Last night I asked for your input about how interested you are in reading TPM on various mobile devices. So I wanted to check back in with you with what we've heard from readers so far.

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We're getting more and more readers asking us when or if we're going to offering TPM on Kindle or creating a TPM iPhone app or rolling out other versions of the site on similar 'mobile' platforms. The short answer is: Yes, we've had these plans on the drawing board for some time. And we're working on implementing them. But I wanted to start a conversation with you to get a better sense of which mobile devices you're using, how you'd like to be kept up to date on our latest and best stories and more.

Join me after the jump.

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What's at stake: Rep. Dingell's (D-MI) speech to the House Dem caucus at today's closed door -- and reportedly, fairly tense -- meeting.

Hoffman-mania continues as GOPers scramble to be next in line to buy stock in endorse the Conservative party candidate over the Republican nominee in the NY-23 special election.

The latest is Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS), who says "the New York 23 election reflects the same battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party going on nationally."

There's been a roiling controversy of late about the upcoming J Street conference. We've written a bit about it. But in what I guess is a paradox, in part because of my own strong feelings on the subject, I haven't written much about it myself. In any case, I just read this interview The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg did with J Street's Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami.

If you've had Fox News on today, you've seen them cranking up the indignation machine over a supposed new incident between the network and the White House. The claim is that the White House denied Fox the same access other networks had to a press briefing at the Treasury Department yesterday. But we've looked into it, and it turns out that's not what happened. Christina Bellantoni has the details on how a miscommunication over the TV pool feed has Fox playing First Amendment victim.

Virginia's Democratic nominee for governor, Creigh Deeds, told reporters this afternoon that he has no idea why the White House is reportedly displeased with his campaign performance.

Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), the longest serving member of the House, tells TPMDC what he told reluctant members of the Democratic caucus in the group's meeting this morning about the politics of passing a health care reform bill.

Harry Reid is apparently pretty close to lining up 60 votes for a Public Option with opt-out clause.

But the White House is trying to shut down his efforts. They want Snowe on board. Period.

Fox News' John Stossel will be a participant in "health care town halls," i.e., rallies against health care reform, set up by the anti-reform group Americans For Prosperity.

House leaders called off the roll on the public option in their private caucus meeting today got a lot of 'I'm undecideds' in response.

It's been a long time since the left has had a bomb-thrower on par with Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL): Cheney has "blood that drips from his teeth"

There've been a number of conflicting reports about the fate of the Public Option this morning, especially in the House. We just had our morning editorial meeting. And I wanted to give you a quick read on what the confusion seems to be about.

The issue really doesn't seem to be whether the House thinks it can pass a Public Option. The confusion and conflicting reports seem to stem from not distinguishing between two versions of the Public Option that most TPM Readers are probably already familiar with -- namely, a Public Option like that advanced by Sen. Schumer and the more turbo-version proposed by Sen. Rockefeller.

Basically, it's not clear the House really has the votes for a Rocky-style Public Option. That's where this morning's Politico piece may be on solid ground -- because Pelosi, or at least her office, had appeared to be saying they had that locked. But that doesn't mean the Public Option is dead in the House because it seems pretty clear they do have the votes for Schumer-style Public Option. And that latter, critical point was lost in this morning's headlines.

White House flack, on the Fox News takedown: "We simply decided to stop abiding by the fiction, which is aided and abetted by the mainstream press, that Fox is a traditional news organization." That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

McClatchy: "Suicide bomber strikes suspected nuclear weapons site in Pakistan"

A lot of conflicting reports out this morning on where public option stands. The White House meeting late yesterday between President Obama and Senate Democratic leaders has yielded its own flurry of accounts of what went down.

Let's try to sort it all out:

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Our sources say not to be so sure about that new Politico report about Pelosi not having the votes for a robust public option.

It seems like virtually every Republican who's got something to prove or wants to keep up their rep in the GOP purity derby is endorsing right-wing third party candidate Doug Hoffman over GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava in the upcoming election to fill the open seat in New York's 23rd congressional district. And now Sarah Palin has gotten into the act too.

No doubt there are others. But the only marquee conservative Republican who's really making an effort on Scozzafava's behalf is Newt Gingrich, who, whatever else you can say about the guy, knows something about coalition building.

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Sen. Reid's statement ...

"Today's meeting was a continuation of the productive health insurance reform conversations we have had in the Senate throughout the week. I am encouraged with how close we are to delivering access to quality, affordable health insurance to all Americans in a fiscally responsible way. The role of the President and his health care team has been critical to our efforts in the last week and will be even more important as we move forward.

