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- Colin Powell thoughtfully and unambiguously endorsed Barack Obama on Sunday and while Powell's reputation amongst liberals isn't going to be salvaged by this, neither should we expect the reaction from the right to be any more sympathetic. Of course, the only people who will be swayed by Powell are as-yet undecided moderate Republican or Republican-leaning voters who presumably are just as repelled by the modern GOP as Powell is. I suspect this cohort is pretty small.
- Barack Obama raised $150 million in September, a record, which he'll throw on the pile along with some portion of the DNC's $50 million haul. The DCCC, wanting to capitalize on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for picking up seats, has secured a $15 million loan from Bank of America for the final stretch. Meanwhile, the RNC pulled in $66 million last month and John McCain appears to be down to his last $47 million for the month of October.
- In other fundraising news, Elwyn Tinklenberg, running for Minnesota's sixth congressional seat, raised nearly half a million dollars in the 24 hours following incumbent Michele Bachmann's late Friday Hardball appearance, where the Ann Coulter-esque Republican passionately condemned Democrats' "anti-American" activities.
- Jon Meachham's Newsweek cover story, arguing that America is, was, and always shall be a center-right nation, is long on sentiment and short on evidence. Oh, sure, he notes the obvious -- the winning plurality of self-identified "conservatives" (whatever that means) and Republican dominance of the White House for the past 40 years (tied for the last 48) -- but fails to make a novel, convincing argument. Andrew Gelman looks at the evidence from political science and concludes that "the center," whatever that happens to be, is constantly shifting from year to year, making sweeping proclamations of a static "center-right" or "center-left" nation seem a bit trivial.
- CNN's Political Tracker blog decided to look into the issue of real vs. fake Virginia and discovered that John McCain has spent less time in "real" Virginia than his opponent. But CNN doesn't seem to realize that that was so last week's McCain. The new line of attack is to tag Obama's tax plan as "socialist." Whatever happened to the "Dime-store New Deal?"
- Walter Shapiro has a piece in Salon that explains why Indiana -- which hasn't voted a Democrat for president since LBJ -- is going blue this year: It's the economy, stupid.
- Saturday's Washington Post had a front-page story on the continuing process of voter purges that could cause thousands to be disenfranchised without warning come Election Day.
- Can you guess which Cornerite wrote the following? It's really one for the ages: "Palin didn't need Greek columns. People react to her because they believe she represents what the Greeks established." Oh, so that's what these lovely McCain-Palin supporters were shouting about in this wonderful demonstration of the Greek demos. Or this civic-minded protest of people legally casting their vote in North Carolina. (Although, as Sam shares, there might yet be hope.)
- You might think, as I did, that there's not too much new information to discuss vis-a-vis the presidential race. But no! Politico reports on the "mystery man" who has lent support to Barack Obama since 2004. So very mysterious!
--Mori Dinauer
