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The economic crisis and raw politics threatened to derail the first presidential debate as John McCain challenged Barack Obama to delay the Friday forum and join forces to help Washington fix the financial mess. Obama rebuffed his GOP rival, saying the next president needs to “deal with more than one thing at once.”

The White House rivals maneuvered to claim the leadership role in resolving the economic turmoil that has overshadowed their campaign six weeks before Election Day. Obama said he would proceed with his debate preparations while consulting with bailout negotiators and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. McCain said he would stop all advertising, fundraising and other campaign events to return to Washington and work for a bipartisan solution.

“It’s my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess,” Obama said at a news conference in Clearwater, Fla. “It’s going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once.”

But McCain said they must focus on a bipartisan solution to the nation’s financial woes as the Bush administration’s $700 billion bailout proposal seemed headed for defeat. If not, McCain said ominously, credit will dry up, people will no longer be able to buy homes, life savings will be at stake and businesses will not have enough money to pay workers.

“It has become clear that no consensus has developed to support the administration’s proposal,” McCain said. “I do not believe that the plan on the table will pass as it currently stands, and we are running out of time.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, McCain’s representative in debate negotiations, said McCain will not attend the debate “unless there is an agreement that would provide a solution” to the financial crisis. Graham, R-S.C., told The Associated Press that the agreement would have to be publicly endorsed by Obama, McCain, the White House and congressional leaders, but not necessarily given final passage by the House and Senate.

Asked whether the debate could go forward if McCain doesn’t show, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs replied, “My sense is there’s going to be a stage, a moderator, an audience and at least one presidential candidate.”

Their competing positions came after the two senators spoke privately, each trying to portray himself as the bipartisan leader in a time of crisis.

McCain beat Obama to the punch with the first public statement. He said he had spoken to President Bush and asked him to convene a leadership meeting in Washington that would include him and Obama.

Even as McCain said he was putting the good of the country ahead of politics, his surprise announcement was clearly political. It was an attempt to try to outmaneuver Obama on an issue in which he’s trailing, the economy, as the Democrat gains in polls. He quickly went before TV cameras minutes after speaking with Obama and before the two campaigns had hammered out a joint statement expressing that Congress should act urgently on the bailout.

And while McCain’s campaign said he would “suspend” his campaign, it simply will move to Washington knowing the spotlight will remain on him no matter where he is.

Obama, too, made a political calculation by rejecting McCain’s challenge while trying to still appear on top of the problem. Obama repeatedly stressed at his news conference that he called McCain first to propose that they issue a joint statement in support of a package to help fix the economy as soon as possible. He said McCain called back several hours later, as Obama was leaving a rally in Florida, and agreed to the idea of a statement but also said he wanted to postpone the debate and hold joint meetings in Washington.

Obama said he suggested they first issue a joint statement showing bipartisanship.

“When I got back to the hotel, he had gone on television to announce what he was going to do,” Obama said.

McCain said he would return to Washington after addressing former President Clinton’s Global Initiative session in New York Thursday. He canceled his planned appearance Wednesday on CBS’ “Late Show With David Letterman” program and a meeting with the prime minister of India.

McCain called Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to propose that joint meetings with Obama and congressional leadership be held quickly, according to leadership aides. Reid spokesman Jim Manley said Reid responded by reading McCain his public statement, in which he said it would not be helpful to have the candidates come back during negotiations and inject presidential politics.

The Commission on Presidential Debates and the University of Mississippi, the site of the forum, said they were moving forward with plans for the debate.

McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, was canceling her limited campaign events. Palin said in an interview with CBS Evening News Wednesday that the country could be headed for another Great Depression if Congress doesn’t reach a solution.

McCain adviser Steve Schmidt would not say how long the suspension would last but indicated it would go through the weekend, in order to reach agreement on a deal before the markets open on Monday.

McCain has struggled with how to handle the financial situation, which he might escape with modest political damage if he and Obama could reach some type of accord on the matter.

Scores of congressional Republicans have hinted this week they may oppose the proposed $700 billion bailout even though it is Bush’s priority. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pointedly suggested that Democratic lawmakers could not be expected to back it if McCain did not publicly do so.

That leaves McCain with two unpalatable choices. He can oppose a major Republican initiative that the administration says is essential to preventing a full-blown recession, and risk heavy blame if the prediction comes true. Or he can vote for an extraordinarily costly bailout, which many Americans seem to resent, just when polls show him falling farther behind Obama.

Several GOP lawmakers and strategists said they see no way that McCain can oppose the main elements of the bailout plan and present himself as a bold leader. He must say, “we need to get this done for the future of our country,” said John Feehery, a former aide to top Republican lawmakers. “Country first,” Feehery said, noting McCain’s campaign slogan.

But McCain might reap few political rewards for such a move.

Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said he has not found any Republican colleagues who say the proposed bailout “is popular in their district.”

