Sarah's Surprise: Palin to meet world leaders at U.N. next week

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will meet in New York next week with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, among other world leaders scheduled to visit the United Nations annual autumn General Assembly Session.

She'll also meet with the president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, and former secretary of state Henry Kissinger.

A spokesman for the McCain campaign confirmed the surprise visits tonight as well as hinted at as yet unannounced sessions between the Republican Party's surprise vice presidential pick and other foreign leaders.

The pick of Palin, a 44-year-old mother of five and popular head of the nation's largest state, and her well-received speech to a St. Paul audience and another 37+ million Americans watching on TV gave the GOP campaign a much-needed autumn boost.

The past week, however, much media attention shifted from the Palin hockey mom phenomenon to focus on the nation's troubled financial institutions.

Introductions by the well-traveled McCain of his running mate to numerous world leaders, they hope, are clearly designed to help draw voters' attention back to her, as well as to establish some photographic foreign policy creds, much the way their Democratic opponent Barack Obama traveled all the way to Paris to be photographed patting the French president on the back.

Palin's previous foreign trip was last year to visit Alaska National Guard soldiers in Kuwait and Germany.

Still, an Obama spokesman dismissed the Palin sessions as "a few meetings" and repeated the familiar campaign line that a McCain-Palin presidency would be a continuation of President Bush's "cowboy diplomacy."

--Andrew Malcolm

Photo credit: Associated Press

Hillary Clinton whittles away at her record-setting campaign debt

Hillary Clinton is continuing the long process of paying off her record-setting debt, receiving $1.8 million in donations and cutting the obligations by a like amount.

After raising $247 million for her presidential campaign, her overall debt stood at $22.16 million at the end of August. Part of that was $13.1 million she loaned her campaign. The New York senator is not recovering any of that.

She is paying millions more to vendors, at least some of them. She whittled down the vendor debt in August to about $9 million, down from $10.8 million in July, her latest campaign finance report filed Saturday shows.

The biggest creditor other than herself is the consulting firm founded by her former chief strategist, Mark Penn. Clinton owes $5.29 million to Penn’s firm. She has paid none of it.

--Dan Morain

Sarah Palin was like money in the bank for John McCain

John McCain saw green when he selected Sarah Palin as his running mate.

McCain raised more than $8.8 million in the two days after he announced the Alaska governor as his vice presidential pick, easily his biggest two-day haul of the campaign.

The Republican National Committee collected an additional $4.5 million on the day McCain announced Palin's selection, newly-filed Federal Election Commission reports show.

Barack Obama has raised more than $450 million since the campaign began, double McCain's sum. Although Obama has vastly out-raised McCain, the Arizona Republican is using his Republican Party as an equalizer.

The Republican National Committee ended August with $76.5 million in the bank, compared to the Democratic National Committee’s smaller $17.7 million. The RNC raised $23 million and spent almost $22 million last month.

The RNC has raised $157 million since the start of 2007, to the DNC’s $94.4 million. The DNC's sum was boosted with the transfer of $31.5 million last month from other Democratic committees.

In his filing with the Federal Election Commission, McCain disclosed....

Ticket Notice: Sunday shows -- Paulson, Paulson, Paulson and Paulson

ABC This Week: Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.; Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee; and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio); round table with ABC News consultant Donna Brazile and Sam Donaldson, Cokie Roberts and George Will of ABC News.

CBS Face the Nation: Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.; Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee; and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), ranking member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

CNN Late Edition: John McCain's economic advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin; CNN's Gloria Borger, Ed Henry and Bill Schneider; Republican strategists Alex Castellanos and Leslie Sanchez; and Democratic strategists Hilary Rosen and James Carville.

Fox News Sunday: Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.; Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Senate GOP whip and member of the Senate Finance Committee; and Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), member of the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

NBC Meet the Press: Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.; New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg; round table on the economy with Steve Pearlstein of the Washington Post and CNBC's Steve Liesman, Erin Burnett and John Harwood.

