Here are some excerpts from the latest Harper's Index (not yet on-line):

And, oh yes, the percentage of Americans under age 25 who would read a text message while having sex? 11.

• • • • •

At Daily Kos on this date in 2008:

Tonight's Rescue is brought to you by Alfonso Nevarez, YatPundit, dadanation, shayera, vcmvo2, grog, and pico.

Diary Rescue is all about promoting good writers, so remember to subscribe to diarists whose work you enjoy reading.

• mikepridmore connects the dots between Karl Rove and his long-standing relationship with the Chamber of Commerce in Unmasking Rove and the Chamber. (vcmvo2)
• Is Japan Underrated? According to randomfacts, 5 key errors have misled economists into believing Japan's woes were worse than they actually are. (Alfonso Nevarez)
• ladywithafan's First Diary: My letter to GA. Attorney General, will give you a headache while highlighting the mess that is the foreclosure crisis. (grog)
• Ojibwa presents one of the first great civilizations to settle the Mississippi in Ancient America: Cahokia. (Alfonso Nevarez)
• DaNang65 has some Some Good News for Indian Country involving affordable housing for disabled Native American vets. (grog)
• As Congress continues to defer the dreams of young immigrants, Elisa asks, Why Do Moms DREAM? (Alfonso Nevarez)
• As part of the EcoJustice series, boatsie reports on efforts to plant trees and better manage local flooding in Los Angeles: ecojustice: "where am i needed, how can i help?" (grog)
• FullChat uses some good, old fashioned, quantitative research to remind us why the GOP has no credibility on the economy. (Alfonso Nevarez)
• Teenaged Pundit has the perfect tonic for you if the election campaign reading has you down: Two Weeks. (dadanation)

jotter has High Impact Diaries: October 18, 2010.

brillig has Top Comments - Heard After School Edition.

Please suggest your own and use as an open thread.

Amid rain, thunder, and lightning here in SoCal (a phenomenon we see in this part of the state about once every other year), there is also no small amount of turbulence on the polling front. No small amount of volume, either, as we head north of the half century mark yet again. The final tally for a wet Tuesday afternoon: 52 polls.

And what does that deluge of data reveal? Well, in the world of internal polling, the NRCC unloads a prodigious dump, with numbers that are predictably wretched for Democrats.

However, non-partisan polling tells a different story today, with a trio of House Democrats looking better now than they have ever looked in this cycle. News on the Senate and gubernatorial front also shows marked improvement for the blue team.

All that (and more!) in the Tuesday edition of the Wrap...

THE U.S. SENATE

• California Senate (SurveyUSA):

  Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) 46%, Carly Fiorina (R) 44%, Others 6%

• Colorado Senate (Ipsos/Reuters):

  Ken Buck (R) 48%, Sen. Michael Bennet (D) 45%

• Illinois Senate (Anzalone Liszt--D):

  Alexi Giannoulias (D) 41%, Mark Kirk (R) 36%, Others 7%

• Kentucky Senate (Bennett Petts Normington--D):

  Jack Conway (D) 49%, Rand Paul (R) 47%

• Maryland Senate (Gonzales Research):

  Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D) 55%, Eric Wargotz (R) 38%

• New York Senate "A" (New York Times):

  Sen. Charles Schumer (D) 61%, Jay Townsend (R) 21%

• New York Senate "B" (New York Times):

  Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) 50%, Joe DioGuardi (R) 25%

• North Carolina Senate (PPP):

  Sen. Richard Burr (R) 48%, Elaine Marshall (D) 40%, Others 3%

• Oregon Senate (PPP/DK):

  Sen. Ron Wyden (D) 56%, Jim Huffman (R) 40%

• Pennsylvania Senate (PPP):

  Joe Sestak (D) 46%, Patrick Toomey (R) 45%

• Washington Senate (PPP):

  Sen. Patty Murray (D) 49%, Dino Rossi (R) 47%

• Wisconsin Senate (St. Norberts College):

  Ron Johnson (R) 49%, Sen. Russ Feingold (D) 47%

THE ANALYSIS: It is hard to find a better polling day for Senate Democrats in recent weeks, if not months. Indeed, you have to go back to August to find a poll showing Jack Conway in the lead in Kentucky. Furthermore, you have to go back to May to find a poll with Joe Sestak staked to even a fractional lead over Republican Pat Toomey. The best news, perhaps, is for Wisconsin's Russ Feingold, who is close to being all-square with Ron Johnson in today's poll from St. Norbert's College. What's more: the SNC poll had the GOP up nine in the gubernatorial race, and up fourteen on the generic congressional ballot. Therefore, it is going to be very tough for the doubters to impeach this particular poll.

