News Nuggets 1082

DAYLEE PICTURE: An extraordinary picture of a horse fly in north America.  From the Daily Mail of the UK.

Greece’s Unemployment Reaches More Than Quarter of Workforce from the Bloomberg News Service
"Greece’s unemployment rate climbed to more than a quarter of the workforce in July, extending its record high as the country’s five-year recession deepened. ... Greece’s recession and deepening labor slump has been exacerbated by austerity measures imposed to trim a budget deficit that was more than five times the euro-area limit in 2009. "

Secret Cold War Tests In St. Louis Raise Concerns from the Associated Press via the Huffington Post
Shocking!
"Doris Spates was a baby when her father died inexplicably in 1955. She has watched four siblings die of cancer, and she survived cervical cancer. After learning that the Army conducted secret chemical testing in her impoverished St. Louis neighborhood at the height of the Cold War, she wonders if her own government is to blame."

Montana Campaign Donation Limits Reinstated By 9th Circuit Court Of Appeals from the Huffington Post
"The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated Montana's campaign donation limits, telling the federal judge who overturned it to outline his full reasoning so the panel can review the case. The court intervened late Tuesday less than a week after the judge's decision opened the door to unlimited money in state elections – during the height of election season."

'This Is 50-50': Behind Obama's Decision to Kill Bin Laden (John Gans) from the Atlantic
"New details emerge from the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. ... what is presented in The Finish, based on my experience studying foreign policy decisions going back to the Truman administration, is close to a textbook example of complicated national security decision-making."

Yes, Obama Does Believe in American Exceptionalism (Ian Reifowitz) from the New York Daily News
"Romney's attacks on the President's foreign policy have no merit. ... To President Obama, our role is to serve as an alternative model to fundamentalism of every stripe. In a multi-polar world defined by the clash between fundamentalism and pluralistic democracies, we must lead not only by the strength of our arms, but also by the example of our unity."

The Election Ain't Over Till It's Over: Countdown Day 27 (Howard Fineman) from the Huffington Post
"The thing about the media: They are either at your feet or at your throat. But the race is no more over now than it was a week ago. And since, sadly, Paul Tully is not here, I will try to explain why."

Democrats at the Deep End (Gail Collins) from the New York Times
"Democrats are going bipolar. Half the time they are grabbing at random bits of hopeful information. ... Half the time they are in total despair. ... You have to calm down, Democrats. Romney hasn’t turned into some new supercandidate. You were just underestimating him during September. He’s the same old Mitt."

Note to Obama: Get Down Off the Mountaintop from Time Magazine
"When I asked several close Obama associates about the President's reluctance to sell his policies, they admitted their frustration. They said he hates doing things that he considers transparently political. He hates the idea of inviting a bunch of pols over to the White House for a drink or a movie, because they'd see it as an obvious bribe."

WH Race Contested in Far Fewer States Than in Past from the Associated Press
"So much for Mitt Romney's plans to compete for Democratic-trending Michigan or Pennsylvania. And what about President Barack Obama's early hopes of fighting it out for Republican-tilting Arizona, Georgia or Texas? Forget them. The presidential battleground map is as compact as it's been in decades..."

Polls Show Small Romney Bump in Swing States from the National Journal 
"The polls, all conducted after the debate and released early on Thursday, show a tight race across most of the states, though they also indicate that there has been little relative movement from surveys conducted prior to the debate:"

Premature Desperation (Charles Blow) from the New York Times
"President Obama's supporters should move away from the ledge and come back inside."

NATIVE AMERICAN PHOTO NUGGET!!
Sweeping Landscapes and Sepia Stares: Inside the Rare Book Depicting the Customs and Ceremonies of Native Americans that Fetched a FORTUNE at Auction from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"It is widely considered the most lavish and elegantly produced series of photography books ever made - and now Edward S. Curtis' masterpiece, the North American Indian, has become one of the highest selling works at auction. The Swann Auction Galleries in New York sold the 40 volume series for a massive $1,440,000, making it the most expensive item ever sold at the 70-year-old house - and a glimpse at the stunning sepia-toned photographs show just why it was so desirable."

HIDDIN CRITTER NUGGET!!
Can you Spot the Predator? Masters of Disguise Blend into the Background to Survive Kill-or-be-killed World from the Daily Mail [of the UK] 
"Incredible selection of images taken by Photographer John Cancalos show off nature's top undercover creatures."
The whole series of photos is amazing!!

A tiny pygmy seahorse off the shore of Papua, New Guinea.

A lantern fly in South America.

A majid crab on soft pink coral.

A well-hidden huntsman spider.

News Nuggets 1081

DAYLEE PICTURE: Dewdrops on a blade of grass in Trauchgau, Germany.  From the Atlantic.

The Currency of Power (Robert Zoellick) from Foreign Policy Magazine  
"Want to understand America's place in the world? Write economics back into the plan."

Defecting Iranian Cameraman Brings CIA Priceless Film of Secret Nuclear Sites from the Debkafile [of Israel in English]
“This is one of the CIA's most dramatic scoops in many years, and an epic disaster for Iran. One of Ahmadinejad's personal cameramen brought with him an intelligence treasure trove of photographs and videos of top leaders visiting their most sensitive, secret nuclear sites.”
Warning: Debkafile is one of the most interesting US-Israel National Security sites out there -- AND they occasionally jump the gun on their stories.  We'll see about this one.

Truth About Jobs (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"If anyone had doubts about the madness that has spread through a large part of the American political spectrum, the reaction to Friday's better-than expected report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics should have settled the issue. For the immediate response of many on the right — and we’re not just talking fringe figures — was to cry conspiracy."

Census Data: Number of Americans Without Health Insurance Falls Amid Middle Class Struggles from the Keystone Research Center
"New data released by the U.S. Census Bureau this week offer a mix of good and bad news. The share of Americans without health insurance declined by more than in any year since 1999, thanks largely to a number of provisions in the Affordable Care Act. At the same time, the data also illuminated how the middle class continues to struggle in the wake of the recession and the acceleration of income inequality."

Longtime Republicans Torn Between Party Loyalty and Obamacare (Elizabeth Cohen) from CNN
"Perhaps no other election has posed such a difficult personal decision for some conservatives: How do you vote if you're ideologically conservative, but you're benefiting, or stand to benefit, from the Affordable Care Act, often referred to as "Obamacare"?"

Regular readers know that over the last several years I have occasionally taken on getting informed through occasional primers on important topics (such as US Defense policy and cyber warfare).  Today (with the assist of a regular nuggets reader) I'm inaugurating a new primer series on the energy sector with special emphasis on the oil business.  Here are our first two entries:

1. U.S. Reliance on Oil From Saudi Arabia Is Growing Again from the New York Times
"This reversal is driven in part by the battle over Iran’s nuclear program. ... While prices have remained relatively stable, and Tehran’s treasury has been squeezed, the United States is left increasingly vulnerable to a region in turmoil."

2.  Shell’s Iced Arctic Project Shows Oil Independence Myth (Loren Steffy) from the Houston Chronicle
"Far from providing proof that America could be independent of foreign oil, Shell’s project reminds us of why we won’t be."

