Countdown and Hardball aren't going anywhere, but their hosts are getting kicked off the MSNBC election anchor desk and replaced by David Gregory. This from the New York Times:

MSNBC tried a bold experiment this year by putting two politically incendiary hosts, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, in the anchor chair to lead the cable news channel's coverage of the election.

That experiment appears to be over.

After months of accusations of political bias and simmering animosity between MSNBC and its parent network NBC, the channel decided over the weekend that the NBC News correspondent and MSNBC host David Gregory would anchor news coverage of the coming debates and election night. Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Matthews will remain as analysts during the coverage.

The change -- which comes in the home stretch of the long election cycle -- is a direct result of tensions associated with the channel's perceived shift to the political left...

In interviews, 10 current and former staff members said that long-simmering tensions between MSNBC and NBC reached a boiling point during the conventions. "MSNBC is behaving like a heroin addict," one senior staff member observed. "They're living from fix to fix and swearing they'll go into rehab the next week."...

Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams, the past and present anchors of "NBC Nightly News," have told friends and colleagues that they are finding it tougher and tougher to defend the cable arm of the news division, even while they anchored daytime hours of convention coverage on MSNBC and contributed commentary each evening.

Partisanship isn't the only factor at play here. The article also suggests that the on-air tension between Matthews and Olbermann, as well as between Olbermann and Joe Scarborough, was a factor. (What about the Shuster-Scarborough fight, says I?)

If Gregory does well, I imagine we'll see him take over the Meet the Press chair after the election. Shame, I was kind of hoping for Gwen Ifill out of all the realistic options. As for Olbermann, while my opinion of him hasn't fallen quite as far as most other MyDDers, I still applaud the move. Maybe this kick in the pants will help him return to his pre-primary, less pompous, totally awesome form? And Matthews... eh, wish they'd just fire him. "HA!"

Your thoughts?

Discuss...

David Yepsen has a good column in Sunday's Des Moines Register urging Iowa's political parties to improve the caucus system. He reasons that Iowa is less likely to retain its first-in-the-nation status if our state parties do not correct some of the flaws in the caucus process.

I would go further and state that Iowa does not deserve to remain first unless the parties make some changes in the caucus system. Actually, if I were in charge of reforming the nominating process, I would ban caucuses for the purposes of presidential selection. The parties in Iowa will never adopt primaries, though, because of New Hampshire's law stating that it must hold the first primary.

After the jump I'll go over the reforms Yepsen proposes, which would go a long way toward addressing the flaws in the Iowa caucus system. I will then add a few ideas of my own.

For background, here are links to the diaries I wrote last year on the Iowa caucus system:

How the Iowa caucuses work, part 1 (basic elements of the caucus system)

How the Iowa caucuses work, part 2 (corrects an error in part 1 and discusses who is over-represented and who is under-represented when delegates are counted)

How the Iowa caucuses work, part 3 (why it's hard to turn out caucus-goers)

How the Iowa caucuses work, part 4 (more about why caucus turnout is low)

How the Iowa caucuses work, part 5 (on second choices and caucus math)

How the Iowa caucuses work, part 6 (on how precinct captains help their candidates before caucus night)

How the Iowa caucuses work, part 7 (why it's hard to figure out how well the candidates are doing in Iowa)

How the Iowa caucuses work, part 8 (on the many ways to win your precinct)

How the Iowa caucuses work, part 9 (analyzes common arguments made in favor of the caucus system, along with my response to those arguments)

Adapted and expanded from an original post at The Wayward Episcopalian.

I'll be voting for Barack Obama, but I've made no secret about my own hesitations regarding the Illinois Senator's resume. That being said, he does have more leadership experience than Governor Palin. She was mayor of a town of less than 7,000 people for six years; he was a member of the state legislature that helped govern the nation's third largest city for seven. Come January, he will have been a member of the US Senate for four years; she a Governor of a state with 1.2 people per square mile for half that. The Republican response is, predictably, that her experience is EXECUTIVE and his (like McCain's) merely legislative. McCain surrogate Carly Fiornia, who was ousted as CEO of Hewlett Packard, has made that argument and insists that anyone who dares disagree with her is sexist:

I am appalled by the Obama campaign's attempts to belittle Governor Sarah Palin's experience. The facts are that Sarah Palin has made more executive decisions as a Mayor and Governor than Barack Obama has made in his life.

Because of Hillary Clinton's historic run for the Presidency and the treatment she received, American women are more highly tuned than ever to recognize and decry sexism in all its forms. They will not tolerate sexist treatment of Governor Palin.

I wonder, would Fiorina call herself a racist for ignoring Obama's work on ethics reform, death penalty reform, and nuclear proliferation? But I digress. The Republican spinners and conservative bloggers who take their marching orders have widely missed the mark about Palin's inexperience. I can only think of two possible reasons one would argue that executive experience is better than legislative experience, and neither makes sense.

