Here's a wrap-up of the four major national tracking polls for today, with Obama's lead over John McCain expanding by a small margin:

• Gallup: Obama 50%, McCain 44%, with a ±2% margin of error. Yesterday, Obama was ahead 49%-44%.

• Rasmussen: Obama 48%, McCain 47%, with a ±2% margin of error. Yesterday, the two were tied 48%-48%.

• Hotline/Diageo: Obama 45%, McCain 44%, with a ±3.2% margin of error, unchanged from yesterday.

• Research 2000: Obama 50%, McCain 42%, with a ±3% margin of error. Yesterday, Obama was up 49%-42%.

Adding these polls together and weighting them by sample sizes, Obama is ahead by a margin of 48.7%-44.9%, a slightly bigger lead than yesterday's 48.2%-45.2% advantage.

McCain Raised $48 Million In August, His Best Ever
John McCain collected a very impressive $48 million in August, less than Barack Obama's $66 million but still his best month ever. On top of that, the RNC has consistently out-raised the DNC, and McCain received $84 million in government money after the Republican Convention -- so Obama's much-vaunted fundraising numbers may not actually lead to an overall advantage.

Obama In Florida, Biden In Virginia
Barack Obama is campaigning today in Florida, where he held a rally earlier this morning in Daytona Beach, and has another one in Jacksonville scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Joe Biden is campaigning is campaigning in Castlewood, Virginia, where he'll be speaking to the United Mine Workers at 1 p.m.

McCain Attending Class Reunion, Palin Also Off The Trail
John McCain is off the trail today, instead attending his 50-year class reunion from the Naval Academy. Sarah Palin does not have any scheduled campaign events.

Obama Goes After McCain On Social Security And The Financial Crisis
Campaigning this morning in Daytona Beach, Barack Obama connected John McCain's stance on Social Security to the credit crisis. "But if my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would've had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week," Obama said. "Millions would've watched as the market tumbled and their nest egg disappeared before their eyes.

Palin To Meet With Karzai
Sarah Palin will be meeting this coming week with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, during Karzai's visit to the U.N. General Assembly in New York. The meeting will likely attract a lot of press attention, as Palin seeks to make up for her lack of experience in foreign policy.

Rangel Calls Palin "Disabled"
Rep. Charlie Rangel could find himself in some more political hot water, as a result of some comment he made about Sarah Palin. When asked by CBS 2 in New York why Democrats were afraid of Sarah Palin's popularity, Rangel answered: "You got to be kind to the disabled." When called out on the faux pas by the interviewer, Rangel stood by his comment.

This got a bit of attention earlier this week, and we're surprised it hasn't attracted the notice of the bigger news orgs, because it's a pretty interesting mystery: Who, exactly, is funding the distribution of lurid DVDs across America warning of the global radical Islamic threat, in the home stretch of the election?

The DVD, which would seem to be helpful to John McCain, is called Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against The West, and it was distributed in small newspapers across the country last weekend, prompting little news outlets to start digging. Here's the insert:

The DVD was originally released by neocon filmmaker Raphael Shore in 2006, and it has popped up at various times since. Fox News aired it during the 2006 midterms, for example. Right-wing pastor John Hagee's group, Christians United for Israel, helped pay for a mass mailing of it around six months ago.

Now it's back, and local news outlets are slowly putting together a picture of the current campaign.

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Here's tonight's rundown on the Congressional races: The Dems have had a pretty good day, scoring key endorsements and getting some good poll data, though it wasn't all bad news for the GOP.

GOP Senate Committee Out-Raises Dems, Still Trails In Cash
The NRSC got a small piece of good news today, announcing that they raised $5.2 million in August and beat the DSCC's $4.36 million. However, the Dems still lead in cash on hand with $33.67 million to the NRSC's $26.8 million, and are spending heavily in the key races.

Bloomberg Endorses Dem Candidate For Key GOP-Held House Seat
The Congressional campaign of New York City Councillor Mike McMahon, the Dem nominee for the open House seat of retiring Rep. Vito Fossella (R), has announced that they've received the endorsement of Mayor Mike Bloomberg. The endorsement from Bloomberg, who was elected twice as a Republican and has since changed his registration to independent, is a further sign that the Dems are on track to win this seat.

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Here's a bit of interesting polling data from around the Web. The new CNN poll of polls finds virtual dead heats in Ohio and Indiana:

According to averages of several recent surveys from both states, Obama holds a slim 1 point lead in Ohio (46-45 percent) and McCain holds a small 2 point lead in Indiana (47-45 percent).

The Ohio poll of polls consists of three surveys: Big Ten Battleground (September 14-17), CNN/Time/ORC (September 14-16), and Marist (September 11-15). The Indiana general election poll of polls also consists of three surveys: Big Ten Battleground (September 14-17), CNN/Time/ORC (September 14-16), and Indianapolis Star/WTHR (September 14-16).

One of the grimmer consequences of McCain's post-convention bounce had been the spate of polls showing him with a decided edge in Ohio. Now it appears to have slipped into a dead heat, with Obama up one on average.

Meanwhile, however, McCain gains in CNN's newly revised battleground state map:

CNN now estimates that if the presidential election were held today, Barack Obama would capture 223 electoral votes, to McCain's 200, leaving 115 electoral votes would still be up for grabs. The 23 electoral-vote-lead for Obama is down from a 44-point estimated lead he held in CNN's previous electoral map. Both men are well short of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.