Obama Quickens Fundraising Pace from the Wall Street Journal
"President Barack Obama's $181 million fundraising haul in September is helping to calm Democrats who fear a deluge of negative ads from Republican super PACs and remain anxious after Mitt Romney's strong performance in last week's presidential debate."

Desperately Seeking the Real Obama (Richard Cohen) from the Washington Post
"The search for the True Obama is the Holy Grail of the conservative movement. It is a quixotic quest, a fool’s errand, that induces a kind of delirium in the president’s critics.  ... This need to turn a political foe into the frightening “other” is a reaction against modernity — the permanent platform of the Republican Party. ... Remarkably, the man who gets the blame for all this is a dad out of a ’50s sitcom, a national security hawk who, in his personal qualities, is an insurance underwriter’s dream. Still, the right awaits the Freudian slip that will reveal Obama’s trueness, a lapse into possibly Russian or, worse, French."

30 Days Out: Fundamentals Still Favor Obama (Amy Walter) from ABC News 
"There's a new injury going around in political circles these days: it's called political whiplash. ... Fortunately, there is a cure for this. It involves focusing less on the minute by minute movements and more on the fundamentals. And, at this point, the fundamentals favor Obama."

Oct. 7: National Polls Show Signs of Settling (Nate Silver) from the New York Times
"Mitt Romney remains in a considerably stronger polling position than he was before last Wednesday’s debate in Denver. But the polls released on Sunday did not tell quite as optimistic a story for him as those in the debate’s immediate aftermath."

So Much for Romney's Post-Debate Bounce? (Josh Voorhees) from Slate 
"If you broke the data down further and compared only the three days before the debate to the three days following it, things looked even more promising for Romney: a 5-point Obama lead disappeared to leave the two men tied at 47 percent apiece. But Gallup's since updated its seven-day rolling average to include Sunday's polling, and what a difference a day makes. Obama's now back up five points, 50 percent to 45 percent."

Why There's No Liberal ‘Unskewed Polls’ (Jonathan Bernstein) from the Washington Post
"... there’s simply no equivalent institutional support for smears and falsehoods of this kind within the much more rudimentary Democratic-aligned partisan press. Most liberals don’t get the bulk of their information through liberal talk shows and blogs; they use the neutral press and supplement it. Conservatives, however, have been warned for 40 years that they can’t trust the “liberal” media (never mind that academic studies generally show that the neutral press contains all sorts of institutional biases but not partisan biases). Nor do Democrats in responsible positions – members of Congress, for example – repeat the more crazy things that fringers might come up with.:"

How the G.O.P. Became the Anti-Urban Party (Kevin Baker) from the New York Times
"The Republican Party is, more than ever before in its history, an anti-urban party, its support gleaned overwhelmingly from suburban and rural districts — especially in presidential elections. ... For
Republicans, cities became object lessons on the shortcomings of activist government and the welfare state — sinkholes of crime and social dysfunction, where Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queens” cavorted in their Cadillacs. ... The national Republican Party still can’t get seem to get past its animus toward the very idea of urban life."

Mitt Romney's Delusional Foreign Policy (Michael Cohn) from the Guardian [of the UK]
"Absent true policy differences, the Republican nominee's fantasy of American power reveals a fragile grasp of global realities. ... In Mitt Romney's worldview—in so much as one can detect one—the key to American power lies in some amorphous notion of US leadership disconnected from the extraordinary challenges of actually conducting foreign policy. Talking about leadership and resolve is easy—doing it is the hard part. This explains, more than any other reason, why Romney's policy prescriptions are so vague and meaningless. It's the yawning chasm between what American power can actually achieve and what a politician seeking to be president says it ought to be doing."

With Foreign Policy Speech, Romney Runs for Obama’s Second Term (Spencer Ackerman) from Wired Magazine
Here's one of the challenges Obama will face in Debate #2.
"The first debate stopped his slide in the polls. His speech might have the effect of reassuring voters that Romney won’t swerve wildly from a foreign policy they generally like. What might be galling for Obama is that he can fairly look at a lot of Romney’s speech and say: I built that."

Mitt Romney Spain Quip Adds To Foreign Policy Troubles from the Associated Press
"If Mitt Romney becomes president, he might need a crash course in Diplomacy 101. He irritated Britons and Palestinians during a summer tour abroad and has declared Russia to be America's No. 1 geopolitical foe. Just last week, the Republican candidate, who plans a foreign policy speech Monday, raised eyebrows in Spain by holding it up as a prime example of government spending run amok."

HIGH-TECH WEAPON NUGGET [of a sort]
The Death-Ray on Wheels: US Army Begins Testing Monster Laser Truck that Can Shoot Down Anything, Including Missiles from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"Boeing's land-based laser weapon could be used for missile defence.  Beam will hit targets at a phenomenal 186,000 miles a second."

News Nuggets 1080

DAYLEE PICTURE: Windswept foxtail barley in Alaska.  From National Geographic.

HOLIDAY NOTE: For the most part, the Nuggetsman will be away for the Columbus Day weekend.  While a post may show up during that time, daily postings will resume tuesday.

Obama Camp’s Post-Debate Plan: Expose ‘Serial Evader’ Romney from Talking Points Memo
"President Obama’s top aides didn’t deny on Thursday that Mitt Romney had a strong first debate. But by taunting fact checkers with a vague set of newly centrist claims, they believe the governor has left himself open for a major counteroffensive this week. Obama senior strategist David Axelrod characterized Romney’s debate strategy as “effective in the short term, vulnerable in the long term.”"

Romney’s Successful Debate Plan: Lying (Jonathan Chait) from New York Magazine
"Political reporters and pundits lean heavily on the horse race method of coverage, which has badly hurt Mitt Romney for most of the campaign. Last night it helped him. Romney was forceful and articulate and dodged his association with almost all the most unpopular aspects of his platform. But his success at doing so was built upon two demonstrable untruths."

Romney's Performance Is a Test for the Media (Jonathan Cohn) from the New Republic
"... in fairness, it’s difficult to convince viewers the other guy is twisting the truth when the other guy is willing to do so confidently, without obvious remorse or hesitation. And that’s why the media has such an important role to play. Reporting on the state of the campaign is important. Reporting on the substance of the campaign is more important."

Obama’s Ambien-esque Performance (Frank Rich) from New York Magazine 
"The hyperbole on both sides reflects the Twitter-blogging-cable hothouse emotions of an overcaffeinated commentariat. That is a test sample containing perhaps zero undecided voters. Back in the real world, what I think the less committed public saw, especially in the crucial first half-hour, was a mostly tedious exchange of dueling numbers that only the guinea pigs in a Frank Luntz Fox News focus group could get worked up about. "
All of Rich's comments here are worth taking in.

Mitt Romney Debate "Win" Gives Obama a Winning Issue (John Nichols) from the Nation
" Mitt Romney got debate points Wednesday night on style, but not on substance. ... That does not mean, however, that the most outlandish of Romney’s statements can or should be forgotten. Indeed, it is in the post-debate moment that those statements will come to haunt Romney."