THE U.S. HOUSE

• Arizona-03 (PPP/DK):

  Jon Hulburd (D) 46%, Ben Quayle (R) 44%

• Florida-02 (Susquehanna--R):

  Steve Southerland (R) 50%, Rep. Allen Boyd (D) 38%, Others 5%

• Florida-08 (On Message--R):

  Dan Webster (R) 46%, Rep. Alan Grayson (D) 30%

• Illinois-17 (NRCC Internal Poll--R):

  Bobby Schilling (R) 44%, Rep. Phil Hare (D) 41%

• Maine-01 (Pan Atlantic SMS Omnibus):

  Rep. Chellie Pingree (D) 49%, Dean Scontras (R) 33%

• Maine-02 (Pan Atlantic SMS Omnibus):

  Rep. Mike Michaud (D) 49%, Jason Levesque (R) 29%

• Massachusetts-04 (Kiley--D):

  Rep. Barney Frank (D) 56%, Sean Bielat (R) 37%

• Massachusetts-10 (NRCC Internal Poll--R):

  Jeff Perry (R) 44%, Bill Keating (D) 42%

• New York-19 (Monmouth Univ):

  Rep. John Hall (D) 49%, Nan Hayworth (R) 48%

• New York-20 (NRCC Internal Poll--R):

  Chris Gibson (R) 48%, Rep. Scott Murphy (D) 45%

• Ohio-06 (NRCC Internal Poll--R):

  Rep. Charlie Wilson (D) 40%, Bill Johnson (R) 40%

• Ohio-15 (Public Opinion Strategies--R):

  Steve Stivers (R) 51%, Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (D) 39%

• Oregon-05 (NRCC Internal Poll--R):

  Scott Bruun (R) 44%, Rep. Kurt Schrader (D) 42%

• Pennsylvania-03 (Fabrizio McLaughlin--R):

  Mike Kelly (R) 56%, Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (D) 39%

• Pennsylvania-10 (NRCC Internal Poll):

  Tom Marino (R) 41%, Rep. Chris Carney (D) 37%

• Utah-01 (Dan Jones and Associates):

  Rep. Rob Bishop (R) 67%, Morgan Bowen (D) 22%, Others 4%

• Utah-02 (Dan Jones and Associates):

  Rep. Jim Matheson (D) 57%, Morgan Philpot (R) 31%, Others 3%

• Utah-03 (Dan Jones and Associates):

  Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R) 67%, Karen Hyer (D) 19%, Others 2%

• Virginia-09 (NRCC Internal Poll):

  Rep. Rick Boucher (D) 44%, Morgan Griffith (R) 44%

• Washington-03 (American Viewpoint--R):

  Jaime Herrera (R) 51%, Denny Heck (D) 38%

• Wisconsin-07 (We Ask America--R):

  Sean Duffy (R) 46%, Julie Lassa (D) 39%

THE ANALYSIS: If, on balance, the numbers in the House races don't look pretty today, it is likely because about half of the numbers emanate from Republican pollsters. Many of those polls, for what it is worth, have been contradicted...and recently...by public polling. For example, SUSA had Rick Boucher up double digits in VA-09 just a few days ago, and last week's installment of polls from The Hill had Denny Heck within two points of Jaime Herrera in WA-03. Public polling, meanwhile, shows three House Democrats doing better than ever. Even in conservative Utah, Jim Matheson looks better than ever. Meanwhile, all the way across the country, Mike Michaud's once-tenuous lead is now up to twenty points, according to a new poll out today. Finally, Monmouth puts sophomore Democrat John Hall in a position he has not seen at all during this campaign--the lead (albeit by a single point).

THE GUBERNATORIAL RACES

• California Governor (SurveyUSA):

  Jerry Brown (D) 47%, Meg Whitman (R) 40%, Others 8%

• California Governor (Tarrance Group--R):

  Jerry Brown (D) 46%, Meg Whitman (R) 46%

• Colorado Governor (Reuters/Ipsos):

  John Hickenlooper (D) 46%, Tom Tancredo (I) 35%, Dan Maes (R) 14%

• Georgia Governor (Insider Advantage):

  Nathan Deal (R) 45%, Roy Barnes (D) 40%, John Monds (L) 5%

• Maine Governor (Pan Atlantic SMS Omnibus):

  Paul LePage (R) 33%, Libby Mitchell (D) 28%, Eliot Cutler (I) 14%

• Maryland Governor (Gonzales Research):

  Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) 47%, Robert Ehrlich (R) 42%

• Ohio Governor (Quinnipiac):

  John Kasich (R) 51%, Gov. Ted Strickland (D) 41%

• Oregon Governor (PPP/DK):

  John Kitzhaber (D) 48%, Chris Dudley (R) 47%

• South Carolina Governor (Crantford and Associates):

