In case you missed it, today's edition of The Day in 100 Seconds ...

As you can tell we're spending a lot of time these days churning through all the latest and almost endless number of polls. And the big question I've been trying to get a handle on is just what conclusions we can draw, if any, from the big percentage of Americans who've already voted. CBS adds some interesting new data in a poll out tonight that shows the state of the race among likely voters and among those who've actually voted already.

According to the CBS poll, for all likely voters (that includes those who've already voted plus likelies) it's Obama 54%, McCain 41%.

Among those who've already voted, it's Obama 57%, McCain 38%. And that number is not inconsistent with numbers coming out of a lot of the early voting states.

CBS says that "about one in five voters" have voted early. I'm sure I'm just missing it, but I can't find it in the polling document. Meanwhile, Gallup says the number is now 27%, which I find astonishing.

Now, there are two ways of looking at these numbers. One possibility is that the big advantage Democrats are having among early voters is just a matter of regular Dems being so hyped up to get out to vote for Obama that they're disproportionately going early. That, or some variant of that argument, is the one being advanced by the McCain campaign. On the other hand, perhaps this is the actual 2008 electorate showing up at the polls and showing a big swing toward the Democrats.

If we follow the CBS numbers one thing we can rule out is that the earlies are all the new voters. According to the CBS poll, the percentage of early voters who are first time voters is only slightly higher than that of all likely voters.

The number that jumps out at me though is the spread between the numbers for the early voters in 2008 and who they say they voted for in 2004. For 2008, the earlies report going for Obama 57% to 38%. The same group says they went for Kerry in 2004 by a 45% to 40% margin. (Presumably a substantial number of people declined to answer the question.) So it is probably disproportionately 2004 Kerry voters (figuring in the uncertainty of the non-response rate) who are showing up to vote early. But among the early voting group there's been a significant swing toward the Democratic ticket.

One major caveat. The sample size for the early voters is a relatively small subset of the whole poll. So there's a substantially higher margin of error. But the big tilt toward the Dems is consistent with other recent state polls.

Sounds like that vaunted GOP microtargeting machine might be ready for a bit of a tune-up. From TPM Reader QG ...

Interesting anecdote and probably a testament to ground organization. I have no idea what this means. Friday night (which happens to be the start of our Sabbath) my wife answered the phone to hear a man stating he was from the McCain-Palin campaign. He asked who she was supporting. She replied that we will vote for Obama. He replied with "but he's a f-----g n---er!". Before I get to my wife's response I'll first have to say that I understand desperation and I also understand that this pitch may actually work for a few people. I also understand that there are people who are whack-jobs phone-banking for both sides. But here are some facts:

My wife and I are Black. Citing the fact that Obama is a f----g n---er as a way to sway our vote may not be a great idea. My wife and I live in Maryland... Baltimore, MD.... One of the most African American areas of Baltimore Maryland. How on earth did our phone numbers get on to a McCain volunteers phone bank list of potential voters to be calling at this stage in the game? We have never received a call from the Obama campaign.

Just weird. Not sure what to make of it... but that's not a good sign of organization. If it did anything it made us want to donate more. BTW, the rest of the call went downhill from there. My wife prayed for forgiveness after the call.

Early voting forced a crabby Fred Barnes to come into contact with "all these poor old people" who were trying to cast their ballots in a crowded building with limited parking in that third world outpost known as Alexandria, Va. How dare they:

We hear a lot about the Obama campaign's ground game. And in addition to the general perception that McCain's campaign is overmatched in this regard, word came out just yesterday that the McCain campaign has defunded much of its ground operation to make possible one last push on TV. But a short while ago Politico's Roger Simon gave his take on the difference between the two campaigns' ground operations. And it was very telling ...

Nutball Congressman Chris Cannon (R-UT) tried to hire an Oxford don to use his special computer program to prove that Obama's memoir was actually written by Bill Ayers. The program "can detect when works are by the same author by comparing favourite words and phrases." Apparently, he got cold feet after the he learned that the Oxford academic, Dr Peter Millican, would release the results publicly no matter what they showed.

Saturday's TPM Track Composite is just out ...

Obama 51.2%, McCain 44.1 -- a 7.1 point spread. Basically no change from yesterday. To be precise, a move in Obama's direction of .2%.

For my own part, obviously, I hope Barack Obama can pull off a victory on Tuesday. But more than that, I hope the result of the election can be a rebuke, a closing of the book on McCainism and the moral filth it has come to represent. I'm under no illusion that negative or even nasty campaigning will come to an end in the USA. I don't think that's realistic or even necessarily desirable. Hard-fought and brass-knuckle politics is something built into the fiber of American politics. It's part and parcel of the intensity of belief and passion that many of us have for the issues at stake in our elections.

But McCain's campaign has devolved into something altogether different ... what with its increasingly open appeals to racial conflict and aggressive invocations of blood hatred of Arabs and Muslims. As The New Republic phrases it, McCain's "subtle incitements of racial warfare and underhanded implications of foreign nativity." Over the months we've become desensitized to the moral depravity of McCain's campaign.

There is of course what appears to be a more conventional attack on economics and taxes. But 'socialism' refers, if we can speak in shorthand, to state ownership of large portions of the economy. In other words, something like the Bush administration's decision to have the government purchase a large amount of the financial services industry. But as John Judis notes, a closer look at the language and imargery McCain's 'socialism' pitch reveals it's actually "about whites paying their taxes so that lazy, indolent, unemployed blacks can live off them."

McCarthyism has rightly become an American shorthand for smearing liberals and anyone else from the center leftward as political traitors. The McCain campaign's current campaign of villification of Rashid Khalidi is cut from a very similar cloth -- the kind of rancid race-baiting that we sometimes see at the fringes of our politics but seldom quite so directly and formally from a national campaign, even going so far as to have McCain himself compare Khalidi to a neo-nazi. Where McCainism is different is in its particular amalgam of racism and xenophobia specially suited to this historical moment, to this opponent and to Americans' continuing fears of foreign threat from Muslims and Arabs seven years into the War on Terror.