Does the Media's Romney Comeback Narrative Matter? (Robert Wright) from the Atlantic
"An online poll conducted by Google found that people who were asked during last night's debate who was winning were much less likely to answer "Romney" than people who were asked who had won shortly after the debate. In fact (if my math is right) the proportion of people answering "Romney" grew by 35 percent after the debate and the proportion answering "Obama" dropped by 53 percent.  ... What mattered wasn't just what people saw on TV, but what experts told them they had just seen. And presumably the media's rendering of the story will matter even more for the many people who didn't see the debate."
This is very much the crux of the matter -- both with debate #1 and most past previous presidential debates.  Whatever colorful object the media fixates on in the post-mortem is far more important than what was actually said.

Obama Fights Back After Debate Setback from Reuters
"A day after a muted performance in a presidential debate, U.S. President Barack Obama fought back against Republican rival Mitt Romney on Thursday and the Democrat's re-election campaign vowed to learn lessons from the setback."

Study: More Young People Will Vote This Year Than in ’08 (Jillian Rayfield) from Salon
"According to one study, more "Millennials" say they'll vote this year."
And, simply as a practical matter, there's MORE OF THEM than in '08.  Remember, we've had four more years of can't-vote 17-year-olds turning into can-vote 18-year-olds.

Tough to Build on First Debate Win (Janet Hook) from the Wall Street Journal
"Reagan, Bush Both Won Re-Election Despite Poor Showings in Initial Face-Offs, as Their Opponents Failed to Capitalize."

Romney Gains After Debate ... with Republicans (Obama with independents) (Markos Moulitsas) from Daily Kos
"Obama's favorables are unchanged from before and after the debate, 56-44. But looking at the crosstabs, Obama stayed solid with Democrats, gained a tiny bit with Republicans, and ... kicked ass among independents. Seriously, flipping his faves among independents from 46-54 to 54-46, a 16-point shift, is a pretty big deal. ,,, Romney improved marginally with Democrats and stayed even with independents. So where did he improve? Among Republicans, where his "very favorable" jumped a solid 10 points, from 36 to 46 percent."

Blame Obama’s Lousy Debate on John Kerry! (Matt Latimer) from the Daily Beast
"Obama’s tepid debate performance isn’t entirely his fault. Matt Latimer on the president’s peculiar choice of surrogates—and why he needs Clinton now more than ever."
I noted yesterday some characteristics of Obama that I think contributed to his lame performance on Wednesday.  Today, a couple of other issues show up, this being one of them.  I suspect Obama's choice of Kerry as a surrogate Romney was a mistake.  Kerry lost in '04 and his debate performances made little or no difference.  More importantly, Kerry has many of the same weaknesses as Obama (a tendency towards aloofness and analytic coldness -- with few of the strengths of Romney (an increasing willingness to say anything and/or ignore contradictory statements he may have made in the past).  Obama was largely sandbagged by Romney's brazenness in ignoring Romney's own record on issues and his willingness to "reinvent" himself on the spot.  Obama will need to do much better in debate #2 -- he should given that the focus (I think) will be more on foreign policy. But he will need to be prepared for an opponent who will fabricate pretty shamelessly.

The Perpetual Failure to Understand Obama's Double Consciousness (John McWhorter) from the New Republic
"The recent uproar over President Obama’s 2007 speech to black pastors is yet another example of how white people—or at least some of them—don't get it about black people. A strange note for me to strike, I know, but the fact is that there’s nothing at all surprising in the fact that the President talks, worships, and even thinks in different ways depending on who he’s around."

ON THE LIGHTER, MORE UPBEAT SIDE:
The latest from Eldad Hagar:
Dog Rescue: Watson, the Three Legged Dog from Hope-for-Paws

News Nuggets 1079

DAYLEE PICTURE:  Prayer flags near Mato Tipilia (Bear Lodge) or Devil's Tower in Wyoming.  From National Geographic.

China Needs Its Own Dream (Thomas Friedman) from the New York Times 
"The so-called American Dream won’t work for China. How will its new leaders handle the dramatic growth of its emerging middle class?"

U.S., Europe Nowhere Close to Ending Crisis, Krugman Says from the Bloomberg News Service
"The U.S. and the European Union are “nowhere close to ending” the financial crisis and German-led austerity efforts may lead to a 1930s-style economic depression, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman said. Five years into the crisis, the U.S. needs “another round of stimulus” and Federal Reserve officials “should be doing whatever they can” to aid the recovery, while Europe needs a fiscal union to save its single currency, Krugman said in a speech in Belgrade today."

Religious Right to Sue CA Over “Pray Away the Gay” Ban from Americablog  
That didn't take long.
"Following up on John’s post about California banning the incredibly dangerous practice of reparative therapy (“Pray away the Gay”) for children presumed to be gay, it appears that NARTH, the National
Association of Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (an anti-gay “cure” group), and the Liberty Counsel (the fundamentalist project of the Liberty University School of Law) will be challenging the law in court."

DEBATE REACTIONS:
For the most part, the reactions have been quite favorable to Romney and mixed (at best) for Obama.  My view: the Obama who showed up last night reminded me of the Obama late in the Democratic primaries of '08 when he was running against Hillary.  If you recall, by April and May of 2008, Obama and his team knew they had the delegate count to win but the candidate still had to campaign full out.  At that time, Obama routinely had the rather flaccid, defensive, and uninspired demeanor that Barack showed last night.  The meme at the time was that Obama was struggling to "deliver a knockout" or to "put Hillary away."  It leaves me wondering (and concerned) if Obama is in that mental space right now: convinced that he has this thing wrapped up and that all he needs to do is run out the clock, phone it in, and that the wise thing to do is play it super-safe.  I don't believe his performance last night was a "game-changer" or a disaster (as Andrew Sullivan suggested in the primal scream of a reaction he had) but what Obama may have done was let Romney back into the race when he had the chance to put him away.  Having said that, I'm somewhat surprised at how some pundits drew almost opposite conclusions concerning each candidate's performance. Note: the Daily Beast has the most
interesting, thoughtful and varied reactions -- check them out. More substantive or compelling analysis will have to wait for tomorrow.

Republican Brand Tanking with Electorate (Joan McCarter) from Daily Kos 
"The favorability ratings for both the GOP and the tea party are totally underwater, with just 39 percent approving of the GOP and 32 percent liking the tea party. ... Intensity of sentiment is another challenge for the Republican Party: Substantially more Americans see it “strongly” negatively than strongly positively, 33 percent vs. 18 percent, while the Democratic Party breaks even (28 percent on both sides)."

Blue Truth, Red Truth (Michael Scherer) from Time Magazine
"... compared with the Obama campaign's, the Romney operation's misstatements are frequently more brazen. But sometimes the most effective lie is the one that is closest to the truth, and Obama's team has often outdone Romney's in the dark art of subtle distortion."

