by Mark Silva

In counting the many ways in which No. 2 appears to have quickly become No. 1 on the McCain-Palin ticket, our friend Andrew Malcolm at the now-aptly named Top of the Ticket does not stop with the popular Sarah Palin fashion gallery.

Crowds greeting the appearance of John McCain and Sarah Palin have broken out into chants of "Sar-rah! Sar-rah!," he notes, and fashion mavens say her upswept hairdo is being widely copied and her fashionable eyeglass frames are "flying off the shelves.'' Everything written about Palin is a big draw here.

How long will this Second on the Ticket phenomenon sit well with the Republican Party's presidential nominee, Malcolm asks of a senior senator "who hardly has enough hair to sweep over the top, let alone up?'' McCain's unknown entity from Alaska has surprised many, not the least of whom are the folks at camp Obama who picked a running mate known to all.

"From the McCain camp's point of view, the invaluable beauty of the initially dubious news coverage, with its often catty, gotcha tone, was that it dramatically lowered the bar of expectations'' for Palin, Malcolm writes. "Palin's pronounced if practiced normalcy -- talking about "my guy," snowmobiles and hockey moms -- actually energized what was previously scheduled to be another somnolent, soporific session for the GOP, naming two more white guys in well-pressed suits and new haircuts tearing themselves away from their investments and the golf course long enough to give this White House business a go.''

Palin even won over Rush Limbaugh, the conservative broadcast grump who's all for the Palin-McCain ticket now, Malcolm notes. The nominee's own energy level seems to have gotten a boost. Mark Salter, McCain's closest aide, tells the L.A. Times'' Maeve Reston that "they're having a good time together. They're riding a lot of momentum coming out of the convention."

The McCain camp also has taken media complaints about Palin's unavailability for comment in stride. "It's a smart strategy for the McCain camp to give Palin a few days to gain her campaign legs and voice, get comfortable with her new staff and the talking points before sending her out solo, probably later this week,'' Malcolm suggests.

Later this week, ABC News' Charles Gibson will interview Palin several times back home in Alaska, as she sends her 19-year-old Army son off to Iraq. "Gibson's a pro. He'll ask some hard questions. And they won't be about Fairbanks traffic. The governor had better be ready. If the emerging pattern fits, ABC will get a ratings bonanza as the nation pursues its raging Sarah curiosity.''

Palin's return home also will give the top of the GOP ticket a, momentary perhaps, chance to bask in his own applause.

Photo of Sarah Palin by Getty Images.

by Frank James

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is talking to anyone who will listen to explain why the Bush Administration felt it necessary to takeover mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

His message: it was the only thing to do. If the two had been allowed to fail, the mortgage markets and lending markets beyond would have completely seized up. The financial markets might have imploded too with dire consequences too frightful to contemplate.

Here's a transcript from his interview on CBS's Early Show this morning:

HARRY SMITH, co-host:

Mr. PAULSON: Well...

by Frank James

During last week's Republican National Convention acceptance speech by Sen. John McCain, HCD Research Inc., a market-research firm tested the speech in real-time with a group of Republicans, Democrats and independents to get their reactions.

The test results can be found here. The results are mainly what you'd expect for Republicans and Democrats; they generally respond in opposite ways to the same parts of McCain's speech.

But there are interesting areas of agreement. For instance when McCain talks about school choice, Democrats appear to respond favorably. Later when he discusses his energy proposals and indicates that a McCain administration would support the manufacturing of more hybrid vehicles, Democrats also seem to like that.

Good morning.

Here are a few Washington events of note for Monday, September 8.

Congress, after its long summer break and the two national political conventions, is back in session.

President Bush is speaking about volunteerism.

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings is discussing the importance of high-quality assessments in helping students and schools improve under No Child Left Behind.

by Mark Silva

"Here's a news flash,'' as Sarah Palin likes to say: The Republican nominee for vice president will sit with ABC News' Charlie Gibson for an interview, according to ABC.

When Palin will meet the press is not entirely clear, however.