  Nikki Haley (R) 43%, Vincent Sheheen (D) 41%

THE ANALYSIS: Team Strickland was quick to lay the wood to the new Q poll numbers in the Buckeye State. They are skeptical (and, it would seem, justifiably so) about Quinnipiac's finding that John Kasich has a 27-point lead among Independents. They also point out the fact (tweeted plenty earlier today), that Strickland's internals have the Democrat up two...and even Kasich's internals have Strickland down by just two points. In other news, it looks like former SC state Democratic Chairman Dick Harpootlian might have had a legitimate beef when he complained that lack of national support was denying Democrats in a winnable race--a new poll out of the Palmetto State has Democrat Vincent Sheheen closer than he has ever been to GOP poster child Nikki Haley. Meanwhile, even GOP pollsters can't find a poll putting their candidate out front--the best they can muster is a Meg Whitman tie. A poll which was rebutted within hours by a SUSA poll showing Brown ahead by seven points, with only 5% of voters undecided.

THE RAS-A-POLL-OOZA
The House of Ras doubles up on a Tuesday, with a quartet of their own polls supplemented by seven different races sponsored by Fox News and conducted by their Pulse Research subsidiary. In most cases, the numbers reflect a tightening, relative to where the Ras-sies had these races previously. This is particularly true in Colorado, Kentucky, and Florida, where they more than halved the lead for Republican Marco Rubio from just last week.

Still, you can't keep the Ras-sies down: they are pretty much the only pollster left that has John Raese up on top of Joe Manchin in West Virginia.

CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 48%, Meg Whitman (R) 43%, Others 4%*
CA-Sen: Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) 48%, Carly Fiorina (R) 44%, Others 3%*
CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 45%, Tom Tancredo (C) 40%, Dan Maes (R) 10%*
CO-Sen: Ken Buck (R) 46%, Sen. Michael Bennet (D) 45%*
FL-Sen: Marco Rubio (R) 43%, Charlie Crist (I) 32%, Kendrick Meek (D) 20%
KY-Sen: Rand Paul (R) 47%, Jack Conway (D) 42%
MI-Gov: Rick Snyder (R) 54%, Virg Bernero (D) 34%, Others 4%
MO-Sen: Roy Blunt (R) 49%, Robin Carnahan (D) 43%, Others 3%*
NV-Gov: Brian Sandoval (R) 56%, Rory Reid (D) 37%, Others 2%
WV-Sen: John Raese (R) 48%, Joe Manchin (D) 45%*

(*)--Fox News/Pulse Opinion Research polling

   This Rescue Diary covers the period from 6 PM, Monday, 10/18 to 6:00 PM EDT, Tuesday, 10/19

Today's Menu Includes :
72 Diaries Overall

- 16 On House races

- Covering 13 individual Districts in 11 states

- 32 On Senate races

- Representing 8 different states

- 12 On Various election races and ballot issues

- Encompassing Governor, Secretary of State, Local, and more

- 12 General election-related diaries

And be sure to follow the Election Diary Rescue on Twitter

Stop in and have a look around!

The nightly Election Diary Rescue is a collection of work written over the previous 24 hours by fellow Kossacks, many of whom are, themselves, candidates for office. Our crew would love to collect more of your work, particularly on those candidates or election-related items that may not be seeing as much daylight.

But if you can't contribute a diary of your own, at the very least please click the link below and just check out the provided summaries of today's compilation. Overall we have 72 to diaries to choose from tonight. You might be surprised, as many of these are on topics or people that don't receive Front Page or rec list attention, but are very worthy of our support.

The days are dwindling to a precious few and every race, every issue every vote matters as much as it ever has. Take a look and see what tonight EDR has in store...

(Tonight's compilation and more after the jump............)

Well, this is kind of embarrassing for a sitting member of Congress who just participated in a major financial reform overhaul.

Earlier this year, as the financial reform debate was taking shape in D.C., one idea on the table, promoted by U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell and U.S. Sen. John McCain, was reinstituting the Glass-Steagall Act, a Depression-era reform that put a firewall between Wall Street investment banks and Main Street commercial banks....

On Saturday, Rep. Reichert, for his part, was caught at a candidate forum at the Newcastle chamber, clueless as to what Glass-Steagall even is....

Question from the audience: “I agree with you that overregulation is not a good thing, but do you think that they should reinstate The Glass-Steagall Act and at least separate the banks’ ability to gamble with our money?”

Reichert:

“Well, the Glass-Steagall Act is one that I’m not familiar with. I’m sorry I have to go back and look at that, but I do agree it’s something that we haven’t dealt with on the House side in committees that I’ve had, so I’d be happy to look at that and come back and give you an answer on that.”

Watch (and note what sounds like an incredulous laugh when Reichert admits his ignorance):

And that's after the questioner gave him a big fat clue: "at least separate the banks’ ability to gamble with our money?” Not to mention the months and months of debate over financial reform in Congress this year, which Reichert seems to have missed. Maybe he was just waiting for his leadership to tell him how to vote and not really paying attention to the debate.