OUR PUNDIT-OF-THE-DAY!!
Why Do So Many Republicans Really Hate Obama? (Gene Lyons) from National Memo
A very interesting assessment of the source of Republican rage and where the GOP & conservatives can go if Obama wins.
"To an awful lot of white Protestant evangelicals across the Deep South especially, President Obama has become no less than a secular stand-in for the Antichrist — a smooth-talking deceiver representing liberal cosmopolitanism in its most treacherous disguise. Dislike of Obama has grown to cult-like proportions across the region. ... Should he prevail in most of the nine “swing states” where everybody agrees that the contest will be decided, and where Obama currently appears to lead by strong majorities, the white, GOP-accented South will find itself politically marooned. Again. Richard M. Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” will have been dismantled and a new, moderately center-left Democratic coalition built by President Obama. For the first time since 1972, the Rush Limbaugh/Mike Huckabee wing of the GOP will find itself with no clear path to power."

Obama leads Romney by 50 points with Latinos (Domenico Montanaro) from NBC News
"Obama leads Republican challenger Mitt Romney among Latino registered voters, 70 percent to 20 percent, and with an equal margin among likely Latino voters, 71 percent to 21 percent. That is an increase of 15 points from August, and outpaces Obama’s 2008 split (67 percent to 31 percent) over John McCain."

A Referendum on Romney (Margaret Carlson) from Bloomberg News Service 
"He had two big opportunities to turn the election back into a referendum -- his choice for his running mate and the convention. But by choosing Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, an archconservative famous for his draconian budgets, Romney made the race even more about Romney."

Duel In Denver: Debate Day Arrives (The Note) (Amy Walter) from ABC News 
"The most recent polling confirms what we’ve been hearing from the ground. Florida and Virginia remain tight, but Ohio continues to lean strongly toward Obama. Moreover, there’s also growing evidence that Wisconsin, the state that the Paul Ryan pick was supposed to put in play for Romney, is sticking with Obama. If Romney loses both Ohio and Wisconsin, he’d have to win every single other battleground state — North Carolina, Virginia, Nevada, Florida, Colorado, Iowa and New Hampshire — to win the Electoral College and to take the White House."

Romney's Disrespect for People Who Need Help Backfires (Robert Creamer) from the Democratic Strategist
"The reason that Mitt Romney's condescending comments about the "47 percent" have done such damage to his candidacy is simple. As Republican consultant Alex Castellanos said in Tuesday's Washington Post: "The only thing in politics that is worse than voters deciding they don't like you is when voters decide you don't like them.""

Polls Show Romney’s 47 Percent Moment Breaking Through, ‘You Didn’t Build That’ Fizzling from Talking Points Memo
"Mitt Romney’s remarks decrying about half of Americans as “victims” are hurting him with at least as many voters, according to a mounting body of evidence. ... At least as discouraging, for Republicans, however, is that Romney’s favorite Obama quote — “You didn’t build that” — isn’t even a net drag for the president."

The Decline And Fall Of Tucker Carlson (Andrew Sullivan) from the Daily Beast
"All that Carlson did is clip it to get an "angry black man" in the minds of Americans. It's at once one of the most desperate and lame and vile plays of the race card I can remember - an obvious recognition that the 47 percent tape can only really be countered emotionally with race-baiting. ... Carlson used to be a brilliant writer. He's now a racist demagogue. He's a story in one person of how degenerate and disgusting much of American "conservatism" has become."

THUNDERSTORMS PHOTO NUGGET!!

Incredible Photos Show Croatian Night Sky Glowing in Spectacular Lightning Storm from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
All the photos here are truly breath-taking!
"The city of Split looked tiny and insignificant as the night’s sky came alive with electricity. A huge thunder and lightning storm last night in Croatia seemed to surround the city in a spectacular display of mighty weather."

News Nuggets 1078

DAYEE PICTURE: Busaba, a well-cared-for tigress in Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand. From the Daily Mail of the UK.

UP-FRONT FOREIGN POLICY NUGGET!!
The Foreign Policy Divide (Roger Cohen) from the New York Times
A VERY RICH comparison of how Romney (and the GOP) view foreign policy compared to Obama!
"In the name of U.S. domination, America needs to throw its weight around, maintaining or increasing Pentagon budgets, refusing to talk to the Taliban, confronting China, giving Israel a green light to attack Iran, and generally being unabashed about U.S. might. It seems the devastating cost of America’s post-9/11 wars has not dawned on Romney ... Romney’s vision, like Putin’s, is pure nostalgia. It imagines a world that is gone."

Many States Not Prepared for Health-Care Law from the Washington Post 
"If a state does not set up an exchange, the federal government will either partner with the state or be the sole operator in that state."
"Sole operator" means something far more akin to medicare or an outright single-payer scheme.  Just what those red state obstructionists intend I'm sure!

Pennsylvania Voter ID Law Ruling: Judge Halts Enforcement Of Law For Election from the Associated Press via the Huffington Post
"A judge is postponing Pennsylvania's tough new voter identification requirement, ordering that it not be enforced in the presidential election. Tuesday's ruling comes just five weeks before the election. An appeal is possible. The 6-month-old law requires each voter to show a valid photo ID."

GOP Voter Laws Getting Walloped by the Courts (Jillian Rayfield) from Salon
"Eleven states have blocked voter suppression laws."

Why Obama Is Leading in the Polls (Ronald Brownstein) from the Atlantic 
"The president's ad barrage seems to have succeeded in bringing blue-collar women into his coalition -- and boosting his chance at reelection."
Given the quality of the ads (see this one from yesterday), I am not surprised.

Presidential Polls Show Voters Trust Barack Obama To Favor Middle Class (Mark Blumenthal) from the Huffington Post
"Voters remain overwhelmingly pessimistic about a still sluggish economy, yet appear poised to reelect President Barack Obama because of perceptions that he understands their lives better than Republican nominee Mitt Romney and would do more to favor the middle class rather than the very wealthy."

Obama's Right: We Failed Black New Orleans After Katrina (David Frum) from the Daily Beast
"Is it really so outrageous that a black presidential candidate would want to talk about the displacement of black Americans in this way? Maybe a better question is: why isn't the condition of black America an important topic for all presidential candidates of all backgrounds and all races?"

Undecided Voters (Still) Don't Trust Mitt Romney (Hunter) from Daily Kos 
This commentary is in response to the Up-Front Nugget we showcased yesterday on how voters simply don't believe the GOP and Romney as much as they do the Dems and Obama.
"So even if Mitt Romney comes out as Mr. Swell Guy in the debates, the kind of guy you'd like to have a hostile takeover of a beer company with, I'm not sure how much that helps him. His problem is that he has no policies that help the people he needs to woo, and that his time for convincing those people that his policies might help them through trickle-down magic has largely come and gone."

Romney Losing Ground with Latinos, Too (Markos Moulitsas) from Daily Kos 
"President Barack Obama won Latinos 67-31 in 2008, and it's clear that he'll significantly overperform those numbers. In fact, I once worked out what the 2008 elections might've looked like with an 80-20 Latino split (spoiler: bigger Obama victories plus a really tight Arizona). Given the current trendlines, that 60-point margin is now a very real possibility."

Why Debate is Crucial for Obama, Too (David Gergen) from CNN
"Contrary to much conventional wisdom, Obama may actually be able to bust open this race, sweeping almost every state he won four years ago and rolling up a victory margin of perhaps five points or more."

