McCain's southwest Ohio campaign chair steps up voter suppression efforts.

Late Update: The same guy, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, is also friends with the publisher of a local racist website.

McCain's latest: claiming that Obama will turn the IRS "into a giant welfare agency." And this even though McCain's rationale for this claim is Obama's support for a refundable tax credit, something McCain himself supports as a centerpiece of his health care plan. Par for the course, really: if you figure in the robocalls and recent ads, McCain's entire campaign is now comprised of innuendo and lies meant to tie Obama to various stereotypes of African-Americans and of course Arab terrorism. His purported foreign policy experience hasn't been part of the campaign's message in weeks. Just black, black, black, terrorist, terrorist, terrorist.

Big news orgs start getting serious about tracking the magnitude of McCain's robo-slime campaign.

The Obama campaign outspending McCain on TV by four to one, and are expected to announce a recording-setting $100,000,000+ in September fundraising. That and other political news in today's Election Central Saturday Roundup.

If you thought those McCain-Palin crowds were feral inside the auditoriums, they've even more rancid waiting in line to get in ...

McCain's robocalls too sleazy for Sen. Collins (R) of Maine.

We're going to see an avalanche of this stuff over the next two weeks. But it looks like Wisconsin Republicans are going to be going all out in their voter suppression efforts. The Wisconsin GOP is currently recruiting "Milwaukee area veterans, policeman, security personnel and firefighters to work as poll watchers on election day at inner city polling places."

Apparently Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) went on a rabid fear-mongering anti-Obama tear tonight on Hardball. Video excerpts soon ...

Late Update: In all her right-wing madhattery, we present Michele Bachmann:

The company John McCain has hired to make all these sleazy robocalls appears to be the same company that made what McCain called "hate calls" against him in 2000.

A former top voting rights official in the Justice Department tells TPMmuckraker that the current FBI investigation of ACORN is "a continuation of injecting DOJ into what has clearly become a political issue" and violates department policies.

Election Central reports:

In two private conference calls this week with leading fundraisers, surrogates, and prominent supporters, senior Obama advisers expressed genuine worry that his lead in the polls is creating a complacency among supporters that the advisers are afraid will create a serious drag on fundraising and turnout, a person who was on both calls says.

It looks like the big media outlets are starting to catch on to what we've been reporting all week at TPM Election Central -- that the real campaign McCain is running on the ground with mailers and robocalls is even nastier than the stuff McCain is saying publicly and struggling mightily to defend.

Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-FL), responding to the question of how many affairs he's had: "You're asking me over a lifetime? I'm just saying I've been unfaithful and I'm sorry for that."

Vandalized ACORN offices in Boston and Seattle and threats of death or violence in Providence and Cleveland follow in the wake of McCain's bogus "vote fraud" scam.

We've got a new page just posted that is all about tire swinging. The term itself is explained, with a replay of the original, literal tire swinging moment. Then we categorize some of the best known tire swingers as either chronic repeat offenders, struggling to rehab but still tire swinging, or completely broken the tire swinging habit. Take a look.

The General Counsel of the Obama campaign is currently holding a media conference call to "Announce Major Action Taken Today To Address Illegal Conduct and Improprieties in the Sham "Anti-Fraud" Campaign Orchestrated By McCain-Palin and the RNC."

DCCC unfurls a $15 million spinnaker (loan) to try to take full advantage of the wind at Dems' back this cycle.

Did you think you'd ever heard a major party senate candidate caught begging, just before the start of a debate, that it wasn't fair that he wouldn't be allowed to bring in notes? Even though both campaigns had agreed already that that wouldn't be allowed.

It's Colorado senate candidate Bob Schaffer (R-CO), sweatshop supporter and Abramoff water-carrier, leaving all his self-respect on the field ...

A few highlights from last night's annual Al Smith dinner in NYC:

The Supreme Court a short time ago vacated a temporary restraining order issued by a federal district judge in that big Ohio voting rights case. The TRO had required the Ohio Secretary of State to identify mismatches between information on new voter registration forms and state DMV records and provide those mismatches to county election officials.

As we've been reporting this week, the GOP brought the lawsuit as part of its strategic effort to disqualify voters in swing states. Once the mismatches are identified, the process of trying to disqualifyvoters can begin. By one estimate, one-third of the voters who registered this year in Ohio might have such mismatches, some 200,000 voters. Mismatches include things like ... typos.

The district court initially sided with the GOP, a three-judge appeals panel overturned the district court, then the entire 6th Circuit Court of Appeals took up the case and upheld the district court.

On one level it's surprising anytime the Supreme Court takes up any one case simply because they don't step in very often, especially in election cases (with notorious exceptions), especially on an issue that has not been previously heavily litigated. But it's less surprising how the court came down here.

It didn't address the merits of the case per se (although in some ways the court's ruling goes straight to the merits). Rather, it found that the GOP was unlikely to prevail on the issue of whether the Help America Vote Act (the law at issue here) allows private citizens or groups to sue to enforce the law. If the law doesn't create a so-called private right of action, the GOP has no standing to sue in the first place. Likelihood of prevailing on the merits is a key criteria for taking the extraordinary step of granting a TRO. Since the justices thought the GOP would ultimately lose on that argument, they vacated the TRO.

Now, I'll be curious to see where the GOP goes from here. There's not enough time to pursue this case on the merits before the election. So as a practical matter it may kill the case in Ohio entirely. But perhaps more importantly, it puts a stop to the GOP or any other private party gumming up the works over the next 18 days by filing similar cases in courts across the country.

Late Update: As I intimated above, the court's decision on private right of action was not surprising. TPM Reader GS explains why:

Thanks for the quick update on the Supreme Court decision.

It's always surprising when the Supreme Court takes what seems to be a position favorable to Democrats on voting issues. But it's worth keeping in mind that while the immediate consequences of the decision are good for Ohio Democrats, the long-term consequences may be different. Any time the Supreme Court curtails standing or limits private rights of action, they are limiting the ability of private people, such as civil rights litigants, to enforce legislation. There may be some value to limiting these rights in election cases, given that these issues in particular could be particularly vulnerable to political (i.e. Dem v. Repub.) lawsuits. But as a general matter, the 25-year erosion of standing and private right of action has had pretty negative results for civil rights litigants.