And this is a real doozy: The DailyKos/Research 2000 daily tracking poll finds that Sarah Palin's approval ratings are plunging with astonishing speed.

I've just obtained some records from the city of Wasilla that confirm that Sarah Palin's pay as mayor went up, despite her claim that she took a pay cut.

One thing Palin has frequently claimed as proof of her reform credentials is that she "took a pay cut" as Wasilla mayor. As I reported here yesterday, however, local Alaska press clippings seemed to show that this is only true in a very narrow sense.

The clippings indicate that while she did pass a pay-cut ordinance upon taking office, her pay actually went up during her overall tenure.

Now we have records from the city of Wasilla that confirm this. Here is the trajectory of her pay, according to the records:

Upon taking office on 10/14/1996: $64.200

01/01/1997: Pay was cut from $64,200 to $61,200

06/01/1998: Pay rose from $61,200 to $68,000

07/01/1999: Pay cut again from $68,000 to $66,000

10/01/1999: Pay rose from $66,000 to $68,000

From late 1999 until the end of her mayoralty in 2002, records show, her pay stayed at $68,000 -- higher than the $64,200 it was when she started out, and significantly higher than the $61,200 she initially cut it to.

The records don't explain the mechanisms by which the pay shifts happened. As best as we can determine, the cuts were engineered by Palin herself through some sort of executive mechanism, and the raises were City Council-mandated hikes.

What's the upshot? Well, Palin's claim that she "took a pay cut" as mayor is true in a narrow sense. She came in and took a pay cut that she engineered herself.

But in a broader sense, the claim is an oversimplification that borders on misleading. The bottom line is that whatever her intentions, over the course of her mayoralty Palin's pay went up thousands of dollars and stayed higher for years, money which she presumably kept. (If any proof emerges that she donated it to charity or channeled it back into city coffers in some other way, we'll happily update.)

This isn't another Bridge to Nowhere. But it does fit a pattern here, where Palin burnishes her reform credentials by describing intentions as realities or otherwise boiling down the record into easily-digestible sound-bites that at best are half-truths, as this latest one has now proven to be.

The McCain campaign has declined to comment on the pay hikes.

We'll bring you the records themselves soon.

Late Update: The documentation is here. It's what the city of Wasilla's Human Resources Generalist will send to anyone who asks for documentation of Palin's pay.

John McCain's claim in an ad yesterday that former Fannie Mae CEO Frank Raines is a leading adviser to Barack Obama is based largely on a Washington Post article reporting that Raines had "taken calls" from Obama's campaign "seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters."

The notion that that makes Raines a leading adviser to Obama himself, of course, is a pretty ridiculous stretch.

Now The Washington Post's very own fact-checker has declared that the McCain campaign is "exaggerating wildly," dismissing the Raines claim as "particularly dubious."

That's nice to hear. But we have to take issue with the notion that the McCain camp's assertion is "particularly dubious." In truth, when compared to some of the more ambitions and even epic falsehoods that we've heard from the McCain campaign in recent weeks, this latest act of deception sounds like an angel's hymn.

Here's a wrap-up of the four major national tracking polls for today, with Obama's lead over John McCain basically unchanged from yesterday:

• Gallup: Obama 49%, McCain 44%, with a ±2% margin of error. Yesterday, Obama was ahead 48%-44%.

• Rasmussen: McCain 48%, Obama 48%, with a ±2% margin of error, unchanged from yesterday.

• Hotline/Diageo: Obama 45%, McCain 44%, with a ±3.2% margin of error. Yesterday, Obama was up 46%-42%.

• Research 2000: Obama 49%, McCain 42%, with a ±3% margin of error. Yesterday, Obama was up 49%-43%.

Adding these polls together and weighting them by sample sizes, Obama is ahead by a margin of 48.2%-45.2%, essentially the same as yesterday's lead of 47.9%-45.1%

John McCain has come out with this new Spanish-language in Florida, usuing a tried-and-true tactic for courting Miami Cubans: Linking your opponent to Latin American Marxism, in this case Castro-ally Hugo Chávez.

The ad shows footage of Chávez going on some of his more bombastic, obscenity-laden tirades against America, warning viewers that Obama "wants to talk with" Chávez if he becomes president. This is a loaded way of characterizing Obama's views, since his actual position is that he would be willing to meet with hostile foreign leaders without requiring them to make major policy concessions right up front.

Full English script after the jump.

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Barack Obama just delivered a sober and somber statement on the economic crisis, stressing the need for "bipartisan spirit" and calling for he and McCain to "come together" -- implicitly contrasted his own call for unity with McCain's attacks this morning.

While saying a detailed blueprint is inappropriate at this time, Obama laid out broad principles and called for emergency measures for working families.

In the same bipartisan spirit that is being shown with regard to the crisis on Wall Street, I ask Senator McCain, President Bush, Republicans and Democrats to join me in supporting an emergency economic plan for working families -- a plan that would help folks cope with rising gas and food prices, spark job creation through repair of our schools and roads, help states and cities avoid painful budget cuts and tax increases, help homeowners stay in their homes, and provide retooling assistance for America's auto industry.

John McCain and I can continue to argue about our different economic agendas for next year, but we should come together now to work on what this country urgently needs this year...