"We'll continue to work together to seek broad consensus on the key issues before us and to craft the strongest possible bill that can garner 60 votes. We will also continue to do our best to represent the views of all members of the Senate who have a genuine desire to see reform succeed. But our mission is clear: the American people want quality, affordable health insurance and failure is not an acceptable option. I am optimistic that we are close to laying a proposal before the full Senate that will do just that."

The last debate in the New Jersey governor's race was tonight. Here's what happened.

Specter: "We have 60 votes without Sen. Snowe."

Statement from the White House on end of the day health care meeting ...

"The senators provided the president with an update on the process of merging the Finance and HELP bills, and they discussed the key principles that reform legislation must meet: providing more stability and security for those with insurance, expanding access to those without it, cutting costs, providing consumers with greater choice and competition, and doing so without adding to the deficit."

Where do we stand now after the first day in a while with real developments on heath care reform? Brian Beutler recaps.

Frank Gaffney to Ron Reagan: "Your father would be ashamed of you." Watch.

GOP reps file official request for Sergeant-at-Arms to commence investigation of Muslim "intern spies."

First Lady Action Figure:

We've now got a fresh read on what happened behind the scenes over the last 24 hours on the health care reform front -- and how it's made it significantly more likely there will be a real public option included in the final legislation.

The negotiators at last night's closed door meeting looked at a survey of opinions of the key moderates and conservative Dems that suggested suggested that they weather a public option being in the bill as long as they got an opportunity to vote it out during the floor debate.

But Sen. Baucus this morning tried to rally the Dem holdouts to kick up a storm against the emerging consensus that getting a public option in the bill was doable. But his efforts appear to have fallen flat. Brian Beutler's got our late report with all the details.

A collection of essays positioned as a counter-narrative to the new Sarah Palin memoir will be released on the same day Palin's book is published. Going Rogue faces off with Going Rouge.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) tells TPMDC that as it stands now the merged Senate health care reform bill is likely to include a public option with some form of an opt out for states.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), a key swing vote, is dismissing polls that show a public option is popular: "I think if you asked, 'Do you want a public option but it would force the government to go bankrupt,' people would say 'No.'"

A GOP stunt aimed at the Democratic governor of North Carolina hits an unintended target.

The prank they played on the Chamber of Commerce this week -- announcing at a fake press conference that the chamber had reversed course and would support climate change regulation -- brought renewed attention to the rascally Yes Men -- not coincidentally, just as their new movie is coming out. Check out some other Yes Men pranks that have made the group notorious:

Fresh off the news that Sen. Snowe says she won't accept any compromise public option, specifically not a so-called 'opt-out' approach, there are new reports that the White House and Senate Democrats are now leaning toward including one in the senate bill, apparently a public option of the Schumer variety.

There have been a number of hints and signs over the last week or so that the momentum is back on the side of the public option. But if they've made that judgment -- and some critical decisions about legislative tactics would have go with it -- that would be a big turning point.

We've got our team in DC hunting for more details.

When news broke earlier that Sen. Olympia Snowe would oppose a public option compromise and filibuster a bill with public option in it, the Maine AFL-CIO, which happens to be holding its state convention, recessed so members could start calling Snowe's office.

Robert Reich, on why Wall Street reform is stuck in reverse.

She would vote with Republicans to filibuster a health care reform bill if it contains a public option.

Pressed for comment by NBC, President Obama says that Fox News is essentially a TV version of a talk radio station.

I think this is just the right approach. Obviously, Fox is very successful and has a big audience. And I don't think the Obama administration should refuse to appear on Fox News, something I very much doubt they'd do. But it would not be honest to pretend the Fox is a real news organization in the sense that the other network news divisions or cable outlets are.

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Sen. Snowe (R-ME) says no to Public Option 'opt-out' compromise.

TPM Reader AS:

I really love the shots they're taking at Fox.

First, I think it's a great strategic move. The GOP depends upon their ability to make stuff up and inject it into the political consciousness. Their whole modus operandi is rooted in their ability to distort reality. And they're able to do that because of talk radio and a couple of other media outlets -- Drudge, for example.

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Was Rep. Buyer's (R-IN) scholarship foundation a piggy bank to fund his high-flying golf habit?

We have yet another poll of this morning on the NJ governor's race. And it's more bad news for Chris Christie. According to the Rutgers-Eagleton poll, it's Corzine over Christie by 3 points.