Of course, Obama also risks angry voter reactions if he supports the bailout plan. But he could frame his stand as bipartisan statesmanship, whereas McCain’s vote could be spun as another example of his siding with Bush, a major impediment to his campaign.

The year was 1984, and the state was Iowa. A white man who had just voted walked out of his precinct caucus and saw the Rev. Jesse Jackson standing outside.

“I did all I could,” the man told Jackson ruefully, “but I just couldn’t bring myself to pull the lever and vote for you.”

L. Douglas Wilder laughs as he relates the story Jackson once told him, the sting eased by time and Wilder’s vantage point as the nation’s first elected black governor.

Now it’s a quarter of a century later, and the man everyone’s talking about is Barack Obama, the Illinois senator holding a slim lead in many polls. But can the polls be trusted? A central question about race and politics hasn’t changed since 1984: Do white people lie — to pollsters or even to themselves — about their willingness to vote for black candidates?

In the not-so-distant past, the consensus was a clear yes. Today, however, there is widespread disagreement about whether Obama is subject to the predicament known as the Wilder or Bradley Effect — whether in the privacy of the voting booth, white people will actually pull the lever for the first black man to come within shouting distance of the presidency.

Given that surveys can have trouble uncovering the truth about many things besides race, plus the massive technological, demographic and cultural changes in play, this question is contributing to an almost unprecedented air of uncertainty surrounding this year’s polls.

In 1989, Wilder polled as many as 15 points ahead in the days before the election for Virginia governor, but squeaked into office by a minuscule 6,700 votes. David Dinkins had a similar experience that year, when he became New York City’s first black mayor. And the phenomenon was first noted in 1982, when Tom Bradley endured a stunning defeat in the California governor’s race after exit polls indicated he was the winner.

The reason for these disparities? A significant amount of white people did not admit that race played a role in their voting decision, pollsters and academics say. Another factor: When the person asking the questions was black, respondents were more likely to say they favored the black candidate.

In the recent Democratic primary, exit polls in 28 states overstated Obama’s actual share of the final vote.

Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, doesn’t think people are lying to pollsters today about their support for Obama, “because I don’t think there’s a lot of stigma in saying you’re voting for John McCain.” Kohut said it’s not like polls are asking, “Do you want to vote for the white guy or the black guy?”

But he did see potential for error based on the people who decline to participate in polls, whom he describes as largely lower-income whites more likely than the population at large to have racially intolerant views.

“The real frailty of our polls is that we get very high refusal rates, and we survive because the people who we interview are like the people who we don’t interview on most things,” Kohut said. “(Racism) is not one of them.”

So are current polls accurate? “I don’t know,” Kohut said, “and to be honest with you, this is something every pollster I know is concerned about.”

Wilder, now the mayor of Richmond, Va., said his internal polls during the governor’s race showed it to be much closer than most people thought. “It was clear that people were having the first opportunity to vote for an African-American, and there was uncertainty,” he said. “You know, ‘Is he going to be fair, is he just going to look out for his own people. And who are his own people?’ I think we’ve come a great distance from that. I’ve seen the progress.”

So is Wilder ready to bury the Wilder Effect?

“No, I won’t say that,” he said with a laugh. “I won’t go that far.”

Daniel J. Hopkins will. The Harvard University postdoctoral fellow examined data from 133 gubernatorial and Senate elections from 1986 to 2006 and concluded that the effect vanished in the early 1990s as racially divisive issues such as crime and welfare reform receded from the national stage.

Hopkins said that race could play a larger role if it is injected into the campaign — as it often is in the waning days of close contests involving black candidates.

Days before the 2006 Senate election in Tennessee, with polls showing the race almost deadlocked, Republicans released an ad featuring a ditzy blond actress saying she met Harold Ford Jr. at the Playboy Club and asking the black Democrat to “call me.” Ford lost.

In 1990’s tight North Carolina Senate contest. Republican Jesse Helms was running about even with Democrat Harvey Gantt when he released an ad showing white hands crumpling a job rejection letter as a narrator mentioned racial quotas. Helms won.

Blacks, too, have sought to use race to their political advantage: In a congressional primary this month in Memphis, a black challenger tried to link the incumbent, Steve Cohen, to the Ku Klux Klan. Cohen won easily.

While Obama may face some of these historical hurdles, there are other, unprecedented factors at work: a presidential instead of statewide election, a spike in black voters and the increase in young voters who are more racially tolerant, watch more YouTube than television and eschew the land telephone lines used by most polls.

The racial pendulum may even have swung back the other way, said Anthony G. Greenwald, a psychology professor at the University of Washington, citing a “reverse Bradley Effect” during the Democratic primary: In states with larger black populations, such as Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi and Georgia, Obama got more votes than polls predicted.

Like Kohut, Greenwald doesn’t think people are deliberately lying in polls. But he does see potential for polling errors due to undecided white voters overstating their support for Obama or choosing McCain at the last minute, and the influence of “racial attitudes and stereotypes that people in many cases are not aware they have.”