Given the gravity of this situation, and based on conversations I have had with both Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke, I will refrain from presenting a more detailed blue-print of how an immediate plan might be structured until I can fully review the details of the plan proposed by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve. It is critical at this point that the markets and the public have confidence that their work will be unimpeded by partisan wrangling, and that leaders in both parties work in concert to solve the problem at hand.

The political challenge for both candidates is obvious: Balance the attacks on the opposition that are necessary to gain and keep traction on the issue with the sort of somber calls for unity and compromise that are appropriate to the gravity of the deepening crisis. Full Obama remarks after the jump.

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A new round of Marist polls gives Barack Obama the lead in three key swing states:

• In Michigan, Obama has built up a strong lead of 52%-43% among likely voters, outside of the ±4% margin of error.

• In Ohio, Obama is ahead 47%-45% among likely voters, within the ±4.5% margin of error. Most polls have McCain ahead here, and this might explain the difference: In this one, Obama has consolidated the support of 90% of Democrats, while most others show him losing more defectors to McCain.

• In Pennsylvania, Obama has a lead of 49%-44% among likely voters, with a ±4.5% margin of error.

The economic crisis could be helping Obama to consolidate Democratic support, with over 40% of voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania listing the economy as their top issue, and a full majority saying so in Michigan.

Here's today's rundown on the Congressional races: The momentum so far today seems to be with the Dems, with some decent poll numbers and strong ad campaigns.

Stevens Tries To Get Ads Against Him Pulled
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) has called upon local TV and radio stations to stop running DSCC ads that attack him for getting an unreasonably good deal on a car thanks to a wealthy donor, and for steering private consultant jobs to his son Ben. Only a few stations honored his complaints that the ads are deceptive, but even they are once more continuing to run them.

Poll: Dems Winning Both Congressional Races In Deep-Red Alaska
A new Research 2000 poll has the Dems winning both the Senate and House races in Alaska, despite the presence of Gov. Sarah Palin on the national ticket. Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich is beating Sen. Ted Stevens by a 50%-44% margin, and former state Rep. Ethan Berkowitz is beating scandal-plagued GOP Rep. Don Young by a 53%-39% margin, with a ±4% margin of error.

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In a speech today in Green Bay, John McCain kept up with his efforts to grab control of the debate over the economy by hitting Obama's ties to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

McCain cast himself as the activist reformer on the economy by citing his call for reform at Fannie and Freddie, and again hit Obama by claiming that its former CEO, Frank Raines, advised Obama on housing, even though Raines himself has denied it. From the prepared remarks:

Two years ago, I called for reform of this corruption at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Congress did nothing. The Administration did nothing. Senator Obama did nothing, and actually profited from this system of abuse and scandal. While Fannie and Freddie were working to keep Congress away from their house of cards, Senator Obama was taking their money. He got more, in fact, than any other member of Congress, except for the Democratic chairmen of the committee that oversees them. And while Fannie Mae was betraying the public trust, somehow its former CEO had managed to gain my opponent's trust to the point that Senator Obama actually put him in charge of his vice presidential search.

This CEO, Mr. Johnson, walked off with tens of millions of dollars in salary and bonuses for services rendered to Fannie Mae, even after authorities discovered accounting improprieties that padded his compensation. Another CEO for Fannie Mae, Mr. Raines, has been advising Senator Obama on housing policy. This even after Fannie Mae was found to have committed quote "extensive financial fraud" under his leadership. Like Mr. Johnson, Mr. Raines walked away with tens of millions of dollars.

The hit on Johnson is a rough one for Obama. But the Raines attack is shaping up as (yawn) yet another McCain falsehood. The Associated Press is reporting that Raines actually informed a top McCain adviser a few days ago that he is not an adviser to Obama -- before Raines became a major issue.

McCain's claim that Raines advised Obama is based on a few unsourced lines in The Washington Post, and WaPo is currently mulling a correction. If the paper does correct the record, it'll be fun to watch McCain keep claiming there's a tie. Full McCain remarks after the jump.

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The McCain campaign is continuing to hammer Barack Obama over his connections to Fannie Mae executives, which he laid out in his speech this morning, this time releasing a new national TV ad targeting former CEO Jim Johnson:

"Fannie cooked the books and Johnson made millions," the announcer says. "Then Obama asked him to pick his VP, and raise thousands for his campaign."

It's interesting that the second ad on the Fannie Mae issue goes after Jim Johnson, whose connections to Obama are much more substantial than they ever were for Franklin Raines, the target of the first ad. Then again, as we noted yesterday, Raines is black and Johnson is white.

In the latest effort by the big unions to try to fill the gap left behind by the absence of third-party spending on the left, the AFL-CIO is hitting the Rust Belt states with a massive mail blitz hammering John McCain over his claim that the "fundamentals" of the economy are "strong."

This mailer will go out to more than one million union households in the swing states of Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania (click on the images to enlarge):

The piece is the latest sign of just how up for grabs Reagan Dems remain in the key battlegrounds -- and the urgency the big unions feel about the need to off-set McCain's ongoing populist makeover, via ads and speeches, in these critical states.

McCain: Obama Puts Himself First, Not His Country
John McCain has stepped up his attacks on Barack Obama's patriotism. "Country first or Obama first," McCain told a Green Bay rally last night, then going on to attack Obama for opposing tax cuts and voting against funding for the Iraq War.