Palin, who accepted Sen. John McCain's assignment to be his running mate 10 days ago, has yet to submit to questions from any reporters covering the election campaign, which, as ABC notes, has prompted some ribbing from the other side. Someone handed Joe Biden, Barack Obama's running mate, a cardboard cutout of McCain.

"You realize you you could've made history if you'd found a cardboard cut-out of Governor Palin," said David Wade, a campaign spokesman. "That's the closest she would've been to taking tough questions from the national media since she was selected.

"Then again, I guess the Republicans are continuing their recent history of keeping their vice-presidential picks in secure, undisclosed locations," he added, in reference to Vice President Dick Cheney's use of an "undisclosed location" after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The McCain campaign complains that press coverage of Palin has been intrusive and disrespectful of Palin's family, with McCain campaign manager saying on FOX News Sunday today that they will not toss Palin to the "piranhas'' of the press. Manager Rick Davis said they will not subject Palin to reporters' questions "until the point in time when she'll be treated with respect and deference."

While McCain, Democratic nominee Barack Obama and Obama running mate Biden appeared on the Sunday morning news shows this morning - mostly in interviews conducted on Saturday, Palin was campaigning today in New Mexico.

ABC News says it will be conducting an interview, but hasn't released details of when that might take place. But apparently, according to the McCain campaign's standards, it will take place "with respect and deference.''

by Mike Dorning

Barack Obama and Bill Clinton are planning to meet for lunch Thursday while the Democratic candidate is in New York for a ceremony marking the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to aides.

The meeting will be the first one-on-one get-together for the two Democrats, though Obama has said he has phoned the former president for advice on numerous occasions.

For most of the year, the two prominent Democrats have had a tense relationship. Friends of the former president were widely quoted over the summer describing Clinton as bitter over his wife's loss in the Democratic primaries and irritated that Obama has not paid more respect to the achievements of his presidency. Obama allies had been angered by comments Clinton made during the primary campaign that they felt sought to use Obama's race to diminish the Illinois senator's candidacy.

But the former president offered a fulsome endorsement of Obama in a speech at the Democratic convention in Denver.

by Frank James

William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, has an incisive critique of Sen. John McCain's acceptance speech from Thursday night. It's worth reading since it captures what he calls "the McCain paradox."

The paradox includes this: that McCain sounded the trumpet for bipartisanship but has been following a very partisan strategy, including his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a running mate, a move designed to excite the Republican conservative base.

And while McCain called for new approaches as the nation pushes deeper into the 21st Century, a lot of what he offered could be described as warmed over Bushism.

It's a paradox that could make it very difficult for McCain to govern if he's elected. And what McCain offers may be this year's version of George W. Bush's "I'm a uniter, not a divider" theme of 2000. We all know how that turned out.

The McCain Paradox by William Galston

The paradox extended to substance as well. McCain spoke eloquently about the need to retool policies and institutions created before the end of the Cold War and the rise of the global economy. But the substantive proposals he listed were less than forward-looking. His economic agenda was the familiar mantra of smaller government, less spending, lower taxes and open markets. His education agenda focused on school choice, which George W. Bush set aside in 2001 to forge a bipartisan agreement on the No Child Left Behind Act. This apparently minor detail symbolizes a larger problem: there was little in McCain's agenda to create a foundation for the bipartisanship he seeks. It is not easy to see how he would deal effectively with what is certain to be a Democratic Congress, or how he would break the gridlock he deplores. It is likely, rather, that he would have to redeem his pledge to use his veto pen, over and over again.

by Mark Silva

People are attempting to draw parallels between Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee for president, and Dick Cheney, the vice president. There's not much there there, we suspect.

The shotgun-packing "hockey mom" from Alaska hails from similar political territory as the quail- (and occasionally attorney-)hunting vice president from Wyoming, but analogies sort of peter out after that.

This, as our colleague Johanna Neuman at Countdown to Crawford notes today, didn't stop Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee for president, from saying in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos today that rival Republican nominee John McCain "chose somebody who may be even more aligned with George Bush -- or Dick Cheney -- or the politics we've seen over the last eight years -- than John McCain himself is."