-- Leslie Hoffecker

Photo credit: J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press

Geez, did we all watch those conventions! McCain, Palin, Obama and the Delaware guy

The folks over at Nielsen's who watch people watching television have gone through their numbers again for the last week of August and first week of September.

And for an allegedly politically inattentive people, we sure watched a ton of convention coverage of the current presidential election.

In fact, most of the households in America watched, according to Nielsen.

"Nearly two thirds of all U.S. households (64.5% or 73.2 million homes) tuned in to at least one of the 2008 political conventions,'' Nielsen reports today.

"This is about 120.1 million people. Viewership levels for the two conventions were essentially tied, with about half of all households watching each one.''

Nielsen also uncovered some revealing details about the convention audiences:

• Fifteen percent of all households tuned to just the Republican National Convention, and 15.7% tuned to just the Democratic National Convention. Another 33.9% of all households tuned to both conventions.
• Homes that watched both conventions were more likely to be headed by someone 65 or older. They had also completed the most formal education: nearly one-third (32.3%) graduated from college. Those watching only one convention were fairly comparable on education.
• Homes that only tuned to the GOP convention were more likely to have higher incomes ($100K+), to have a larger household size (4+), to be white, to own a DVR, and to have a head of household with higher education (4+ years of college) and aged 35-54.
• Homes that only tuned in to the Democratic convention were more likely to have a lower income (<20K), to have a smaller household size (2), to be African American, and to have a head of household who is younger (<35) and who has less education (1-3 years of college).
• About one-fifth (21.2%) of the Democratic convention-only homes were headed by an African American. Of the Republican convention-only homes, 83.5% were headed by someone who is white.
• Of African American homes, 35.7% tuned in to both conventions, more than each of the other ethnic groups.

The ubiquitous Mark Silva has some more details over at the Swamp.

— Andrew Malcolm

Photo credit: Associated Press

P.S. Hey, you can have all of these Ticket backgrounders and political alerts sent directly to your cellphone instantly for free by going here to register at Twitter.

Obama votes 'present' on new economic rescue plan for now

CORAL GABLES, Fla. -- Sen. Barack Obama today met with some of his many economic advisors and made an announcement that he was not going to make an announcement about any new plan to plan plans.

Obama did suggest a bipartisan effort to deal with the financial crisis wreaking havoc on Wall Street, always a good idea for any candidate after the primaries because it sounds good and costs nothing.

But Obama did not present any detailed proposal of his own for how to resolve the monetary situation that has roiled world markets in recent days.

Obama's inaction prompted Jay Leno in his opening monologue tonight on "The Tonight Show" to point out an essential presidential campaign unfairness, that Obama has criticized McCain's economic plan but the Republican can't respond because "nobody knows" what Obama's is yet.

After meeting with his top economic advisers, the Democratic presidential candidate said this was not the time to present specific details for how to fix the immediate problem, a reversal from what he had said a day earlier. Nor did he explain when a good time would be to explain such a rescue from the current financial crisis.

"Given the gravity of this situation," Obama said with gravity, "based on conversations I've had with both Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke, I will refrain from presenting a ...

Freddie, Fannie, Merrill, et al stopped their political donations last month

They left with a whimper.

Once huge campaign donors, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and AIG all but ended their generosity in August as they teetered on the brink of insolvency.

Since the start of 2007, Freddie and Fannie had given a combined $829,000 to federal candidates and campaign accounts. Merrill had given $2.1 million, Lehman $1.9 million, and AIG had handed out $664,000. Here is one previous post on the contributions. Here is another.

But suddenly, the spigot shut off, as often happens during insolvency. Perhaps they saw troubled times coming, because for the most part, they stopped giving campaign donations in August.

AIG is one exception. It contributed $2,500 on Aug. 27 to a political action committee controlled by former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and another $1,000 to Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) on Aug. 8, newly filed campaign finance reports showed today.

Fannie, Freddie, Merrill and Lehman gave no donations, their filings with the Federal Election Commission reveal. Rep Steve Kagen (D-Wisc.) did receive $1,000 from Fannie Mae's political action committee in July. Apparently, he saw the debacle coming.