For example, in 2001, the Court, in a 5-4 decision written by Scalia, decided that there is no private right of action in Title VI disparate impact cases. The case, Alexander v. Sandoval, involved the right to drivers' license examinations in one's native language; plaintiffs argued that the failure to accommodate non-English speakers resulted in disparate-impact discrimination based on national origin. The Alabama district court and the 11th Circuit, no paragons of progressive thought, ruled for the plaintiffs; the Supreme Court reversed, saying that the relevant section of the Civil Rights Act did not provide for a private right of action. This means that the only way to enforce this type of civil rights violation is through action by the Department of Justice. Maybe this is somewhat tolerable when there is a Democratic administration interested in enforcing civil rights. But it's useless in a Republican admininstration devoted to setting those rights back.

So: no matter how glad we may be about Brunner case, we might want to stay worried about the principle of the case overall.

Even some folks at the Bush DOJ uncomfortable about the DOJ/FBI jumping on the GOP's vote fraud scam bandwagon?

I've always wondered if someone might try this. From CQ Politics ...

An internal investigation by the popular online market Intrade has revealed that an investor has been attempting to artificially boost the prediction that Sen. John McCain will become president.

Over the past several weeks, the investor has pushed hundreds of thousands of dollars into one of Intrade's predictive markets for the presidential election, the company said, resulting in great financial losses through a strategy that belies any financial motive.

SurveyUSA, Florida: McCain: 49%, Obama 47%.

Still basically tied, and possibly an outlier. But the first Florida poll this month with McCain even nominally ahead in the state.

TPM Reader AM's lament ...

Am I the only one that sees the McCain hypocrisy in criticizing Obama's tax plan for "redistributing wealth" while at the same time proposing a mortgage relief plan that would take my tax dollars to pay down my neighbor's mortgage who got in over his head?

Palin speaking now on CNN is calling for the Obama campaign to release all of its "communications" with ACORN. This is the same Sarah Palin who tried to scuttle the Alaska legislature's investigation into her abuse of power as governor. Transparency is as transparency does, I guess.

Since they're claiming questionable associations, can we get all of the McCain campaign's communications with, say, Pastor Hagee? Pastor Parsley? Heck, at this point, the McCain campaign won't even divulge its financial arrangement with campaign manager Rick Davis' lobbying firm.

I think we could come up with quite a list of "communications" the McCain camp has had that the public deserves to see.

The Obama campaign should embrace the McCain campaign's newfound transparency and run hard with it.

The WaPo endorses Obama.

I guess Palin's John Birch Society background shouldn't surprise us.

From the Post ...

Palin also made a point of mentioning that she loved to visit the "pro-America" areas of the country, of which North Carolina is one. No word on which states she views as unpatriotic.

Also, wasn't her husband a member of a political party that calls for the dissolution of the United States government until Sarah entered statewide politics in 2002.

McCain circa 2000 deplored the same sort of robocalls he's blanketing swing states with now.

New Rasmussen polls have Obama up 6 points in Missouri and tied in Ohio. That and the day's other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

Reporter assaulted at Palin rally in North Carolina.

"I'm astounded that this issue is being trotted out again. Based on what I saw in 2004 and 2006, it's a scare tactic."

Who's that speaking? And what's he talking about?

That's fired US Attorney David Iglesias talking about the news leaked today that the DOJ and FBI are opening a nationwide investigation into allegations that the community organization ACORN is somehow working to undermine the November election through fraud. For more from Iglesias and his fellow fired US Attorney Bud Cummins, don't miss TPMMuckraker's Zack Roth's interview post from earlier this evening.

Iglesias got fired not long after the 2006 midterm election because he wouldn't get off the dime and bring bogus vote fraud indictments against Democrats or time other indictments of Democrats to sway the 2006 election. In other words, he got canned for not doing what a number of his former colleagues at the DOJ are happily doing this very day.

Nor was Iglesias simpy a respected attorney with solid enough connections to swing a US Attorney appointment. He was a rising star in the New Mexico Republican party. Iglesias was the Republican nominee for Attorney General in 1998. (Not that it's immediately relevant to this question, but Iglesias was the Navy JAG lawyer on whom Tom Cruise's character in A Few Good Men was based.) This was that reassuring case where a political person's partisan attachments butted up against his integrity and the latter won the day hands down. This is someone who knows this scam from the inside and whose testimony -- literal and figurative -- comes not in line with partisan attachments but in spite of them. Everyone should listen.

I don't have anything to say beside printing the title to this blog post I just happened across: "McCain Loses Hastily Convened Fourth Presidential Debate With Lifesize Cardboard Obama."

Seems like the explanation for John and Cindy McCain's made-to-order cell phone tower ain't quite holding up.

GOP rolls out new anti-Dem slogan: They'll "make things worse."

The GOP robocall campaign is in full swing now. The latest call we have identified, with the help of readers, is going out to North Carolina voters and repeats the charge that Obama denied babies medical care.

Some readers requested that we re-post this withering line of questioning last year from Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) of former U.S. Attorney and DOJ voting rights bamboozler Bradley Schlozman about his prosecution of ACORN workers in the Kansas City area right before the 2006 elections:

Schlozman later had to "clarify" his testimony that he had brought the case at the "direction" of the director of the Election Crimes Branch in the Public Integrity Section.

It's that time of year.

TPM brings on a new class of interns each season. And we're now taking applications for our Winter 2008/2009 cycle. TPM interns are probably as intimately and rapidly involved in the preparation and production of news coverage as interns at any other news organization. And that ranges from work on the news section of the front page to research for our news blogs to video editing to bylined articles. Winter cycle interns will work closely on stories relating to the presidential transition and the start of the new Congress. The application deadline is November 7th. To find out details for how to apply, click here.

Joe the Plumber not actually a plumber?

At least not licensed to be one.

Most reporters were slow to catch on to the significance of the US Attorney Firings story. And though it eventually became a big scandal, it seems most of the reporters have now more or less forgotten the whole thing since we're now seeing a replay of the offenses no more than two years later. And rather than calling the bad actors out, most of them are whooping and hollering and going along for the ride.