We'll always have a national dark side. But some signal needs to be sent, at least for a while, that this sort of filth, his character assassination and appeals to race hatred is not an effective life raft for desperate opportunists looking to save themselves by degrading this country. A McCain defeat would go some way to accomplishing that.

I mentioned below that the Obama camp is making hay of Dick Cheney's appearance today. Well, now they're really going to town with it, weaving it into Obama's speech to be delivered later today. Greg has the details.

Randy Scheunemann's eight-week crash course in neo-conservatism seems to be working on Sarah Palin. Maybe too well.

Dick Cheney made a rare public appearance on the campaign trail this morning:

The Obama camp was delighted.

Joe the Plumber, Tito the Builder, Jay the Contractor ... I just realized that Sarah Palin is making the election sound a lot like the pre-school shows my two year old son watches.

For those of you who read my post earlier this morning on the convergence between Gallup's 'expanded' and 'traditional' likely voter numbers, Saturday's numbers are now out and the two numbers are now identical -- Obama 52%, McCain 42% in both.

I usually think Mark Shields is a pretty decent observer of contemporary politics. But saying that "the most admirable thing John McCain did was not to play the race card in this campaign"? What campaign was he watching?

Replay of 2004 and 2006 ...

Dear Mr. Chertoff:

I was startled to read in today's Associated Press that a "federal law enforcement official" has leaked information about an immigration case involving a relative of Senator Obama. Even more troubling, the AP reports that it could not "could not establish whether anyone at a political level in the Bush administration or in the McCain campaign had been involved," a very disturbing suggesting indeed. This leak is deplorable and I urge you to take immediate action to investigate and discipline those responsible.

I note that this is not the first leak of law enforcement information apparently designed to influence the coming Presidential election -- in recent weeks law enforcement sources leaked information about an alleged investigation of a community services organization, a leak that the Department of Justice informs me is now under investigation by the Department's Office of the Inspector General and Professional Responsibility.

Such leaks are deeply harmful to the political process, and the American people expect and deserve better from their government and its law enforcement agencies.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr.

The Republicans are at it again in Pennsylvania. Last week it was the email sent to Jewish voters by the state GOP warning of a second Holocaust. They had to disavow that one and fire a consultant over it.

No problem though. Now an GOP independent group is making the same claim in a mailer obtained by TPM Election Central.

Today's new Rasmussen shows McCain pulling to within 4 points of Obama in Pennsylvania. That and the day's other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

Ed. Note: We have all the recent Pennsylvania polls in the Election Central Poll Tracker.

You may have noticed that the AP is reporting that Barack Obama's aunt (who he does not seem to have a relationship with) was denied asylum in the US four years ago and is now living illegally in Boston. Convenient timing, ain't it?

The real story, though, is down in the third paragraph of the AP story ...

Information about the deportation case was disclosed and confirmed by two separate sources, one of them a federal law enforcement official. The information they made available is known to officials in the federal government, but the AP could not establish whether anyone at a political level in the Bush administration or in the McCain campaign had been involved in its release.

That's about as transparent a red flag as an outfit like the AP is usually willing to give. And there you have it. Quite likely working in concert with the McCain campaign, a Bush administration official is leaking details on an immigration case to try to help McCain three days before the election. It's shades of Bush I's riffling through Bill Clinton's passport files just before the 1992 election in a desperate last minute gambit as they were swirling down the drain.

Late Update: Note too that the story first got leaked to the Times of London, a Murdoch paper with a history of taking planted stories from Republicans for siphoning back into the US media.

As you know, Gallup has been running three separate numbers in its daily tracking poll -- registered voters and then both a 'traditional' and an 'expanded' likely voter numbers. Much has been made, especially by McCain supporters, of the fact that the 'traditional' number has shown Obama ahead by as little as 2 points -- well within the margin of error. However, in the last few days, the three numbers have been converging. As of yesterday's reading (the most recent), the registered number had Obama 11 points ahead, the 'expanded' number 9 points ahead and the 'traditional' number had him 8 points ahead.

Beside the numbers being generally good for Obama, one question I have is why the three numbers are converging, as opposed to moving in Obama's direction with the same spread between them.

One possibility is the number of voters who've already voted. Gallup is also monitoring how many voters say they plan to vote early and how many say they have already voted early. I'm not certain how Gallup is computing their numbers. But the key in these different likely voter 'screens' is what you'll take as evidence from a voter to believe they're likely to vote. One of the key differences in a lot of these 'expanded' models, though I'm not certain about Gallup specifically, is whether the pollster is willing to believe you're a 'likely' voter even if you have not voted before. Now, once someone has already voted, they're not only a 'likely' voter but a certain voter. So I wonder whether some of the convergence may due to uncertain 'likely' voters, who made the cut in the expanded but not the 'traditional' screen, now reporting that they've actually voted and are thus now being counted in both tallies.

To be clear, I'm not certain about Gallup's methodology in this respect. So count this as informed speculation. But these are the approaches being used by a few other polling outfits. So I think this is a good supposition. We'll look into it today and report back to you.

From McCain campaign manager Rick Davis's campaign memo just out this evening, discussing why Obama's decision to run ads in Georgia, Arizona and North Dakota is a sign the McCain camp has him on the ropes ...

Expanding the Field: Obama is running out of states if you follow out a traditional model. Today, he expanded his buy into North Dakota, Georgia and Arizona in an attempt to widen the playing field and find his 270 Electoral Votes. This is a very tall order and trying to expand into new states in the final hours shows he doesn't have the votes to win.

Translation: The fact that Arizona has moved into the toss-up column is a devastating development for Obama.

