The Note: Palin Nation

Sept. 15, 2008— -- LENOX, Mass. -- Start the countdown: We're 50 days out now from Election Day 2008. ABC News kicks off its "50 States in 50 Days" tour Monday morning on the "Good Morning America" "Whistle-Stop Express" in the state where -- in a sense -- the last election ended: Massachusetts, where Sen. John Kerry conceded defeat.

But this is the flip side of blue-state America. Here on the opposite side of the Bay State from Boston -- literally Norman Rockwell country, where the landscape is more Anchorage than Cambridge, far from Wall Street turmoil yet feeling its pains -- the sense is more Palin Nation than Obama Land.

Keep tabs as we tour the whole country.

Democrats can (and will) ignore the woman in the corner who's making so much fuss. But from the Steaming Tender restaurant in Palmer, to historic Union Station in Worcester, to the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, Palin power is in the air -- her freshness just maybe helping Sen. John McCain grab the change mantle that's so key to the race.

"I didn't think anybody would have the chutzpah to pick someone like her," said Daniel Schur, of Westborough, Mass., who came out to greet the train's send-off in Worcester holding a McCain-Palin sign. "That's one thing people from the East Coast and the West Coast forget -- how many people live in the middle of the country."

Maybe it speaks to organization, maybe it's the result of planning, maybe it means nothing at all -- but in the signage, in the buzz, in the chatter, the enthusiasm on the GOP side continues unabated a full two weeks into Gov. Sarah Palin's not-entirely-smooth introduction to the national scene.

(To say nothing of Tina Fey, just maybe a better Sarah Palin than Sarah Palin, and surely a better Sarah Palin than Sarah Palin was a Tina Fey).

(Meanwhile, Palin's opposite number -- remember Joe? -- takes on the task of engaging his friend John on Monday. And Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton hops aboard the "GMA" train Monday afternoon in Albany, N.Y., for her first sit-down interview since conceding the Democratic contest -- and since Palin's emergence -- with ABC's Diane Sawyer.)

It all must be hard for a phenom to watch. But Sen. Barack Obama has first-hand knowledge of the subject.

"One of the things about running over 19 months is that you realize this thing just goes in cycles. Yeah, there are times where you're a genius; there are times where you're an idiot," Obama, D-Ill., tells ABC's Chris Cuomo.

A play on economic unease, in a chaotic time in the financial markets (and notice that Sarah Palin's name is not uttered here):

"You would be hard-pressed to explain to me what John McCain's economic vision is about how he's gonna get this economy back on track," Obama continues. "That, I believe, is somebody who is out of touch with what is -- should be the central question of this election."

Speaking of central questions: "America's banking instability could upend the final 50 days of the presidential campaign, with both candidates forced to confront a calamity that has gotten only glancing attention during the first 20 months of the race for the White House," Politico's Mike Allen writes. "It's no longer an insider's game. The crisis is now at a tipping point where Wall Street will visibly affect Main Street."

"It's 3 am on Wall Street. Will either candidate offer an explanation of the problem and a plan to fix it that will reassure voters and break through the din?" Howard Wolfson blogs at The New Republic.

First thing Obama does, not too far from 3am this morning, is get philosophical (with a finger pointed at McCain by association).

"I certainly don't fault Senator McCain for these problems, but I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to. It's a philosophy we've had for the last eight years – one that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. It's a philosophy that says even common-sense regulations are unnecessary and unwise, and one that says we should just stick our heads in the sand and ignore economic problems until they spiral into crises," Obama said in a paper statement this morning, per ABC's Jake Tapper.

In his paper statement McCain thanks the current powers for not using taxpayer money to bail out Lehman and then pivots to reform, per ABC's Bret Hovell

The McCain Palin administration, he says, "will replace the outdated and ineffective patchwork quilt of regulatory oversight in Washington and bring transparency and accountability to Wall Street. We will rebuild confidence in our markets and restore our leadership in the financial world."

Obama backs up his broader campaign message Monday with a new (sharper) ad (again, no Palin): "What happened to John McCain?" the ad asks. "He's running 'the sleaziest ads ever.' 'Truly vile.' . . . 'Dishonest smears.' . . . It seems 'deception' is all he has left."

And it will be time on the stump for change that's "needed" rather than "believed in."

"The poetic defenses of hope, the playful jokes about being a distant relative of Vice President Cheney and the glancing attention to policy have been replaced by an emphasis on economic fears — an issue-by-issue argument of why the American dream is slipping away and the Republican ticket has no plan to rescue it. He furrows his brow, wags his finger and broadcasts exasperation at the idea that a 26-year veteran of Washington is co-opting his mantra of change," writes Carrie Budoff Brown in Politico.

Obama leaves it to his No. 2 to deliver the day's big blows, taking it right to the McCain brand (still no Palin): "The sequel is always worse than the original," Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., plans to say Monday at a campaign event in Michigan, per the Obama campaign.

"Bush 44," Biden labels McCain. "There is simply no daylight -- at least none I can see -- between John McCain and George Bush. On every major challenge we face, from the economy, to health care, to education and Iraq, you can barely tell them apart."

Will those blows land if they're made by a guy travelling around the country in a plane with a near-empty press section?

Look who else isn't mentioning Palin: "Clinton mentioned Palin just twice in speeches here [in Elyria, Ohio] and in Akron, in one instance repeating an earlier line: 'No way, no how, no McCain and no Palin,' " Lois Romano and Anne Kornblut write in The Washington Post. "Since the Republican convention, Clinton has pointedly avoided directly criticizing Palin as she campaigns for Obama (D-Ill.), a strategy endorsed by the Obama campaign."