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The big 5-0 in politics is different. Fifty-percent means that you have, at least at that moment, in that snapshot, presumptuous the polls are accurate, made the sale. It means that all you be obliged to do is hang on to the people who are already with you, rather than persuade new ones, and you win.

Barack Obama hit the big 5-0 in two major polls this week. In both the Rasmussen Reports (Thursday) and the Gallup daily tracking (Tuesday) polls, he made it to a majority. It doesn't mean — to quote Peggy Noonan, who now says it wasn't what she meant — "it's over" on the side of McCain. It doesn't mean it's time for the Obama horde to clean out their offices in the West Wing and start thinking drapes and decor. But it's still a major milestone.

Of course, the polls may be wrong. They might exist overestimating the population of new voters and the number of African-Americans who will turn completely. They efficacy be underestimating the percentage of Americans who will tell pollsters they are voting during Obama, what concerning them may be the politically correct answer, but then vote McCain instead.

Even in this plan of conduct, the come to pass that sum of two units polls two days by means of one’s self are both wrong in the same way is at least slightly less than the chance that any individual one is. And not only so granting that they're off, they still depict an unmistakable stretch. It's a little like your old bathroom scale. It may exist acute or it may subsist low; the absolute number it registers may not be the similar undivided you'd get in the medical practitioner's office. But if you ascend gradually on it every day religiously, or once a week at the sort time and day, you're going to know during the term of darn certain in which direction you're title.

Obama is heading up.

That Obama reached 50 percent is significant, but that he has reached it in the something intermediate — or even at the end — of the Republican assembly is even more significant. What it tells me is that this Republican convention is not in operation the way happy Republican conventions of the past have. It has not turned into a four-day prime-time negative ad opposite to Obama. It has not been one speech after another making the case that McCain is qualified and Obama is not, that McCain can face up to Putin and Obama cannot, that Obama will raise your taxes and McCain will not — with the few Democrats who are scurrying encompassing St. Paul or hanging through at satellite studios scrambling to rebut the charges.

Instead, it has been a four-day discussion of hurricanes: first, Hurricane Gustav, but more prominently and more troublingly for Republicans, a four-day discussion of the Palin storm. The discussion that has dominated each conversation is not whether Obama is limited limit whether Palin is, and what McCain's chary of her says about him.

You can argue that the Republican base is energized, and maybe they are. You can argue that many in the media have been unfair to Palin, and undoubtedly they have been. But when you give the make smooth four days to do the kind of digging and dishing that they have had 19 months to do with Obama and 19 years to do with Clinton, and even further with both Biden and McCain, it's bound to be messy.

You can censure the media, as the McCain camp has begun to do, but that doesn't mean they will remote off. Far from it. When the media are attacked, they (to the extent there is a "they" anymore, as opposed to thousands of separate he's and she's) are more likely to come back shooting than to respond by apologies. And they aren't on the vote; McCain and Palin are.

But whatever argument you make, the numbers are telling. In the last two days of nonstop Republican coverage, Obama has hit 50 percent for the first time. His subsistence is going up while McCain's is going down — during McCain's own convention.

That is certainly not the script they had in inclination when they announced the choice of Sarah Palin last week. They took charge of the conversation, all right, but it has not been the one they were hoping to have.

To attain to out more approximately Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.

Previous: The Big 5-0
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At the gates of Boeing factories around the Puget Sound region Saturday, Machinists union picketers made their voices heard. Inside, aircraft-production lines were silent.

On day one of the Machinists strike at Boeing, the agreement’s national choregus, Tom Buffenbarger, sharply criticized the company’s bargaining strategy and talked tough about standing up to Boeing.

In a phone interview Saturday from Florida, where he’s headlining the International Association of Machinists (IAM) quadrennial convention, Buffenbarger implied that his members could strike long plenty to drain Boeing’s coffers. It a little while ago has about $10 billion in clever cash.

“Let’s discern,” he said, “Most analysts peg the [Boeing revenue] loss at $100 million a day, so that’s in regard to three months and a week to them.”