In contrast, here's Dem candidate Suzan DelBene back in June in an interview with PubliCola, arguing for a modern version of Glass-Steagall."

We could help raise the IQ in the House at least marginally by booting Reichert and by helping Suzan DelBene get to Congress.

The most winnable race of the cycle the DSCC has ignored is the Senate race in North Carolina, where the party committee took one look at Democrat Eliane Marshall's cash on hand numbers and decided to go play elsewhere. And yes, after the second quarter, it was bleak. After her protracted primary, Marshall had less than $200,000 in the bank compared to incumbent Republican Richard Burr's $6 million.

Yet we've seen the last several cycles that the money race isn't really about who has more, but whether the challenger has enough to get his or her message out and a political environment that is receptive to that message.

In North Carolina, Burr has never established any semblance of real popularity, and as such, was always a prime target. Yet Marshall's money situation spurred Democrats to ignore Burr's weaknesses -- a decision that they may regret in two weeks:

The good news for Marshall is that she's picking up undecided voters and closing the gap against Burr. She now trails by 8 points, 48-40, after facing a 13 point deficit against Burr three weeks ago. She's starting to shore up her support with the base, getting 73% of Democrats compared to 65% in the previous poll.

And that base is getting larger as the level of interest from Democratic voters picks up with the election moving closer. In late September the likely voter pool for this year voted for John McCain by a 9 point margin, suggesting a massive drop in Democratic turnout given that Barack Obama actually won the state. Now the likely voter pool reflects an electorate that supported McCain by 4 points, still pointing to a decline in Democratic turnout but perhaps not as massive as it looked like it would be earlier in the cycle.

What changed? Like PPP notes, Democrats are coming home. And Marshall is finally on the air, after enduring seven weeks of unanswered Burr attack ads. Despite the disparity in the air war, Burr is still below 50 percent, and Marshall seems to be sucking up all the undecided votes.

Furthermore, 6.2 percent of the vote is already in thanks to North Carolina's early voting. Among the 126,899 ballots received, Democrats have cast 43.5 percent of them compared to 38.8 percent for Republicans.

This one ain't over.

Elaine Marshall for Senate

With the notable exception of California, Democrats are getting good polling news in virtually every competitive Senate campaign. One result of this is that the Senate Snapshot now projects 53 Democratic seats as the most likely outcome if the 2010 elections were completed today.

Senate Competitive Campaigns Chart

Margins are based on the simple average of all published polls in which the majority of interviews were conducted on or after October 8th. No polls will be removed form the averages between now and Election Day. Only campaigns closer than 12.0% are listed. All polls used in the averages are taken from Pollster.com. Click here for the Senate Snapshot methodology.

Seat Outcome Odds Chart

Even though Democrats only lead in enough campaigns to reach 52 seats, the comparatively narrow Republican leads in Nevada, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Colorado make 53 Democratic seats the most likely outcome. Also, polling averages are independent variables, even if campaigns aren't.

***

Even though it has yet to be reflected in House polling, Democrats are definitely improving in the Senate battlegrounds. In addition to Illinois, where Democratic chances appear to be improving quite dramatically, the biggest movement over the past few days has come at the expense of a trio of right-wing primary favorites: Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, Ken Buck in Colorado, and Rand Paul in Kentucky.

All three have, at some point, engaged in high-profile primaries against “establishment” Republicans. All three could boast mid- to high-single-digit advantages until recently, but now lead by 2% or less. So, the tea party didn’t just hand us the Senate seat in Delaware, and keep Harry Reid alive in Nevada. They are screwing up practically the entire Senate battleground for Republicans. Too bad Chuck DeVore didn’t win in California.

How awesome would it be for Democrats to pull off 54, 55 or even 56 Senate seats, because the tea party overplayed the Republican hand? With new polls today showing both Joe Sestak and Jack Conway ahead, that could really happen.

Please, toss in another $10 to Orange to Blue candidates. Let’s keep riding our own enthusiasm wave.

There's nothing the GOP fears most than broad voter participation.

A new group is airing an ad in Nevada telling Hispanic voters not to vote.

The president of Latinos for Reform, Robert Desposada, is a conservative political consultant and political analyst for Univision, but he said the ad is a sincere effort to express Hispanic frustration with the Democrats failure to deliver on immigration reform.

""We're saying what a lot of people are feeling. "It's the only way for Hispanics to stand up and demand some attention," Desposada said, adding that he also couldn't ask voters to support Sharon Angle.

Ha ha ha! The best for Latinos to show their disapproval is to completely tune out of the political process! That'll show them! It's a brilliant tactic!

I have suggestions for Desposada's next round of ads. There should definitely be one asking social conservatives to stay home, because abortion is still legal. By tuning out of the political process, their anti-choice cause will get a huge boost.

