven — the family ranch in Sedona, Arizona and condominiums mostly owned in the name of McCain’s wealthy wife Cindy.

Speaking at an open-air rally in brilliant sunshine here, Obama recapped McCain’s recent flippant remark that only people earning five million dollars or more could truly be considered rich.

“Now think about that, I guess if you think being rich means you’ve got to make five million dollars, and if you don’t know how many houses you have, then it’s not surprising you might think the economy is fundamentally strong,” he said.

“But if you’re like me and you’ve got one house, or you are like the millions of people who are struggling right now to keep up with their mortgage so they don’t lose their house, you might have a different perspective.

“So there’s just a fundamental gap of understanding between John McCain’s world and what people are going through every single day here in America.

“We can’t afford eight more years, or four more years, or one more year of the same failed economic policies that (President) George Bush has put in place,” the Democrat said.

The flap over McCain’s property portfolio was an opportunity for the Obama campaign to hit back hard after he was portrayed by the Republican as an elitist liberal out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Americans.

In double-quick time, the campaign put out an Internet ad called “Seven” mocking McCain’s comments to Politico.

Ending with a shot of the White House, the ad’s narrator says: “Here’s one house America can’t afford to let John McCain move into.”

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, a potential running mate for Obama who met privately with the White House hopeful for 15 minutes before they appeared together here, joined in the offensive.

“He couldn’t count high enough to know how many houses he owns,” he told CNN, before introducing Obama in Chester by countering Republican charges that the relatively inexperienced Democrat is too “risky” for the White House.

“To put somebody in the White House who says I don’t know much about the economy — that’s what’s risky,” Kaine said, recapping McCain’s own confession that he knows more about national security than about economic affairs.

Other Democrats such as New York Senator Charles Schumer have been mocking McCain’s taste for expensive Italian-made shoes as the White House race moves into top gear with the start of the convention season.

As McCain’s comments sparked a full-scale political storm, his campaign tried to limit the damage.

“Does a guy who made more than four million dollars last year, just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii and bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses?” said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers.

“Does a guy who worries about the price of arugula and thinks regular people ‘cling’ to guns and religion in the face of economic hardship really want to have a debate about who’s in touch with regular Americans?”

The comments referred to advice given to Obama about buying a house by his former friend, convicted fraudster Tony Rezko, and a flap about unguarded comments he made to a private fundraiser about working people.

As vice presidential speculation raged, Kaine, meanwhile, was tight-lipped to reporters about his brief huddle with Obama at a hotel in the Virginia state capital Richmond.

“I’m going to let the campaign speak for the campaign,” he said, according to a pool report, when pressed on the vice presidential speculation.

Obama, who is expected to appear with his VP pick at an event in Illinois on Saturday, did not take any questions after the meeting.

The Democrats convene in Denver next week to officially crown Obama as the party’s champion for November’s election. The Republican nominating convention comes in the first week of September, in St Paul-Minneapolis.

Russia is becoming the outlaw in the conflict with Georgia, wreaking wanton destruction on its small neighbor and trying to strangle it, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday.In an interview with “CBS Evening News,” Rice used some of her strongest language yet to condemn the Russians’ behavior in the Black Sea state.

“Russia is very clearly isolating itself. It’s becoming more and more the outlaw in this conflict,” Rice told CBS in the interview in Brussels, where she attended a NATO meeting on the crisis. “They intend and probably still do intend to strangle Georgia and its economy.”

The Kremlin said earlier on Tuesday that Russian troops will pull back from Georgia’s heartland by the end of this week but NATO said it was freezing contacts with Moscow until all Russian forces were out of the country.

Western powers, led by the United States, have called for an immediate withdrawal of Russian troops under a ceasefire plan that ended the two countries’ short war over the rebel Georgian province of South Ossetia.

In the CBS interview, Rice was asked repeatedly what the United States or NATO would do if Russia did not keep its word and leave Georgia.

Rice’s response was that Russia was effectively roping itself off from the rest of the world and in danger of destroying its case for integration into global institutions. “Russia is the loser here,” she said.

“Does anybody really doubt that Russia could use its overwhelming military advantage to beat up on a small neighbor? Well, that’s what they’ve done,” she said.

The Russians had committed “wanton destruction of civilian infrastructure.” They were also harassing people on highways and had closed the port of Poti, she said.

Rice also cited “reports of the use of munitions that should never be used against civilians” — an apparent reference to a human rights’ group’s accusation that Russia dropped cluster bombs in populated areas of Georgia. Moscow denied doing so.