GOP’s October Surprise? (Craig Unger) from Salon
"“They are so excited about it,” he said. “Over and over again they talked about how it would be just like Jimmy Carter’s failed raid. They feel it is going to give them a last-minute landslide in the election.” The source, however, said he was dubious about the tactic. “To me, it is indicative that they have lost touch with a huge portion of the electorate,” he said."

Idiocracy: Seven in Ten Republicans Believe Wacky Conspiracy Theory that Pollsters Are Intentionally "Skewing" Their Results (Joshua Holland) from Alternet
"It's all about staving off cognitive dissonance."

Paul Ryan: 30 Percent 'Want Welfare State,' 70 Percent 'Want The American Dream' (VIDEO) (Ryan Grim) from the Huffington Post
"Mitt Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, share a similarly dim view of a very large portion of Americans, according to previously unreported remarks by Ryan. Both believe that many of their fellow citizens are dependent on government and have no motivation to improve their lives -- but they disagree over the precise number. Romney's estimate, famously, is 47 percent. For Ryan, it's 30 percent."

Mitt Romney Campaign Gets Negative Reviews From Republicans (David Espo) from the Associated Press via the Huffington Post
"On the eve of the first presidential debate, the early autumn Republican reviews are in for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, and they are not pretty. ... In some states, candidates who share the Nov. 6 ballot with the former Massachusetts governor already have taken steps to establish independence from him. Party strategists predict more will follow, perhaps as soon as next week ..."

How Romney Is Blowing It, According To Every Conservative Pundit from Talking Points Memo
"Monday morning quarterbacking is the lifeblood of the political industry. And now that Mitt Romney is struggling to break through in the polls, conservative pundits’ second guessing is louder than ever. The problem for Romney is figuring out which of his backseat drivers know where they’re going and which are just shouting “turn right!” at every intersection."

A Desperate Man in Search of Votes (Stanley Crouch) from the New York Daily News
"Mitt Romney has done his best to pretend that he's a true member of the far right, but it hasn't helped."

Romney Forced to Play Defense (Michael Gerson) from the Washington Post 
"First, he must find a way to convince an economically struggling middle-age female voter in Akron, Ohio, that he is concerned in practical ways about her future. Second, and relatedly, he must outline a philosophy of government that isn’t libertarian and frightening. Attacks on redistribution and a theoretical defense of economic freedom will not suffice."

Yes, Mitt Romney Is Getting a Raw Deal From the Press (John Cook) from Gawker
"The press is doing to Romney the same thing it did to John Kerry, and to Al Gore before him: Covering him as a loser. A weird loser. A distant loser, who is "uncomfortable in his own skin" and "failing to connect" with "regular voters." The contempt and pity for him as a candidate is almost palpable, and each moment in the campaign is distorted imperceptibly, as if by magnetism, to reinforce the Romney caricature."

News Nuggets 1077

DAYLEE PICTURE: Thunderstorms in the Florida keys.  From National Geographic.

UP-FRONT CAMPAIGN NUGGET!!
GOP Focus Group: Undecided Voters Assume Romney’s Attacks Are Dishonest from Talking Points Memo
"Barbour’s firm Resurgent Republic conducted focus groups of blue collar voters in Ohio and suburban women in Virginia who supported Obama in 2008 but are now undecided. Both are swing demographics that Romney is working to win over in order to flip each state from blue to red. Their findings? Voters are a lot more willing to believe attacks based around Romney quotes than they are on Obama quotes. ... Given the extreme emphasis Romney has put on attacking Obama based on quotes or snippets of lines, this could spell trouble."
This set of polls tells you SO MUCH about the disadvantages the GOP and rightwingers in general have foisted on the Romney campaign.  After four+ years of hysterical fear-mongering about who Obama is and what he stands for, the GOP and Romney now reap the rewards!  Key groups in the
electorate increasingly just don't believe Republicans anymore when they attack Obama.  The gap between what Republicans have said about Obama and what these voters know and sense about the man has widened so much that now these voters simply factor it in and give the right-wing BS less weight than what Obama or the Democrats say.  Unless Republicans snap themselves out of the hyper-partisan alternative non-reality they now inhabit, Romney will not only lose this election but GOP candidates across the board will find it harder and harder to connect with middle-of-the-road and independent voters.

UP-FRONT CAMPAIGN AD NUGGET!!
See the latest from Obama's advertising shop.  Another GREAT & INSPIRING ad!!

Boy Scouts to Report Pedophiles Missed Previously from CBS News
"The Boy Scouts of America plan to begin bringing suspected abusers to the attention of police departments and sheriff's offices across the country. The abusers are named in the organization's so-called perversion files."

The Blowout Scenario Following a Possible Obama Landslide (Michael Tomasky) from the Daily Beast
"Heading into the debates, an Obama victory on Election Day is looking likely. But what if he doesn’t just win, but wins huge? Michael Tomasky on the consequences of a landslide."

Who's Delusional? (Andrew Sullivan) from the Daily Beast
"... when I read or hear Republicans talking about this failed presidency in apocalyptic terms, I feel rather like Mark Lilla. It's not that I disagree. I cannot even begin to see how a conversation can begin. We have different experiences of reality. But that's why, I think, this election is so fascinating. It will, by default, offer us a direct take on the majority's perception of reality."

The Parallel Universe Where Mitt Romney Leads All Polls from Politico 
"To talk with any working Republican political operative these days is to hear the same tale of woe: a grim accounting of the past few weeks, a dash of gallows humor and a measure of hope that President Obama is still beatable. Never in question is that Mitt Romney is trailing — the private surveys these strategists see for their down-ballot clients make that clear. The only question is by how much. But hanging up the phone or clicking out of e-mail is to find a parallel universe on the right."

Why Mitt Romney Is Trapped By His Negative Narrative (Howard Kurtz) from the Daily Beast
"His weakness in the polls and inability to drive a message keep reinforcing the media refrain that he can’t win. Howard Kurtz on how Romney can’t escape his narrative of failure—and why that could undermine Obama in November."

OUR PUNDIT-OF-THE-DAY!!
Why Obama Abandoned Audacity (Ezra Klein) from the Washington Post 
"Typically, campaigns try to make incumbents look bigger than they really are, to overstate the scope of their accomplishments and their policies. Obama’s campaign is trying to make the president look smaller than he is, to underplay their accomplishments and, in particular, the scope of their policies."

Why Obama Is Leading in the Polls (Ronald Brownstein) from the National Journal
"Across most of the presidential battleground states, particularly in the Midwest, President Obama’s lead rests on a surprisingly strong performance among blue-collar white women who usually tilt toward the GOP. A National Journal analysis of recent polling results across 11 states considered battlegrounds shows that in most of them, Obama is running considerably better than he is nationally among white women without a college education. Obama’s gains with these so-called “waitress moms” are
especially pronounced in heartland battlegrounds like Iowa, Ohio, and Wisconsin."

Some people are certainly getting ahead of themselves.  See this item:
This Election Is Already Over - Obama Has Won (Cenk Uygur) from the Huffington Post
"Here's my new favorite fact: whoever is leading two weeks after the last convention has never relinquished the lead in the last 15 presidential elections. It's way past two weeks since the last convention and President Obama doesn't have a small lead, he has a huge lead. ... Does Romney look like he's running the kind of campaign that could pull off the greatest come from behind victory in our lifetimes?"