Then how about one targeting McCain voters. They certainly didn't get the candidate they wanted, what with Obama winning and all. So sitting out this election will send a powerful message and McCain will suddenly be president. For reals!

And how about an ad targeting anyone thinking Obama was born in Kenya. There has been NO PROGRESS in Congress getting Obama impeached for being a Kenyan communist. They can make their anger heard by doing nothing on Election Day!

But this is the reason Latinos are being targeted:

For the third straight week, the share of Latinos professing an intention to turn out has climbed. This week, 75.1% of Latino registered voters indicated they were “almost certain” to turn out, and this number has increased almost 10% over four weeks ago.

Given that Democrats win Latinos 2-1 or even 3-1, it's bad news for Republicans if they turn out. Pretty powerful motivation to keep them home, huh?

Incidentally, Univision refused to air the ad. It was so craven and stupid, they couldn't bring themselves to take the cash. And quite ironically, this story is ALL the rage in Spanish-language circles. The GOP has just given Democratic GOTV efforts among Latinos a massive boost.

To everyone who fretted that the AquaBuddha ad would backfire on Conway:

A new Democratic poll shows Democrat Jack Conway surging in the Kentucky Senate race. The Bennet, Petts and Normington poll, conducted for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and shared with The Fix, shows Conway at 49 percent and Republican Rand Paul at 47 percent - Conway's best showing in a poll since late June. The poll was conducted Sunday and Monday, a day after Conway's campaign launched a controversial new ad which became the topic du jour in a debate on Sunday night.

Yes, I get that the pundits get sad whenever a Democrat throw a punch. And yes, I know many progressives get nervous around religion, and would rather cede it to the GOP.

But get this -- the ad wasn't for the pundits, it wasn't for nervous liberals, and it wasn't for anyone that doesn't live and vote in Kentucky. And while there's no way to say "the ad is helping Conway", these numbers certainly suggest that it didn't hurt him. Given the race he's run so far, I'm willing to give Conway and his campaign the benefit of the doubt on its choices.

Conway is running a tough, aggressive race. He's got Rand Paul on the ropes and literally freaking out. We can win this, so let's focus on getting Conway across the line, and not whether his ads violated your delicate sensibilities.

The Jerry Brown campaign began airing this fantastic ad on television statewide today, according to Calitics:

Best ad of the cycle so far?

The guy is pathological, and the questions about his goon squad just keep coming.

Miller gave interviews to Fox and CNN on Monday. He told Fox, "I might also note that the middle school itself required us by a contract for a campaign, required us to have a security team." He told CNN, "There was a -- a private security team that was required. We had to hire them because the school required that as a term in their lease."

But district spokeswoman Heidi Embley said that wasn't true.

"We do not require users to hire security," she said. Renters must only have a security plan to protect users and the school itself, she said, and can resolve the issues with "monitors."

Then there's the whole issue of that "secuirty," provided by the army surplus/security detail company Drop Zone (which until yesterday had an expired security license, making their actions even more questionable). Turns out that some of their guards could be facing discipline, because they're active duty soldiers.

The soldiers, Spc. Tyler Ellingboe, 22, and Sgt. Alexander Valdez, 31, are assigned to the 3rd Maneuver Enhancement Brigade at Fort Richardson. Maj. Bill Coppernoll, the public affairs officer for the Army in Alaska, said the two soldiers did not have permission from their current chain of command to work for the Drop Zone, but the Army was still researching whether previous company or brigade commanders authorized their employment.

The Army allows off-duty soldiers to take outside employment if the job doesn't interfere with their readiness, doesn't risk their own injury and doesn't negatively affect the "good order" and discipline of their unit, Coppernoll said.

Yeah, I'm thinking once this video , in which the goons threaten to detain other journalists trying to talk to the detained Alaska Dispatch editor Tony Hopfinger, starts circulating the "good order" and discipline of the soldiers' unit might be negatively affected.

And all Miller had to do was answer a simple question about his previous employment. Lucky for his opponent Scott McAdams, dodging that one question has led to a full week of very bad news about Joe Miller, and the more the story unfolds, the worse it gets.

The AFL-CIO released a memo (PDF) yesterday on its field efforts, and if the claims hold true on Election Day, they may herald a dramatic shift in myriad close races around the country.

The Math – Our Grassroots Program is Moving the Numbers

* In July, when our grassroots program began, the generic battleground congressional ballot among union members was D+8;

* By October 10, our grassroots program moved that number up significantly, to D+25;

* Since these numbers are only as of October 10 we still have nearly a full month of grassroots campaigning to continue to move the numbers.

Senate Math

* Since Labor Day, we have doubled the margin of support for our Senate
candidates among union members.