This fits the "more of the same'' label that the Democratic ticket is attempt to affix to the Republican ticket.

Last week, Neuman notes, on the same ABC program, John Kerry, the Democratic nominee in 2004, called Palin a member of the "flat earth caucus,'' her views on climate change reminiscent of Cheney's. "With the choice of Gov. Palin, it's now the third term of Dick Cheney, because what he's done is he's chosen somebody who actually doesn't believe that climate change is man-made," said Kerry, calling Palin "Cheney-esque" on social issues.

(Indeed in an interview with Newsmax, Palin has said she does not believe that global warming is caused by humans: "A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location," she told the magazine. "I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made."

But it really stops there in any true comparison of the two vice presidencies, should Palin win one: Cheney, in his time, has served four American presidents - as vice president with George Bush, defense secretary with the former President Bush, chief of staff to President Gerald Ford and an adviser to President Richard Nixon. He has terms served in Congress, and as CEO of Haliburton. First-term Alaska Gov. Palin has been mayor of Wasilla.

Cheney also has presided over the most powerful vice presidency in American history. As the Tribune first reported, he never has reported his classification or declassification of federal documents to the National Archives, as a presidential order requires of all executive agencies, because, as he has asserted, he is not part of the executive branch. The Senate pays the salary of its president, the vice president.

And, as an aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell has asserted, the vice president's office even eavesdropped on the emails of the president's National Security Council, as the vice president maintained a reign over all matters national security for some time during the Bush administration.

This is not the role that Palin might play in the White House. Palin is the ultimate stump-speaker, which Cheney is not - if the vice president can put an audience to sleep, Palin can wake them up. Palin is a talker, not a national security player.

As much as the opposition may try to draw the Palin-Cheney comparison as part of the "more-of-the-same'' tactic, they're better off worrying about the real new threat which Palin pose for them: Stirring the base of the Republican Party in a way in which McCain cannot. In a contest which most polls portray as close nationwide, Palin is the McCain ticket's new, one-woman get-out-the vote strategy.

by Mark Silva

"This ultimately isn't a race between us and Sarah Palin,'' David Axelrod, chief strategist for the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, says today. "It's a race between Barack Obama and John McCain. They're the candidates for president."

But Axelrod does question Palin's limited exposure to the public in an interview aired on FOX News Sunday today. "She was basically an unknown...She hasn't sat down to...answer any substantive questions. All she's done is read a couple of speeches.''

"She's not scared to answer questions,'' McCain campaign manager Rick Davis says of the Alaska governor on the same program today. "We run our campaign, not the news media. And we'll do things on our timetable. And honestly, this last week was not an exemplary moment for the news media...The information that the news media has been putting out on Sarah Palin is not what I would call objective journalism

"Why would we want to throw Sarah Palin into a cycle of piranhas called the news media that have nothing better to ask questions about than her personal life and her children?" Davis asks.

Palin isn't the only problem with the McCain campaign, Axelrod suggests of the senior staff there: "Almost everybody who's running his campaign is a major Washington lobbyist,...They've lobbied for oil companies, drug companies, insurance companies, for foreign oil interests, for foreign governments. That's who's running his campaign."

"They've been running against ghosts of the past all along,'' replies Davis, a former lobbyist, speaking with FOX host Chris Wallace. "And I think it just shows that they don't really have anything to talk about... I think it's hilarious. I think it's a wonderful distraction from the real issues that we're trying to debate. It's a classic example of a campaign that doesn't have anything else to say, so they pick on staff."

by Mark Silva

John McCain, whose campaign has ridiculed rival Barack Obama as a "celebrity,'' made his 65th appearance on CBS News' Face the Nation this morning - a record for the Sunday show.

And, McCain conceded this about the American economy in a conversation with CBS host Bob Schieffer:

In their 65 meetings, McCain said, "you and I have probably never had a conversation when our economy was in greater difficulty than it is today... These are tough times now. America's best days are ahead of us. But we've got very tough sledding to go through.'' And that means averting new taxes, McCain said.... "Americans are hurting.''