New Hampshire Retirees Reflect Centrist Swing State’s Split on Election from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
"This impromptu focus group in many ways reflects New Hampshire’s nearly 800,000 registered voters — most are educated, older and evenly divided about the presidential race, said Dean Spiliotes, Southern New Hampshire University political science professor."

An Ohio Republican Speaks for the Nation: ‘I’ve Never Seen Such Hate as in the GOP’ (Sarah Jones) from PoliticusUSA
"Wayne Butterfass told the Columbus Dispatch in an email, “All you have to do is look at the Republican platform. I’ve never seen such HATE this year in the Republican Party, national or state.” ... “Contempt for the Republicans is pushing Democrats into the lead, not only in the
presidential race but across Senate and likely many House races as well.”"

Tired Cries of Bias Don’t Help Romney (David Carr) from the New York Times 
"The mainstream media are frequently indicted suspects when the rink tilts against conservative causes. But it seems worth pulling apart that notion, especially in a landscape where ownership of the megaphone is increasingly up for grabs."

NY-SEN: Quietly, Gillibrand Raises Big Money For Female Candidates from BuzzFeed
"With a wide lead in her own re-election, Kirsten Gillibrand is raising money in the homestretch for female Dems like Claire McCaskill. A machine in the making?"

DOWNTON ABBEY NUGGET!!
The Woman who Saved Downton: How America’s Dollar Princesses Married into the Crumbling British Aristocracy from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"An upcoming prequel to Downton Abbey will focus on the character Cora Crawley (played by Elizabeth McGovern), a rich American who goes on to marry the Earl of Grantham."

News Nuggets 1076

DAYLEE PICTURE: A baby Golden Bushtail Possum at the Wild Life Sydney Zoo in Australia.From Zooborns.

The World We’re Actually Living In (Thomas Friedman) from the New York Times
"Rather than really thinking afresh about the world, Romney has chosen instead to go with the same old G.O.P. bacon and eggs — that the Democrats are toothless wimps who won’t stand up to our foes or for our values ... Let’s look at the world we’re actually living in. It is a world that has become much more interdependent so that our friends failing (like Greece) can now harm us as much as our enemies threatening, and our rivals (like China) collapsing can hurt us as much as their rising."

Shift by Cuomo Clouds Future of Fracking from the New York Times
"Developments in Albany have created a sense that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is consigning gas drilling to oblivion."

George Zimmerman’s DNA Problem (Jonathan Capehart) from the Washington Post
"George Zimmerman is in a bloody mess. The killer of Trayvon Martin claims that he was in a life-and-death struggle with the unarmed teenager. But DNA tests are not exactly bearing that out."

California Bans Gay "Conversion" Therapy for Minors from Reuters
"Governor Jerry Brown has signed a bill banning a controversial therapy that aims to reverse homosexuality in minors, his office announced on Sunday, making California the first state to ban a practice many say is psychologically damaging."
Prediction: this law will go all the way to the US supreme court.

Riverside County GOP Registration Surge Raises Questions of Fraud from the Los Angeles Times
"At least 133 residents of a state Senate district there have filed formal complaints with the state, saying they were added to GOP rolls without their knowledge."

North Carolina GOP Joins Florida In Firing RNC’s Romney-Tied Voter Registration Firm Accused Of Fraud from the National Memo
"The North Carolina Republican Party has fired the shady voter registration firm owned by Mitt Romney’s paid political consultant and longtime GOP operative, Nathan Sproul. The firing came as Democrats in the state were on the brink of denouncing the Republicans’ tie to the operative’s firm. The state GOP joins the Republican Party of Florida, which also fired Sproul’s company (who accounted for the party’s largest 2012 expenditure, some $1.3 million over the last two months) after more than 100 apparently fraudulent voter registration forms were turned over to the FL State Attorney in Palm Beach County on Monday for investigation. "

Rand Poll Tries Something Different, Gets Same Results: Obama Leading from the Los Angeles Times
"Rand's 2012 Presidential Election Poll involves a single panel of voters who are asked the same three questions over and over. ... The results have been more or less in line with those of other major polls"

Race is Tight, But Not in Key States, Poll Shows from the Washington Post
"On the eve of the first presidential debate, President Obama leads or is at parity with Mitt Romney on virtually every major issue and attribute in what remains a competitive general election, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. ... 52 percent of likely voters across swing states side with Obama and 41 percent with Romney in the new national poll, paralleling Obama’s advantages in recent Washington Post polls in Florida, Ohio and Virginia."

Why Romney is Losing (Brent Budowsky) from The Hill
"In the reverse-Rorschach, the candidate says things that convince widely disparate voters that he is really insulting and demeaning them, which is what happened with the Romney video. It was not a gaffe, because Romney believes the words he said. It was a catastrophic blunder, because voters learned in stark and widely repellent terms what Romney (and many Republicans) actually believe."

The Real Referendum (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"If the polls are any indication, the result of that referendum will be a clear reassertion of support for the safety net, and a clear rejection of politicians who want to return us to the Gilded Age. But here’s the question: Will that election result be honored?"

Can Romney Win Ohio? (Kathryn Jean Lopez) from National Review
Conservative operatives talking shop here on the prospects of a Romney victory in November.
"In terms of the broader election, I don’t want to be the one who contradicts Karl Rove’s view that Romney can win without Ohio, but he can’t. It isn’t just that historically no Republican has won the presidency without Ohio’s electoral votes that “proves” that point. It also is the fact that Ohio is a bell-weather state, so if a candidate cannot win Ohio — especially a candidate operating under a very-low-margin-of-error strategy — the likelihood that that candidate wins enough of the other five to nine toss-up states is not high."

Obama Within Reach of Electoral Votes for 2nd Term; Romney Could Still Win but Path Narrower from the Washington Post
"To overtake Obama, Romney would need to quickly gain the upper hand in nearly all of the nine states where he and Obama are competing the hardest."

If Obama Wins, What Changes for His Second Term? (Eleanor Clift) from the Daily Beast
"If the president prevails on Nov. 6, he’s said he hopes to break Washington’s stalemate. A look at the odds of an altered GOP, bipartisanship—and Erskine Bowles at Treasury."

David Brooks, Riling Up the Right (Howard Kurtz) from the Daily Beast 
"Brooks may be getting more heat than usual these days after turning on Mitt Romney. He wrote a blistering column after the candidate’s “47 percent” fundraising video surfaced, and here’s the explanation: Brooks found out about it at 5 p.m., his deadline was at 7, and he was “so pissed off” that he just banged out the piece. And he hasn’t let up since." http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/30/david-brooks-riling-up-the-right.html

The Right’s Pop-Culture Problem (Andrew O'Hehir) from Salon
"From Clint to "Won't Back Down" to "October Baby": A recent history of embarrassing right-wing culture moments."

MO-SEN: The Devastatingly Bad Candidacy of Todd Akin — and How it Could Cost Republicans the Senate from the Washington Post
"... to simply say that Akin is bad in some ways sells him short — or long — when it comes to the broader impact that his candidacy is having on his party’s hopes of re-taking the Senate majority in November."