* For example, in Pennsylvania on Labor Day, Sestak had a slim 45% to 39% lead among union members. Since then, Sestak’s lead has ballooned to 29 points (55% to 26%), a major reason Sestak trails Toomey by a single point in the most recent polls.

* And Pennsylvania is not the exception. Over the last month we have seen similar margins reached for Senators Reid, Boxer, Murray, Feingold and for Giannoulias’s campaign.

* Union members in West Virginia know who is on their side, giving Governor Manchin a whopping 40 point margin.

Per the AFL-CIO's stats, there are 37 competitive House districts with over 40,000 union voters. HI-01 has 87K, NY-24 has 96K, NV-03 has 80K, OH-13 has 95K, PA-12 has 105K. Those are real numbers, and locking down their support for Democratic candidates can be the deciding factor in what will shape up to be tight contests around the country.

Update: Blue Advaark does some math in the comments:

If there are 40k union members, a +8 break is 3200 votes. A +25 break is 10000 votes.

This improvement of ~6800 votes represents roughly 1% of the people in a House district, but of course not everyone is eligible to vote (e.g., children) and not everyone does vote.

Call it an improvement of 3 or 4 percent in 37 competitive House districts. I do believe that counts as good news.

For the past week, the Alaska Senate race has been dominated by the story of Miller's tenure at the Fairbanks North Star Bureau and how his employment there ended. That's the story that prompted the increasingly petulant Miller to declare he would no longer answer questions about his past. That became impossible once his goon squad "arrested" a reporter trying to question Miller about the story. That action made it national news.

And it's what John King wanted to talk about last night on CNN. He finally forced Miller to admit what he's been trying to hide all this time--he was disciplined in that job for violating ethics policy.

On John King's show, Miller first dodged questions about his time at the borough: "I'll admit I'm a man of many flaws. I'm not going to sit back and say that I've conducted my life perfectly. I will tell you that anything that I've done that's not right, it's been accounted for and it's been taken care of and I move on and I learn from mistakes."

King later asked him more directly: "Is this a fair statement in your view? That at the time this happened, you were disciplined for something but it had nothing to do with the reason you left the agency down the road."

"Absolutely, that's a fair statement," Miller said.

That "something" Miller was disciplined for was organizing "a failed effort to oust state Republican Party Chairman Randy Ruedrich" in cahoots with the Palins. Using borough computers for political purposes was frowned upon, not that that would bother Miller. He's got his own rules, just like he has his own "security" force.

Alaska sure as hell deserves better than this, even if they did unleash Sarah Palin on the world. Help  Scott McAdams let Alaska know he's the better bet, with $10, $15 or whatever you can kick in.

While the usual liberal weenies get the vapors, fact is Jack Conway's ad on Rand Paul's religious past is accurate.

The woman, who again asked for anonymity because she's a clinical psychologist who works with former members of the military, including Tea Partyers, said she was surprised that Paul is still refusing to acknowlege his past views and the college antics they spawned.

"My whole point in sharing [the episode] was that Randy used to be a different person with different views that have radically changed, and he's not acknowledging that," she told me. "That is why I shared it in the first place."

She added that his college years and views should raise questions "as to how genuine he is about his beliefs now. I have a hard time seeing how someone who espouses beliefs that he used to would turn around and become a conservative Christian."

She confirmed the ad's accuracy, and wondered aloud why Paul doesn't just admit what occured and move on.

"Yes, he was in a secret society, yes, he mocked religion, yes, the whole Aqua Buddha thing happened," she said. "There was a different side to him at one time and he's pretending that it never existed. If he would just acknowledge it, it would all go away and it wouldn't matter anymore."

Rand Paul is trying to sell the voters of Kentucky an image of himself that doesn't live up to his history. Liberals get the vapors anytime a Democrat throws a punch, demanding that religion be ceded exclusively to the GOP.

This race is closing, even Rasmussen sees serious tightening, and in a tough year, we can pull out a victory in crimson red Kentucky. Yet here we are wasting time and energy defending Jack Conway from liberals getting the vapors over a campaign ad that is factually true. There has probably been more liberal ink spilled on this single ad, than in all the falsehoods in Karl Rove's bullshit ads.

[Karl Rove and the US Chamber] are flooding airwaves across the country with a massive, secret-donor-funded campaign that's designed to tip control of Congress with a campaign of misinformation, distortions and falsehoods that have been widely debunked by independent fact checkers but nonetheless have attracted little to no notice [...]

Rove and the Chamber are laughing all the way to a quasi-bought-and-paid-for Congressional majority. Because the stuff the voters are seeing isn't being challenged in any significant way or subjected to any high-profile media scrutiny -- certainly nothing along the lines of the scrutiny that was rightly applied to White House and Dem claims about the Chamber. For some reason, no one wants to go there.