Obama In Florida, Biden In Virginia
Barack Obama is campaigning today in Coral Gables, Florida, where he has a meeting with economic advisers before proceeding to a rally scheduled to begin at 11:45 am ET. Joe Biden is campaigning in Virginia, with a rally scheduled for 12 p.m ET.

McCain In Wisconsin, Discussing The Economy
John McCain will be giving a speech on the economy this morning to the Green Bay Chamber of Commerce, scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. ET. In the speech, he will savage Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress as do-nothings on the economy and financial crisis. McCain then has a rally in Blaine, Minnesota, scheduled for 1 p.m. ET.

McCain Shows Dog Tags Of Dead Soldier At Rally
In another interesting moment from his rally last night in Green Bay, John McCain brandished his newest symbol of patriotism: The dog tags of a soldier killed in Afghanistan, given to him by the soldier's mother. "And then the note goes on to say: Please remember and support our troops in Afghanistan," McCain said.

Palin's Staff Won't Say Which Branch Of Government The VP Is In
Shades of Dick Cheney: The Hill reports that Sarah Palin's staff is declining to say whether the office of vice president is a part of the Executive or Legislative branch. Instead, they simply forwarded to the paper copies of Palin's remarks on what her responsibilities would be in office.

New Polls: Obama Up In Colorado, McCain Narrowly Ahead In Virginia
A new pair of InsiderAdvantage polls gives Barack Obama a healthy lead in Colorado, and John McCain a narrow one in Virginia. The numbers: In Colorado, Obama is up 51%-41% with a ±4.3% margin of error, and McCain is up 48%-46% with a ±4.3 margin of error.

The Obama campaign already has a new ad out, set to begin airing on national cable tomorrow, responding to John McCain's ad that alleged Obama was being advised on the economy by former Fannie Mae head Franklin Raines.

This ad goes after John McCain for his professed lack of economic knowledge, and his economic advisers:

"Carly Fiorina, the fired CEO who got a $42 million golden parachute," the announcer says. "Phil Gramm, the ex-Senator who pushed through deregulation, and called Americans hurt by this economy 'whiners.'"

And this particularly damaging connection: "Then there's George Bush, whose disastrous policies McCain wants to continue."

The McCain campaign is up with a new ad that hits Obama on the economy, by attacking Obama for his associations with former Fannie Mae head Franklin Raines (who happens to be black):

The ad suggests that Raines is Obama's leading adviser. "Who advises him?" the narrator says. "The Post says it's Franklin Raines, for 'advice on mortgage and housing policy.'"

The actual quote from the Post, according to the McCain campaign's release, says merely that Raines has "taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters."

Jumping from there to suggesting that this guy is his leading economic adviser is a pretty audacious stretch, though it's child's play in comparison to the McCain campaign's other falsehoods.

Late Update: The Obama campaign has sent out this statement from Franklin Raines: "I am not an advisor to Barack Obama, nor have I provided his campaign with advice on housing or economic matters."

And here's another statement from the Obama camp:

"This is another flat-out lie from a dishonorable campaign that is increasingly incapable of telling the truth. Frank Raines has never advised Senator Obama about anything -- ever. And by the way, someone whose campaign manager and top advisor worked and lobbied for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shouldn't be throwing stones from his seven glass houses," said Obama-Biden campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

Late Late Update: Here's another point worth considering. The McCain campaign had their choice of two names from Fannie Mae to connect to Obama -- Jim Johnson, who is white, or Franklin Raines, who is black.

Johnson's connections to the Obama campaign are much, much more substantial, in that he helped to vet the VP contenders.

Instead, the McCain campaign chose Raines. And the image at the end of the ad, of the victimized taxpayer, is an elderly white woman.

Here's tonight's rundown on the Congressional races: It wasn't a good day for the GOP, with a mixture of legal defeat, the wrong candidate winning the nomination for a key seat, and tough counter-attacks from the Dems.

Democrats Win Court Battle In Mississippi Senate Race
In a surprise victory for the Dems, the Mississippi Supreme Court has ruled against the efforts by GOP Gov. Haley Barbour to bury the hotly-contested special election for Senate at the bottom of the physical ballot used on Election Day, where lower-information voters might have overlooked it. Oddly enough, though, the court declined to issue a formal order that Barbour must change the ballot, but only threatened to issue one if he did not comply from here on out.

Late Update: Barbour's office says he will comply with the ruling.

NY Conservatives: No, We're Not Nominating Fossella
A leader of the New York Conservative Party is ruling out the possibility of subbing in scandal-plagued retiring Rep. Vito Fossella (R) as their new nominee for Congress. "No, absolutely not," said Brooklyn party chairman Jerry Kassar, in an interview with Election Central. "He is not under consideration, nor has he requested consideration."

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The current dynamic of the race -- with Obama on the offensive daily on the economy, and McCain struggling to limit losses on the issue -- showed no signs of abating today, as Obama reeled off hit after hit on McCain in New Mexico.

Obama really bore in on the theme of McCain as flip-flopper and onetime deregulator turned rabid pitchfork-wielding populist suddenly looking to stick it to Wall Street. From the prepared remarks:

He has consistently opposed the sorts of common sense regulations that might have lessened the current crisis. When I was warning about the danger ahead on Wall Street months ago because of the lack of oversight, Senator McCain was telling the Wall Street Journal -- and I quote -- "I'm always for less regulation."