Many Machinists have been saving for a strike. On the picket line outside the Everett wide-body-jet set in the ground Saturday, Sam Long uttered he’s been through this prior to and is prepared and willing to hindrance used up for several months, having saved money and stocked up on food.

“This is my fourth strike, and we know how to do this,” said Long. “We’ll curb out here viewed like long as it takes.”

Buffenbarger conceded that a long Boeing shutdown would be “a great hit on the national plan,” as justly as that of Washington state, in even now tough financial seasons. “We’re not oblivious to that,” he said. “The pressure should be upon the company. … Boeing needs to totally readjust its [labor] strategy.”

Boeing spokesman Chris Villiers said Saturday he had taken calls from employees worried about their bills and saying they don’t wish to strike.

“Nobody benefits from a strike,” Villiers said.

But 87 percent of Machinists voted to walk out, and Saturday they began shifts of picket duty.

Outside the Everett plant, uncorrupt about every other passing motorist waved or honked in support of the sign-waving Machinists. A few drivers raised clenched fists in a make gestures of solidarity.

Ken Groves, a veteran striker set to retire next year, wonted himself into a double chair by a look of resolute determination.

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"I think all shareholders will be disadvantaged," Frank said in a Reuters conference when asked allowing that holders of preferred stock of the government sponsored enterprises could also be wiped completely side by side with everyday stockholders when exposed to the Treasury plan.

Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, said he spoke with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson late Friday not far from a conservatorship plan. Frank said he still did not know the full details of the Treasury plan.

"The government will work as of the present day management" of the two companies under like a conservatorship plan, Frank said in a Reuters interview, adding that the companies bequeath still carry out their housing missions.

(Reporting by John Poirier)

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BANGKOK, Thailand An Australian writer accused of defaming Thailand’s royal family in his 2005 uncommon was arrested at Bangkok’s between nations airport as he was about to board a hasty departure home, a press freedom construction said Friday.

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Harry Nicolaides apparently did not know that an arrest warrant had been issued against him in March in connection through his novel, “Verisimilitude,” the Paris-based assemblage Reporters Without Borders said.

Nicolaides, a 41-year-old Melbourne resident who lived in Thailand from 2003 to 2005, taught in the northern Thai city of Chiang Rai. Nicolaides has described his novel as a commentary on political and social life of contemporary Thailand. It is not clear where it has been published.

He was arrested Aug. 31 on a warrant accusing him of defaming Thailand’s royal family, according to a report Friday from Reporters Without Borders.

“Nicolaides is aware of the limits on criticism in Thailand. His novel in no degree intended to threaten or revile the royal family,” the group said. “We call on the authorities to drop the charges against him and to release him.”

Thailand is a constitutional monarchy, but has severe lese majeste laws, mandating a jail term of three to 15 years for “whoever defames, insults or threatens the sovereign, the queen, the heir to the throne or the Regent.”

Actual prosecutions are relatively rare - usually a maniple each year - not surprising in a country where the 80-year-old king is almost universally revered as a selfless and hardworking benefactor of the men.

The simplicity of the laws was highlighted around the world last year when a Swiss fortify, apparently acting in a inebriated derangement, was found guilty and given a 10-year penitentiary sentence for defacing images of the revered monarch. He was pardoned by the king in the rear of serving about a month at the back of bars.

Other cases involve plain citizens spreading national rumors or prurient prate about the royal family.

MINSK, Belarus The U.S. administration has suspended some economic sanctions against this former Soviet nation, the U.S. Embassy said Friday.

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The Embassy spokesman related the U.S. Treasury Department has suspended its ban on U.S. companies dealing with pair Belarusian companies, Lakokraska and Polotsk Steklovolokno. He spoke without interruption condition of anonymity in note with authoritative stratagem.

The move follows the release last month of single opposition activists by Belarusian authorities.

Belarusian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Popov hailed the U.S. decision as a “step in the right direction.”

“This move by the agency of the U.S. administration is also in the interests of the U.S. business community,” Popov said in a statement.

Other U.S. sanctions against the government of Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko remain, including those imposed against a major state-controlled oil and chemical company, Belneftekhim.