The key here though is that Corzine is really not doing any better than he's been doing for a long time. At least not in absolute terms. He's at 39%. But Christie is dropping like a stone. He's down to 36%. That's going on a 15 point drop from where he was just a couple months ago. Also worth noting, independent candidate Chris Daggett is up to 20% in this poll. If he's really at 20%, that gets you into pretty volatile territory where something unexpected could happen.

Obama comments on the White House war on Fox News. He says he's not losing any sleep over it, but stokes the fire. Watch.

Or make that Hindu. Same difference, right?

Elizabeth Warren says the White House slashing of executive pay at bailed out firms is for "real." That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Last night my wife and I got a chance to attend the American premiere of Killing Kasztner, a documentary about a scandal from 1950s Israel. The movie opens in New York on Friday.

It's a topic that is not easy to describe briefly. But the gist is that Rezso Kasztner was a Hungarian Jew who saved at least 1600 and perhaps many more thousands of Hungarian Jews by negotiating with and bribing very high ranking Nazis, including Adolph Eichmann. After the war, in Israel, the entire story was brought to the surface again in a sensational libel trial in which Kasztner, then living in Israel and working as a minor government official, was eventually cast as a collaborator. He was assassinated in 1957 in Tel Aviv before being vindicated a year later by the Supreme Court of Israel.

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I've mentioned Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren's decision to quite conspicuously refuse to attend the J Street conference next week. Not content to simply plead a busy schedule, Oren suggested that J Street might be anti-Israel and thus an inappropriate forum for a visit.

But Tzipi Livni, head of the main opposition party, Kadima, has just sent a letter just as conspicuously disassociating herself and her party from Oren's and (more broadly) the Likud government's position.

That is a decision of great significance.

Quite apart from the policy disputes behind the J Street controversy (and Livni makes clear that she is not necessarily on board with all J Street's positions), the Netanyahu government's stance in this case represents a quite novel and very shortsighted decision to, in essence, write off a big chunk of American Jewry and class them amongst Israel's foes. To be fair, much of the dispute here is about how much of American Jewry J Street represents. My hunch is that Oren/Netanyahu are both trying to answer the question by force, as it were -- rhetorical force, but force nonetheless -- but also genuinely misreading where the American Jewish community is on the big issues in the Middle East. Now Livni has made J Street a point of division within Israeli politics as well.

This afternoon, Chris Christie went on CNN during their coverage of the Corzine/Obama rally and got asked two questions on the ethics scandals swirling around him. The hosts asked the key questions but so loosely and inexactly that he was able, essentially, to just say: 'No, I didn't do anything like that.'. But worth a quick look.

TPM's Eric Kleefeld ascends directly to heaven after landing this interview with Congressman and professional quote machine Alan Grayson.

Beneath the pyrotechnics there's the actually very real and serious issue of people who suffer needlessly and even lose their lives because they lack health insurance.

We're watching the Obama-Corzine rally live. See it here.

A few more thoughts on this race. I said a few weeks ago that I had the sense that Christie did not know how or have a plan for closing the deal on this race. The race is still basically tied. So it's not like Christie is out of it by any means. But the final weeks of a campaign is often where you really see what each candidate is made of. And beside falling in the polls (and since Corzine can't seem to get much above 40%, it really is a matter of Christie falling) almost everything Christie has done over the last couple weeks seems aimed at not only losing the race but zeroing out his own personal dignity in advance of election day. It really does seem like all Christie had going for him in this race was Jon Corzine's unpopularity. And given how unpopular Corzine is, that ain't nuthin. But the unpopularity of the other guy is seldom really sufficient if that's literally all you have.

Today Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) launched a site to memorialize those who've lost their lives in America because of inadequate or non-existent health care coverage. But it seems that allowing any reader to upload names (with no editing) that would then run on the front page of the site was not a good plan.

How complicated is intra-Tea Party movement politics?

Well, for starters the more legitimately grassroots faction seems to be the one allied with corporate-cash-backed FreedomWorks. And in the increasingly acrimonious battle, David McKalip, the Florida anti-reform doctor who got caught sending around racist images of President Obama as a witch doctor, has now apparently thrown his lot in with the more bought-and-paid-for consultant run wing of the movement.

Still don't know who's who in Tea Party movement land? Zack Roth explains.

The FBI is once again looking into a land deal involving Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA), an old TPM favorite.