Rice said NATO on Tuesday had spoken “with strength and unity” in its decision to suspend regular contacts with Russia.

“The message is very clear and we will continue to consider what further consequences are appropriate as Russia demonstrates this kind of behavior,” she said.

A man with self-described mental health problems was ordered held without bail in Florida on Thursday on charges that he had threatened to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama or President George W. Bush.

Raymond Hunter Geisel was arrested by the Secret Service in Miami on Saturday after making threats before other participants against both Bush and Obama at a bail bondsman’s training course, according to federal court papers.

A Secret Service affidavit said Geisel denied making the threats. But he told a Secret Service agent, in comments he later described a joke, that if he wanted to kill Obama he would simply shoot him with a sniper rifle.

An unidentified female witness told investigators that Geisel had said during the course between July 25-28, “That n

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r, if he gets elected, I’ll assassinate him myself.” Obama would be the first black U.S. president if elected. Another witness was said to have overheard Geisel say at a hotel that he hated Bush and wanted to put a bullet in his head.Police found an ample cache of ammunition, including armor piercing bullets, and a handgun in Geisel’s sport utility vehicle and the Miami hotel room where he was staying while attending the bail bondsman’s course. It is legal to possess armor-piercing bullets in Florida.

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said the agency would not comment on the number of threats to government officials or political candidates detected at any given time, but that this “might be the first arrest” in connection with the current presidential campaign.

Court documents said Geisel, a long-term resident of Bangor, Maine, had described himself as a victim of physical and emotional abuse when he was younger and said he had voluntarily checked himself into a mental health facility in Maine for treatment of post traumatic stress disorder.

A bail bondsman pledges money or property as a guarantee that an accused criminal will appear in court.

1. Absolutely!!

2. No. The President needs to be intelligent and powerful enough not to be a puppet.

3. Nope.

4. Oh my god no. She is the freakiest person I ever heard of. She makes absolutely no sense when she talks. She speaks in that government speak and does not make any sense. Have I mentioned she makes no sense?

5. Possibly, a black woman being president would be GREAT, but I don’t think there’s a chance she would ever run. She does seem to agree with EVERYTHING Bush does, other than that I think she could handle the job.

6. From what I have seen of her, I would seriously consider her as a viable candidate.

7. I would sooner vote for Condie than for Hillary

8. Helllllllllllllllllllllll Nooooooooooooooooooo!

9. It depends on who she ran against but she is definitely very highly regarded by me.

10. nope…no way …not a frig’n shot, she’s as bad as bush and darth cheney

11. Possibly, yes. IMHO, she’s the most qualified woman in America. However, she has never held an elected position in government. I say that she’d be a good VP running mate for the republican party … that would get Hillary’s and the democrat party’s panties in a bunch!

12. I would vote for her before I would Hillary Clinton. And with the way she handling foreign relations and the mid-eastern peace talks I think she would make a good president.

13. Maybe, depend on the other choice

14. She was so weak as the national security adviser and the Secretary of state that Donald Rumsfeld and the defense department bullied their way in to dictating what state department policy should be.

She would be a weak president.

15. depends on her stances and ideals, but i wouldn’t out right rule it out.

16. You bet. It’s nice to have a leader with class. And she’s tough and is a good speaker.

Joey, what a great idea!

17. No, since I never voted for her in anything in the first place. I want to know who the People get to nominate? All we get is a premade selection of choices that I would never make in the first place.

Attorneys choose jurors by using a system known as voir dire. This is where each side of a case has the opportunity to ask questions of the jurors to determine who would not be suited to serve on this case due to underlying biases. This is where the differences between federal and state court arise. In federal court, the judge is the one who generally conducts voir dire. the attorneys submit questions to the judge who will ask the questions to the jurors. In state court, generally each attorney is permitted to ask questions to the jurors in an alloted time period. At the end of voir dire, the attorneys are permitted to use for cause challenges to get rid of the jurors from the jury pool who would be tainted from delivering a verdict. This means for example if it is a murder case, juror fourteen’s sister was murdered. This juror would be struck for cause because it would be hard for this juror to think about this murder case differently than they would think about their own sister’s murder case. Then each side has an opportunity to exercise their preemptory challenges to get rid of a juror. This is where Batson challenges can arise. It is pretty complicated going into the ins and outs of jury selection but this is a bare bones summary.