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- Twelve days out and McCain's electoral strategy appears to be non-existent. Yesterday, it seemed like he was going to focus on Pennsylvania but today we learn that the campaign is spending less on advertising in Pennsylvania, along with Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Colorado.
- In other PA news, Rep. Jack Murtha's comments that the district he represents is essentially Racist County, USA, isn't going over too well with his constituents, and retired Lt. Col. William Russell is closing the gap in PA-12. Meanwhile, Karl Rove channels his inner Obama, telling Hannity and Colmes that Murtha's district is "a conservative part of the state, and then if you take the far southwestern corner over there near Pittsburgh and the suburbs, that’s coal country, and that’s the kind of people who really do cling to their guns and their faith, and took a lot of -- you know that was part of the state where Obama might be expected to do well."
- CQ Politics has a piece that demonstrates that Michele Bachmann is hardly alone in her "anti-Americans in our midst" rhetoric: "Amid a backlash against Republicans who have challenged their colleagues’ loyalty to America or Americans on the campaign trail, a review of the Congressional Record reveals that similar rhetoric has been in use in the House chamber, as well. In particular, the term “anti-American” has been hurled freely in floor debates by a pair of junior GOP stalwarts, Reps. Virginia Foxx and Ted Poe. Poe stops short of calling colleagues anti-American, reserving that for institutions and individuals outside of Congress, but Foxx has angered Democrats by aiming the epithet at them."
- Chuck Todd looks at early voting numbers and concludes Democrats are doubling the GOP turnout day after day and that "the ground game -- it is just absent."
- Emily Heffter of The Seattle Times pens a story claiming falsely that Democratic candidate Darcy Burner lied about having a degree in economics from Harvard (Fair Harvard doesn't have minors and awards degrees in an old timey way). Matt Stoller provides the necessary correction -- as do dozens others in the original story's comment thread.
- Marc Ambinder takes a closer look at the AP/GFK-Roper poll from yesterday that showed a narrow, 2-point Obama lead and learns that the percentage of self-described evangelicals in the sample was 44 percent -- almost double the average other pollsters use and 21 points higher than the 2004 exit poll found. Heckuva job.
- You'd think the wingnuts would be all over Obama's remarks that he'd be open to negotiations with the Taliban, but then they'd have to reconcile this with the fact that their hero Gen. David Petraeus holds the same view, and that would violate the solemn winger oath to never hold contradictory positions in order to score cheap political points.
- McCain issues a challenge: "I love it when they say, 'Oh McCain has changed.' And I say, 'What have I changed on?' They can’t name a single issue or they’ll name an issue and its false. I’m the same guy." The helpful folks over at Think Progress have a list of at least 44 instances where McCain has flip-flopped since running for president in 2000.
- Mike Madden and Walter Shapiro have a list of "the punditocracy's seven biggest blunders" in the 2008 election. Ah, memories. My favorite is number 7: "The Hillary Holdouts Will Never Come Back."
--Mori Dinauer