Over the last few days we've noted that Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) appears to be the only high-profile political figure in Louisiana unwilling to speak out against the state Justice of the Peace who won't marry interracial couples. Clearly, Dems want to hit this as a way to show that Vitter has less than sterling civil rights credentials. And at first I had to assume that some of this at least was just a matter of Vitter's office not prioritizing the matter or putting out a statement. But here he's again refusing to say anything negative about the guy or make even a pro forma statement in favor of the right of blacks and whites to marry each other. This shouldn't be that hard a climb, even for a Republican in a Deep South state.

Late Update: Vitter's office has finally responded, in a very telling way, Greg Sargent reports: "Sen. Vitter thinks that all judges should follow the law as written and not make it up as they go along." What? --dk

Special JMM WTF Update: I mean, I keep being surprised at Sen. Vitter's apparently ingrained unwillingness to say that he thinks people of different races should be able to marry. I mean, that's so mid-20th century. Even in the South. We're on to denying marriage rights to gays. Honestly, I'm confounded. What's his resistance? I'm not even talking about whatever Vitter may or may not think personally. What's his resistance politically? In case you haven't seen it, see Vitter's statement here. --jmm

I think the White House went too far by revoking all of Fox's broadcasting licenses.

A lot of Republican senators got tagged as "pro-rape" when they opposed an amendment by Sen. Al Franken that would make it easier for defense contractor employees who are victims of rape to get their day in court. But the Pentagon and White House opposed the Franken amendment, too. Rachel Slajda looks at why.

Senate negotiators and the White House will finally get around to discussing how to handle the public option when they meet tonight.

My favorite part of the pitch for the Get Motivated! arena "seminars" that George and Laura Bush have signed up for is the FAQ section on its website.

Down at No. 27 is: "I'm Unemployed. Will this Seminar Help Me?"

The answer, of course, is "YES!"

How down on your luck would you have to be to pay money to go hear George W. Bush explain to you and a few thousand other people how to get back in the work force?

Of course not. But you sure wouldn't know that if you watched this new web ad from the Christie campaign.

The White House seems to have made an affirmative decision to challenge Fox News directly and aggressively. We take a look at the recent series of rhetorical skirmishes in our This Means War! slideshow.

Rachel Maddow tackles George W. Bush's new motivational speaking gig, which we first reported on yesterday. Watch.

The public is evenly divided on the issue of whether to send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, a new poll shows. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Birther attorney Orly Taitz intends to appeal the $20,000 fine levied on her by a federal judge for her conduct in a birther lawsuit. She claims the judge's "remarks amounted to nothing short of political lynching, which turned into feast and celebration by the media mob."

President Obama, rallying support this evening for health care reform through a webcast to Organizing for America:

Sometimes Democrats can be their own worst enemies, Democrats are an opinionated bunch ... y'all are thinking for yourselves. I like that in you, but it's time for us to make sure that we finish the job here. We are this close and we've got to be unified.

Christina Bellantoni has more.

Based on the latest CBO estimate of the cost of the House health care reform bill, Speaker Pelosi will move ahead with the most "robust" form of public option, Brian Beutler reports.

Former President George W. Bush has signed up to be the "special guest speaker" for one of those traveling arena-size motivational speaker extravaganzas:

Bush's first "Get Motivated!" gig is next Monday in Fort Worth. He does a second one in December in San Antonio.

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Was the NASA scientist who thought he was spying for Israel in what turned out to be a FBI sting really spying for India?

Okay, I don't totally believe the import of the title of the post. But it does show what weird statistics you can come up with when you start asking all sorts of funny questions.

How many Republicans think President Obama loves America? According to this new poll, 27%.

Earlier we noted the unfortunate incident in which the moderate Republican candidate in the NY-23 special election, Dede Scozzafava, called the police on a reporter from The Weekly Standard after what they considered his overly aggressive questioning. The Standard is supporting the right-wing Conservative Party contender (that's a party in New York state) candidate Doug Hoffman.

Now the Scozzafava campaign has taken the unusual step of sharing its email correspondence with the Standard as evidence of the publication's villainy.

Organizing For America is about to hit its goal of 100,000 calls to members of Congress today on health care reform.

An actual Chamber of Commerce spokesperson bursts in to interrupt the Yes Men's fake Chamber presser yesterday at the National Press Club. Pretty classic. Watch.

Teaming together the low-poll-support axis of Paterson and Gillibrand seems to be making decent progress in finding a way to help Rudy Giuliani find a way to get back into elective office.

If there were still any Democrats thinking former VA Gov. Doug Wilder might lend a hand to the struggling Deeds campaign, they probably won't be too happy about his latest comments.