Many pollsters are trying to adjust their methods to account for these unprecedented variables. It’s not easy, however, to solve these new problems in the heat of a tight presidential race.

“I don’t think anyone is correct or incorrect, including me,” Greenwald said of the current poll numbers. “To get to the heart of that, you’d have to do the kinds of research that haven’t been done.”

The Obama campaign declined to comment on how it conducts its polling. The McCain campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Matthew Dowd, an ABC News commentator and former chief strategist for President Bush’s 2004 campaign, expects the Wilder Effect to be a “small factor” in November. “I wouldn’t want to be Barack Obama and up two points going into Election Day,” he said.

“My guess is that (the Obama campaign) understands that and they know it’s not enough to be ahead,” Dowd said. “They have to be ahead by a lot.”

While many have bewailed the complexity of tax laws, making them almost incomprehensible to the ordinary taxpayer, e-file services have greatly simplified the process. By making use of available online services, income tax preparation has become easier than ever.

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Online services provide easy tools for assessing tax liabilities. The individual taxpayer does not have to be alone in determining the tax credits, exemptions, deductions or refunds he might be entitled to, nor in computing with the applicable federal or state tax rates applicable. While the process is made is made simplified as possible, assistance is also made readily available to those who desire further help. Already this can help minimize disagreements in tax assessments.

Online Filing

One of the obvious advantages of online filing or e-filing is the minimal use of papers and documents. It is also a speedy and efficient way of settling transactions and tax liabilities, since it can be done easily over the internet. This of course helps the taxpayer file his income tax returns well within the legal time limits, reducing the chances of additional charges or penalties.

1. im so happy about it and cant wait for the peso to take the lead……sarcasm
2. im so happy about it and cant wait for the peso to take the lead……sarcasm
3. Yes it is correct. The dollar is in steep decline since Bush came into office. If you peruse the Internet and dig up the Dollar Index chart you’ll notice that the dollar has fallen from 120 on the chart when Bush took office to about 76 on the chart today.

   Tax cuts for the rich combined with massive war spending are never a good thing for the value of a currency. None-the-less, that policy can serve to further enrich a cabal of wealthy elites at the expense of the general public — which is exactly what capitalism is designed to do.

4. yes, it is correct.
   today CAD is worth more than USD.

   1 USD = 0.98321 CAD

5. I personally believe that we wouldnt be in the pickel that we are if the “responsable” people we have elected to office for the past 25 yrs would stop spending money like a 16 year old with there dads credit card…

   How strong does our economy really look to outsiders when we havent stopped borrowing money since the was it reagan or nixon?

6. It’s more correct to say that the American dollar is worth less than the Canadian dollar, since the Canadian dollar is worth less than it used to be. Look at the price of gold: $800 per ounce!

   The Federal Reserve is printing paper federal reserve notes rather than the U.S. mint coining gold and silver. That’s why we have inflation.

   Ron Paul wants to return to honest money and abolish the Federal Reserve. He has my vote.

7. http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/conver…
8. Yes it is, 1 US dollar to .98 Canadian cents. I really don’t think too much about it; I’m still looking forward to my Quebec trip in January

1. Absolutely!!

2. No. The President needs to be intelligent and powerful enough not to be a puppet.

3. Nope.

4. Oh my god no. She is the freakiest person I ever heard of. She makes absolutely no sense when she talks. She speaks in that government speak and does not make any sense. Have I mentioned she makes no sense?

5. Possibly, a black woman being president would be GREAT, but I don’t think there’s a chance she would ever run. She does seem to agree with EVERYTHING Bush does, other than that I think she could handle the job.

6. From what I have seen of her, I would seriously consider her as a viable candidate.

7. I would sooner vote for Condie than for Hillary

8. Helllllllllllllllllllllll Nooooooooooooooooooo!

9. It depends on who she ran against but she is definitely very highly regarded by me.

10. nope…no way …not a frig’n shot, she’s as bad as bush and darth cheney

11. Possibly, yes. IMHO, she’s the most qualified woman in America. However, she has never held an elected position in government. I say that she’d be a good VP running mate for the republican party … that would get Hillary’s and the democrat party’s panties in a bunch!

12. I would vote for her before I would Hillary Clinton. And with the way she handling foreign relations and the mid-eastern peace talks I think she would make a good president.

13. Maybe, depend on the other choice

14. She was so weak as the national security adviser and the Secretary of state that Donald Rumsfeld and the defense department bullied their way in to dictating what state department policy should be.

She would be a weak president.

15. depends on her stances and ideals, but i wouldn’t out right rule it out.

16. You bet. It’s nice to have a leader with class. And she’s tough and is a good speaker.

Joey, what a great idea!

17. No, since I never voted for her in anything in the first place. I want to know who the People get to nominate? All we get is a premade selection of choices that I would never make in the first place.

Theodore Roosevelt bull moose/republican party.