Joe Lieberman gets hit with a verbal/legal double slam, a Libertarian in Wyoming almost gets hit with the open palm of a Republican congresswoman, and “America’s team” gets hit with a devastating avalanche of Big Blue. Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) issues new report: “Just 2 Weeks to Go Until Election Day.”

CT-SEN: Final Debate Recap! (And an FEC Complaint to Boot)

AP: Lieberman Blasted on All Sides at Debate: “Sen. Joe Lieberman sat between his Democratic and Republican rivals in Monday's final Connecticut Senate debate - and got it from both sides as well as from hecklers.”

…

“Hecklers interrupted the debate at times, and some chanted ‘Lieberman Protects Cheney.’ They were escorted from the theater. An exasperated Lieberman, a particular target for outbursts from the audience, scolded the hecklers. ‘C'mon,’ he said, ‘let's let the candidates talk.’”

Hm, not sure if that’s the most biting heckle the Roundup has ever heard. S’pose it’s not really the same as a baseball game. You can’t just shout “Lieberman Sucks!” and throw and empty beer bottle, can you.

Hartford Courant: Senate Debate Sets Off Sparks: “With singing hecklers in the audience and face-to-face confrontations on stage, the last of the scheduled U.S. Senate debates Monday night offered voters a free-wheeling hour of political theater.”

More on the heckling: “Lieberman was interrupted again as he tried to deliver his closing statement. A deep-voiced man in the balcony began singing.

‘Folks, come on,’ Lieberman said. ‘Come on, get out.’

‘Please escort him out,’ [debate moderator George] Stephanopoulos directed from the stage.”

Meanwhile Alan Schlesinger continued his role as the star performer:

“Schlesinger broke the tension by offering his explanation of what Lieberman meant with his three-term pledge in 1988. ‘The senator just simply meant he wanted three terms as a Democrat and then three terms as an independent,’ Schlesinger said. The crowd laughed.”

And Salon reports further: Alan Schlesinger: “I have become a hunter…”

Norwich Bulletin: Connecticut Senate rivals exchange jabs: “The third debate between the three major candidates in the Connecticut U.S. Senate race had a little something for everyone -- serious discussion, humorous one-liners, an enthusiastic and engaged audience and hecklers who twice disrupted the program and were escorted out of the theater.”

Matt Stoller has a debate open thread over at MyDD. Stoller also has a quick recap of the debate: “Lieberman reversed himself yet again on Iraq. In the debate, he said that the situation only started getting worse in February. Yet in the primary debate, Lieberman said that ‘the situation in Iraq is a lot better.’ This guy's a professional liar. He saw the polls, changed his strategy because he knew that voters realized the situation was bad. It's good he's getting angry and sloppy, and I imagine it has something to do with the possible criminal activity involving his petty cash disbursements.”

For a much closer look at that Lieberman Iraq switch-foot, Arianna Huffington writes, Halloween Scoop: Lieberman Tries on Jack Murtha Mask in Effort to Trick Voters. And the NY Times offers a slightly more restrained take with, Lieberman’s Words on the War Show Some Shifts Over the Years.

And what about that “possible criminal activity” thing? Turns out verbal attacks weren’t the extent of Lieberman’s ills Monday…

The Hartford Courant reports, “Ned Lamont's campaign filed an elections complaint Monday that says Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman failed to properly account for nearly $400,000 in cash during the last days of the Democratic primary.” The Roundup ran down the details of this case yesterday morning.

You can read and co-sign the actual letter being sent to the FEC at the Lamont campaign website.

OH-SEN: But Otherwise Great Endorsement

The Cincinnati Enquirer examines the latest attack ad against Senator Mike DeWine (R) by challenger Sherrod Brown (D) that aims to implicate DeWine by association with some of Ohio’s more corrupt political figures. The Enquirer, which endorsed DeWine this past Sunday, concludes: “DeWine hasn't been accused of wrongdoing. But he can't run from his close ties to some Republicans scarred by criminal convictions and scandals.”