Except now, with the magnitude of the crisis apparent even to the Bush White House, John McCain wants to reverse course. Now, all of a sudden, he's unleashed an angry tirade against all the insiders and lobbyists who've supported him for twenty-six years -- the same folks who run his campaign.

On Monday, he said the economy was fundamentally sound, and he was fundamentally wrong.

On Tuesday, he said the government should stand by and allow one of the nation's largest insurers to collapse, putting the well-being of millions of Americans at risk. But by Wednesday, he changed his mind.

He said he would take on the ol' boy network, but he seemed to forget that he took seven of the biggest lobbyists in Washington from that network and put them in charge of your campaign.

John McCain can't decide whether he's Barry Goldwater or Dennis Kucinich.

That the Dem is the one whooping it up as he paints the Republican with the same flip-flop-wind-surf-waffler brush that the GOP has used to color the last two Dem nominees is yet another sign of the dramatically shifting dynamics of the race.

Separately, The Huffington Post has a nice get that reinforces the ongoing narrative, reporting that the McCain team had earlier contemplated criticizing Bush forcefully on the economy but balked at the last minute. Seems suggestive.

Full Obama speech after the jump.

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Not sure we've ever seen this one before. The McCain campaign has just blasted out a statement attacking Barack Obama for something he hasn't even said and might say later today!

From McCain spokesperson Brian Rogers:

In his rush to score political points on economic disaster, we've heard that at his next event in New Mexico, Senator Obama is about to distort the facts and attack John McCain's call for removing the Chairman of the SEC...

The President of the United States has the power to remove the chairmanship, and always reserves the right to request the resignation of an appointee and to maintain the customary expectation that it will be delivered. Perhaps Barack Obama isn't strong enough to change Washington, but John McCain is.

The line about Obama's supposed coming attack on McCain for his "call for removing" the SEC chair is a reference to McCain's claim earlier today in which he said: "If I were president today, I would fire him."

As you can see, the McCain campaign misrepresented what McCain actually said. He didn't "call for removing" him. He said he'd fire him. Presidents can't unilaterally fire the SEC chair.

Hmmm. Are we seeing the birth of a new McCain campaign doctrine of preemptive lying?

The McCain campaign, clearly struggling in its efforts to prevent Obama from owning the economy as his issue, goes up with two spots in economically distressed swing states that promise active government intervention to rescue ailing industries.

Here's the ad in Michigan, promising to help the state's auto industry:

And here's an Ohio version, essentially the same ad but targeted at that state's small businesses and manufacturing sector:

That McCain, a self-professed champion of smaller government and lower spending, is being dragged towards Obama's embrace of government largesse to shore up struggling industries is yet another sign of how much the race has shifted amid the financial crisis.

One thing Sarah Palin cites as proof of her reform credentials is a pay cut she says she took when she became Mayor of Wasilla in 1996.

"As mayor I took a voluntary pay cut, which didn't thrill my husband; and then as governor I cut the personal chef position from the budget, and that didn't thrill my hungry kids," Palin said recently, repeating a frequent refrain.

But did she really get an overall pay cut as mayor? The record suggests a more complex story.

While Palin did appear to get a pay cut ordinance passed upon entering, several years later her salary had actually gone up to the point where it ended up thousands of dollars higher than it was just before she took office, local press reports at the time show.

Two reports in the local Alaska press in 1999, three years after she became Mayor, say explicitly that her salary at that time was $68,000, higher than the $64,000 it was just before she took over as mayor. The pay hikes were apparently due to mandated salary increases that the City Council refused to overrule, though that's not certain.

The McCain campaign was unable to explain why her salary had gone up and how that squared with her claim of taking a cut.

Asked for proof of her claim that she took a pay cut, the McCain campaign provided us with minutes from a Wasilla City Council meeting from November 13, 1996, which appear to show that Palin introduced and passed some sort of measure to reduce her salary by 10 percent.

But that's not the end of the story.

Three years later, on March 12, 1999, an article ran in The Frontiersman which explicitly reported that Palin's salary was higher at that time than it was when she took over. The article describes a City Council vote where the Council, in the words of the paper, "decided to leave the mayor's salary at $68,000." It was $64,000 when Palin took over, according to the paper.

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Here's a wrap-up of the four major national tracking polls for today, with all four of them showing some small positive movement for Barack Obama as he expands his recently regained national lead:

Gallup: Obama 48%, McCain 44%, with a ±2% margin of error. Yesterday, Obama moved into a narrow lead of 47%-45%.

Rasmussen: McCain 48%, Obama 48%, with a ±2% margin of error. Yesterday, McCain had a bare edge of 48%-47%.

Hotline/Diageo: Obama 46%, McCain 42%, with a ±3.2% margin of error. Yesterday, Obama was up 45%-42%.

Research 2000: Obama 49%, McCain 43%, with a ±3% margin of error. Yesterday, Obama was up 48%-44%.

Adding these polls together and weighting them by sample sizes, Obama is now ahead by a margin of 47.9%-45.1%, compared to yesterday's lead of 46.9%-45.6%

Finally -- real minority outreach from the GOP. The Virginia Republicans have a big rally coming up this Saturday that's designed to reach out to minority voters in Fairfax County.

Guess who is one of the featured speakers?

George Allen. Yes, that George Allen.

We checked in with the state GOP to ask if Allen is really an effective front-man for the party's efforts to win over minorities, given the "macaca" scandal.