We've already discussed the fact that most of the US Attorney firings stemmed from particular US Attorney's refusal to use the power of their office as an adjunct of the Republican party by mounting trumped up vote fraud investigations. In recent election cycles, Republicans have used the last several weeks before federal elections to whip up a storm of interest in phony charges of 'vote fraud' by groups like ACORN and others. And what one of the players in the scandal, Bradley Schlozman, got in trouble for was using his powers as a US Attorney to pull together a made to order investigation and subsequent indictments to add more credibility to Republican charges. That violates DOJ guidelines which are in place to prevent the party in power from using the DOJ to manipulate elections. And now we appear to be witnessing a replay of Schlozman's scam, though perhaps on a much larger scale.

Keep your eyes out. The Bush crew at the DOJ may not want to leave without a fight.

So now we hear leaked word that the FBI is beginning an investigation into whether ACORN "helped foster voter registration fraud around the nation before the presidential election" and where there is "any evidence of a coordinated national scam."

Let's note a few points. DC Republicans have been aggressively lobbying the DOJ to open an investigation into ACORN in advance of the election. And leaking word of such an investigation (possibly starting the investigation at all) most likely violates DOJ guidelines about DOJ/FBI actions which can end up interfering with or manipulating an election.

But, remember, this is right out of the book of the Bush Justice Department's efforts to assist in GOP voter suppression efforts in the 2004 and 2006 elections (part and parcel of the US Attorney firing story). This is the same scam US Attorney firing player Bradley Schlozman got in trouble for pulling with ACORN just before the 2006 election. And before he got canned, Gonzales helped revise and soften the departmental prohibition on DOJ announcements, thus making it easier to play these kinds of games.

This is a big deal. It may be their last gasp to use the DOJ to help mitigate the scale of Republican defeat on November 4th.

Here's the latest GOP robocall that I mentioned below. Readers have been flooding us with emails about it this morning. It seems to be going out to all parts of the country and explicitly raises Bill Ayers: "You need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers ..."

We've confirmed another GOP robocall, this one going out in Virginia and telling recipients that Obama and Dems "aren't who you think they are."

The Obama camp condemns this call and the one we first reported on yesterday as "dishonorable and dishonest."

Several readers have reported yet a third GOP robocall. We hope to have more on that for you shortly.

Just a little innocent fun among Republicans.

David Brooks was a clinical study in tire swing recidivism last night on Charlie Rose:

It turns out Joe the "Plumber" is like the perfect McCain supporter. He says Social Security is a joke and he "hates" it.

Could it be? The final debate? Is it over? Is it really all over? John McCain's performance in the third presidential debate brought 2008, the year in debates, to a fittingly bitter end ...

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

The last page of a new mailer from the Virginia GOP appears to show a close-up of Barack Obama overlaid with the text:

AMERICA MUST LOOK EVIL IN THE EYE AND NEVER FLINCH

Late Update: With a reader's help, we think we may have found the picture the state party started with, and it's not an Obama photo but an Osama bin Laden photo. We'll have both pics here side by side in a moment so you can compare.

Later Update: The two images:

We used photoshop to align the eyes here. The pupils match up almost exactly:

Just a few points to make here. I grapple with whether it's paranoia at this stage to think that the GOP is conflating Obama and Osama visually -- as they have so often conflated them textually and rhetorically. But look at the pic closely. You've got the turban and beard photoshopped out or otherwise obscured. The flared bulb of the nose is gone, leaving only the narrower bridge. And the photo appears darkened to match Obama's complexion.

You be the judge. But in politics, as in advertising, images are rarely accidental.

New Obama TV ad: McCain may not be Bush, but he sure votes with him a lot. That and the day's other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

Late Update: New McCain TV ad: I know Bush is bad, but I'm better.

Amy Sullivan in Time ...

In politics it is generally not considered a good sign when voters are laughing at you, not with you. And by the end of the third and last presidential debate, the undecided voters who had gathered in Denver for Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg's focus group were "audibly snickering" at John McCain's grimaces, eye-bulging, and repeated references to "Joe the Plumber."

I think the Brits refer to this as gobsmacked ...

Joe the Plumber compares Barack Obama to Sammy Davis, Jr.

How low does a presidential candidate have to go on Intrade before they get de-listed?

The consensus from initial reactions is that this was McCain's best of the three debates. And I'm not sure I disagree with that. One of the best sum-ups I saw was actually from Republican Mike Murphy, which we'll show you shortly. I think that in formal debating terms McCain definitely did better than in the two previous debates. Often, in formal terms, he had Obama on the defensive. But McCain was just surly and contemptuous through the whole 90 minutes. He looked angry. I mean, let's not kid ourselves: he was angry. That was obvious all the way through. I think that voters will not like that. And just as important it tends to confirm the current narrative of the campaign, which is that McCain is negative and angry.

Obama wasn't perfect. Maybe a bit off his game. But I don't think John McCain helped himself. His gambit in this debate was to say to voters that his anger and passion was theirs. But I don't think he sold that argument. John McCain is just angry. Mainly angry that it's his moment and this upstart named Barack Obama is taking it from him. That's about him, not anyone else.

Late Update: Here's the Murphy reaction I mentioned above ...

John McCain political epitaph?

I think we may make a video putting together all the segments. But there were just repeated split screen moments in which Obama's talking about this or that and McCain is there just looking like he's seething -- stiff, like he can barely contain himself. Just tight and angry. As David Gergen just said on CNN watching McCain on the split screens was "almost like [seeing] an exercise in anger management."

McCain's just angry and contemptuous of Obama. And you can see that the whole campaign has just gotten under his skin. Like I said at the beginning, when McCain said "hurting and angry", I think a lot of people will think he was talking about himself.

10:26 PM ... McCain interrupts a lot.

10:27 PM ... Also laughs at his own sarcastic comments a lot.

10:28 PM ... I've been thinking about this and we're pulling the video. But the part of the debate where Sen. McCain seemed to mock the issue of a woman's health was weird and ... well, kind of disgusting. It's hard for me to see how's he seriously pushing for the women's vote. Here's what TPM Reader PT had to say: "I haven't seen this on the TPM front-page liveblog, but it deserves attention. McCain's mocking of a mother's health during the abortion exchange was easily his low point tonight, even if the moment was too fleeting to have a substantial impact. He called the idea of a mother's health exemption extreme. But that's not all. If you were watching closely, you would've heard John McCain saying "health" in a mocking tone, and suggesting that Obama's support for a mother's health was nothing more than, to put it bluntly, smooth-talking bullshit. Stunning and appalling."