The United States is one of the fiercest critics of Lukashenko, and relations have been on a in a descending course spiral since the U.S. imposed sanctions on Belneftekhim last fall.

The U.S. ambassador left in March after Belarus pulled its ambassador from Washington. Most employees of the U.S. Embassy be seized of been expelled in recent months.

The United States and the European Union also have imposed go over sanctions onward Lukashenko and his officials. They urged Lukashenko’s government to release wholly political prisoners and end its crackdown on withhold assent as a condition for improving ties.

Lukashenko, called “Europe’s last dictator” in the West, has ruled Belarus with one iron fist for added than 14 years, quashing withhold assent and obstacle parties and shutting down independent information media.

Lukashenko’s isolation deepened this year, amid a bitter dispute with his nation’s main godfather and ally, Russia, what one. has sharply increased energy prices for Belarus.

The growing estrangement with Russia apparently has prompted Lukashenko to try to improve Belarus’ ties with the West. The flamboyant Belarusian superior has softened his anti-Western declamation considerably and Belarusian authorities last month freed the last remaining political prisoners whose release the West had demanded.

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Make no have existence on the wrong scent — the press outed Bristol Palin's pregnancy. Reporters descended on Alaska following vile and false accusations on Internet blogs that Gov. Palin faked her own pregnancy and that her daughter was actually baby Trig's mother. These lies weren't only spread by left-wing fanatics but by journalists like Andrew Sullivan, whose blog appears on Atlantic.com, the online version of which was once any of the utmost respected magazines in the country. As the rumors got uglier, the McCain campaign decided they had no option but to reveal to the world intimate minutiae touching Gov. Palin's daughter. And the media stood by their decision to muckrake by arguing for the public's right to apprehend.

If you don't think this reflects media bias, set off by opposition this not to be satisfied prying into Bristol Palin's life through the press's want of sight near to the behavior of another 17-year-old — one whose story would seem to have more relevance to this year's presidential election.

In his memoir "Dreams from My Father," Barack Obama describes his troubled teenaged years. "Pot had helped, and booze, maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack though," he recalls, though he admits he came close to trying heroin at the urging of a confidant who marksman up in anterior of him. He was deterred by the object of worship "of an air fluid vesicle, shiny and round like a tear, rolling quietly through my vein and stopping my heart," he says. "Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the definitive, fatal role of the young would-be black man."

Obama's drug use went on conducive to at least a scarcely any years, though he is noticeably vague in describing exactly when it began, how extensive it was, or at the time that it ended. At least one of his friends was arrested for drug possession; another had a mental failure after one too many acid trips. But Obama has been reticent to reveal the extent of his illegal activities — and the media haven't cared enough to pursue the question.

Past drug use by presidential candidates was considered a legitimate subject of inquiry for Bill Clinton (who, famously, "didn't inhale") and George W. Bush. News organizations devoted considerable investigative resources in 2000 to path down unsubstantiated rumors about Bush's alleged cocaine use — and printed the accusation, even when there was none credible ground of belief that it was true. Yet those identical news organizations treat Obama's admitted — and obviously hard — youthful drug use as if it were off-limits.

What a candidate did as a young man — calm if it was illegal — should not indispensably disqualify him from becoming president. But shouldn't we want to know a bit further than he's volunteered to date before we make a final judgment? Did Obama ever sell drugs to anyone? When was the last time he used cocaine? What other illegal drugs has he used? As an grown up, has he been present then others were using illicit drugs?

Why is it reporters who were willing to pursue Bristol Palin, who isn't on the ballot, somehow think it is unseemly to ask Sen. Obama tough questions about his drug exercise? Oh, that was a long time ago, they'll argue. But a 1986 checking for driving while impaired by Gov. Palin's husband — not the aspirant — is somehow worthy of extensive front-page coverage?

The double standard is shocking — except perhaps not to Sen. Obama. In his memoir, he gives the most telling exposition of how he has gotten away with avoiding discussions of his drug exercise. It was the same technique he used upon his mother whereas she confronted him in his older year of noble school: "I had given her a reassuring smile and patted her hand and told her not to worry, I wouldn't do anything stupid. It was usually an effective tactic, a different of those tricks I had learned: People were satisfied so extended as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves."

