• Re: Palin's wardrobe: "For all this, the funny part is that there's really not that much to say." [Jezebel]

• The good news? Michelle Bachmann can devote more time to persuing the real anti-Americans: "The National Republican Congressional Committee has pulled out of Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann's district." [Politico]

• Or, you know, make 'em run for president: "I’m proposing we take all the seemingly washed-up old geezers sucking at society’s teat like wrinkled old leaches and put them on some remote island. There, they would compete for survival in a format not un-like the popular television program Survivor, only there would be no challenge rewards, medical assistance, or immunity. Just old men and women working together to battle time and Mother Nature, reliving their glory days in some treacherous tropical paradise." [Schrute-Space]

• I quite frankly thought this was a spoof. Then Bill Burton sent it to me: "Man, this is more important than politics!" he insisted. "This is football!" [ESPN]

• Obama's shoes are three or four pages down -- they have holes in them -- but that is not by any stretch the most telling picture here. [Callie Shell]

• Issues! "Almost two-thirds (64%) of the public heard a lot about "Joe the plumber" and another one-in-four heard a little about him." [Pew]

A few things Scherer and I have heard re PersonalShopperGate:

You'll be shocked to learn that no one at the campaign is happy about this.

You'll be equally shocked to learn that lots of Republicans outside the campaign are ripped about it. "What a stunning display of incompetence!" one railed to me. "It's the kind of political malpractice that deserves capital punishment!"

Here's what we know, or think we know. One Republican familiar with the situation said the money was spent out of the coordinated expense fund, which is paid for by the RNC, because there are some gray areas in the rules about buying clothing with campaign money. (Aside: I think the rules prohibit it, which is why -- according to other R's and some D's I talked to -- both parties tend to hide clothing and other such expenses in their ad budgets. "I can't tell you how many denim shirts I've bought for candidates," said one media strategist. "If the cost of the ad is $10,000, you bill the campaign $10,075 to cover the shirt.")

Why weren't Palin's clothing and accessory expenses buried somewhere, so that reporters wouldn't find out about them? That's where the political malpractice occured, say disgruntled Repubs. One way to have done it would have been to have the convention organization pay for it. Two Republicans told us they've heard that the McCain campaign and/or the RNC initially tried to get the bill paid out of convention funds, but for whatever reason couldn't make it happen. The fact that personal shopper/middleman Jeff Larson was CEO of the Minneapolis St. Paul 2008 Convention Host Committee is intriguing in this regard.

Where is Sarah Palin in all this? Pretty much a victim of the campaign whirlwind and her own prime time political inexperience, it seems. "It's really unfortunate for her given the fact that she is really more of a Macy's person. She is everything that she has represented herself to be," says a second Republican familiar with the situation. "She is a middle class mom. But because during the scrum of her selection and the convention she got outfitted, now it has landed on her." That source says that Palin shops at Target for Piper. The source also noted that the real problem with this story -- why it's so potentially so damaging -- is that is so easy for the public to understand. "It's just so easily digestible."

And it looks great, too.

Current TV's Mariana van Zeller and Darren Foster have a new 25-minute documentary looking at the question of whether the United States has been edging towards a proxy war with Iran. The answer remains unclear. (The anti-Iranian forces on camera deny any U.S. support, though a former CIA agent says otherwise.) But the piece is fascinating to watch, if only to see, in some detail, what is happening on the Iran-Iraq border.

Transcript is below the fold

(more...)

John McCain's campaign may spend a lot on clothes, but they are a much better bargain on election night. Where Barack Obama's campaign is charging the media $935 for a basic setup (table space, phone, internet, food) at Chicago's Grant Park, the figure being quoted by the McCain campaign is $695 for essentially the same thing at the Arizona Biltmore.

UPDATE: My sharp-eyed colleague Jay Newton-Small points this out in the McCain announcement:

Coverage: Results Watching Party -- Open Press

John McCain Delivers Remarks -- Pooled Press

*PLEASE NOTE: There will be a closed circuit feed of John McCain's remarks into the press filing center and into the Phoenix results watching party.

Aha! That explains the bargain rate. Only a pool gets to see McCain actually give his speech. For $695, the rest of the press gets to watch it on TV. Like at home.

I'm thinking that pooling an election night may be a first. It certainly is in my experience.

The Big Ten polling consortium has some shock-and-awe numbers this morning favoring Obama in the midwest, particularly in states like Ohio (+12), Michigan (+22), Minnesota (+19), Wisconsin (+13) and Indiana (+10). (And no, the Indiana number is not a typo!) If these numbers are real and not outliers, they foreshadow a landslide for Obama. As usual, Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com gives the best explanation of how we should view them.

There are many surprisingly tight House and Senate races this year, but nearly all of them involve formerly safe Republicans. Now, via Politico, we hear that a nationally prominent Democrat who made some nasty comments about his own constituents may have a fight on his hands:

A new poll released today shows longtime Democratic congressman John Murtha in a tough re-election fight after he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last week that “there’s no question that western Pennsylvania is a racist area.”

The poll, conducted by Susquehanna Polling and Research, shows Murtha holding only a 46 to 41 percent lead over his Republican opponent, retired lieutenant colonel William Russell. Over half of the respondents (54 percent) said that it was time for someone else to represent them in Congress.

The poll surveyed 400 voters on October 21, and has a 4.9 percent margin of error.

Murtha’s videotaped remarks lambasting his own constituents as racists have created a mini-firestorm in the district. After apologizing for his comments, he stepped into further controversy when he told a local television station that, years ago, the area “was really redneck.”

Murtha won his 2006 general election race by a landslide 61-39% and ran unopposed in 2004.

I have some concluding thoughts about the Obama campaign and an extensive interview with the candidate in the print edition this week.

Here are some excerpts from the interview.

I'll post more from the interview here on Swampland later in the day.