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- The reaction to Barack Obama's latest ad on the economy appears mixed (see Tim's take). It's not terribly wonky, which is good, but it isn't light on specifics, either. The next logical step is to argue that you can't trust John McCain on the economy, which ought not to be too hard given McCain's many years of being the consummate Washington insider with a small army of lobbyists running his campaign and a policy record of opposing government regulation until it became all the rage of the federal government.
- In other campaign-advertising news, Marc Ambinder breaks down ad spending for each campaign by state, and discovers that it has been Obama who has been running more negative ads, not McCain. Indeed, I rather like this Spanish-language ad that links John McCain to Rush "Mexicans are stupid and unqualified" Limbaugh. This comes on top of a David Plouffe vow to sink $39 million into Florida on advertising, staff, infrastructure and GOTV efforts.
- An anonymous source inside the McCain campaign claims that "Senator McCain was furious" over comments made by Carly Fiorina yesterday, and that "Carly will now disappear" from the television screen.
- The AFL-CIO and Working America are sending out a mailer to 1.5 million households in critical swing states in an effort to win back working-class votes from John McCain.
- Sarah Palin's personal e-mail account was hacked (more accurately, cracked) and its contents leaked onto the Internet, according to Gawker. More interesting is the fact that Palin used the account for state's business, instead of using the official governor's e-mail address, and thus avoided disclosure rules. Viva government secrecy!
- Quote of the Day, from Barack Obama: "John McCain actually said that if he's president, he'll take on the -- and I quote -- 'ol' boys' network' in Washington. I am not making this up. This is someone who's been in Congress for 26 years -- who put seven of the most powerful Washington lobbyists in charge of his campaign -- and now he tells us that he's the one who will take on the ol' boys network. The ol' boys' network? In the McCain campaign, that's called a staff meeting."
- Hillary Clinton will reportedly not appear with Sarah Palin at a protest against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the UN on Sept. 22, contrary to earlier reports.
- And Finally, where would we be without Mitt Romney? The former MA governor criticizes Obama's sex-ed policy, remarking that "the only sex education that’s appropriate in kindergarten is no sex education." The only problem, as Think Progress reports, is that during Romney's tenure as governor, "Massachusetts established a set of K-12 goals for the teaching of sex education prior to Romney’s term as governor. 'Those standards remained in place' during his tenure and 'he did not challenge them.'" God, I love me some Mittens.
--Mori Dinauer