The answer? Yes! "George Allen has an excellent record on issues of diversity, reaching out to people," Gerry Scimeca, communications director for the state party, told us. "His whole career, his whole life have been a testament to a guy who's treated people equally across racial lines, across every kind of line."

Asked whether "macaca" might cloud the message a bit, Scimeca said the whole thing was a smear-job by the Dems: "Anyone had to go on Wikipedia to be offended by it. And you know how people can mess with Wikipedia."

Scimeca argued that Allen's father was a football coach who held up his players, many of whom were African-Americans, as role models for his children. "This is not a racist man," Scimeca said. "He never did anything -- this was totally out of character."

Come to think of it, maybe George Allen is the best spokesperson for the GOP's minority outreach, after all.

I just got off the phone with the Miami reporter who interviewed John McCain and elicited the Spain-goof answer that we've been writing about on the front page of TPM -- an interview in which McCain appeared to grow confused about who his interviewer was talking about.

She tells me she doesn't believe that McCain didn't know who Prime Minister Zapatero is or where Spain was. Instead, she believes that McCain was deliberately ducking the question of whether he'd meet with the Spanish Prime Minister.

"I didn't get the impression that he didn't know who Zapatero was or where Spain was," the reporter, Yoli Cuello, told me. "Honestly, what I thought was that he didn't want to answer the question with a yes or no answer."

(You can listen to the interview here. To recap: When asked to discuss relations with Spain and whether he would meet with Zapatero, McCain at first segued into a discussion of Latin America. When the reporter repeated Zapatero's name, McCain again talked about Latin America. And when the reporter stressed that she was talking about Spain, McCain wouldn't say whether he'd meet with the Spanish leader.)

Pressed on why McCain would keep seguing into a discussion of Latin America if he knew who she was talking about, Cuello said: "I think because I was talking with him before about Latin America. He was not giving me a straight answer. I wasn't expecting a straight answer."

Asked why she thought McCain would duck the question, she said: "The policies regarding Iraq. Because he's a Republican. The [Bush] administration doesn't have good relations with Zapatero."

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Here's today's rundown on the Congressional races: It's shaping up to be a pretty good day for the Dems, with good poll results and new lines of attack emerging against their Republican opponents in key races.

Conservative Drops Out In Race For Fossella's Seat -- Could Vito Come Back?
Paul Atanasio, the New York Conservative Party's candidate for the open seat of scandal plagued Rep. Vito Fossella, has dropped out of the race via a nomination for a judgeship. This method of withdrawal allows the party to replace him on the ballot with a new candidate -- creating the small possibility that Fossella himself, who is said to be looking at a way to get back into the race, could re-enter on the Conservative line. We'll be looking into this further.

Shaheen Goes After Sununu on Stem Cells, Wall Street
Dem Senate candidate Jeanne Shaheen is stepping up attacks on incumbent Sen. John Sununu (R-NH). Shaheen is hitting Sununu on the financial crisis, blaming the lack of federal oversight and Sununu's lack of leadership on the Senate Banking Committee, and next week she'll be campaigning with Michael J. Fox for increased federal funding for stem-cell research.

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There's a lot in the internals of the new New York Times poll to chew over, but I wanted to highlight a few numbers that seem to suggest that Obama's holding up pretty well under the withering assault on his character the McCain campaign has hit him with for months now.

Despite the months of attacks designed to portray him as an elitist and culturally out of touch with ordinary Americans, here are some of the findings:

* Obama's favorable rating of 45% is a shade higher than McCain's of 44%. And in this poll Obama's fave numbers are up six points since August.

* Sixty percent think Obama "understands the needs and problems of people like yourself" -- compared to only 48% who say the same about McCain.

* Sixty-six percent think Obama "shares the values most Americans live by" -- more than the 61% who say the same about McCain.

* Fifty-seven percent think Obama is "someone you can relate to."

It's true that McCain is still seen as far more prepared for the job and more likely to be an effective commander-in-chief. But an astonishing 48% say the economy and jobs will be most important to them in picking a president -- more than three times the number (14%) who say terrorism and national security will be most important.

One key to besting McCain on the economy will be for Obama to resist attacks on him as snooty and out of touch, and according to these numbers, at least, he appears to be doing that.

In yet another indication that John McCain's national bounce is over, a new Quinnipiac national poll gives Barack Obama a 49%-45% lead among likely voters, with a ±3.1% margin of error.

This number isn't drastically different from Quinnipiac's last poll from a month ago, when Obama led 47%-42%, suggesting that any bounce McCain may have enjoyed in the interim was gone by the time Quinnipiac began polling again.

The big question here is the economy, with 47% of voters naming it as their biggest issues, and an astonishing 85% saying the state of the economy right now is bad. Also, 51% say McCain's tax plan favors the rich, while 55% say Obama's plan favors the poor and middle class.

McCain Ad: Obama Wants More Taxes And Spending
John McCain has this new attack ad out, set to air nationwide, depicting Obama as a big spender who will raise your taxes:

Missing from the ad, of course, is any mention of the Republican Party's spending record in Washington, or Sarah Palin's recorded of raising both taxes and spending through the roof back in Alaska.

Obama In New Mexico, Biden In Ohio
Barack Obama is campaigning today in the swing state of New Mexico, where recent polling has mostly given him the lead, with a rally in Española. Joe Biden is campaigning in Ohio, where most polling has John McCain ahead, with stops in Canton, Akron and Youngstown.