(Late Update -- 11:57 PM: TPM Reader TC also didn't think much of McCain's attitude toward a health of the mother exception: "Regarding John McCain's 'health of the Mother' comment... "In 2001, I was five months pregnant and was admitted to a small Catholic hospital with a uterine infection. My condition quickly deteriorated to a condition known as Sepsis. Ultrasound determined "fetal demise" thus uterine "evacuation" was necessary. While being prepped for the O.R., my heart stopped, I developed pulmonary effusion and flat-lined. I awoke one week later on life support. I'm only sharing this with you because had the infection not affected my pregnancy, McCain suggests the protocol for care may have been quite different. There are times when the health of the Mother must be considered. If McCain thinks it foolish, ask my husband and two sons what they think. We will never scoff at anyone in a similar situation.")

10:31 PM ... That part at the end there may have been an instance of McCain's Spastic Good-Jobism, which many clinicians have speculated he suffers from.

9:53 PM ... I need to see a slo-mo of McCain's weird eyebrow response to Obama's line about the assassination of labor leaders in Colombia.

9:55 PM ... I'm just not thinking Colombian trade agreements are a driving issue this year. Call me crazy.

10:01 PM ... Is that McCain's look when he gets totally blown out of the water?

10:04 PM ... John McCain: Hurting and Angry.

10:11 PM ... Wow, McCain tries to play the infanticide card. Right off the fringe websites. Utter-bottom feeding.

10:17 PM ... If John McCain hyperventilates, does he lose points?

10:18 PM ... A lot of the time, when Obama's talking and they have the split screen, McCain looks like he's about to explode. Not always, and I'm not trying to be hyperbolic. But he frequently looks like he's about to snap. Not going nuts, but like he's seething and just holding it in. Are other people seeing the same thing?

9:28 PM ... Highest spending since Watergate? How can that possibly be true? Wasn't that just an excuse to say "Watergate"? The highest spending since Watergate? Can someone pull the numbers for that?

9:33 PM ... What on earth is McCain talking about? Obama's attacking vets wearing vet caps?

9:34 PM ... Truth Hurts, John. The article everyone's been talking about. 100% of McCain's ads negative; 50% of Obama's ads negative.

9:36 PM ... The volcano bursts. Ayers, ACORN ...

9:38 PM ... Probably wise for Obama just to lay out McCain's bamboozlement point by point. "Says more about your campaign than it does me."

9:40 PM ... Ayers, and economy and brighter future.

9:42 PM ... I will say this: So far I think Bob Schieffer's doing a pretty good job, simply because he's actually gotten these two guys debating. That's great. Put them together and let them argue.

9:42 PM ... It seems like we've now seen McCain's Ayers/ACORN primal scream. I'm not sure Obama knocked anything out of the park. But at the end of it, I don't think McCain landed any solid punches either. And McCain was often incoherent and a bit kitchen-sinkish. Basically a draw, though if recent polls are any indication, the draw in debate terms may hurt McCain since people do not like McCain's attacks.

(Late Update -- 9:57 PM ... TPM Reader PG disagrees: "Schieffer made these legit subjects for a central part of the debate -- and on that McCain won, he was given the opportunity to keep fragging the guy and creating distraction and confusion without
seeming like that's going negative. For the next three weeks McCain/ Palin can keep sniping at this as if it was an honest fair question -- not that that will play with you or me, but if I'm persuadable and uneasy about Obama -- this was not a win for him."

9:46 PM ... Climate control? The AC isn't working?

9:47 PM ... Hmmm ... "Senator Obama will tell you, as the extreme environmentalists do, [nuclear energy] has to be safe."

9:04 PM ... "Hurting and Angry"... Isn't that McCain?

9:11 PM ... Forget Bill Ayers; he's playing the Joe the Plumber card.

9:12 PM ... When they invented the term "shit eating grin" were they thinking about John McCain?

9:17 PM ... John McCain keeps talking about not spreading around the wealth. But what's having the government buy everybody's mortgage at over-market prices to keep their net worth up?

9:18 PM ... Lotta ethanol.

9:19 PM ... Courtesy of TPM Reader JW, the average salary of an American plumber.

9:21 PM ... So that's McCain sting line -- I'm not Bush, if you wanted to vote against President Bush you should have run four years ago. Ehhh. Curious to see how Obama responds.

9:25 PM ... McCain: Angry and Hurting.

9:25 PM ... Schieffer wins Nobel for moral equivalence award!

9:26 PM ... McCain: I went sleazy because Obama wouldn't do a hundred townhalls with me.

The 40th and final debate of the 2008 campaign season ... discuss.

How will McCain say Obama's a terrorist, Muslim, Arab freak without saying it in so many words?

I've tried my best to avoid the what they need/want/have to do nonsense and chatter. But since I've got a few minutes on my hands and I think it's pretty straightforward, just between you and I, here are my thoughts.

Obama's brief is really simple: make this debate just like the first two. No need for fireworks or decisive blows. Just seem reassuring, knowledgeable, presidential. If the whole event is more or less boring, that's not a problem.

I don't think McCain can do a lot on his own to help himself in this debate. What he needs to do is come up with something, maybe just luck, that knocks Obama off his stride or sticks him with a question he can't well answer. He's got to force an error from Obama. And in that sense McCain's fate isn't in his own hands.

Separate from this 'what they need to do' nonsense, McCain's got himself into a bit of a hole, quite apart the poor poll numbers. He's being telegraphing that he's going to get all Ayersy on Obama; it's hard to see how he can't lay into him since he desperately needs to shake up the direction of the race. And yet, not only do attacks like that tend to turn off voters in general (though they're often effective if done through surrogates), but a mountain of polling evidence released in the last week shows that McCain's terrorism/Ayers attacks have done McCain great damage. I'm curious to see how McCain squares that circle.

From TPM Reader KB ...

I feel pretty confident predicting that Bob Scheiffer will be a bigger obstacle for Obama tonight than McCain. It feels as if every beltway McCain fan boy has emailed the old newsman to beg him to bring up uncomfortable "issues." Expect Ayers, Wright, abortion, Cuba, taxes, race, clinging to guns, crime, welfare, deficit. The entire Dan Balz theory of "challenging Obama one last time."

