ABC News apparently likes to learn its lessons the hard way.

The following letter was sent from ABC and received by Mr. Breitbart:

Dear Mr. Breitbart,

We have spent the past several days trying to make clear to you your limited role as a participant in our digital town hall to be streamed on ABCNews.com and Facebook. The post on your blog last Friday created a widespread impression that you would be analyzing the election on ABC News.

We made it as clear as possible as quickly as possible that you had been invited along with numerous others to participate in our digital town hall. Instead of clarifying your role, you posted a blog on Sunday evening in which you continued to claim a bigger role in our coverage. As we are still unable to agree on your role, we feel it best for you not to participate.

Sincerely,

Andrew Morse

Earlier I posted a recap of FiveThirtyEight.com pollster Nate Silver’s scenario in which, despite all the dire predictions, Democrats could hold onto enough seats today to retain control of Congress.

Although Silver did not address it, there is another statistical anomaly out there that has remained consistent in the polling recently: an “un-enthusiasm gap” among people who say they hold a lower opinion of Republicans than Democrats but plan to vote for Republican candidates nonetheless.

Poll after poll has shown that Republicans are the least popular political entity out there.

In early September, polls found favorability ratings for Republicans in the low 20s and Democrats in the mid-30s — while concurrent generic ballot results showed GOP candidates up by five to 10 points or more. What this meant was that as many as 10 to 15 percent of voters back then were saying that they planned to vote for candidates representing a party they did not like.

Huh?

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com writes, “While our forecast and a good deal of polling data suggest that the Republicans may win the House of Representatives on Tuesday, perhaps all is not lost for the Democrats. Here’s one possible scenario for how things might not end up as expected.”

Silver suggests that the GOP wave could sweep through the South taking out marquee Democrats like Reps. Alan Grayson of Florida and John Spratt of South Carolina, but diminish a little in the Midwest with key Democratic seats preserved in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, but continue to roll westward and take down Dems in Colorado but then stall in Nevada and evaporate along the Pacific Coast, where voters have not succumbed to tea bag fever. Democratic victories there could provide a firewall in which Dems hold the Senate and, narrowly, the House.

Admittedly, there is an element of whistling past the graveyard here but Silver’s suggestion that things may not be entirely as they seem is at least plausible.

Even so, if the likelihood that Dems could hold both houses of Congress is out there, why hasn’t it showed up in the polling? Silver lists five possible reasons:

One of the truly gnarly parts of this rad Republican wave is the GOP’s constant harping about how it is going to balance the budget and reign in government spending — you know, the whole smaller government/bootstraps deal. If you’ve been conscious around a GOP candidate speaking about the budget, you’ve probably been rendered senseless by the utter lack of detail or solid programs he or she outlined.

There’s a reason for that — it’s called fear. Candidates are afraid to speak specifics because that would give voters the information they need to make truly informed decisions, and who needs that? So to protect the Republicans who refuse to “man up” and give us the truly horrifying news about their approach to fixing the economy, they got the conservative Heritage Foundation to do it:

Federal spending is on an unsustainable path that risks disaster for America. Runaway spending has increased annual federal budget deficits to unprecedented levels, adding $2.7 trillion to the national debt in the past two years alone. Each year’s huge federal deficit increases the mountain of national debt borrowed from future generations of Americans. Congress needs to cut federal spending sharply and quickly. This paper sets forth $343 billion in available spending cuts.

But rather than have to wade through all that turgid, foot-noted prose, just go to this handy 19-point Business Insider presentation that explains through bullet points and photos what the poor, uneducated, unhealthy and jobless have in store once the GOP wave subsides.

Oh, and you won’t see deep cuts in defense or an end to war as a swell money- and life-saving Republican alternative, either.

ABC News’ misguided plan to use racist blogger Andrew Breitbart as a political commentator on election night continues to backfire.

First, ABC News got an earful about it from the likes of, well, us and many others, which forced them to relegate Breitbart from the main news set to online coverage.

Now, predictably, Breitbart and ABC News are exchanging angry emails about his role tomorrow night:

Transcript:

Despite being urged not to vote by a group with ties to the Bush White House and financing from GOP and pro-life leaders, Latinos will vote this year. So says Hector Figueroa, an officer with the Service Employees International Union-32BJ (SEIU), who claims most American Latinos are eager to cast their ballots.

Figueroa…says that almost 60 percent of Latino voters now say they are “very enthusiastic” about voting, up from 41 percent on September 6, according to the latest Latino Decisions tracking poll.

“There is a strong sentiment that those behind the Arizona law have been able to place candidates in strategic elections, and their election would be quite detrimental to our community. So in some ways it has galvanized attention. And Latinos want to be there at the polls and be counted.”

They want to be counted in spite of shameful ads like this one, run by the shadowy Latinos 4 Reform:

And if watching the ad itself doesn’t inspire Latino outrage at those who would cynically keep them out of the democratic process, SEIU volunteers will be working the phones on election day to turn out the Latino vote.

AP:

The central Kentucky man who was videotaped stepping on a woman outside a U.S. Senate debate has been charged with misdemeanor assault.

Tim Profitt and other supporters of Republican Rand Paul were filmed restraining a woman attempting to give the candidate a mock award. The Lexington Herald-Leader reports Profitt will go before a district judge in Lexington on Nov. 18 on a fourth-degree assault charge.

A criminal summons says Profitt “intentionally placed his foot on the shoulder/head region on the victim.”

The Paul campaign dropped the 53-year-old Profitt as a coordinator in Bourbon County after the incident.

Paul’s opponent, Democrat Jack Conway, has used the incident to criticize Paul and state Democrats used the footage in a TV ad.

Despite this criminal association, polls indicate Paul is likely to win the race against Attorney General Conway.

More pix from the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, thanks to Susan B. and Facebook.

My friend Susan attended and came back with this great picture.