(ed.note: When I saw the Davis memo pop into my inbox this evening, I didn't have the heart to read it. But TPM Reader DMR flagged this little morsel for my attention.)

Minority Leader John Boehner, who may be looking for a job soon, unless no one else wants the one he currently has, called Barack Obama "chicken shit" in a campaign appearance in Oxford, Ohio.

Feingold to Wisconsin AG: Enough of the Vote Suppression antics.

There's been a lot of chatter over the last few days to the effect that the major tracking polls show John McCain closing the gap against Barack Obama. Now, before going forward, I want to preface this by saying that you just can't live or die on the basis of small gyrations in tracking polls -- not if you want to live to an old age. A lot of this is just statistical noise. But to the extent that people have gotten preoccupied with this, I wanted to show you the latest release of our TPM Track Composite which came out a little less than an hour ago.

Here's the chart from October 5th through tonight's result ...

As you can see, the margin was narrowing over the weekend and in the beginning of this week. But then it stabilized. And there's some indication that it's now widening again. Remember, all of this could be statistical noise. No race is over until it's over -- especially one with as many unique factors as this one. But if you're going to go on the basis of the tracking polls, the most recent evidence points either to a stable race or even Obama again moving ahead.

As regular readers know, TPM normally down shifts on weekends, with limited news section updates and more episodic blogging. But coming down to the wire on the election as we are, this weekend we're going to be working right through the weekend -- coming the final three days before the election just like we would on weekdays.

The whole staff will be here on Saturday and Sunday bringing you all the news and the latest updates as they develop.

Someone from the McCain camp must have had a pretty stern talk with former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger. He just went on Fox with a bracingly abject apology for saying that Sarah Palin wasn't qualified to be vice president. So abject in fact that I must say that it had something of the feel of one of the Maoist self-criticism sessions or perhaps one of the public apologies during the Moscow show trials.

Some hyperbole, yes. But, believe me, not much. We'll have the video shortly.

Late Update: Confess!

We've spent the last several days on TPMtv previewing the Senate, House and presidential elections. Today, we give you a preview of our election night coverage, with live results, TPMtv coverage from Chicago and of course live-blogging the results from TPM World Headquarters here in NYC. In today's episode of TPMtv, we fill you in on all we have in store ...

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

Why are right-wing freaks now the self-appointed defenders of Jews, defending us from the candidates the overwhelming proportion of us Jews plan to vote for?

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) finally gets around to deploring the politicization of the Justice Department -- but declares it's the Democrats whom DOJ favors.

If DOJ won't do the GOP's bidding, then it must favor the Dems, right?

A little odd to see Obama approvingly citing McCain adviser and neocon stalwart Robert Kagan in a new TV ad. The ad cites a Kagan column from last year, which tried to make the case, in a sometimes mocking and sarcastic way, that Obama's foreign policy really wasn't all that different from the neocons'. The ad is running in the Navy home port of Norfolk, VA, where defense spending is obviously a big issue.

Now Reagan Adminstration official Ken Duberstein endorses Obama.

Not a household name exactly; but another one of those eye-poppers.

Sen. Stevens to constituents: I actually haven't been convicted.

It's so important I'm reprinting Jo-Ann Mort's post on McCain vile campaign against Rashid Khalidi in full ...

It has come to this--the red baiting and the nastiness of the McCain/Palin campaign, in desperation to get Jewish support, is now baiting and bad-mouthing a notable Palestinian-American historian, Rashid Khalidi, for his and his wife's friendship with Obama. The Khalidis know Obama from their time in Hyde Park, when Rashid was a professor at the University of Chicago.

Now at Columbia University, he is someone who has always reached out to all sides in the debate about the future of Israel and Palestine. He has been outspoken in his arguments against Arafat's ways of governing and terrorism and when he was at U of C, he was close to Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, one of the most important American Jewish figures of our time. For the Republicans to go after him is pure vile--they think that the Jewish vote is so stupid and racist that they will turn away from the Democrats solely on this type of slander. For someone like Daniel Pipes, quoted in today's New York Times story, to call him 'marginal,' is a joke. It's time to move the Center back to the Center--let's hope that happens as of November 5--for the sake of America, the sake of Israel and the sake of Palestine.

McCain's final gambit is racism pure and simple, a stain on our national honor.

As John McCain just gets sleazier and sleazier, let's review the hypocritical record one more time ...

Here at TPM, we're watching all the senate races really closely. But I'll confess to a special personal interest in the Minnesota contest pitting Al Franken against Sen. Norm Coleman. I'm a longtime fan of Franken's and I think I can call him a friend. Here are the polls from the race released in the last 48 hours ...

PPP (D) (10/31):
Franken (D) 45%, Coleman (R) 40%, Barkley (IP) 14%
UMN (10/31):
Franken (D) 41%, Coleman (R) 37%, Barkley (IP) 17%
Mason-Dixon (10/30):
Coleman (R) 42%, Franken (D) 36%, Barkley (IP) 12%
Rasmussen (10/29):
Coleman (R) 43%, Franken (D) 39%, Barkley (IP) 14%

Drudge loses even Halperin.

Obama going on TV for the first time in Arizona -- and back on the air in Georgia and North Dakota.

Another GOP voter suppression effort bites the dust when subjected to court scrutiny -- this time in Pennsylvania.

In case you missed it, here's TPMmuckraker's rundown of the GOP's mostly failed efforts across the country thus far.

A final swing by Saturday Night Live for John McCain. That and the day's other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

The McCain campaign has been throwing around so much mud and smears in recent weeks that it's easy to miss just how ugly and shameful their character assassination of Rashid Khalidi is. This is an entirely respectable, highly respected scholar. To go further into making a case for him would only be to enable and indulge McCain's sordid appeal to racism. For McCain, personally, to compare Khalidi to a neo-nazi, it's just an offense McCain should never be forgiven for. It's right down in the gutter with Joe McCarthy and the worst of the worst. Khalidi is in this new McCain set piece for one reason -- as a generic Arab, to spur the idea that Obama is foreign, friendly with terrorists and possibly Muslim.