But by all means, weenie liberals, get the vapors over Conway's truthful ad. Please! We've got nothing better to do the last two weeks before the election than to rush to the GOP's defense. We're liberals! We're stupid that way. Like this, from the useless New Republican:

The Most Despicable Ad of the Year

There are still two weeks left until the midterm elections, but it’s not too early to declare a winner in the contest for the most despicable political ad of this campaign season. On Friday night, Jack Conway, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky, released a 30-second spot questioning the Christian faith of his Republican opponent Rand Paul. Conway’s ad focused on two episodes from Paul’s days as a college student in the early 1980s.

The New Republican can't die soon enough (and it will), along with the rest of the Beltway liberal media establishment. They are all useless, the lot of them. In a year in which Rove and the Chamber have flooded the airwaves with pure bullshit, where Latinos have been demonized in the most hateful anti-immigration ads, where Republicans are still talking about health care death panels, this is what Jason Zengerle thinks is the most despicable ad of the year? What a pile of horseshit!

We liberals are oftentimes our own worst enemies, and never more so than when we think we're earning brownie points by being "reasonable" in the face of an opposition that has their jaws fixed firmly on our jugular. If you don't want to play tough, then fine. Shut the fuck up. Or go hang out with "reasonable" politicians like Susan Collins, Ben Nelson, and Joe Lieberman. Leave the Dems who want to fight the fuck alone. You're certainly not doing anything positive to help get them elected.

And another poll shows Sestak moving into the lead (hat tip: Scarce in the diaries):

Public Policy Polling. 10/17-18, 718 likely voters. MoE 3.7 (August numbers in parenthesis):

    Sestak (D): 46 (36)
    Toomey (R): 45 (45)

Yyyyyeeeaaarrrggghhhhh!!!!!

To capitalize, we are extending our fundraiser for Joe Sestak, with a new goal of $100,000. We are already over $70,000. Put Joe Sestak over the top by contributing $10.

In addition to GOTV, your contribution will help keep one of the best television ads in the country on the air:

Every right-wing darling from Senate primaries is in real trouble now. Your enthusiasm, combined with candidates like Joe Sestak, has turned the tide. Keep riding the new wave--contribute to Joe Sestak now.

• There are 14 days until the November 2 elections. Early voting is now taking place in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Virginia allows early absentee voting under certain circumstances -- check here and see if you qualify. And New Jersey allows voting by mail -- apply here
• Guess who gets the most TV face time?

  * "The NewsHour's guestlist was 80 percent male and 82 percent white, with a pronounced tilt toward elites who rarely 'go unheard,' like current and former government and military officials, corporate representatives and journalists (74 percent). Since 2006, appearances by women of color actually decreased by a third, to only 4 percent of U.S. sources."

  * "Viewers were five times as likely to see guests representing corporations (10 percent v. 2 percent) than representatives of public interest groups who might counterweigh such moneyed interests--labor, consumer and environmental organizations."

  *"While Democratic guests outnumbered Republican guests nearly 2-to-1 in overall sources, Republicans dominated by more than 3-to-2 in the program's longer format, live segments. (FAIR's 2006 NewsHour study, which examined a period when Republicans controlled the White House and Congress, showed Republican guests outnumbering Democrats in both categories: 2-to-1 among all sources, 3-to-2 in the longer live interviews.)"

• Remember, don't call the opposition the American Taliban! it's not nice.

  And yes, the American Taliban is already in Congress.

  And yes, Glenn Beck encourages violence.

• These numbers are crazy, as reported negotiations to merge Newsweek and the Daily Best fell apart:

  A merger with the Daily Beast was attractive to Newsweek because it offered an immediate injection of editorial talent to Newsweek's depleted ranks and the potential to pare expenses at a publication on track to lose at least $20 million this year [...]

  For its part, the Daily Beast stood to gain from a global print platform on top of cost-saving opportunities. The two-year-old site is on pace to lose about $10 million this year, according to a person familiar with the matter. However, Daily Beast executives said the site is on track to be profitable within the next two years.

  Newsweek losing $20 million is nuts, but at least they have an expensive dead-tree magazine to ship out to millions. But a $10 million loss for Daily Beast? It only gets 2.9 million monthly uniques. To compare, the other company I founded, SB Nation, has about 7.7 monthly uniques per Quantcast, and it has come nowhere near losing that kind of money in the combined six years it has been around. Daily Kos has about half the traffic of the Daily Beast, at 1.4 million monthly uniques, and we've never had a significant loss in even the worst of times.

  I just don't know how you can blow through $10 million in a year with so little to show for it. Sure, the Huffington Post has likely blown through tens of millions of investor dollars, but at least they have 31 million monthly uniques to show for it, making them the 34th largest site on the web (impressive!). When you have that many uniques, getting to profitability is doable. Erasing a $10 million annual deficit in two years, on less than 3 million monthly uniques is a pipe dream.