Worth reviewing Schieffer's earlier tire-swinging ...

The RNC's latest mailer.

Surprise release of McCain debate prep tapes (via Ezra Klein) ...

This morning we were the first to bring you the news of John McCain nationwide robo-call campaign charging that Obama is putting "Hollywood Above America", whatever that means. As is so often the case, we got the original tip from a TPM Reader. And once we reported it, we heard from a host of you who'd already gotten the call in your own state.

So I wanted to take a moment again to remind you that we need your ears and eyes. We're fine if they remain on your face. We don't need you to send them in. But we rely on you to tip us off about robo-calls you get, mailers you receive in the mail, ads you see running on TV. If you hear or see something that seems out of the ordinary, don't assume we already know about it.

You can contact us at our tip and comment email address which is linked right up there at the upper right hand corner of the site. Those emails don't just fly off into the ether. I still read most of them. And for those I don't manage to get to (we get several hundred a day), I'm one of eleven full time staffers here at TPM who are reading them too. So they all get looked at. And they are very often the basis of our biggest exclusives.

And one more point. Now we're in the final three weeks of the campaign. This is when the really squirrelly stuff happens. In part that's because this is when both sides are throwing everything they have into the mix. But it's also close enough to the final day that campaigns figure (often rightly) that they won't get caught with whatever they're doing until after election day -- at which point they won't really care.

So keep your eyes out. And remember we rely on you, more directly and consistently than you likely imagine, to let us know where the story is, where we should be throwing our resources and what outrage or major development the bigs just aren't seeing.

GOP voter suppression racket goes down in flames in Montana. State party chair executive director resigns.

Everybody's gaming out what McCain 'has to do' tonight. But we'll leave that nonsense to others. We're going to focus on the big questions: Like, will he make eye contact with Obama? And will he finally have the nerve to bring up Bill Ayers to Obama's face, as he's been doing all week on the stump, or flinch like last week? We take a look at the options in today's episode of TPMtv ...

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

Rockefeller to White House: Can the Senate intel committee please have copies of those torture memos leaked to the WaPo?

CBS's Bob Schieffer is the moderator for tonight's debate. And as you'll remember from this exchange with retired Gen. Wes Clark from late June, Schieffer is no stranger to the McCain Tire Swing ...

The "Kill Him!" threat from an attendee at the Palin rally yesterday has gotten the Secret Service's attention.

TPM Election Central has uncovered two McCain/RNC robocalls in usually red North Carolina of all places -- one hitting Obama on taxes and the other claiming he puts Hollywood ahead of America. Listen in.

Late Update: TPM readers in Missouri and Wisconsin report getting the same robocalls. Colorado, too. And Pennsylvania.

Later Update: Did we mention Minnesota, Virginia, and Ohio? Readers confirming getting calls over last day or so in all those states. Obviously, a big robocall push by the McCain camp in key states.

I think it's fitting that in the course of McCain's utter self-destruction he become a 'vote fraud' scammer as well. In for a dime, in for a dollar. Whatever it takes.

From the Times ...

"He's neither-nor," said Ricky Thompson, a pipe fitter who works at a factory north of Mobile, while standing in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart store just north of here. "He's other. It's in the Bible. Come as one. Don't create other breeds."

Without Ricky, where would McCain be?

Tonight's the big night: the season finale of Project Runway. Also, a presidential debate. That and the day's other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

Gov. Palin has spent the last six weeks telling us she's on lookout if Russia tries to mount an invasion of the US through Alaska. But while she's down here in the Lower 48 trying to get her crowds to think that Barack Obama is in league with Muslim terrorists, the Russians themselves just landed in Anchorage. According to Bloomberg, more or less the entire senior management of the Russian oil and gas monopoly Gazprom just showed up in Alaska to meet with Palin's Department of Natural Resources and the CEO of ConocoPhillips to see if they can get in on that big pipeline projects she keeps bragging about that she says is going to lead us to energy independence.

You know that millions of new voters have registered to vote in this election. And they're disproportionately Democrats. So Republicans across the country are pulling out every stop to disqualify as many of those voters as possible or gum up the works with procedural delays they're not eligible to vote on election day.

They just had a big victory in Ohio.

The court ruling applies to more than 600,000 new registrations in Ohio. And there's some question whether the new ruling can even be put into effect in time for the November election.

This article from last week provides more detail on the lawsuit in question.

Late Update: TPMMuckraker reporter Zack Roth has now given a close look to this story. And while it's an important development that bears close watching, it turns out to be more complex than I first suggested.

The Virginia Senator cuts a strong ad for Obama.

Roger Simon: It's honorable of John McCain to try to calm down some of the crowds his campaign has spent months inciting.

(ed.note: Simon's article actually hits McCain's campaign pretty hard -- that it's out of control, tanking, that his crowds bear an uncomfortable resemblance to the crowds that usually end up storming the castle at the end of each Frankenstein movie. But still, deep down, McCain's a very honorable man. I thought conservatism made a big play about personal responsibility. At a certain point, folks need to come to grips with the fact that this is John McCain. The race he chose to run. And stop making excuses for him.)

Since last Friday, Fox News has mentioned ACORN 342 times, according to Media Matters. It's all ACORN all the time over there (which by itself should tell you a little bit about the credibility of the allegations of widespread voter fraud).

But I wanted to draw your attention to one of the so-called voting experts Fox has been using lately. Everyone remembers Hans Von Spakovsky, right? He's the former official in the Bush Justice Department who got a recess appointment to the FEC but whose nomination failed to get through the Senate because he's made a career of finding ways to restrict access to the polls.

The politicization of DOJ was wide and deep, and the U.S. attorney firings was just a part. The civil rights division, particularly the voting rights section, was thoroughly politicized. Von Spakovsky was one of the key players in that effort, along with Bradley Schlozman. It was Schlozman who later replaced the ousted U.S. attorney in Kansas City and filed federal charges against ACORN workers there on the eve of the 2006 elections. And so we come full circle.

Last time we checked in with Von Spakovsky, he was being hired by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights where he was to help oversee a report the Commission will produce on the Justice Department's monitoring of this year's election. Here's Von Spakovsky this afternoon on Fox:

Endangered Mississippi senator plays the Village People card against socially conservative Dem opponent.

