BABE-RAHAM LINCOLN'S COMING OUT PARTY

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"Don't expect to pull up the weak by pulling down the strong." -Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)

STOCK MARKET:

Another volatile and scary week for equities presents more great intermediate to long term opportunities. With the Dow Jones now down 3,000 points since October 2007 and the U.S. technically avoiding a full-blown recession, I believe there is no point in panic selling or short-selling here. Every sector has gotten slammed at one point or another over the past year, with commodities being the last to fall, and to me that signals that we are either at the bottom or very close to it. The broad market is a STRONG BUY.

POLITICS:

Despite being left for dead not unlike John McCain at the Hanoi Hilton some 35+ years ago, the Republican Party delivered an "A" caliber convention in St. Paul last week. Wednesday night clearly stole the show as I detailed in an earlier post, capped off by Sarah Palin (affectionately referred to as "Babe-raham Lincoln" in some conservative circles)'s bases-loaded Grand-Slam speech. While McCain's Thursday night speech was not as eloquently delivered as Obama's a week earlier, it was more genuine and insightful. The ending of McCain's speech was also original, as he implored Americans to "fight with" him while speaking over the delegates' loud standing ovation.

The next two months of this election will determine whether we revert back to Jimmy Carter-style socialism if Obama wins, or to, well, I'm not quite sure if McCain/Palin will give us the Reagan days, but I think they'll come awfully close--especially if McCain continues to move to the right on fiscal issues (No cap and trade, please).

Liberals seem to be on their heels now, as the Obama campaign has taken it's first nasty left hook since their campaign started, dating back to the Democratic primaries. I believe Obama and his campaign have a glass jaw. They're great at trashing Bush and McCain, but any shot back at them and they get punch drunk. Let us remember that Obama barely squeaked out the Democratic nomination, and he lost many big, general election battleground states along the way. Look for Steve Schmidt & friends at McCain campaign HQ to continue to out maneuver the complacent Obama brain trust. A great piece in the WSJ today defines Michigan as a key state this year that McCain has an excellent chance of capturing because of several factors working against Obama.