  Based on these numbers, the Daily Beast is nothing more than a vanity press. Given where Newsweek is today, they really deserved each other.

• This piece is spot on. If you wonder why there is so much outside money for the GOP, but so little for Dems despite having a large stable of politically active billionaires, it's because in 2008, the Obama campaign demanded all progressive outside groups disband. They wanted 100 percent control of the message, and they felt they had the money to compete given their huge supporter base.

  That decision was short-sighted at best (who gives a shit if there's other groups out there supporting progressives outside of OFA?), and now -- particularly in a post-Citizens United world -- we are suffering from the aftereffects.  

• Sarah Palin is so smart.

  Pennsylvania voters can't afford cap and trade legislation, says Sarah Palin. And that's why they need to send Republican John Raese to the Senate.

  Except that John Raese is the Republican nominee in West Virginia.

  Welcome to the latest Sarah Palin Twitter #fail.

• SSP has their usual epic quarterly fundraising recap. This is fodder for the pessimists:

  Incumbent Dems outraised by GOPer: Bobby Bright (AL-02), Harry Mitchell (AZ-05), John Salazar (CO-03), Jim Himes (CT-04), Ron Klein (FL-22), Jim Marshall (GA-08), Phil Hare (IL-17), Joe Donnelly (IN-02), Baron Hill (IN-09), Ben Chandler (KY-06), John Tierney (MA-06), Frank Kratovil (MD-01), Gary Peters (MI-09), Ike Skelton (MO-04), Travis Childers (MS-01), Gene Taylor (MS-04), Bobby Etheridge (NC-02), Mike McIntyre (NC-07), Heath Shuler (NC-11), Earl Pomeroy (ND-AL), Harry Teague (NM-02), Dina Titus (NV-03), Steve Driehaus (OH-01), Mary Jo Kilroy (OH-15), Pete DeFazio (OR-04), Kurt Schrader (OR-05), Kathy Dahlkemper (PA-03), Chris Carney (PA-10), Paul Kanjorski (PA-11), Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD-AL), Lincoln Davis (TN-04), Ciro D. Rodriguez (TX-23), Glenn Nye (VA-02), Tom Perriello (VA-05), Gerry Connolly (VA-11), Steve Kagen (WI-08), Nick Rahall (WV-03)

  Incumbent GOPer outraised by Dem: Dan Lungren (CA-03), Mary Bono Mack (CA-45), Charles Djou (HI-01), Jo Ann Emerson (MO-08), Charlie Dent (PA-15), Dave Reichert (WA-08)

• Crooked Timber shows how the GOP has been taken over by outside money:

  
  

Update: David Waldman (Kagro X) has an evening filibuster reform panel in NYC tomorrow at NYU Law School. Wonky and non-bloggerish. So much so that you can actually get CLE credit for attending. (How many Heritage Foundation panels can do that? Zero, of course.)

More information here.

Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos. 10/16-17. Likely voters. MoE 2.8% (No trend lines)

Obama is coming to Oregon tomorrow, and it's not a moment too soon. Former governor and current Democratic candidate John Kitzhaber has the endorsement of just about every major newspaper in the state, and he dominated the debate the two will held in front of a statewide television audience, in what will probaby be the only televised debate of the race.

The problem for Kitzhaber is a slow start and reluctance to define Dudley from the beginning, thus Dudley has been able to define himself. He's only known for his past history as a Portland Trailblazer, joining when the team was still in it's glory days and hugely popular. His lack of ability to move "beyond the hi-lighted talking points" as one analyst described him in the debate, doesn't seem to bother voters this cycle. He's nearly as popular as the former governor, with a favorable rating just one point below Kitzhaber's. For this cycle, Kitzhaber's 49% favorable isn't bad, but he has to drive down Dudley's numbers in the next two weeks.

The other, serious, problem Kitzhaber faces in this race is a familiar one--the enthusiasm gap. PPP's Tom Jensen notes that this "is definitely a state where if not for the enthusiasm gap Kitzhaber would be headed for a comfortable victory.  2008 turnout would put him ahead 51-42." Obama won the state, 57-40.  That's not just reflected in the polling, voter registration for Democrats is significantly down in the state from 2008.

The race has been essentially tied since early last summer, and the two most recent polls besides PPP, SUSA (Kitzhaber 46, Dudley 45) and Rasumussen (Kitzhaber 48, Dudley 46) all peg this race as too close to call.

Obama's visit is hopefully well-timed. The ballots in Oregon's all mail-in election hit doorsteps over the weekend and early this week, so hopefully Obama's presence will energize Dems enough to get them to sit down, fill out their ballots, and get them in the mail. It doesn't take a great deal of enthusiasm for Oregon voters, since they don't actually have to go to the polls. They just need to find a stamp.