Many of you might not know that in addition to being a network of news blogs, TPM is a community with thousands of members. Anyone who wants to can sign in to have his or her own blog, comment on the posts of other readers or TPM staffers, or recommend favorite posts to others.

Today we're announcing myTPM, an upgrade to the current system and a new set of tools that allow you to customize your community experience and choose your favorite contributors to follow. I explain in today's TPMtv...

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

PS: A written explanation of the new tools is here.

The new indictment of Jim Tobin in the 6-year-old New Hampshire phone jamming case, which we first reported today at TPMmuckraker, requires some reconsideration of whether the Justice Department has been insufficiently aggressive in the case -- or perhaps whether new hands at DOJ are taking a more aggressive tack.

The big question in the case has always been how high up in the GOP political apparatus did knowledge of and involvement with the phone jamming scheme go?

At the time of the 2002 scheme, Tobin was the New England regional political director for the RNC and regional director for the NRSC. As the phone jamming case heated up, Tobin was forced to resign as New England campaign chairman for the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign.

On Election Day 2002, as the scheme was falling apart, Tobin made 12 calls between 11:20 a.m. and 11:42 p.m. EST to the White House political office, then run by Ken Mehlman, who later became RNC chairman. (Mehlman has denied that any of the calls that day had anything to do with the phone-jamming scheme.) The RNC has spent nearly $3 million defending Tobin against the criminal charges. (Two other GOP operatives did jail time over the incident.)

The case looked all but dead earlier this year. Tobin won his appeal of his conviction so convincingly that the trial judge felt he had no choice but to acquit him. The government's appeal of that decision is pending, but frankly looked like a long shot. If the feds were inclined to let this case die a natural death, you would have expected it to end with that appeal.

For the government now to come back with a new indictment based on new facts completely unrelated to the initial phone jamming incident, but instead focused on Tobin's alleged false statements to FBI agents investigating the case (presumably to avoid the double jeopardy trap), is definitely an aggressive move, especially less than a month before the next election.

Are the feds taking another look at the RNC and the White House, too?

At today's Palin rally in Pennsylvania a supporter yelled "Kill him!" when Sarah Palin a speaker mentioned Barack Obama. Yesterday, at a joint McCain-Palin rally in Virginia, another supporter was moved to shout "Obama bin Laden" as Palin spoke.

If you have any question what this ACORN/vote fraud con-job is about. Here's an episode of TPMtv from April 2007. It includes video from a speech Karl Rove gave in April 2006 about claims of election fraud. Rove reels off what he calls the "hot spots". And surprise, surprise: half of them are cases where the US Attorneys ended up getting fired, or were slated to be fired. It's all a scam. Take a look.

Sarah Palin denounces the "unconscionable voter fraud" going on in Pennsylvania ...

Needless to say Palin's record leaves little doubt that she'd be canning the next round of US Attorneys who confirmed that the charges of voter fraud were bogus.

Is John Danforth really saying that the Obama campaign should team up with McCain's and RNC's voter suppression efforts? Aren't they usually able to handle that stuff on their own? It just seems like it's asking a bit much.

John McCain's transition chief helped lobby for Saddam Hussein back in the 1990s.

Jonah Goldberg: Obama's being black is making it even harder for Republicans to smear him.

It's time again to remember the backstory of the US Attorney Firing scandal. The firings were one thing. But the story behind the firings, what led to them, is key to understanding the current 'vote fraud' scam being played by the Republicans and the media outlets that are going along with the scam.

Remember, the US Attorneys in question were all either Republicans or Republican-leaning independents. In every case, they were appointed by George W. Bush. In most of the cases their firing was tied to 'vote fraud' claims stemming from the 2004 election.

The pattern was very consistent. During the final weeks of the 2004 campaign Republican partisans started pressing claims of widespread voter fraud. In many, though not all cases, the examples they pointed to were not even allegations of voter fraud, but allegations of voter registration fraud: examples of people being registered more than once, non-existent people being registered, etc.

The Republicans making these claims argued that these problems with registration cards were opening the coming election up to widespread vote fraud. Logically, this makes no sense. And, more importantly, all evidence shows this has never happened, certainly not in any widespread sense. Every person who claims otherwise is either ignorant or speaking in bad faith.

Nonetheless, CNN and other national news outlets and especially local media outlets, either out of ignorance or bad faith, ran hard with these stories -- just as CNN is doing now.

After the election, there was a lot of pressure from Republicans in states like Nevada, Washington, New Mexico, etc. (not surprisingly, all key swing states) to have local US Attorneys prosecute these cases. The word came down from Washington, DC, particularly the political office at the White House that this was a top priority. And the local US Attorneys launched into it.

But there was a problem. Most of these were ethical prosecutors. And when they looked into it there just wasn't anything there. Most of the stories weren't even true. And those that were, were obviously isolated and in most cases not done with malice. The number of people who could actually be prosecuted could be counted on one hand. Local Republicans got angry; Karl Rove got angry. And the US Attorneys got fired.

That's the real story of the US Attorney firing scandal. And what we're seeing today is textbook -- exactly the same as what we saw in 2004 and 2006. It's a scam. And the very recent history should be enough for news networks like CNN and others not to let themselves become complicit in this disgrace.

I always used to think former Sen. John Danforth (R-MO) was a respectable guy. So why is he prostituting himself for the McCain campaign phony 'vote fraud' scam. Just disgraceful.

Let's be clear about what this is. These are random stories about fake vote registrations. The Drudges and Fox scoundrels of the world seem to think that if someone fills out a voter registration card for Mickey Mouse, that Mickey Mouse might show up and cast a vote they're not entitled to cast. It doesn't and there is zero evidence of any voter fraud or anything that would make voter fraud more likely. The level of lying, bad faith or at best ignorance of the people making these claims is really beyond imagining. This isn't vote fraud. There's no evidence of vote fraud. Nothing. This is an effort of a losing political party to a) lay the groundwork for challenging their defeat at the polls b) lay the groundwork to pass laws to make it harder for poor people and minorities to vote.

For more on this scam, see this earlier post.

Look closely. That's not a picture of an Obama billboard ad in front of a few cool cars. That's a screen capture from the Xbox 360 racing game Burnout Paradise. Advertisers can buy space on the billboards in the game. And the game publisher has confirmed to GigaOm.com that that's an official Obama ad, placed by the campaign.