News Nuggets 1075

DAYLEE PICTURE: Sky lanterns lighting up the night in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  From the Daily Mail of the UK.

UP-FRONT CAMPAIGN NUGGET!!
How Small Money Can Matter Again in Politics (Jonathan Alter) from Bloomberg News Service
"A funny thing’s happening on the way to Nov. 6. The billionaires trying to buy the U.S. election with contributions of $1 million, $10 million or even $100 million aren’t succeeding."

Where is Republican Anger Over Obama’s Health-care Law? (Juan Williams) from the Washington Post
"...as the presidential campaign enters the home stretch, health-care reform is the dog that has not barked. ... "

Along Virginia’s Route 15, the South’s Cultural Border Displays a Political Divide from the Washington Post
"Southern hospitality isn’t about to disappear, but the intensity of American politics in this election season can make for awkward encounters and tricky relationships, to judge by dozens of interviews in recent days along Route 15 in Virginia."

Poll: Outside the South, Obama's Doing Well With the "White Working Class" (David Weigel) from Slate
"... this new study from the Public Religion Research Institute does a lot to correct some lazy ideas about the "white working class" vote. We all know that the Obama campaign has abandoned those people, and they've abandoned him. Right? Right? Not quite."

2012 Map Could Be Deja vu for Obama from Politico
"Some political scientists and Democratic strategists believe it’s now possible that President Barack Obama could replicate his break-out Electoral College map from 2008, with the exception of Indiana, even if the popular vote is closer than four years ago."

The Electoral Map Turns Blue (John Cassidy) from the New Yorker
"An objective look at where the race now stands conveys the scale of the challenge facing Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan…"

Why Romney is Losing (Steve Kornacki) from Salon
"A new set of battleground polls shows that the month of September has been especially brutal for the GOP nominee. ... taken together, they represent the latest piece of evidence that Obama is the clear leader and offer some insight into how he’s built and maintained his advantage."

Goodbye, Columbus: Why top Ohio Republicans Think Romney Has Lost the State (Walter Shapiro) from Yahoo News
"Maybe Romney isn’t down by 10 points, they argue, but the GOP presidential nominee seems destined to lose by a solid 5 points – and in closely divided Ohio that represents a loss of nearly landslide proportions. ... Many of the well-known Ohio Republicans I interviewed offered their blunt assessments only after they were guaranteed complete anonymity."

Shapiro (a VERY knowledgeable veteran non-partisan campaign reporter) gets a two-fer for his spot-on examination of the Romney campaign in Ohio:
You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Mitt Romney’s Losing in Ohio (Walter Shapiro) from Yahoo News
"This is the reality of the 2012 campaign: substance ends up on the cutting room floor. Voters consider local TV news a prime information source for the presidential campaign. But watching newscasts on three different channels in Ohio’s largest media market during the past 24 hours underscored how difficult it is for Romney to make himself heard amidst the clutter and the clatter of Columbus television."

Commiserating with the Monied Masses (Dana Milbank) from the Washington Post
"With evidence building that his prospects have been hurt by his dismissal of nearly half the country as moochers, Romney has been making it his job to worry about the 47 percent of Americans he famously said it wasn’t his job to worry about. But when such an appeal is attempted by a man who has painstakingly crafted for himself a public image combining Scrooge McDuck and Thurston Howell III, there is bound to be a certain amount of awkwardness and inconsistency."

Presidential Debates Rarely Have Much Effect on Election Outcomes (Miranda Green) from Salon
"Nixon’s flop sweat may have cost him the 1960 election, but in most cases presidential debates such the one coming up on Oct. 3 don't have much effect on an election, writes Miranda Green."

40 Days of Night (Charles Blow) from the New York Times
"... the fact that Obama has a growing lead when the polls are taken in aggregate is undeniable. This is just an extension of the Republican war on facts. If you find a truth disagreeable, simply deny it. Call it corrupt. Suggest that it is little more than one side of a story — an opinionated, biased one — and insist that there is another explanation. The base will buy it. Let’s just call this Operation Ostrich."

How Democratic Ads Are Exploiting Romney’s ‘47 Percent’ Moment from Talking Points Memo
"Evidence is mounting that Mitt Romney’s leaked remarks about how 47 percent of Americans see themselves as “victims” are doing significant damage to his campaign both nationally and in key swing states around the country. While the hidden camera video has gotten plenty of play on its own in the press, Democrats are piling on as much as possible with a growing number of attack ads. The degree of difficulty may be low, but the current body of ads connect Romney’s quotes to an impressive array of themes in a very short amount of time."

Ann Romney: Biggest Fear Is For Mitt's 'Mental Well-Being' from the Huffington Post
"I think my biggest concern obviously would just be for his mental well-being," she said. "I have all the confidence in the world in his ability, in his decisiveness, in his leadership skills, in his
understanding of the economy. ... So for me I think it would just be the emotional part of it."
If I had spent the last five years spouting the inauthentic BS Mitt has had to throw out there to get the GOP nomination, I'd be concerned about his "mental well-being" too.  When this is all over, one can only hope there's some 12-step program out there where GOP candidates can go to rediscover reality. I'm not being entirely facetious here. There is so much about the GOP now that is "cult-ish" and closed off from the real world, it really is quite mind-bending. I wasn't going to post this deeply disturbing story about this father who killed his entire family and himself because he "dreaded the thought of Obama winning the election" -- but this seems like an appropriate time. While this guy was clearly mentally ill, there is a whole partisan cottage industry out there right now that fed his paranoia!

Todd Akin Suggests Employers Should Be Able To Pay Women Less from Talking Points Memo
"Todd Akin appeared to endorse allowing employers to pay women less than men at a town hall on Thursday."
Ah -- just when his "legitimate rape" comment was beginning to fade from the headlines, he comes up with this!!  What a dope!

STEVE MCQUEEN NUGGET!!
At Home with the King of Cool: Images of Steve McQueen that Show Screen Legend was Just as Mesmerizing Behind the Scenes from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"More than six decades after Steve McQueen earned the nickname the King of Cool thanks to his on- and off-screen macho persona, a series of rare photos went of display depicting candid moments from the actor's life on the verge of super-stardom."

News Nuggets 1074

DAYLEE PICTURE: A moose at Maligne Lake in Alberta, Canada.  From National Geographic.

TWO UP-FRONT "GROUND GAME" NUGGETS!!
Mitt Romney Ohio Ground Game: A Frantic Race To Catch Obama (Sam Stein) from the Huffington Post
"It is part of a frantic effort by the Romney campaign to catch President Barack Obama on the ground in Ohio ... While Romney has 36 campaign offices in Ohio, Obama has 96. Romney and the state GOP have an estimated 130 staffers. Obama has what his state communications director said were "hundreds of staff and thousands of volunteers." Romney started his general election campaigning in May and opened his first Ohio office in early June (he closed the Dublin Street headquarters after he won the primary). Obama for America has been in the state, basically, for five years."