The first is that the President, as head of the "Executive Branch," runs the government - but what's in a name? The President doesn't handle the nuts and bolts of management. He or she's got a Chief of Staff to run the White House and a Cabinet to run the various departments and agencies. Whether we acknowledge it with a Constitutional label or not, the President's legislative role is just as expansive and important as his (or her) management role. The State of the Union address largely sets the legislative agenda. The White House battles with Congress over every law and nomination, sending staffers and Cabinet members to the Hill for negotiations. And when it comes to those nominations, Senators have plenty of "experience" suggesting nominees to the President, so are just as qualified as a Governor to make such decisions. (That's part of what helped me quell me on Obama's inexperience after Biden and Dodd dropped out - the early and enthusiastic primary endorsements of former Majority Leader Daschle and former Majority Whips Kennedy and Durbin suggest he'll be able to navigate Congress. Palin can't claim that.)

Yes, perhaps being Governor does prepare a person for a small part of the Presidency, but not for the whole thing, and the same can be said of the Senate. So let's stop trying to suggest one is better than the other - especially since there are at least 16 American cities with larger populations than Alaska. You could even joke that Joe Biden gained more executive experience running the Senate Judiciary and Foreign Relations committee staffs (as well as his personal staff) than Sarah Palin gained running the village of Wasilla and its 53 employees - a job Palin herself said was "not rocket science," Fiorina's insistence to the contrary notwithstanding.

The second argument for executive experience is that four of our last five Presidents were Governors - but this just means Governors make good candidates, not good Presidents. Their resumes may have helped these four men reach the White House, but they didn't necessarily help them do a good job once they were there. Jimmy Carter was, well, Jimmy Carter - God love `im for his heart, but he couldn't negotiate with Congress and he couldn't rally the American people. Ronald Reagan knew how to inspire and helped speed up the end of the Cold War, but also left us with a then-record deficit and was either complicit or negligent in Iran-Contra. Bill Clinton botched health care negotiations with Congress and left office with no major second term achievements. George W. Bush appointed hacks like Michael Brown, Alberto Gonzalez, and Don Rumsfeld, mismanaged Iraq and Katrina, and will leave both the Constitution and America's reputation in tatters. Just what about these four Governors is supposed to fire me up about executive experience? I'm left yearning for the days of SENATOR John F. Kennedy, when responsibility was taken for mistakes (the Bay of Pigs), tax cuts were manageable, and cooler heads prevailed during the most perilous moment in our nation's history, or SENATOR Lyndon Baines Johnson, who (Vietnam aside) made for one heckuva domestic President.

Given Obama's short resume, Democrats shouldn't hammer Palin on her lack of experience - although he has been quick to point out that his campaign has a larger staff and budget than does Wasilla. At the same time, Republicans should drop the experience attacks on Obama and the line about executive experience. When they don't, let's clobber them for the hypocrites they are.

Here's the latest:

The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update shows John McCain moving ahead of Barack Obama, 48% to 45%, when registered voters are asked for whom they would vote if the presidential election were held today.

These results are based on Sept. 4-6 interviewing, and include two full days of polling after the conclusion of the Republican National Convention last Thursday night. McCain has outpolled Obama on both Friday and Saturday, and is receiving a convention bounce just as Obama did last week.

It seems fairly clear that John McCain has gotten a decent bounce out of his convention, and more precisely the fiery speech delivered at his convention by Sarah Palin. What I'd still like to see though, and what I believe is very important, is where the bounce is coming from.

Last week, McCain led Barack Obama by just 4 points -- 48 percent to 44 percent -- in the South, according to Gallup, the smallest lead he held in the region in over a month, and well down from the normal 9 to 12 points by which he has tended to lead in the region. McCain support in the Midwest, which presumably includes some very red states like Nebraska and Kansas in addition to swingier states like Wisconsin and Ohio, also stood at its lowest point in over a month as of last week.

This is all to say that McCain had quite a bit of room to grow in some of the reddest parts of the country. Accordingly, recapturing support in these areas -- bringing wayward Republicans back to the fold with a base pick like Palin, that is -- would go a long way towards improving McCain's support nationwide, even while not necessarily increasing his chances at winning the presidency as the race is about the electoral college rather than the popular vote.

Of course it very well could also be that McCain is seeing his support rise not only in red states that are less important at this juncture but also in purple states that are more important. Indeed, it will be worth waiting a couple of weeks to see state-by-state polling, which tends to lag behind the national numbers, to see if McCain has received a meaningful bounce in the states he could use such a bounce. But if all this week did was ingratiate McCain with the base, moving up his numbers in deep red states but not in the purple states, this national movement won't be particularly meaningful.

Update [2008-9-7 15:11:31 by Jerome Armstrong]: For those obsessed enough with the tracking polls to want to know each day, here you go (courtesy of an Open Left commenter). Overall though (poll of polls), McCain's bounce is just a little over 2% to date, at 45% overall, compared to 46% for Obama. But it looks volitile and could favor McCain in the coming days. I'm sticking with him needing to get to 47 - 47.5 percent to measure the success of his bounce compared with Obama's.