It's important not to get distracted by McCain's phony nods to contrition since what he's doing and saying on the campaign trail makes it clear he's committed to all-sleaze, all-the-time until November 4th.

GOP phone-jamming guru James Tobin indicted on two counts of making false statements to the FBI.

More soon.

You can judge the magnitude of the smashing defeat Republicans believe they are approaching by the scale of lying and bogus charges of vote fraud. But organized lying from partisans should not surprise us. What does deserve censure is how readily mainstream media organizations, including CNN, are picking up these bogus stories and running with them. We'd like to start calling them out. So please send us examples when you see them.

Here's the best, most pointed article I've read today on the current state of play in the financial crisis: Post columnist Steven Pearlstein's piece on how it's time for the Street titans to step up to the plate, not pretend they're doing anyone any favors by 'accepting' injections of capital from the US Taxpayer.

Late Point Taken Update: A number of readers have written in to ask why I'm recommending this article when it contains such fulsome praise for Hank Paulson. Good point. What I was recommending was this more general statement about the stance now being taken by the leadership of the top banks and Wall Street firms. But just to be clear, I don't subscribe to his take on Paulson being out in front and decisive over recent weeks. Paulson himself now seems to grasp that his original bailout proposal was fatally flawed. He's consistently followed events. And he's still overmatched, in terms of rising to the requirements of the crisis, by the UK's Gordon Brown.

Obama up big in Colorado, Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota, according to the latest Quinnipiac polls. That and the day's other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

It turns out Krugman's winning the Nobel was a very bad thing in as much as it's cut down pretty dramatically on his economics blogging during these critical days. In any case, we now have a limited if not quite mini-bank recapitalization of $250 billion. But I'm curious to find out more about just how this is being organized. Yesterday Neel Kashkari, the guy Paulson's put in charge of this whole operation, said "We are designing a standardized program to purchase equity in a broad array of financial institutions. As with the other programs, the equity purchase program will be voluntary and designed with attractive terms to encourage participation from healthy institutions. It will also encourage firms to raise new private capital to complement public capital."

A couple questions. What kind of stock is the taxpayer getting? This strikes me as different from what they're doing in the UK -- and not as good a deal for the taxpayers. Second, a purely voluntary approach troubles to me. All things being equal, it would be nice for everything to be voluntary. But given the balance here between what secures the viability of individual institutions vs. what stabilizes the whole banking and credit system, I think this probably sets up some perverse game theory incentives. More to the point, the US taxpayer has no particular interest in saving individual institutions for their own sake. Taxpayers have a strong interest in stabilization the whole banking sector. And obviously the two are intrinsically connected. But given that priority I think the government needs to be more in the driver's seat about the best strategic allocation of resources. Let's be frank, even a lot of the 'healthy' institutions would likely go under, if we just let the market panic take its course. So for all of them beggars can't be choosers.

Late Update: Two articles in the Post this morning suggest that while technically voluntary, the 9 national banks who will be getting half the money were told, in so many words, that it was an offer they could not refuse. That at least sounds like the USG is making the decisions about the best allocation of resources. But given that all of these banks, even the 'healthy' ones have been begging for and receiving immense taxpayer largesse over recent weeks, the suggestion of compulsion seems a bit overplayed.

Later Update: Post columnist Steven Pearlstein has an excellent column today basically arguing that it's time for the Street to step up. Key passage ...

"After yesterday's "historic" meeting, we are told by industry apologists that we are supposed to be grateful to nine leading banks for having "volunteered" to accept additional capital from the Treasury, along with a government guarantee for newly issued bank debt, even if it means having to accept a dilution of existing shares and a few harmless restrictions on their operations.

Pardon me if I'm less than blown over by this munificent offer, but it hardly seems commensurate either with the severity of the current crisis or the depth of the banks' culpability in fomenting it.

This is really key. The US taxpayer has put trillions (direct in the sense of the bailout, but also the money flooding out of the Fed) on the line to save these guys, because at some level we need to save them, or at least most of them, to save ourselves. And we're supposed to be grateful they're 'accepting' infusions of capital?

From the Journal ...

Then came the event in Wilmington, N.C., held at -- irony alert!- Cape Fear Community College. McCain stood in front of the crowd and said he would take questions or comments after he delivered his remarks. He finished his prepared speech and tacked on a longtime stump story about the bracelet he wears. But then the music and handshaking began. No questions or comments to be heard--at least those directed at the senator. "I thought this was a town hall meeting?" a man asked the press corps.

Curious. And this isn't a rhetorical question. Has McCain taken audience questions since the Obama/Arab question last week?

I'm just listening to John McCain be interviewed on CNN complaining about the coverage of the ugliness of his recent rallies and his own campaign's campaign of character assassination of Barack Obama. Apparently all the criticism is outrageous and out of bounds and 'not what America's about'. Watching makes me actually wonder whether he doesn't realize he's simply lost all credibility on this issue.

In case you missed it over the weekend, a minister who gave the invocation at a McCain rally in Iowa couched his prayer in terms I've never heard before: God's own reputation is at stake in this election, he said, because so many Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists around the world are praying for an Obama victory that if Obama wins, they'll think "their god is bigger" than the Christian god.

It conjures up bad Japanese movies, or the fanciful musings of 10-year-old boys. Who would win between King Kong and Godzilla? Between Allah and Vishnu? Does the Christian god have an unfair advantage because he's three in one? His "theological" take also suggests some influences from Greek mythology, but instead of angry gods hurling lightning bolts at one another, they're trying to throw an election one way or the other, which is almost post-modern in its own way.

So first it was the bold new economic proposals from McCain. Then that was called off. Then it was a bold new speech. Now we have late breaking news that the bold new economic proposals are back on.

Not working.

SurveyUSA: Missouri: Obama 51%, McCain 43%.

Given the convergence between the polls and the calendar, the next logical move is for John McCain to start pulling out of blue states that John Kerry won in 2004 and make his stand exclusively on trying to hold the states President Bush won in 2004.

And this is where we could use your help. We're picking up word of McCain ads drying up in states like Pennsylvania and contested states in the upper Midwest. But keep your eyes peeled and see if you see a change. And if you do, let us know.