From South Carolina comes news that many hardcore Republicans don't just like Israel. They've also become big admirers of my people's financial practices -- or at least their impression of them.

Two supporters of Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) say DeMint's so thrifty and penny-pinching with taxpayer dollars that he's like the "wealthy Jews" who count every penny to build their wealth.

DeMint called the unwelcome praise for Israelitish financial practices "thoughtless and hurtful." And the supporters have now apologized.

We've been following pretty closely the efforts of the health care industry to beat back reform, but this is the first time I've seen a hospital canceling surgeries so doctors could protest. At least that's according to this tweet from Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI):

To be clear, this is a protest over a proposed new state law in Michigan, opposed by Republicans and supported by Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm, not a direct response to federal health care reform.

Pat Buchanan: America belongs to white people.

Chris Christie

I don't think there's much question that the beginning of this campaign is turning out to have been a lot more fun for Chris Christie than the end of it. Let's not forget, of course, that the race seems at worst tied for Christie. So it's important not to exaggerate his problems.

But the revelations in today's Times are really pretty damning when you put it together with all we've learned about Christie's tenure at US Attorney and his relationship with his deputy Michele Brown. Chris Christie would be far, far from the first prosecutor to have used his office as a launching pad for political office. But seldom do you have such detailed and specific evidence for how a former prosecutor used his office by remote control -- after he left the job -- to game the election contest he was involved in.

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Reggie Love, President Obama's personal aide, drives to the basket.

This and other scenes from the October at the White House in today's October at the White House Slideshow.

Joe Biden departs today on his canceled-missile-defense-shield-reassurance tour of Eastern Europe. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

From TPM Reader MA ...

I think Fox has made a mistake in this tiff with the White House. By conceding that their evening talk lineup is biased, they've made it easier to nail them down on the specifics of their news lineup. For starters, Megyn Kelly is a big part of their daytime "news" lineup, and is perhaps the most biased anchor on the network besides Beck.

More importantly, they've actually entered a debate about what their programming is, perhaps for the first time. Before they just said "fair and balanced" and then chuckled to themselves. But now they are part of an actual debate and thus have to defend their record. For example, would someone ask the Fox news spokesperson why Fox's news anchors continue to refer to suicide bombers by the Bush administration's favored term "homicide bomber?"

Earlier this evening I watched a segment on the Newshour about the now-open feud between the Obama White House and Fox News. The segment ran a quote from a Fox News exec who took the White House to task for not distinguishing between Fox's talk shows -- which lean heavily right -- and its straight news which supposedly adheres to traditional standards of fairness, objectivity and editorial integrity. What surprised me is that the host and the guests seemed, at least implicitly, to grant this distinction.

At TPM we have all the cable channels running through the day in our news room. So I think we collectively can count ourselves as experts at cable news watching -- admittedly a rather dubious honor. And the whole point of Fox is that no distinction exists.

I'm sure there are legit, ethical journalists in the organization (in fact, I've known several of them. And God help them.) And there are standouts like Shep Smith who goes off the reservation with some regularity. But as a product the straight news is almost more the stuff of parody than the talk shows which are at least more or less straightforward about what they are.

As we know, MSNBC has now made a big push to refashion itself as a liberal or perhaps just non-hard-right-wing alternative to Fox. But the distinction between the two operations becomes clear whenever you watch 'news' on MSNBC as opposed to Maddow, Olbermann or Ed.

If you actually watch Fox News with any regularity it's hard to see any point to discussing the fact that the station operates more or less openly as a wing of the GOP. The more interesting question is whether and (I would say) how news organizations with strong editorial viewpoints can maintain the highest standards of journalistic integrity, fairness and reportorial excellence. That's a critical question for journalism today because in many ways that is the direction much if not all reportage is going. But it's a conversation Fox isn't even a part of except as the paradigmatic example of how it's not done.

As business, a thing of genius. As journalism, really?

A thoughtful piece in the Associated Baptist Press on theology, ideology, and all those virulent Obama email chains:

So, why are Christians so willing to believe unsubstantiated rumors? And more troubling, why are Christians, who should hold the highest standards of truth-telling, so eager to spread such rumors -- and even downright libels?

Worth a read.

The Secret Service is getting tasked with investigating so many different threats to President Obama's life that it lacks the budget and staff to keep up with them all.

Can we get more attention on this now that it's a fiscal discipline issue? Do you feel reassured?

If you're not in the room, you're out of the loop as Harry Reid, Max Baucus, Chris Dodd and the White House work to hammer out a bill that merges competing versions of health care reform. Christina Bellantoni reports on the big huddle.