McCain And Palin In Iowa And Wisconsin Today
John McCain and Sarah Palin are again campaigning together today. First up is a rally this morning in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and this evening they'll be holding another rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Poll: Obama Up In New Mexico
A new SurveyUSA poll gives Barack Obama a 52%-44% lead in New Mexico, beyond the ±3.9% margin of error. This state just barely voted for Al Gore in 2000, then narrowly switched to George W. Bush in 2004.

Poll: Obama Narrowly Ahead In Indiana
A new Selzer poll gives Barack Obama a 47%-44% lead in Indiana, with a ±4% margin of error, a surprising number for a state that hasn't voted Dem since the Lyndon Johnson landslide of 1964. Most other recent polls have John McCain ahead here, but who knows, it could be the first sign of movement back towards the Democrats now that McCain's convention bounce is over.

Obama Ad: We Need Social Security, McCain Wants To Privatize It
Barack Obama has this unannounced attack ad running against John McCain in Michigan, tying McCain to George W. Bush, the troubled economy, and Bush's efforts to privatize Social Security:

"The Bush-McCain privatization plan," the announcer says. "Can you really afford more of the same?"

Author of 2002 Pro-McCain Book: He's Lost Me
Another formerly pro-McCain writer has turned on him in light of campaign developments. "McCain's recent conduct of his campaign," writes Elizabeth Drew, author of the 2002 book Citizen McCain, "his willingness to lie repeatedly (including in his acceptance speech) and to play Russian roulette with the vice-presidency, in order to fulfill his long-held ambition - has reinforced my earlier, and growing, sense that John McCain is not a principled man."

It looks like the McCain bounce is officially over.

Here are the numbers from new CBS/New York Times poll: Among registered voters, Obama leads 48%-43%, with a margin of error of ±3%. Among likely voters, Obama is ahead 49%-44%. Last week, McCain's post-convention helped him get a 46%-44% lead among registered voters -- but not anymore.

The economy seems to have really damaged McCain. Sixty-one percent of respondent say the economy is getting worse, and they're going for Obama by a 62%-29% margin. On top of that, 46% of respondent say John McCain would be likely to continue George W. Bush's policies.

This is also consistent with the movement of the daily tracking polls, which on average have shown Obama moving into a narrow lead after previously trailing by a few points.

This video, of Obama hammering McCain on the economy in Nevada, shows how dramatically the race has shifted amid the financial crisis:

Obama keeps hitting McCain on his claim that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong," and, in what sounds like a suggestion that McCain is befuddled, repeats a now-standard stump line: "They sent him back a few hours later to clean up his remarks."

Obama also quoted McCain's vow to take on the "old boys' network" in Washington, adding:

The ol' boy network? In the McCain campaign, that's called a staff meeting.

Only days ago it seemed like Obama was constantly on the defense. It's kind of extraordinary how much the financial crisis' shifting of the political environment, combined with McCain's ill-timed "fundamentals" gaffe, has made it possible for Obama to grab the offensive -- and on such favorable turf, too.

But McCain is now making as aggressive a grab for the populist mantle as he did for the change mantle, so a lot still rides on the still-unsettled question of whether Obama can succeed in owning the economy as his issue.

Here's tonight's rundown on Congressional races: Republicans across the country are getting desperate in the face of some very stiff Dem challenges -- so they're accusing their opponents of various kinds of personal sleaze.

GOP Congressman's Campaign Attacks Dem For Thinking About Masturbation Thirty Years Ago
Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO) is stepping up his social-conservative attacks on Dem challenger Kay Barnes, circulating to reporters an article that Barnes wrote back in the 1970s on the subject of sexuality and masturbation. A spokesman for the Barnes campaign told Roll Call that Graves is "fixated on sex" and that voters have better things to worry about.

GOP Candidate's Ad: My Opponent Supports Hanging Soldiers In Effigy
Tom McClintock, the GOP nominee for the open seat of scandal-plagued Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA), has premiered this new ad attacking Democrat Charlie Brown, an Air Force veteran, for attending an anti-war rally in 2005:

"Charlie Brown stood with anti-war radicals when a soldier was hung in effigy," says the woman in the ad, the mother of a Marine. "That's no way to support our troops."

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A new round of CNN swing state polls holds encouraging news for Obama: It finds that McCain's waning convention bounce hasn't translated into leads in key states, and indeed, Obama is leading in two key states and has pulled into a tie in Florida.

• In Florida, it's a 48%-48% tie. Most other polls recently have given the lead to McCain here, but this could be evidence of a shift happening.

• In Indiana, McCain has a close but seemingly secure 51%-45% lead, with a ±3.5% margin of error.

• In North Carolina, McCain has a bare edge of 48%-47%, with a ±3.5% margin of error.

• In Ohio, we have a rare poll with Obama ahead: Obama 49%, McCain 47%, with a ±3% margin of error. The last eight polls before this one have put McCain up. CNN's last poll from two weeks ago also had Obama up by a two-point margin.

• In Wisconsin, which has gone Dem by less than one point in the past two elections, Obama has a 50%-47% lead, with a ±3% margin of error.

Four of these five states voted twice for President Bush, and have generally been GOP-leaning -- but McCain currently only has any kind of halfway-decent lead in one of them, according to these polls. McCain's convention bounce seems to have run out, putting us back where we were before the two conventions: A very close race all across the country.

