GAINESVILLE, Fla. - Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden displayed some frustration at being tightly managed by the Obama campaign for fear he might go “off message.”

Speaking to students at the University of Florida in Gainesville Sunday, Biden appeared to stray from the text in front of him and took his eyes off the teleprompter.

What he said was not controversial — that he was more passionate about America’s prospects than when he first ran for the Senate in 1972 — but it was obviously not in the prepared script.

“I believe the possibilities for this country are absolutely amazing and stop moving the prompter,” he told his staff from the podium, referring to the teleprompter.

“There is a prompter that I hardly ever read. They put it up to make me sound disciplined,” Biden quipped to the crowd.

The usually loquacious Biden has been unusually disciplined during the campaign, avoiding wordy speeches and seeking to stay “on message” as Barack Obama’s running mate.

His biggest gaffe so far has been to say that if Obama wins, he will be tested in his first six months, a comment Republican John McCain seized on as he argued that the first-term Illinois senator is too inexperienced to be president.

Biden has had limited interaction with the small group of reporters traveling with him but insisted in an impromptu news conference on Friday that he had not been “muzzled” by the Obama campaign.

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Jason Reed. Biden and Obamappear at a campaign rally in Sunrise, Florida, on Oct. 29, 2008.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Just two days before the U.S. presidential election, Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden smells victory for Barack Obama.

Speaking at Florida State University in Tallahassee, his first in a three-stop swing through the battleground state of Florida on Sunday, Biden pointed to a dramatic bronze statue entitled “Unconquered” outside the university’s stadium.

“This is a great place to have this rally in front of the ‘Seminole Unconquered’. I tell you, I don’t think you ever approach this stadium without smelling victory in the air,” Biden said. 

The statue depicts a spear-brandishing Seminole Indian astride a rearing horse and was designed to “capture the indomitable spirit” of the Seminole people, says the university’s website. 
 

With polls showing Obama ahead of Republican John McCain, Florida Sen. Bill Nelson was also in an upbeat mood when he introduced Biden. 
 

“Do you smell victory in the air?,” Nelson said. “I suspect on Tuesday night we are going to be singing ‘happy days are here again’,” he told about 2,000 enthusiastic supporters. 
 

A small group of protesters shouted anti-Obama slogans on the outskirts of the rally and Biden had a message for them and other McCain supporters who were criticizing Obama. 
 

“Not only will we, but they in the parking lot (the protesters), they will be calling Barack Obama something else. They will call him President Obama — President Barack Obama, commander-in-chief of the United States of America.” 

Biden, who became a senator in 1972, poked fun at a skit on NBC’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ this weekend when McCain tried to sell a talking doll in the image of the Delaware senator. 

“I was told by one of my staff guys that I gotta get a Biden pull doll,” he said.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Biden and Obama campaign in Florida)

For John McCain, the road to the White House ends in Prescott, Arizona.

The Arizona senator caps a frantic, final day of campaigning on Monday with a midnight rally on the courthouse steps in the old territorial capital, where he has concluded his earlier campaigns for Senate.

The courthouse plaza has hosted other notable rallies. Former Sen. Barry Goldwater, the 1964 presidential candidate who McCain regards as a role model, ended his campaigns there as well, as did members of the state’s Udall dynasty.

“It’s got great historical significance in Arizona,” said McCain adviser Mark Salter.

Though rich in symbolism, the rally will come at the cost of the rarest of commodities in the final days of a presidential campaign: sleep.

The rally wraps up at 1:15 a.m. on Tuesday morning, and the campaign won’t reach his home city of Phoenix until 1:45. That’s 20 hours after the day’s first rally in Tampa.

Tuesday’s schedule looks a bit more forgiving. McCain has only two tasks that day: vote, and wait for the the results to come in.

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Photo credit REUTERS/Brian Snyder. McCain speaks at rally in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, Nov. 2, 2008

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Republicans accused Barack Obama of arrogance on Sunday after he referred to plans to hold a press conference the day after the election.

As Obama was boarding his campaign plane to fly to rally in Columbus, a reporter asked him what kind of instructions he would give his Treasury secretary for implementing the $700 billion financial rescue package.