What difference does this make? See the following:
As Iowa Launches Early Voting, A Prime Opportunity For Mitt Romney Is Slipping (Jon Ward) from the Huffington Post
"He was the first to arrive, around 7:15 a.m., but soon a long line of around 200 people formed behind him, almost all of them wearing stickers distributed by President Obama's reelection campaign with the message: "Be the First!" Iowa was the first swing state to begin early voting, though not the first to begin voting overall. Ohio will follow when it opens up the polls on Tuesday. All the other swing states start their early voting near the end of October."

State Of The Race: How Previous Presidential Campaigns Looked Going Into October (CHART) from Talking Points Memo
"Historically, President Obama is in a solid position to win re-election, if the Gallup tracking poll of the presidential race is any guide."

Whose Idea Was It to Nominate Romney, Anyway? (Jonathan Chait) from New York Magazine
Chait has been ON FIRE lately!!  In case you missed his excellent column from yesterday, check it out!
"In what you might regard as an unhealthy sign for Mitt Romney’s campaign prospects, conservatives have turned to debating the question of who is to blame for nominating this man in the first place. ... The case for Romney, such as it is, falls to his anonymous advisers, who tell Politico that he is a brilliant and wonderful man but sadly bad at politics: ... Being terrible at running for office sounds like a pretty serious drawback for a presidential nominee!"

GOP Insiders: Senate A No-Go (Alex Roarty, Naureen Khan and Brian McGill) from the National Journal
"Republicans no longer think they're going to retake the Senate, according to the latest National Journal Political Insiders Poll, a stunning drop in optimism for a party that began 2012 confident it would regain control of the chamber. Only four percent of GOP insiders rate their chances as "high," a free-fall in confidence from when National Journal Insiders were asked about Senate races in February."

GOP's Acorn Moment (Alex Seitz-Wald) from Salon
"A Republican consulting firm allegedly commits voter registration fraud. Where's the right-wing outrage this time?"

Why Mitt Romney is the Perfect GOP Candidate (Andrew Leonard) from Salon
"Mitt Romney is the perfect evolutionary adaptation to a world in which workers get screwed."

Shades of 1996: Unless Mitt Romney Does Something—Quick—He Could See GOP Donors Abandon Him, Just as They Did Bob Dole (Charlie Cook) from the National Journal
"Public attitudes toward candidates and elections often start off in a fluid state. Then they gradually begin to jell, first reaching a semisolid state before hardening to rock-solid. This year’s presidential race isn’t over, but Mitt Romney’s current trajectory in the polls will not cross President Obama’s by Nov. 6—or maybe even Nov. 6 of next year. If something doesn’t happen to shake up the race, Romney will lose."

The Million Wingnut March (Ed Kilgore) from Washington Monthly
"There’s been a steadily building discussion, albeit shrouded in some mystery, about the potential impact on Election Day (and to some extent, before it) of right-wing “volunteer poll watchers” who are promising to descend on minority neighborhoods to make sure the Pink Elephant threat of “voter fraud” does not transpire. ... But it’s the specter of Election Day (or perhaps in-person Early Voting locations) that should trouble everyone, regardless of partisan affiliation."

“47%” Was Bad for Romney; Ryan Has Been Deadly (Noam Scheiber) from the New Republic
"The conventional wisdom on Obama’s recent surge is that it’s due largely to Mitt Romney’s 47% disaster, and there’s clearly something to this. ... But it’s worth pointing out another dynamic that’s been overlooked here: The escalating disaster that is Paul Ryan."

The Debate Expectations Game (Michelle Cottle) from the Daily Beast 
"How Romney botched it and Obama played it perfectly. ... A crisp, clear, resounding debate victory is the governor’s best shot at turning this baby around. Why then does Team Romney seem dead set on making such a breakthrough performance nearly impossible? Romney needs some jokes. And he needs them for his first presidential debate on Wednesday."
I disagree here.  I do not get that Romney is a good teller of jokes -- and a joke that lands flat ends up being a great joke for the likes of Jay Leno and Jon Stewart ... or Joe Scarborough (as we saw the other day)!

In the End, It’s Mitt (Allen, Martin & Vandehai) from Politico
"It isn’t the chair or the ho-hum convention. Or the leaked video. Or Stuart Stevens. Or the improving economy. Or media bias. Or distorted polls. Or the message. Or Mormonism. It’s Mitt. ... Slowly and reluctantly, Republicans who love and work for Romney are concluding that for all his gifts as a leader, businessman and role model, he’s just not a good political candidate in this era."
While there is a lot of truth here, I am more of the view that it is the party and GOP voters who are at the source of Romney's problems.  The party itself is so divided and delusional that Romney (a basically sane human being) has had to pretend to be something else.  The key to getting elected is having enough voters see your real strengths and forgive enough of your real weaknesses.  These are the things campaigns reveal.  It's hard enough selling voters on who you really are never mind some crazy fake Tea Party version of yourself, someone you have never been in all your years of public and private life.  During the primaries, many of Romney's most difficult moments stemmed from when he was being too candid and he basically revealed who he really was or what he really thought.  Is there any of that real Romney left now?  Based on the 47% video, I suspect not.

Mitt Romney: King of Comedy (Roger Simon) from Politico
"It is time to cut Mitt Romney some slack. It is wrong to criticize him until you’ve walked a mile in his living room. That last line was a joke that someone posted on Twitter. Jokes have power. When a politician makes a joke, he can make a point and also leave people with the impression that he is a regular guy and not some cardboard cutout."

Do the Romneys Suffer from a Siege Mentality? (Judith Warner) from Time Magazine
"Their recent comments reveal a real resentment of the social changes that have helped former outsiders gain a toehold in society."

The Republican Brain: Constructing an Alternate Polling Reality for 2012 (Kevin Drum) from Mother Jones Magazine
"Neither side has a monopoly on sloppy number crunching or wishful thinking, but liberals, faced with a reality they didn't like, ended up accepting reality and deciding to learn more about it. That's the Nate Silver approach. Conservatives, faced with a reality they didn't like, invented a conspiracy theory to explain it and then produced an alternate reality more to their liking. "

George W. Bush Posts Better Favorability Ratings Than Mitt Romney in New Bloomberg Survey from the Dallas Morning News
"For all the talk about whether Mitt Romney should distance himself from George W. Bush –and the policies of the last GOP White House — a new survey shows that the former president actually has better favorability ratings than the Republican nominee."

LOCAL PITTSBURGH NUGGET!!
Forging a Giant Footprint (AUDIO) from WESA's Program, Essential Pittsburgh 
In case you've missed this awesome PPG series on UPMC, check it out!
"Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporters talk about this week's 4 part series on UPMC's growing presence in the region's real estate market. Then Carnegie Library's five year plan..."

LABOR HISTORY PHOTO NUGGET!!
The Sacrifice of Innocents: Haunting Images from 1911 Show Workers Who Lied About Their Ages to Keep Their Families from Starving... as They Made Toys for Other  Children from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"Haunting images taken at mills in Winchendon, Massachusetts in 1911 capture the faces of children as young as eight as they illegally endured unsafe conditions, long hours and poor pay to keep their families from starving."

COMIC BOOK NUGGET!!
Avengers Assemble! (Sean Howe) from Slate
"How Marvel went from Hollywood also-ran to mastermind of a $1 billion franchise."