Told of his own Sunday morning TV record with today's show, McCain said: "Oh, my God.'' Told that the previous record-holder on Face the Nation was former Sen. Bob Dole, the Republican nominee for president in 1996, he said: "It's an honor to follow in the footsteps of a great American.''

Schieffer asked McCain about not only going after the other party at his nominating convention, but also going after his own party at his convention - allowing that it is his party that is part of the problem and insisting that he can be an agent of change.

"I took on the big spenders,'' McCain said. "I did campaign finance reform. I reached across the aisle to Democrats... Obviously I was unpopular among some parts of my own party,'' he said McCain, mentioning a lot of issues - with the exception of immigration reform, which really caused a rift in his party.

"We came to power to change Washington and Washington changed us,'' the senior senator from Arizona said of his party. "I have to make a strong case that we're going to bring about that change, and it's the right kind of change... I think I've got the running mate that has the right kind of record as well.''

On reaching out to Democrats, McCain said his administration would include some: "You have to, you have to,'' he said. "Look at all the loss of trust and confidence'' the public has in government. "The way you restore it, obviously, is to have a very bipartisan approach... They are in gridlock.. They are going to go into session tomorrow, and they are going to be in gridlock for a month, and then they are going to go out.''

On Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, his vice presidential nominee, and news commentary that the first-term governor is not prepared to step in for the president should something become of him:

"Let me say, first, that, in all due respect to any commentator, this is the most popular governor in America,'' McCain said. "She has a clear record of doing what Americans want most... reform.

"She did the things that Americans want most, so in all due respect to any of the critics, what we want is the change in Washington,'' McCain said. "Who better on the political landscape could do that than Gov. Palin, whose whole life has been engaged in that.''

(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

by Frank James

"Quasi private companies" is a term we won't be using anymore to describe Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after today apparently. They now, or soon, will fully belong to U.S. taxpayers.

It's a strange variation of Colin Powell's so-called Pottery Barn rule. Taxpayers didn't break it but now they own it.

The two government-sponsored entities that are vital players in making sure there's enough money sloshing around in the mortgage markets, hybrid companies that ran like private ones but had an implied federal guarantee behind them, are expected to be taken over by the federal government today.

That means U.S. taxpayers will be footing a bill in the scores of billions of dollars. It also means Fannie and Freddie shareholders will be left with nothing to show for their investment. Here's hoping your 401(k) bailed out of Fannie and Freddie shares long before now.

The takeover comes after more federal scrutiny found that Fannie Mae had been engaged in less-than-conservative accounting once again (it had serious accounting issues several years back) and following both Fannie and Freddie's increasing difficulties in raising capital in the mortgage markets.

The weird neither fish-nor-fowl status of Fannie and Freddie Mac have long been recognized as a challenging if not flawed approach. Now, since the problems experts have long worried about seem to be coming home to roost, maybe the companies were fowl after all.

One problem was the moral hazard issue. You have two quasi private companies whose managements' knew that if they took risks that threatened their companies' futures, they'd more than likely be bailed out by taxpayers.

Thus, there was an incentive for senior executives at Fannie and Freddie to take risks they might not have otherwise engaged in as tried to increase shareholder profits and, in turn, their bountiful paychecks.

by Mark Silva

"How you campaign foreshadows how you're going to govern,'' Sen. Barack Obama said today, suggesting that the rival campaign of Sen. John McCain is trying to embrace "the change mantra'' while campaigning for office the same old way.

"John McCain has been peddling this story about me increasing taxes,'' Obama said in an interview aired by This Week with George Stephanopoulous on ABC this morning. "My tax plans provide three times the tax relief for middle class families as John McCain's... What I've said is, let's provide tax cuts to 95 percent of the American people.''

Obama was asked if it is wise to be talking about raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans at a time of economic trouble.

"It is wise, if you've got a half a trillion dollar deficit. I think it makes sense for us to pay for what we're purchasing... If we're spending $10 billion a month for the war in Iraq, you can't keep borrowing that on a credit card for the Chinese.''