“We’re on a tarmac,” the Democratic White House contender replied to ABC News correspondent Jake Tapper.

Tapper then suggested Obama call a press conference.

“I will. On Wednesday,” the candidate said.

The Republican National Committee quickly sent the exchange to reporters, labeling it part of the “Audacity Watch.” Borrowing from the title of Obama’s book, “The Audacity of Hope,” the RNC has a web site that chronicles what it sees as Obama’s presumptuousness about his chances of winning Tuesday’s election.

An aide to the Obama campaign later said there would not necessarily be a press conference on Wednesday. Adviser Linda Douglass said Obama would meet reporters by the end of the week but “don’t count on Wednesday.”

Photo credit: REUTERS/Jason Reed. Obama boards his plane in Springfield, Mo.  Nov. 2, 2008.

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. - Pennsylvania native and Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden hopes the Philadelphia Phillies’ baseball World Series win is a good omen for Tuesday’s presidential election.

“How about those Phillies?” Biden said at a rally in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, on Thursday.

The Philadelphia Phillies won baseball’s World Series on Wednesday against the Tampa Bay Rays, in a game watched by Biden’s wife, Jill, who like him is a rabid Phillies fan.

“I am on the campaign trail and she said: ‘Joe I am going to the (baseball) series,” Biden said.

Biden, who grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, said his wife appeared on a local Philadelphia radio station on Thursday and raved about the performance of Phillies pitcher Brad Ledge, who clinched the Phillies’ win by shutting down the Rays in the last inning of Wednesday’s game.

“It must have given her an idea because when I called her to say hello, she said, ‘Joe, you have to do with this campaign what Brad did that night.’ Lights out tonight, lights out …” he said.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Bill Kostroun (Phillies’ Geoff Jenkins sprays fans with champagne after the Phillies defeated Tampa Bay to win the World Series)

DALLAS - According to a new poll by the Pew Research Center, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has a 19-point lead over Republican rival John McCain among U.S. voters who have already cast their ballots.

The Pew poll, released on Tuesday, gels with other reports of a Democratic surge to the polls in states that allow early voting.

“Obama holds a 53 percent to 34 percent lead among the sizable minority of voters (15 percent) who say they have already voted. Among those who plan to vote early but have not yet voted (16 percent of voters), 56 percent support Obama, while 37 percent support McCain,” Pew said.

The election will be held a week from today and most national polls give Obama a commanding lead, although not by the margins suggested by Pew’s survey of early voters. This could well be a sign of energized and enthusiastic Democrats heading to the early polls.

Obama’s lead over McCain has narrowed from 12 points just five days ago to four points, according to the latest Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll. You can see our report on this  here. 

The latest Pew poll gave Obama an overall lead of 52 percent to 36 percent among the 1,325 registered voters surveyed from Oct 23- 26th.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Obama speaks at rally)

Sarah Palin’s $150,000 clothing allowance from the Republican National Committee raises questions about whether John McCain’s vice presidential pick will have to pay federal income taxes for the items she bought with the money. 

Maybe, according to one congressional tax expert.

The McCain campaign says the clothing, which according to Politico.com was purchased at stores like Neiman Marcus and Saks, will go to charity after the campaign.

If everything is handed over to charity once the last ballot is cast, Palin could argue that she never actually owned the clothes and that they were more like costumes or uniforms used for work, the tax expert said.

But anything she keeps would be considered a payment and its value could be taxed as income.

Generally clothing required for work that cannot also be used outside the workplace, such as a nurse’s uniform, is a deductible expense. Any clothing that can be used off the job as well as on the job cannot be deducted.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Steve Marcus (Palin at a rally in Henderson, Nevada Oct. 21)

WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate John McCain may not have blinked first in his debates with Barack Obama — but he certainly blinked more often, which is not a good thing.

Candidates who blink more than their opponents in debates tend to lose presidential elections, says Boston College psychology professor J.J. Tecce, and McCain outblinked Obama during the their three debates this fall.

