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- John McCain unveiled his missing economic plan yesterday, a $52 billion package aimed mostly at older voters, although there seems to be some internal campaign confusion as to why it wasn't released Monday as originally planned.
- The national GOP has fallen on hard times, as Politico reports on the party's plans to take out a $5 million loan to protect embattled senators while leaving up-and-coming talent to fend for themselves. Meanwhile, the RNC is flexing its financial muscle, dropping the same amount on advertising attacking Barack Obama and the Democratic ticket.
- The Anchorage Daily News isn't feeling too chummy with Sarah Palin these days. In a nasty editorial concerning Palin's insistence that her breach of ethics guidelines doesn't indicate wrongdoing, the paper concluded Palin is "either astoundingly ignorant or downright Orwellian." The piece goes on to describe Palin's response as "the kind of political 'big lie' that George Orwell warned against" and that "her Orwellian claims of "vindication" make this blemish on her record look even worse." That's a whole lot of Orwell.
- Over at The Corner, Stanley Kurtz is starting to put the pieces together: "I think I’ve figured out what’s had the Obama camp so worried about the Chicago Annenberg Challenge records. It goes way beyond Bill Ayers. In fact, it connects the dots between Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, and Obama’s own early radicalism." Wow, it's like the Rosetta Stone and The Divinci Code all rolled into one!
- A Daily Kos diarist has compiled an extensive collection of Republican re-election Web site screenshots that studiously avoid noting their own party affiliation. You'd almost think they comprised their own third party at this point.
- Barack Obama has purchased some virtual ad space, in the form of billboards featured in the XBox 360 car racing game, Burnout Paradise. Will they age better or worse than bumper stickers from years past?
- V. Lance Tarrance Jr., pollster for George Deukmejian in his race against Tom Bradley in 1982 and 1986, has a fascinating piece at RealClearPolitics on the exaggeration of the much ballyhooed "Bradley Effect."
- And finally, stumping for Barack Obama in Ohio, Sherrod Brown tells supporters they ought to watch Fox News on Election Night -- not because of the quality of the news, but instead to watch Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly squirm as they're forced to declare an Obama presidency. "And the crowd went wild," the Fox Embeds blog concludes.
--Mori Dinauer