But he did allow that any tax increases may be dependent on the shape of the economy at the time: "I think we've got to take a look and see where the economy is,'' Obama said.

The Democratic nominee was asked about McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska - and suggested she will be able to speak for herself "if she ends up answering an invitation to your show,'' a shot at the fact that Palin was missing from today's Sunday morning news show lineup.

"She is a skilled politician,'' Obama said of Palin. "Here's what I'll say, if he tells me that he chose somebody who may be even more aligned with George Bush or Dick Cheney or the politics we've seen over the last eight years... the most important thing from my perspective are what are the policies that John McCain and his vice president intend to pursue... What I didn't hear (from the GOP's convention) is... how are they going to put people back to work... how are they going to make health care available... how are they going to make college more affordable.''

On McCain maintaining that Palin has more national security experience than Obama has because Palin runs the Alaska National Guard: "I actually knew that Russia was next to Alaska as well,'' Obama said. "I saw it on a map.''

"This whole resume contest that is going back and forth is not what America has been looking for.''

by Mark Silva

On the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks this week, the presidential campaign promises a respite from the thunderous back-and-forth of campaign warnings that someone is "dangerously unprepared'' to lead the nation and that someone doesn't get "the lessons of 9/11,'' and someone promising that he knows the world and won't let the nation get "hit again.''

Instead, Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama have promised a joint appearance at Ground Zero to deliver a common statement about the nation's commitment to security.

MyGoodDeed.org had urged the candidates to declare a moratorium in campaigning on 9/11. And it's asking the national parties to stand down as well.

"It is a wonderful show of unity and support for 9/11 as a day of service that Sens. McCain and Obama have agreed to appear together at Ground Zero on 9/11," said David Paine, president and co-founder of MyGoodDeed.org, in a statement issued.

"American politics can at times be a contact sport and for both candidates to work together to put aside their differences for the day is remarkable, refreshing and welcome,'' he said. "We hope both parties and other candidates for public office will follow the terrific example being set by their standard-bearers.

"We hope that all candidates will not utilize 9/11 for political purposes, but encourage all people regardless of party or candidate preference to come together in the spirit of unity for the benefit of the families who lost loved ones and for the good of the nation overall."

Well, we'll see how long any truce lasts.

It's likely that, after the seventh anniversary of 9/11, we'll hear more about someone being "dangerously unprepared'' to lead and someone else promising not to let the nation get hit again.

by Mark Silva

Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin:

A couple of women celebrating "cracks in the glass ceiling'' this year -- Clinton was the first woman to win a major party's presidential primary election, the Democrats' in New Hampshire, and Palin is the first woman nominated for vice president by the Republicans - who might still like to be president some day.

They could hardly be any more different.

Yet in many ways, while they campaign for their party's presidential candidates this year, they are fighting the same battle.

Clinton, dispelling notions that she really won't offer much help for Democratic nominee Barack Obama this year, is headed to Florida on Monday for a "Change We Need'' rally in Tampa and a community event on the economy in Kissimmee.

Palin, following a post-convention tour with Republican nominee John McCain, will start setting her own schedule for the two-month campaign ahead. McCain has told the nation that "a change is coming,'' and that change includes Palin.

Yet both Clinton and Palin could still have aspirations beyond this contest. Clinton's best hope for the presidency rests on Obama losing in November, something which she vows to work to avoid. Palin's best hope rests on a McCain victory in November. So it's natural to ask which one of these women will be working harder for their parties' nominees between now and Nov. 4.

These two have little in common beyond the glass ceiling that both face as women in a traditionally good old boys' game. Clinton believes it takes a village to raise a child. Palin figures it takes a church. Clinton is "pro-choice,'' Palin pro-life. Clinton is an Ivy Leaguer, Palin a frontier politician. Clinton was the nation's first lady. Palin was the mayor of Wasilla. They've both had some shooting lessons, but Palin's sharp-shooting skills are up to date.

Palin tipped her hat to Clinton when McCain announced her as a running mate. And Clinton tipped hers to Palin.