Here's a video John Judis did this afternoon at The New Republic on McCain's latest low ...

A new mailer in Pennsylvania shows the McCain campaign still thinks it's basically running in the Democratic primary.

There's definitely been some tightening over the last few days in the tracking polls. As you know, each day we come out with the TPM Track Composite, a computed average of 6 of the 8 available tracking polls. Here's the graph going back to October 5th, including today (click through for a larger map)...

Shorter McCain Spokesman Michael Goldfarb: Palestinian = "Unsavory".

Which supposedly anti-semitic alleged pal of Obama's is McCain flack Michael Goldfarb referring to? Come on, Michael. Can't you just say it? Whisper it? Give us the first letter?

More at Election Central.

There should be a support group for all those beleaguered progressives who over the years anxiously awaited elections in the futile hope that the polls showing their candidate behind would turn out to be wrong -- but who this year are fretting just as much that the polls showing their candidate ahead are wrong.

[Ed. Note: I self-diagnosed the disease.]

Just 5 days to go and the McCain people have been claiming a tightening of the polls of late. In today's episode of TPMtv we break down the numbers and see if they have a case ...

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

New McCain Line: Obama's taking your money to give to his welfare-lovin' peeps.

Judis could see it yesterday before McCain uncorked this latest belch of his filth.

Will bin Laden finally agree to cut that ad for McCain?

23% of Texas thinks Obama is a Muslim.

I don't feel quite right about saying I like this new pro-McCain ad from Let Freedom Ring, a Republican independent group. But for sheer bad faith, clumsy racial politics desperation and transparent moral poverty it may be one of my favorites.

So here's the contest. Watch the ad. And then send us in a short translation of what the ad is really saying. We'll publish the best entries ...

One could say many things about the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) --a great source of news about news in general and topics of concern to Jews worldwide -- but saying it is a hot bed of anti-semites or crazed Muslim terrorists is simply not one of them. Here, from their election blog, is a very helpful debunking of the smears and lies the McCain campaign has been spreading about Rashid Khalidi and the PLO.

From The Page:

Al Gore to Hit the Stump in Sunshine State

The former president and his wife will hold a rally for Obama in West Palm Beach Friday afternoon.

[Thanks to TPM Reader JS for the catch.]

More details on the Gore campaign swing here.

I want to throw this open for reader discussion, but up front let me say that talk of political mandates is one of those DC parlor games that often doesn't mean very much. We'll probably be referring to the 1990s as the Bill Clinton era for a long time, even though he never won a majority of the popular vote. George W. Bush showed that you can aggressively, and for a time successfully, seize the reins of power even if you barely ascended to the presidency.

But it's been a generation since Reagan's 1984 landslide, and I think there's a tendency to forget the impact, real and imagined, of a sweeping victory of the kind Obama appears poised to win. (It's worth noting too that in 1984, while we'd just come through a recession and the Cold War was still hot, there was nothing like the unsettledness that the financial crisis and overseas military engagements are causing now.)

You're already seeing signs of the impact of the expectation of an Obama win. McCain is going all out to try to win this thing, but let's be honest, his party is not. You don't have to look too closely to see GOP officeholders running for cover, and not just from Bush, McCain, and Palin -- but from specific policies and tactics, too. As the political tsunami approaches the beach, it's every one for himself.

But all that being said, what will an Obama landslide translate into in the first year he's in office? It's not clear to me. One of the most toxic effects of the decline of the two parties as political institutions and the rise of the modern TV-based political campaign, with its cult of personality politics, is that the election becomes a referendum on the candidates themselves, rather than on broad policies or platforms.

The peril of the modern political campaign is not its nastiness (come on, we're all adults). It's that it supplants a real debate, so that by the time the election actually happens and a victor is declared, it's not entirely clear what we all collectively just decided. Did we just vote for universal health care, or against that cranky old man and his dimwitted running mate?

So given the terms of the debate this campaign season, the issues facing the country, and the mood of the electorate, and assuming we see an Obama landslide next Tuesday, what does Obama have a mandate for? Thoughts?

Late Update: We've set up an open thread at TPMCafe to continue the discussion.

John McCain concedes that Barack Obama isn't really a socialist. That and the day's other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

I'd been meaning to touch on this, and a new poll gives me a reason to. We spend most of our time tracking the campaigns in the battleground states and analyzing poll data there. And across the board Obama is doing very well in the states that will decide the election.

But what about the states where Obama is a cinch to win? How well is he doing there compared to historical norms? Margin of victory in individual states (and believe me, I don't want to count chickens prematurely) is a factor in measuring the size and strength of the mandate Obama looks poised to win.

I have in mind in particular California, where Obama is wildly popular, but where there is a record of Republican presidential candidates having done very well, too. So how does Obama's lead there stack up to Reagan's victory margin, for example? Very well, it turns out.

The latest Field Poll gives Obama a 22-point lead in California, which would be an unprecedented margin of victory in modern times:

Barack Obama appears destined for the largest California victory of any presidential candidate since World War II, potentially boosting prospects for Democratic candidates statewide.

In a new state Field Poll, the presidential ticket of Obama and Delaware Sen. Joe Biden leads Republican John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin by 55 percent to 33 percent.

If the margin stands on Nov. 4, Obama will rack up a California landslide more lopsided than that of Democrat Lyndon Johnson in 1964 or Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984.

The Field Poll isn't exactly an outlier. The Pollster.com aggregate for California gives Obama an 18-point lead, which is slightly larger than Reagan's 1980 victory margin there. (The Pollster.com aggregate doesn't yet include the new Field Poll, and it should be noted that there has been relatively little polling in California because the state is not in play.)