TN-SEN: More on the Harold Ford, Jr. Playboy Playmate Ad

The NY Times’ The Caucus blog has some more insight into the questionable-at-best, tasteless-and-potentially-racist-at-worst RNC ad attacking Tennessee Senate candidate Harold Ford, Jr. (D) with, among other things, a blonde woman shown topless from the shoulders up posing as a Playboy playmate. Personally, the Roundup is a little weary of the phrase “race baiting” being spontaneously tossed out at the absolute slightest of provocations. There are enough serious instances that actually warrant the phrase that it shouldn’t be bandied about indiscriminately. The Roundup doesn’t consider the Ford ad to be race baiting, but rather just really stupid and obviously tasteless. But former Defense Secretary and former Republican senator from Maine William Cohen, speaking to Wolf Blitzer on The Situation Room Monday evening, thinks it might at least come close to being race-related:

Mr. Blitzer: So, you’re a former Republican senator. Is the R.N.C. playing the racial card against Harold Ford in Tennessee right now?

Mr. Cohen: I think they are coming very close to it, if not doing it exactly. And I think they ought to stop it. I think that they have a candidate, and discuss the – the issues on the merits, and not get into that kind of personal type of an attack.

NRO’s Byron York takes a look at the ad with Ford and Corker: The Ad War and the Question of Temperament.

Plus, the Memphis Flyer’s Jackson Baker offers his take on the recent airport press conference throwdown between Ford and Corker with Corker vs. Ford: Who Won the Battle of Wilson Air?

VA-SEN: See Who’s Donating to Allen and Webb

One newspaper the Midterm Roundup doesn’t envy? The Richmond Times-Dispatch: “From Hollywood to NASCAR, donors to the campaigns of Virginia's U.S. Senate candidates hail from a cross-section of industries and ideologies, according to a Times-Dispatch review of the two big-party candidates' most recent federal election reports, which each approach 2,000 pages.” Good times.

Plus, a new Mason-Dixon poll has Allen with a narrow lead.

KY-03: Name Game? More Like Name Fight!

Uh oh, don’t look now, but as Election Central noted yesterday, the race for most mellifluous name in congress is now a legitimate barnburner. CQ changes its Northup-Yarmuth rating from Republican Favored to Leans Republican.

WY-AT LARGE: When Sparring Goes Wrong

It’s a threat to happen every political debate that’s ever held: one contestant is inadequately prepped by campaign managers and… misinterprets the word “spar.”

To review: SPAR: [spahr] v. sparred, sparring; 1. (of boxers) to make the motions of attack and defense with the arms and fists, esp. as a part of training. 2. to box, esp. with light blows. 3. to strike or attack with the feet or spurs, as gamecocks do. 4. to bandy words; dispute.

Sadly, during an election season dozens of campaign debates occur every week and every single morning a new headline reads something to the effect of “Candidates Spar Over Immigration,” “Candidates Spar Over Iraq,” etc. Eventually, mistakes and misunderstandings are bound to occur. One such mistake occurred last Sunday evening as Wyoming’s at-large Representative Barbara Cubin (R) employed what she believed at the time to be expert rhetoric by threatening to slap libertarian candidate Thomas Rankin, who uses a wheelchair due to multiple sclerosis.

Sigh… when will they learn? This is precisely why the Midterm Roundup advocates and has been advocating literally for years now that notices be posted in all debating places that clarify the exact meaning of the verb “to spar” in literal terms. In this day and age of partisan acrimony and with candidates’ well-being at stake, it’s just not worth the risk anymore. How many candidates have to be slapped? How many, the Roundup asks, before real change is made?