“People are picking up McCain’s rapid blinking and saying, ‘There’s something about him that’s awfully twitchy and nervous and I don’t think I want to vote for that guy,’” said Tecce, who has presented a paper on blinking in debates.

Tecce said rapid blinking is an indicator of negative emotions such as fear, pain or stress. Most people blink 10 to 20 times per minute, a rate that increases to between 30 and 50 times per minute if they’re in front of a television camera.

The Republican McCain, who trails Democrat Obama by 4 to 14 percentage points in most polls, blinked 109 times per minute during the first debate, while Obama blinked 73 times per minute. Tecce said that gap persisted in the next two debates.

Obama has unhelpful tics of his own, such as a tendency to  look down at the ground, but voters appear to not pick up on these cues as readily as they do rapid blinking, Tecce said.

The presidential candidate who blinked more than his opponent during debates has lost every election since 1976 — with the exception of 2000 when blink-happy George W. Bush lost the popular vote to Democrat Al Gore but won the White House.

The blinking pattern held during this year’s Democratic primaries. Obama and rival Hillary Clinton each registered about 40 to 50 blinks per minute during Democratic debates, far less than rivals who quickly dropped out of the race.

On the Republican side, McCain was the fastest blinker of the bunch. Ron Paul clocked in at a serene 10 blinks per minute and only Mitt Romney registered in the ideal 40-blinks-per-minute range.

“I think they shot themselves in the foot on body language,” Tecce said.

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Cracked. Shattered. Whatever. Forget the glass ceiling, policy trumps gender in the race for the White House as far as Hillary Clinton is concerned.

“Of course it’s exciting to have a woman on the ticket,” Clinton said in a CNN interview when asked about the vice presidential candidacy of Republican Sarah Palin.

“But that in and of itself is not enough reason … and really no one will shatter that ceiling until we have a woman serving as president or vice president,” she said in the interview broadcast on Tuesday.

Clinton, a New York senator, saw an opportunity to be the first U.S. woman president slip away with her Democratic presidential primary loss to Barack Obama.

When Palin joined the Republican ticket as John McCain’s running mate, she credited Clinton with leaving 18 million cracks in the so-called glass ceiling — a reference to the number of votes she won in primaries before dropping out of the race.

But the two women have little else in common, especially on the divisive issue of abortion rights, which Palin opposes.

“I am going to be supporting women and men with whom I agree, who I believe have the right policies and the right ideas about what’s best for America,” said Clinton, who is campaigning for Obama in several states before the Nov. 4 election.

Pressed on Palin’s candidacy and wanting to see a woman in the White House, Clinton was firm.

“I would like to see the very first woman in the White House who I agree with and who I think has policies that would really fulfill the goals that I have for our country,” she told CNN.

It was clear the governor from Alaska was not that woman.

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BETHLEHEM, Pennsylvania - Republican John McCain’s military history is famous, but the service of his sons is less well known. And until recently, that’s exactly how the presidential candidate and his wife, Cindy, wanted it.
 
But on Wednesday, Mrs. McCain made a rare reference to her sons when criticizing the Illinois senator for his 2007 vote against a war funding bill. McCain has two sons in the military, and one has served in Iraq.  “The day that Sen. Obama decided to cast a vote to not fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body,” McCain told a crowded rally in Pennsylvania, an electoral battleground state.
 
“I would suggest that Sen. Obama change shoes with me for just one day and see what it means … to have a loved one serving in the armed forces and more importantly, serving in harm’s way,” she said. “I suggest he take a day and go watch our fine young men…and women deploy, get on those buses and leave with a smile.”
 
McCain also invoked vice presidential nominee Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s son, who recently deployed to Iraq.
 ”We have a lot in common, the McCain family and the Palin family,” she said. “We represent between us the Army, the Navy and the United States Marine Corps.”
 
Obama voted against the funding bill in 2007 but supported a version that included a timetable for withdrawal for U.S. troops from Iraq.
 
The son of Obama’s vice presidential running mate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, has just been sent to Iraq with the Army National Guard, and will be there for about a year. Obama has two young daughters. 

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Photo credit: REUTERS/Carlos Barria