How's Obama doing in other deep blue states? Again using the Pollster.com aggregate: New York (+24) and Massachusetts (+21). In 1988, Michael Dukakis only won his home state by 8 points.

From TPM Reader BM ...

Obama can go on TV for 30 minutes and not mention John McCain even once.

No way would the reverse be true.

A few days back President Bush 'requested' that the Justice Department intervene in the vote challenge dispute in Ohio. This is after Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner won the dispute in the courts. Now comes word that the DOJ will likely to pass on the president's suggestion.

My favorite campaign moment of the day: Wolf Blitzer asking Ed Rollins whether McCain needs an assist from bin Laden to win on Tuesday ...

NRCC darkening images of Indian-American House candidate Ashwin Madia (D)?

How are GOP voter suppression efforts faring in key states around the US? We go state by state in our new TPM Republican Voter Suppression Guide.

Seems we've found one pretty clear point of contention in those negotiations between the US and Iraq over a permanent status-of-forces agreement governing US troops in the country. The Iraqis want a guarantee: no Iraq-based US troops used to attack neighbors.

McCain pulls the robocall fire alarm ... in Arizona.

Colorado: Obama 53%, McCain 45%
Florida: Obama 51%, McCain 47%
Georgia McCain 52%, Obama 47%
Missouri: McCain 50%, Obama 48%
Virginia: Obama 53%, McCain 44%

In yesterday's episode of TPMtv, we surveyed the big Senate campaigns and how likely the Democrats are to put together a 60 vote majority. In today's episode we look at the prospects in the House. Just how many new seats will the Dems win?

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

From John Judis ...

I mention the Bradley effect because I think, too, that McCain and Sarah Palin's attack against Obama for advocating "spreading the wealth" and for "socialism" and for pronouncing the civil rights revolution a "tragedy" because it didn't deal with the distribution of wealth is aimed ultimately at white working class undecided voters who would construe "spreading the wealth" as giving their money to blacks. It's the latest version of Reagan's "welfare queen" argument from 1980. It if it works, it won't be because most white Americans actually oppose a progressive income tax, but because they fear that Obama will inordinately favor blacks over them. I don't doubt that this argument will have some effect, but I suspect it's too late and that worries about McCain and Republican handling of the economy will overshadow these concerns.

Just more McCain filth.

After we took TPMtv off the Veracifer network and began publishing it ourselves, a number of you have written in to ask whether you would again be able to subscribe to TPMtv via iTunes. And the answer is, yes. You can either go to iTunes and search 'TPMtv' or click on this link to go to our iTunes page directly.

Be sure to subscribe today and you'll get our daily TPMtv episode in addition to our new "Day in 100 Seconds" afternoon feature.

McCain mob surrounds two Cuban-American Obama supporters in Miami before police intervene to hustle the two away to safety.

"People were screaming 'Terrorist!' 'Communist!' 'Socialist!'", said Raul Sorando, of the two Obama supporters. "I had a guy tell me he was gonna kill me."

Sean Quinn has the rest of the report from FiveThirtyEight.com.

Shorter McCain: Obama is suspiciously friendly with Arabs.

ABC picks apart the lies about Sen. Obama's 2001 radio interview that are now the centerpiece of Gov. Palin's stump speech.

I am struck that most of the big news organization seem bored at this point pointing out that Sen. McCain's entire campaign at this point is based on knowing falsehoods. How to make it more exciting for them? Bells and whistles?

The McCain campaign keeps lying about its role pushing the 'Carved B' hoax. But national reporters don't seem to want to call them on it. We look at the facts.

The punchline for the latest Obama TV ad is Sarah Palin ... winking. That and the day's other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

Unlike almost every other Republican in the country this November, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels appears on track for a resounding victory against his Democratic challenger next week. But even with a towering lead in the polls, he's almost comically unwilling to be seen with Gov. Palin.

This just in from the Indianapolis Star, courtesy of TPM Reader BH ...

Daniels said he plans to talk to folks in the parking lot, but can't fit into his schedule a joint appearance with Palin.

This is Palin's third trip to Indiana, and Daniels has yet to campaign with her, though Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman was with Palin at the previous rallies in Noblesville and Fort Wayne.

"I'm going by (the Palin rally.) I've got another event scheduled at the same time, but it is close by, so I'm going to go by and spend as long as I can there and hang out in the parking lot and spend some time with the folks standing in line or patiently waiting to get in," Daniels said. "I'm not speaking at the rally, no."

I guess heading in from the parking lot to the stage would have just been too much for Daniels' schedule to handle. But seems a bit iffy to me.

McConnell calls on Stevens to resign.

Palin endorses socialism.

If only Michael Harrington could have lived a couple decades longer.

US Proconsul Odierno off to a wobbly start.

Highly respected economist, endlessly mocked campaign surrogate.

McCain attacking Obama for a tie to a Palestinian-American Professor who McCain himself gave hundreds of thousands of dollars of grants to.

Late Update: TPM Reader BS writes in ...

I think it is more than worth reframing your lede on Obama's and McCain's ties to a "Palestinian Professor." Look there is absolutely nothing for either of them to be ashamed about. Rashid Khalidi is no terrorist, nor is he even remotely objectionable to anyone but the Daniel Pipes crowd. He is one the country's most respected political historians of the Middle East, who happens to be Palestinian, happens to write on Palestinian history, has published perhaps the most influential book on the birth of Palestinian nationalism, and who wound up at Columbia after a bidding war with U. Chicago.

Let the McCain try to argue that it's objectionable for Obama or anyone else to be tied to this guy; please keep TPM on a higher ground and let's simply point out that both candidates should be proud to have ties to him at all. I'd wager money the research that IRI funded was well worth pouring money into.

In my haste, "Palestinian Professor" seemed like a simple short-hand, though Palestinian-American probably would have been better. But if it was too simple, for the record, I subscribe to BS's point. And nothing in the original post was meant to suggest otherwise.