As long as the White House remains non-committal on a public option, a top Hill aide tells TPMDC, it won't make it into the Senate health care bill.

One of the big lessons of dealing with a political scandal is that you want your first story to be one you don't have to drop completely after two or three days. But that's what's happened to Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN) and his piggybank non-profit, the Frontier Foundation. Frontier has raised over $800,000 for scholarships for deserving youth and managed not to award a single scholarship in its six years of existence.

Last week Buyer's spokesperson claimed, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, that Frontier wasn't connected to him. But now he's admitting that for all intents and purposes he controls it. And a lot of the quarter million the outfit has spent so far seems to have gone to golf junkets with political contributors.

You may remember earlier in the year when Florida Gov. Charlie Crist appeared with President Obama at an event drumming up support for the stimulus bill. But an increasingly strong challenge from conservative primary challenger Marco Rubio seems to have reshuffled Crist's priorities.

Today he's out with a new radio ad attacking Obama's plan to "spend our way into prosperity or tax or way into growth. I say its time to take some Florida common sense to Washington. Let's cut federal spending and let you decide how to spend your own money."

On a conference call a few moments ago, Sen. Baucus told reporters that a 'public option' is still very much a live option for the final health care reform bill. They just need to decide what 'public option' means.

Okay. We've confirmed who was behind the Climate Change hoax pulled on the Chamber of Commerce. Find out who.

It is our somber duty to inform you that four Republican members of Congress appear not have the courage of their own shameless convictions. You'll remember, last week four GOP members of the House -- Reps. Broun, Shadegg, Myrick and Franks -- came forward to announce a conspiracy to infiltrate secret Muslim intern spies on to key committees on Capitol Hill. The four said that in addition to alerting the Justice Department and the IRS they were asking the House Sergeant at Arms to investigate the threat.

We have, of course, been closely monitoring the story. But as of today, none of the four have actually brought the matter to the Sergeant at Arms. The office of Sue Myrick, the apparent leader of the group, told us that she plans to bring the matter to the Sergeant at Arms in the next few days but did not explain the delay.

Were the Yes Men behind Chamber of Commerce/Climate Change hoax?

We're still trying to get the exact details. But the Chamber of Commerce this morning was apparently the victim (if you can call it that) of an elaborate hoax in which it was claimed that the Chamber had decided to go along with robust Climate Change legislation. Reuters seems to have fallen for it. And as we speak the Times and the Post both have wire stories up reporting the Chamber's dramatic shift. More shortly.

Late Update: The chamber confirms it was punk'd. We're nailing down the details on who was behind the hoax.

Later Update: Read the fake press release announcing that the Chamber of Commerce had suddenly gone green.

Corzine trying to distract voters by bringing popular national Dems into the state to campaign with him.

In other contexts this wouldn't be a bad angle for Christie. But there seems to be widespread agreement that despite the manifest unpopularity of Corzine's tenure as governor, Christie's the one who won't discuss specifics or policy particulars in the campaign. So he seems ill-equipped to make this argument.

Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) remains the only major/high-profile Louisiana pol not to denounce or speak out on JP Keith Bardwell, the Justice of the Peace who refuses to marry interracial couples. Jindal and Landrieu have already said he should go.

Do we need comprehensive health care at all? Of any type, left or right? No, says Michael Steele.

The Senate Finance Committee vote was a relatively small procedural hurdle in itself -- despite all the hoopla. But it was a useful marker, distinguishing between a period when a lot of the health care politicking was done in the open and now when most of it is being done behind closed doors. Today, that's what we're trying to get a handle on -- a series of behind closed door meeting involving various key senators and (we're still trying to confirm this latter point) White House officials to hammer out strategy for getting from this point to an eventual bill.

Also of interest, we're getting close to the small number of high-profile races at the beginning of the next month. The big races, of course, are the NJ and VA governor's races. But there are also new signs that the Crist-Rubio primary in Florida may turn out to be a real race. We'll be taking stock of each of these races today and also looking at the campaigning President Obama is going to be doing in these key contests.

Send us your comments and pointers.

Public option supporters press Sen. Lincoln (D-AR) in online chat.

PA GOP rolls out new ad with hammer and sickle 'O' in Obama's name.

A new progressive TV ad campaign is on the air in Nevada asking: "Is Harry Reid strong enough?"

In a policy change, the Obama Administration will turn a blind eye to medical marijuana use in states that allow it. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.