(For the record, Cubin is in no way denying that the slap threat occurred. Here’s the statement from her campaign spokesman Eric Cullen: “Mr. Rankin misrepresented Mrs. Cubin's positions and insulted her integrity during the debate. When she approached him after the debate, he said something not very complimentary. She responded. It was a private conversation. She's over it.” Luckily for her, she has a rock solid defense for any impending lawsuit: disabled people love me! “Just last week, she had an art center for the developmentally disabled named in her honor,” the Cullen statement continues. “Anyone who knows her knows she would never lash out at someone unprovoked.”)

IYI (If You’re Interested)

FL-GOV: Florida: Is the Governor's Race Back in Play? (The Fix)

ID-01: Solidly Republican, Suddenly in Doubt (WaPo takes a look at the open seat race in Idaho’s 1^st district, which is traditionally rock solid Republican, except this year the Republican nominee is a fellow name of Bill Sali, a state representative whom, by practically all accounts, nobody likes: “The Republican speaker of the Idaho House, Bruce Newcomb, said this spring of Sali: ‘That idiot is just an absolute idiot.’” (*furiously scribbling down quote, reminding self to use it during next verbal confrontation*))

MD-SEN: Steele shrugs off foe's attacks (Wash Times)

NATIONWIDE: Republicans losing crucial swing voters: poll (Reuters)

NATIONWIDE: Dems Shouldn't Necessarily Expect a Blowout (the sober-minded Jonathan Alter, writing for Newsweek)

NATIONWIDE: Wave of Change Expected on Election Day (WaPo, with a little Take that, Jonathan Alter!)

NATIONWIDE: The Hill offers its latest Campaign 2006 Tipsheet. Notable items: Mike DeWine hasn’t been endorsed by every newspaper in the state of Ohio. Not quite – challenger Sherrod Brown has been endorsed by the Toledo Blade and the Mansfield News Journal. Plus, horror novelist Stephen King sends an e-mail to Moveon.org to help rally voters: “If I know anything, I know scary,” he writes. “And giving this president and this out-of-control Congress two more years to screw up our future is downright terrifying. Thankfully, this national nightmare is one we can end with — literally — a wake up call.”

THOSE DAMN CHEAP DEMOCRATS: Moveon.org Urges Safe Dems to Pony Up (The Fix), and Democrats Urge Their Flush Candidates to Share the Wealth (NY Times)

GAMES!: WaPo offers a fun contest for midterm election junkies/nerds: Midterm Madness: Pick the winners of each congressional election and win fabulous cash prizes and “claim bragging rights.” And in case you missed it yesterday, there’s a hot new “fantasy congress” game out there for the truly serious congress hounds: http://www.fantasycongress.org/fc/.

FOLEY ACTION FIGURE: The Midterm Roundup is sad to report that it has lost the online auction for the Mark Foley action figure. In a whirlwind 11 hours of fevered fundraising the Midterm Roundup Mark Foley Action Figure Fund collected a total of $309.68. Alas and alack, the action figure sold for a final price of $315.01. Thank you to all those who donated, your money will now go towards this Remarkable French Mechanical Bear w/ Drum. $15,000 is the starting bid, but we’ve got 5 days left to raise the money. We can do this.

As for the Foley action figure, the Roundup isn’t willing to concede defeat without a fight. It can’t be positive but it’s pretty sure it smells something, and the Roundup will assume it is foul play afoot in the Foley action figure auction. Something tells the Roundup this thing was rigged. It intends to file a complaint with the FEC and hopefully spark the biggest nationwide political scandal since Foleygate, “Foleydollgate.”

NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE: Sorry, America’s Team. But the Midterm Roundup is afraid you are quite clearly no match for the awesome, unstoppable, utterly overwhelming force that is the New… York… GIANTS. Giants go into Dallas and demolish Terrell Owens and the Cowboys, 36 to 22, to seize sole possession of 1^st place in the NFC Eastern division: BLUE CRUSH. To celebrate: a reprise performance from the GGOTA (Greatest Giant of Them All), Lawrence Taylor.