From instant crush to how could I have ever liked her in six short weeks. We chronicle conservatives' short and sour fling with Sarah Palin.

The few, the proud ... the TPM interns.

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.

Late Monday afternoon I was standing in front of 200 or so congressional staff members when someone in the front row handed me a Blackberry with the news bulletin announcing Sen. Ted Stevens' seven-count felony conviction. As I read the news flash to the gasping Hill aides one thing jumped into mind: "Foley Friday," Sept. 29, 2006, when news broke of then-GOP Rep. Mark Foley's inappropriate behavior toward a House page. At that point in 2006, Republicans had already been buffeted for a year or more by a then-worsening situation in Iraq and a wide array of scandals. Just as it seemed things could not possibly get worse, they did. Only the most partisan of Democrats or cold-hearted of people would fail to have some compassion or sympathy towards a party for which virtually everything has gone wrong. Someone recently likened it to watching a wounded dog kicked.

Old-time Clinton hate group Citizens United is parachuting a Ayers/Wright freak-out DVD into Ohio papers starting today.

Most of the attention is on the presidential race. But there's also that question of whether the Democrats are going to put together that 60 vote majority in the senate. In today's episode we look at the 12 top senate races that will determine whether the Democrats will go into 2009 with that filibuster-proof majority ...

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) just announced that he's extending the hours for early voting in his state. That seems notably, even surprisingly, non-partisan and inclusive. Is there a catch?

Not only was Indiana's minority-vote suppressing Secretary of State Todd Rokita one of the foot soldiers credited with shutting down the Florida recount. He's also got a way with words that may reveal some of the mindset that leads to his penchant for vote suppression. Back in 2007 he said ...

During a speech Thursday at a Republican event, Todd Rokita said 90 percent of blacks vote for Democrats.

"How can that be?" Rokita said. "Ninety to ten. Who's the master and who's the slave in that relationship? How can that be healthy?"

The McCain campaign is running so low on money and new smears that it's now taken to recycling the old ones.

I have to imagine the DSCC is already on this. But is there any Republican senate candidate in the country today who isn't being pressed to answer whether or not they think Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) should resign?

Along those lines, you're watching these races unfold in your own states. So you'll probably see or read what's asked and answered before we do. So if you see Republican senators in contested races getting asked this question -- and especially if they answer, let us know.

Late Coleman Update: Norm Coleman tells Stevens to resign. No word on whether he's telling himself to resign over the discount bachelor pad and free suits.

Late Update: Oh, yeah, Palin too. Is she getting asked?

Late Smackdown Update: Palin tells Stevens to take a hike.

How do the polls stack up for Obama now compared to Kerry at the same time in 2004? Dramatically better, especially in battleground states.

Now Major League Baseball is biased against McCain?

A couple of McCain higher-ups have told me that Palin simply knew nothing about national and international issues. Which meant, as one such adviser said to me: 'Letting Sarah be Sarah may not be such a good thing.'

From Robert Draper's blogging of the week of the campaign for GQ.

Certainly some lavishly lurid campaign books are going to have some good material about this farce.

This is how John McCain ends up -- finishing his presidential quest by arguing that allowing the Bush tax cuts to lapse will bring Socialism to America.

If only those generations of lefties had known it would be so easy.

And what happened to his being a terrorist?

Late Update: TPM Reader RN vents ...

Socialism? Is that all they've got? Can someone shout to him, hey dude it's 2008 - nobody under 45 even knows what that means! What's going on with his campaign? Josh, please explain to us mere mortals out here in real America why John McCain is STILL, 7 days before election, trying to rally his base? Isn't that what Sarah Palin is for? Imagine how close this race could have been if the old, moderate, John McCain had popped up after the convention? Imagine the breaking of the tire swing rope as every journalist in sight would have jumped on in sheer exultory delight that the Mac was back. I want the guy to lose as bad as any Dem, but it's almost getting painful, like watching a punch drunk fighter get mauled and the ref won't call it.

The Christian Science Monitor has always been a unique institution, small but national in scope and with special, though distant from editorial, roots in the Christian Science movement. But today comes word that next April the CSM will cease daily publication and become a weekly with a strong focus on the web.

Certainly the first of many, though a bit different since they're not a metro daily.

Heading up the GOP voter suppression effort in Indiana is Secretary of State Todd Rokita. And he certainly doesn't lack for experience. Rokita was one of the key GOP foot soldiers responsible for shutting down the Florida recount back in 2000.

We just shot today's episode of TPMtv, which is a run down of the big senate races. This won't surprise anyone who's closely watching the senate races. But if you've only been watching the presidential race, it's all going to come down to three southern state races, all of which share a strong basic profile -- Kentucky, with incumbent Mitch McConnell, Georgia with incumbent Saxby Chambliss and Mississippi, with appointed incumbent Roger Wicker.

None of the three Dems in these races has yet to get a public poll putting them in the lead. But each is very close, within a few points. And the incumbent, in each case, is under 50%. All of which is to say that each of these incumbents is in real trouble, though each probably has a thin advantage going into election day.

To get to 60, the Dems need to bag one of these three seats. Even with that, they'd need to pull out the Minnesota race, which looks promising but is still touch and go, and win all the ones where they're favored but it's still close. But when you're watching on election night, keep an eye on those three races. They'll be the tell.

Years after the Keating Five scandal, McCain went back for another taste.

Those of you who are following this election closely know that in many states people have already started voting. But even as someone who's supposed to be in the know about this sort of stuff, I was surprised when I saw just how many votes have already been cast in a number of key states.

One other point to remember is that the national percentage of early voters can be deceiving. Many states don't allow early voting at all, and only have very limited opportunities for absentee voting. So the percentages in states that do have early voting can dwarf the national average -- and those states tend to be key swing states.