Just in time for the three bumpy weeks ahead Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com has unveiled this new McCain Stunt Alert Level system ...

By my own reckoning, I'm not sure whether we're at "nervous" or "edgy". But I feel like we're heading up to the warmer colors.

We've now got video from the front of that woman at the McCain rally on Friday. And this view makes it clear that while she said "Arab terrorist" in the subsequent interview, she clearly only said "Arab" on the stage with McCain ...

Sarah Palin knows a thing or two about abuse of power when she says John McCain is ready to put a stop to it:

I'm going to see this as an outlier until I see some other confirming evidence but the Minnesota State University Moorhead has a new poll out of North Dakota that shows it all tied up -- Obama 45%, McCain 43%, but with a 4% margin of error.

For the past few weeks John McCain and Sarah Palin have been running a systematic campaign of fear against Barack Obama. But when their campaign crowds got too rowdy, McCain was forced to concede that "you do not have to be scared" of an Obama presidency. How will the campaign hold up under the weight of that contradiction?

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

Is Gordon Brown, Labour Prime Minister of the UK, the man of the hour? So says newly-minted Nobelist Paul Krugman. The major economic powers are quickly converging on direct bank recapitalization as the road to economic stabilization. And it's Brown's government that has moved most rapidly and most decisively in this direction.

Brown's action -- and what now appears to be a united Europe following his lead -- provides an unflattering contrast with the indecision and reactive response from Paulson.

McCain can't quite bring himself to condemn a Virginia GOP official's comparison of Obama and Osama.

Late Update: The video:

Sarah Palin declares that the Trooper-Gate probe cleared her of any wrongdoing (and that "rogue," as she applied it to the state official she fired, is not a "negative term").

McCain has added a new line to his stump speech: "We've got them just where we want them." That and the day's other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

Late Update: Here's the video:

A we noted yesterday, over the weekend John McCain's campaign leaked word he would release a major new economic policy aimed at the middle class. It later ended up to be aimed at investors. And then a few hours later the campaign scrapped the idea of releasing a new economic plan entirely.

Now word comes that in place of a new economic policy they're releasing a new stump speech.

"My friends, we've got them just where we want them," McCain will say.

Wow. With the election and the collapse of the economy, I don't think I even realized we were about to hear this award announced. But Paul Krugman, Princeton professor and Times columnist, has won the Nobel Prize in Economics.

A hearty congrats from TPM.

Late update: We've set up an open thread at Cafe to offer congratulations and discuss.

ABC/WaPo: Obama 53%, McCain 43%.

If anything the internals are even more devastating than the topline ...

Overall, Obama is leading 53 percent to 43 percent among likely voters, and for the first time in the general-election campaign, voters gave the Democrat a clear edge on tax policy and providing strong leadership.

McCain has made little headway in his attempts to convince voters that Obama is too "risky" or too "liberal." Rather, recent strategic shifts may have hurt the Republican nominee, who now has higher negative ratings than his rival and is seen as mostly attacking his opponent rather than addressing the issues that voters care about. Even McCain's supporters are now less enthusiastic about his candidacy, returning to levels not seen since before the Republican National Convention.

Conversely, Obama's pitch to the middle class on taxes is beginning to sink in; nearly as many said they think their taxes would go up under a McCain administration as under an Obama presidency, and more see their burdens easing with the Democrat in the White House.

Once McCain loses the contest on leadership, unless he's going to run on green backgrounds, what's he got?

Late Update: Just a few more of the internals because they're pretty striking. On who's the stronger leader: Obama 54%, McCain 40%. Who better understands the economic problems people in this country are having: Obama 58%, McCain 28%. Given that McCain's entire campaign is based on his leadership credentials and that we're in the throes of an historic economic crisis, I don't know which of those two numbers are more devastating for McCain. But they're both awful bad.

With an organization as corrupt as Fox News, it's difficult for anything to really surprise or outrage. But this is one of those exceptions. The guy who is the point of origin of most of the Obama email smears is a rather exotic and peripatetic character named Andy Martin. I suppose like every other news organization we've been getting his daily dispatches for more than a year. On Sean Hannity's recent smear documentary on Barack Obama, Fox had on Martin and allowed him to assert, unchallenged, that Obama "had once trained to overthrow the [US] government." The Times profiles Martin in this article.

From the Times ...

Despite signals that Senator John McCain would have new prescriptions for the economic crisis after a weekend of meetings, his campaign said Sunday that Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, would not have any more proposals this week unless developments call for some.

The signs of internal confusion came as the campaign was under pressure from state party leaders to sharpen his message on the economy and at least blunt the advantage that Democrats traditionally have on the issue in hard times. Republicans have grown fretful as Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, has edged ahead in polls three weeks before the election, while Mr. McCain has veered between ill-received economic plans and attacks on Mr. Obama's character.

In case you missed it, while the bold new plan was still coming, the Politico got suckered into headline claiming that capital gains and dividend tax cuts were "aimed directly at the middle class."

Also, I don't know if Jackie Calmes was having some fun with her wording. But assuming that's a faithful portrayal of the McCain line, "unless developments call for some"? I'd say we're already there, no?

(ed.note: As I frequently tell colleagues when we're working on political stories, you must always keep in mind to some degree that the losing campaign can't help but seem poorly run and erratic. After all, consistency of message strategy comes pretty easily when you're winning. When you're behind, by definition, something's wrong. And so a sputtering campaign often has little choice but to riff from one thing to next hoping that something will work. Even by those very generous standards, though, this is pretty lame.)

I was taking a few moments to think over the most surreal moments of the campaign so far. And this was certainly high on the list: John McCain's tarmac embrace of Levi Johnston, Wasilla's high school hockey star who impregnated Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol ...

Late Update: Memories indeed. Today, Monday the 13th, Levi has just done his first AP interview.

From the Times ...

The difficulties of the McCain campaign have led some Republican leaders to express concern that he could end up dragging other of the party's candidates down to defeat. "If Obama is able to run up big numbers around the country," said Mr. Anuzis, the Michigan party chairman, "the potential for hurting down-ballot Republicans is very big."

One sign of that has emerged in Nebraska, where Representative Lee Terry, a Republican, ran a newspaper advertisement featuring words of support for him from a woman identified as an "Obama-Terry voter."

Nebraska.