There's been some reluctance on the part of Team Obama to hit Palin but it looks like they've settled on a strategy that mirrors their strategy against Clinton in the primary; not that she's a Washington insider but that she's a typical (and "skilled") politician, representing the same old same old politics.

On Thursday, David Axelrod launched the first shot in his response to Palin's speech:

"We respect her. She's a skilled politician, as she proved last night. She's deft at going on the attack," Axelrod told reporters here before taking off for Harrisburg Thursday morning. "For someone who makes the point that she's not from Washington, she looked very much like she'd fit in very well there when you see how she brings these attacks, they all felt very familiar to Americans who are used to this kind of thing from Washington."

Axelrod argued that "there wasn't one thing that she [Palin] said about Obama or what he's proposing that's true" and talked specifically about the Illinois senator's plans for tax cuts. He said Obama's tax cuts would benefit more people than McCain's proposals.

Yesterday, Barack Obama himself ratcheted up the message against Palin, specifically on the subject of earmarks:

"Don't be fooled," Obama told the crowd surrounding him in a large barn. "John McCain's party, with the help of John McCain, has been in charge" for nearly eight years.

"I know the governor of Alaska has been saying she's change, and that's great," Obama said. "She's a skillful politician. But, you know, when you've been taking all these earmarks when it's convenient, and then suddenly you're the champion anti-earmark person, that's not change. Come on! I mean, words mean something, you can't just make stuff up."

Glad to see they're making her the focus of some of the attacks.

Update [2008-9-7 13:47:40 by Josh Orton]: And today on Meet the Press, Biden called on Palin to finally come out of hiding:

Joe Biden is accusing the McCain campaign of sequestering Sarah Palin, his counterpart on the Republican ticket, and challenged her Sunday to sit for network interviews.

“She's a smart, tough politician,” Biden told Tom Brokaw in a “Meet the Press” interview live from Wilmington, Del. “So I think she's going to be formidable. Eventually, she's going to have to sit in front of you like I'm doing and have done. Eventually, she's going to have to answer questions and not be sequestered. Eventually, she's going to have to answer on the record.”

The Associated Press may believe that the map is shrinking, but the Republican National Committee apparently doesn't. Here's The New York Times today:

In one indication of how Mr. McCain defines the battleground and the message he will emphasize to counter the Democratic strategy, the Republican National Committee recently bought television time in 14 states for an advertisement calling Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats "ready to tax, ready to spend, but not ready to lead."

That advertisement will be shown in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia (all Republican states in 2004 that Mr. Obama is contesting aggressively this time) and Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, (Democratic states four years ago that Mr. McCain is trying to win over).

[...]

For their part, Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin chose to remain in solid Republican territory. Thousands of enthusiastic supporters greeted them at an airport rally in Colorado Springs, where the crowd waved a sea of flags and chanted "Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin."

It's certainly the case that some red states like Florida, Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada and Ohio have been among the swingiest of the swing states in the last couple presidential elections, but the same cannot be said of Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia -- all of which were relatively close while not closely contested -- or even Missouri, which has recently been contested early but not late in campaigns. The fact, then, that these states are in the mix of Republican ad buys -- as well as the fact that the Obama campaign is apparently considering buying time in states like Arizona and West Virginia even as it scales back in Georgia, and that Barack Obama himself campaigned in Montana and Missouri during the Democratic National Convention -- belies the notion that the map in 2008 looks just like the map from 2004 and 2000.

At present, we still have an expanded map that is cutting into traditionally red areas of the country. That may change, and I would not be surprised to see some of the redder states currently being contested being eased out of the rotation of both ad buys and candidate visits going forward. But for now, a significantly larger number of normally Republican states are seeing action than has been the case in the last couple of elections.

Update [2008-9-7 2:45:55 by Jonathan Singer]: Note the good omens out of Virginia...

The fact that John Ensign has been unable as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee to keep up with Chuck Schumer, the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, in terms of fundraising, recruiting and just about everything else is having real ramifications at this point in the election cycle. Take a look, for instance, at what the cash-strapped NRSC is doing these days.

Republicans' Senate campaign arm called off television ads Tuesday that were to air in New Mexico in the run-up to Election Day, an indication that it's leaving the GOP candidate there to fend for himself as the party braces for losses.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee's decision to cancel the New Mexico spots reflects its priorities during a tough year for the GOP, with the party lagging badly in fundraising and resigned to losing seats in the Senate.

Remember, despite the fact that Democratic Congressman Tom Udall is leading in the fundraising race and in the polls, the seat in New Mexico is a Republican seat and has been for the last 36 years, so the GOP is writing off the race two months out from election day is rather remarkable. It looks like we should be seeing not only more and better Democrats in Congress, but also more and better Udalls in the Senate as well.