So with all that prologue I want to tell you about a site run by Prof. Michael McDonald of George Mason University that is compiling on-going statistics for early voting in states across the country. You can visit the site here. But here are a few nuggets.

If we take the 2004 vote total as the baseline, 31.8% of voters in Georgia have already cast their ballots; in Colorado, 37.9% have already voted; in Florida, 27% have already voted; in Nevada, 39.8% have already voted.

Now, remember, most people assume turnout will be higher in 2008 than 2004. So these percentages will probably be at least a bit lower when run against the 2008 totals. But these numbers still make clear that a week in advance of election day, in several of the key states we're all watching, probably a solid third of the voting has already taken place.

John McCain continues to pretend that he's opposed to a graduated income tax.

Interesting numbers in a SurveyUSA poll of Ohio: 22% of the likely electorate has already voted, favoring Obama by a 56%-39% margin, and the two candidates are tied among the remaining 78%. That and the day's other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

The award for hardest tire swinging ever goes to the LA Times' Maeve Reston, who today dreamily relives her time on the Straight Talk Express as if she were Streisand to McCain's Redford.

I hate to excerpt any of it because you really should read the whole thing, but it's just too perfect. Reston, on the way they were:

By July, I had covered McCain for almost seven months. I could recite many lines of his stump speech by heart, dreamed about his events at night and spent so much time scrolling through campaign e-mails on my BlackBerry that my fiance joked to our friends about the other man in my life.

Over those months, McCain had artfully created a sense of intimacy with the reporters who traveled with him. He barbecued for us at his Arizona cabin, and opened up about matters as personal as his faith and his son's girlfriends. On one of my first days covering McCain, another reporter protectively warned me that it was important to be judicious with the material I used from McCain's bus rides to keep the conversations in context. ...

Later that summer, the frequency of McCain's news conferences dwindled to late-afternoon, end-of-the-week affairs where he began calling more often on reporters he didn't know.

We now watched from afar at most events -- listening for the few sentences that would change each day in his stump speech. We would catch glimpses of him through the window of his SUV from five cars back in the motorcade or watch him get off the plane.

At the height of vice presidential speculation, we rushed the staff cabin of the plane, frustrated that no one was around to address the rumors.

"What do you want, you little jerks?" McCain said, using his former term of affection, before turning away.

On a recent Sunday during a brief stop at a Virginia phone bank, I got unusually close to McCain in the line of people waiting to shake his hand.

Tape recorder out and within a foot of him, I asked if he could talk about his new economic plan, which he was to unveil that week. The man who once asked me about my wedding date returned my gaze with a stare, shook the hand of the strangers to the right and left of me and continued out the door.

Hankie anyone?

Dozens of telemarketers in Indiana refuse to read anti-Obama soft-on-crime call script, TPM Election Central reports.

Jeffrey Goldberg discusses the Jewish fanatics behind the "Obsession" video showing up in people's newspapers around the country.

Biden actually holds up pretty well in front of what has to be the most nutball interviewer of the 2008 cycle, an anchor from a local ABC affiliate in Florida ...

(Biden's remark at 1:05 is one of many reasons I really like the guy ... to understand the answer you've got to see the question which starts about 43 seconds in.)

AP: ATF says it has disrupted skinhead plot to assassinate Obama, kill 102 black people.

Late Update: Subsequent reporting on this story suggests that the part of this plot that involved killing Obama was much more aspirational than anything they'd worked out a clear plan to accomplish. But they had worked out a plan to raid a predominantly African-American high school and kill 100 kids.

Sen. Stevens (R-AK) convicted on all counts in corruption trial.

Sarah Palin tells Israeli Ambassador "we look forward to .. working with your Jewish agency."

Via MJ Rosenberg.

Late Update: Okay, this may not be as bad as first advertised. The original AP quote was garbled. And the Ambassador used to head up the Jewish Agency. See the follow-up AP story.

Rasmussen: Arizona: McCain 51%, Obama 46%.

At the end of September it was McCain 59%, Obama 38%.

TPM Election Central takes a look at what the GOP is resorting to in key Senate races in Minnesota and North Carolina.

It's the final days of the presidential race and things are turning sour in the McCain campaign. Is Palin bailin' from a campaign that's failin'?

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

I guess you file this under the heading of Deep, Late Election Comic Relief. And not surprisingly it comes from a Senate Republican who should have been coasting but now finds himself with a real chance losing his seat.

Last week, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) squared off in a debate with Democratic challenger Bruce Lunsford. But on Lunsford's podium a GOP operative had placed a small voice recorder, presumably to pick up some off-mic comments Lunsford might make -- apparently a violation of the debate rules.

(The recorder itself -- sans recording -- was eventually returned.)

Now, from here the accounts differ. According to the Lunsford campaign, Lunsford actually didn't see the recorder. But since it was nestled in among his papers it was included when he handed his papers off to his staffers after the debate -- staffers who say they later erased the recording since it violated debate rules to have a planted recorder on the opponents podium.

According to the McConnell staffers, however, Lunsford did see the recorder during the debate and essentially confiscated it. Richard St. Onge, II (who, in a separate story, may have absconded with his name from some neo-gothic southern novel) is the GOP operative who planted the recorder. And according to St. Onge, when he went up to Lunsford after the debate to demand his recorder back, Lunsford said, "No you won't get it back."

And now St. Onge and the chairman of McConnell's campaign have filed a criminal complaint against Lunsford for petty larceny and destruction of property -- because of the erasure.

Now, we're digging into this to get a clearer sense of what happened. But I must say that even if you accept McConnell's version of events, is there really an affirmative responsibility to return your opponent's campaign bug after you discover it? Campaign 'trackers' with handcams have become a normal and I think generally benign part of modern campaigns. But this seems a bit different. Thoughts?

Obama up 8 points in Virginia, according to the new Washington Post poll. That and the day's other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

From TPM Reader TJ ...