Fannie lists the check as being returned on Aug. 29.

— Dan Morain

The words behind the McCain-Palin and Obama-Biden drives

It no doubt comes as a real shock to most Americans that presidential campaigns end up selling stuff to raise money and advertise their brand names.

T-shirts, hats, buttons, stuffed donkeys and elephants, pennants, mugs, books, you name it.

Pretty soon, we expect some kind of Sarah Palin lipstick button. Former Republican Gov. Mitt Romney even had a political button collection, one for all 50 states (Alabamans for Romney, etc.), that some of us button collectors wished we'd bought.

Which is interesting from a kitsch point of view.

But what our clever website buddy Paul Olund did was wade through all the advertising for this stuff and create a tag cloud, which allows us to see word patterns otherwise hidden.

What themes, for instance, does the John McCain campaign add to its merchandise to help sell its message? What themes does Barack Obama use?

Obviously, the top candidate's name is most used. But you might be surprised to see what various themes emerge from each campaign. Go here and check out Paul's good work.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Photo: CafePress.com

Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton's special limited-time offer: DVDs of her DNC speech

John McCain stopped by the Intercontinental Hotel in Miami the other day and picked up $5 million. Barack Obama dropped in on his Beverly Hills friends and left with an estimated $9 million.

But Hillary Clinton? With President Bill Clinton's help, she is hawking DVDs of her speech at the Democratic convention last month.

In the letter, sent via blast e-mail earlier this week, the former President says he and Sen. Clinton are doing absolutely everything they can to help elect Barack Obama.

But there is this little matter of her campaign debt, which topped $10 million last month.

“Her historic speech inspired me and millions of others, and it was a great reminder of how important it is that we also continue to support Hillary's efforts to speak out on behalf of ordinary Americans,” the letter says.

For a $50 donation, you would receive a DVD with her “historic speech in Denver and the inspiring video that introduced her,” the former president writes of Hillary's speech at the Democratic National Convention.

But that's not all.

The package will include a message that “Hillary recorded just for you, where she shares some special moments from her week in Denver.”

But, wait, there's more: “We'll put my speech on there for you too,” the former President says.

But, wait, there's even more.

“For a limited-time only if you contribute $250 or more you will receive the special 'Signature' edition personally signed by Hillary,” the former president writes.

Now, if only she could sell 40,000 of those autographed DVDs, her debt could disappear.

-- Dan Morain

Photo: Justin Lane / EPA

Oprah Winfrey: an ambassador in the making?

OK, so Oprah Winfrey has dialed-back her political profile, adhering to a pledge to keep the stage of her daytime television program candidate-free.

And she discovered that the off-stage help she did provide her choice for president -- Barack Obama -- could have some negative consequences.

But if Obama gains the White House -- and if Oprah is up for a major midlife job change -- she might  consider applying for secretary of State. Or, if the pay cut she'd have to take is simply too daunting, maybe she would offer her services as an occasional emissary to the Arab world.

The Ticket jests -- though not entirely with the latter suggestion; not after reading today's fascinating New York Times piece headlined: "Veiled Saudi Women Find Unlikely Role Model: Oprah."

Here's the gist of the article, in which reporter Katherine Zoepf details the effect of Oprah's show since it began airing in Saudia Arabia in late 2004:

In a country where the sexes are rigorously separated, where topics like sex and race are rarely discussed openly and where a strict code of public morality is enforced by religious police called hai’a, Ms. Winfrey provides many young Saudi women with new ways of thinking about the way local taboos affect their lives — as well as about a variety of issues including childhood sexual abuse and coping with marital strife — without striking them, or Saudi Arabia’s ruling authorities, as subversive.

Some women here say Ms. Winfrey’s assurances to her viewers — that no matter how restricted or even abusive their circumstances may be, they can take control in small ways and create lives of value — help them find meaning in their cramped, veiled existence.

The rest of the story can be read here.

-- Don Frederick

Photo: Associated Press