With two months left to Election Day, it will be a test of the media's integrity to see granting that they devote as much time delving into Sen. Obama's put drugs into employment as they did into Bristol Palin's sex life.

Linda Chavez is the author of "An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal." To find out more about Linda Chavez, visit the Creators Syndicate web serving-boy at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Previous: The Unexamined Life
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Microsoft’s starting anew Windows advertising campaign is one piece in a major overhaul of how the company makes, markets and sells its most important product to consumers, a most prominent one executive said Friday.

The first commercial, featuring Bill Gates and comic actor Jerry Seinfeld but no computers or software, launched a $300 million campaign Thursday, the largest consumer-ad push in company account.

While the ads are the most visible feature, the company has spent the farther than 18 months researching and rebuilding whole aspects of its consumer Windows employment, reported Bill Veghte, senior vice president of Microsoft’s online services and Windows business clump.

“It was something that I felt surpassingly forcibly we needed to conclude,” reported Veghte, who took on the role about the same time the effort started.

In a significant investment beyond the ad campaign, Microsoft has changed the way it works by PC manufacturers to build computers that observe better.

It’s also experimenting with new retail concepts, including Microsoft “Gurus” the companionship is comparing to Nordstrom’s personal shoppers, and updating its online presence to provide more specific guidance and help for consumers.

This investing. might at first seem excessive for a monopoly business that is cruising, despite a resurgent and taunting Apple.

Windows generated $16.9 billion in sales in the bygone date fiscal year and still managed to grow in the low double-digits.

The operating-system software in addition produces one of the largest profit margins — besides than 77 percent — in the relation of business.

But some cracks are starting to plausibility, individually when it comes to consumer perception of the latest Windows version, Vista.

“There’s been a lot of negative publicity around Vista and that’s probably hurt the Windows fire-brand,” said Sid Parakh, an analyst at McAdams Wright Ragen. “I think they’re trying to earn back some of that credibility that the brand had.”

Veghte bring it another way: “Windows has turn to in this way ubiquitous that sometimes more of the magic and some of the suitable that Windows affords fades into the background a bit.”

Restoring that “the black art” and exposing consumers to new features of Windows on PCs, mobile devices and the Internet is key for the long-term success of the business, Veghte said.

Veghte said the initial ad was meant to restart a conversation with consumers. The online reaction, be it jeers or shrugged shoulders, has at least grabbed politeness. Subsequent ads in the series will focus more on Windows itself, he said.

Veghte said the essay is not meant to be a direct response to Apple’s attack ads, which one. have arguably done more to define Vista in the public mind than has Microsoft. It doesn’t appear Microsoft direct attack Apple directly.

“Certainly in some geographies Apple is telling a very loud story,” Veghte said. “But at the core, it’s not far from the fact that we needed to tell our invention and capture that emotion and that magic that for years and years people have associated with Windows.”

Some of Microsoft’s other efforts, particularly in succession the sales front, look like pages taken from Apple’s playbook.

Microsoft is stopping short of launching its own retail stores, but the company is rolling out “store-within-a-store concepts” at Circuit City and Best Buy. More than 150 so-called “Microsoft Gurus” will staff some of the stores. Apple employs “Geniuses” at its retail stores to answer questions and help customers.

Apart from the sales and marketing efforts, Microsoft is trying to increase the end product. It’s a task made more complicated by the broad industry of PC manufacturers that have since much to do with a computer’s performance as Microsoft does.

Veghte said Microsoft worked closely with PC makers to test 277 machines for production, reliability, over-confidence, compatibility and battery life. They picked a smaller fixed beforehand of systems to refine and tune over the past eight months.

Analyst Parakh sees those additional facets as critical.

“Just doing a marketing campaign doesn’t help,” Parakh said. “You have to away from the thicker settlements it up by products that actually do what they should.”

Veghte related prosperity for the broad essay will be creating “brisk estimation and excitement [among consumers] around what Windows can do.”

Benjamin J. Romano: 206-464-2149 or bromano@seattletimes.com