What is it about Alaskan politicians? Palin is given a $150,000 wardrobe, which she wears, but doesn't own it. Stevens was given furniture, but he doesn't own it, yet it still sits in his home. Stuff is given to them, but they don't own it? Steven and Palin must attend the same seminars on electoral ethics, or is this just an Alaska thing?

From the St. Cloud Times ...

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann wrote a letter last year recommending a federal pardon for a major campaign contributor who was once convicted of felony money laundering, firearm and drug charges on the basis he had reformed.

This month, she withdrew that recommendation on behalf of Frank E. Vennes Jr., eight days after the FBI searched his Shorewood home and office and confiscated documents, money, art, coins and jewels that agents think may be related to a $3 billion investment fraud scheme in which Minnesota business mogul Tom Petters has been charged.

Former Sen. Larry Pressler (R-SD) votes (by absentee) for Obama.

I was on a panel a week or so ago. And I said that I thought most observers were overstating the degree to which an economic crisis automatically advantaged the Democrat. To some degree, sure, especially in the dying days of an unpopular Republican incumbent. But remember, McCain's sell in this campaign was steadiness, experience, unflappability in a crisis. If he'd convinced voters that that was what he brought to the table, I do not believe the damage he sustained by the economic crisis would have been nearly so great. I continue to think that McCain's reaction to the economic crisis was the turning point in the election.

Here's what Pressler said ...

Pressler, who said that in addition to casting an absentee ballot for Obama he'd donated $500 to the Illinois senator's campaign, cited the Democrat's response to the financial crisis as the primary reason for his decision.

"I just got the feeling that Obama will be able to handle this financial crisis better, and I like his financial team of [former Treasury Secretary Robert] Rubin and [former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul] Volcker better," he said. By contrast, John McCain's "handling of the financial crisis made me feel nervous."

From CNN ...

Ensuring that news of the Republican National Committee's sartorial spending spree will remain in the headlines for at least one more news cycle, Sarah Palin on Sunday sounded off on the $150,000 wardrobe that was purchased for her in September, denouncing the report as "ridiculous" and declaring emphatically: "Those clothes, they are not my property."

A senior adviser to John McCain told CNN's Dana Bash that the comments about her wardrobe "were not the remarks we sent to her plane this morning." Palin did not discuss the wardrobe story at her rally in Kissimmee later in the day.

Stevens' jury will begin deliberations from scratch on Monday morning after Judge Emmet Sullivan replaced a juror, who had a family emergency, with an alternate.

In response to a question about Colin Powell's endorsement, John McCain says he's proud five former Secretaries of State have endorsed him. Then he forgets the name of the fifth one ...

Anyone can forget a name. And this guy's under an amount of physical fatigue and emotional stress that would challenge men half his age. (As much as I believe that McCain's age is showing, this point is worth remembering.) But if you watch the video, after he lists off the four names again to jog his memory and then just isn't able to remember the fifth, he lets out a heavy sigh and with what I'd describe as a resigned smile, says "and one other."

Not sure what to say but that it seemed emblematic of the moment.

TPM is hiring two new politics reporters, to report from Washington, DC. Full-time. Salary based on experience. Health care provided. Applicants should send a cover letter, resume and no more than three clips to talk (at) talkingpointsmemo.com with the subject heading 'Politics Reporter'.

Why is Sarah Palin referring to Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) as "Uncle Barney Frank"?

Someone help me with this.

Bear with me. The intricacies of GOP dirty tricks in Pennsylvania take some unraveling. But this is too rich, and the best part comes at the end.

On Thursday the Pennsylvania GOP sent out an email to 75,000 Jewish voters in the state warning that electing Obama could lead to a second Holocaust, the AP reports:

"Jewish Americans cannot afford to make the wrong decision on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008," the e-mail reads. "Many of our ancestors ignored the warning signs in the 1930s and 1940s and made a tragic mistake. Let's not make a similar one this year!"

A copy of the e-mail, provided by Democratic officials, says it was "Paid for by the Republican Federal Committee of PA - Victory 2008."

It warns "Fellow Jewish Voters" of the danger of a second Holocaust due to the threats to Israel from its neighbors and touts Republican presidential candidate John McCain's qualifications over those of Obama.

The state GOP is now running away from that email as fast as it can. The AP leads with the state GOP's disavowal of the email, but it seems a bit more complicated than that. There doesn't seem to be any dispute that the state party or one of its committees sent the email. The party's defense seems to be that the consultant who the party hired wasn't authorized to send that particular email and was fired.

Except the AP got in touch with the consultant and that's not quite the story he tells:

Political consultant Bryan Rudnick was identified as the person responsible for it. Rudnick, reached Saturday night, confirmed that he no longer works for the party, which employed him a few weeks ago as a consultant to do outreach to Jewish voters.

"I had authorization from party officials" to send the e-mail, Rudnick said, but he declined to say who had signed off on it. "I'm not looking to drag anyone else through the mud, so I'm not naming names right now," he said.

That's a pretty good story in its own right: Another under-the-radar GOP sleaze tactic exposed and yet another low- to mid-level GOP operative scapegoated because he got caught on the wrong side of the McCain campaign's shifting line between what is just sleazy and what is too sleazy (a line that seems to get drawn immediately after the GOP gets busted).

But it gets better.

Like the state GOP, the McCain camp is running away from this email, and the spokesperson doing the distancing is none other than Peter Feldman. That's the same guy who on Thursday, the day the email went out, was pushing the mugging hoax to reporters as a politically motivated attack by a black Obama supporter, playing to the worst of white fears and racial prejudices.

Speaking of the email to Jewish voters and without any apparent hint of irony, Feldman told the AP Saturday night that McCain "rejects politics that degrade our civics."

Amazing.

No word on whether the AP asked Feldman about his role in pushing the mugging hoax.