The Obama campaign keeps the focus on McCain and the economy by going local, spotlighting the plight of workers who were fired after a Corning plant closed in Pennsylvania...

How's this for a blast of ancient history: This Corning plant was actually also the subject of a mailer that Obama dropped during the campaign hitting Hillary for supporting normalizing trade relations with China.

The initial mailer was somewhat misleading, wrongly implying that Corning itself had shipped the jobs overseas. But the current spot doesn't repeat those errors, instead saying (accurately) that some of the workers were hired to ship the materials to China.

The ad is running in Pennsylvania and in other key states.

The Obama campaign has a new attack ad running on Spanish-language TV, attacking John McCain for having dos caras (two faces) on immigration, and being in league with the likes of Rush Limbaugh and other Republicans who routinely insult Latinos:

"They want us to forget the insults we've put up with, the intolerance," the announcer says, accompanied by text of Rush Limbaugh saying that "Mexicans are stupid and unqualified."

McCain has actively courted the Latino vote, and the RNC is running their own Spanish radio ads accusing Obama of being in league with those who killed the immigration bill last year. But the Obama campaign's counter-punches are definitely a whole lot more hard-hitting.

The AFL-CIO and an affiliated independent group are preparing to unleash an unusually large blitz of mailers targeting at least 1.5 million households in battleground states and across the country -- the group's first foray in a new and all-out campaign to win back Reagan and Bush-supporting Dems in the race's final stretch.

The mailer, which we obtained in advance of its public release, features testimonials from a number of these workers, including a school bus driver and Marine veteran who articulates the campaign's core message: "I voted for George W. Bush because he promised to change Washington. I'm not falling for the same old line from John McCain."

Click on the images to enlarge:

The mailer is the first big move by an outside group called Working America, which gets funding from the AFL-CIO and is the union's affiliate for non-union workers.

Working America is a group that bears watching. It's going to be doing a fair amount of heavy-lifting when it comes to winning back blue-collar "Reagan Democrats" who supported Bush in 2004 and risk being seduced by McCain's claim to being the race's real change agent -- hence the mailer's message.

Working America and the AFL-CIO will blast out the mailer next week to some 270,000 households in the swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, and to another 1.3 million union households in those states and across the country.

"This is a new front in the effort to reach working-class moderates on the pocketbook issues that are critical to them this election year," Karen Nussbaum, Executive Director of Working America, tells us.

"Our members have seen their living standards decline, their communities decay and their economic security disappear," Nussbaum continues. "Yet John McCain still thinks the fundamentals of our economy are strong."

The group -- which claims 2.5 million members in 11 states, including 800,000 in Ohio alone -- plans more mailers and on-the-ground organizing in the weeks ahead.

Barack Obama has now edged into a narrow lead in most of the national polls released today, suggesting John McCain's bounce may be subsiding after he had been leading over the last week and a half.

First, here's our daily roundup of the four major national tracking polls:

• Gallup: Obama 47%, McCain 45%, with a ±2% margin of error. McCain had a one-point lead yesterday, and this is the first time in a week and a half that Obama has been ahead.

• Rasmussen: McCain 48%, Obama 47%, with a ±2% margin of error, unchanged from yesterday.

• Hotline/Diageo: Obama 45%, McCain 42%, with a ±3.2% margin of error, not significantly changed from yesterday's 46%-42% margin for Obama.

• Research 2000: Obama 48%, McCain 44%, with a ±3% margin of error, unchanged from yesterday.

Adding these polls together and weighting them by sample sizes, Obama has a narrow lead of 46.9% to McCain's 45.6%. The two were essentially tied yesterday, and two days ago McCain had a roughly one-point lead.

On top of that, Obama has grabbed a 47%-45% lead in the new Zogby poll of likely voters, with a ±3.1% margin of error. In Zogby's last poll from a month ago -- which was something of an outlier at the time, mind you -- McCain had a 46%-41% lead.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe has just blasted out to supporters a new fundraising video he filmed from his lap top, and in it he shares an interesting piece of news: The campaign plans to spend the amazing sum of over $39 million in Florida alone.

All the polling out right now has given McCain the lead here, and the vast majority of observers view the state as McCain's to lose. But Plouffe obviously doesn't agree, if he really is willing to shell out $39 million that could have been spent on other targets like Colorado and Virginia.

"We have enough base voters in Florida to win the election, if we can just turn them out," Plouffe says.

John McCain's efforts to remake himself as a fire-breathing, regulation-wielding populist who will take on Wall Street continued again today with a speech in Michigan.

Notably, in an effort to put his best gloss on previous optimistic statements, such as his repeated claim that the "fundamentals of our economy are sound," McCain cast himself as an optimist on the economy and suggested his foes are pessimists who think our "nation is in decline."

In so doing, McCain even tried to claim the mantle of a Democratic President who dramatically expanded the very type of Federal regulatory power that McCain has decried for years, if not decades. From the prepared remarks:

One of our great Presidents, Franklin Roosevelt expressed this optimism even at the height of the Great Depression. He said: 'Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply.' My friends, that is true again today. I reject the doom and gloom that says our nation is in decline. America's best days are ahead.

It's unclear, of course, who McCain thinks has said "our nation is in decline." More excerpts after the jump.

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Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post never tires of telling us how influential Matt Drudge is. It's a frequent topic on the self-confessed Drudge-ologist's otherwise valuable blog, The Fix.

But today's installment of Matt Drudge Rules Our World really can't be allowed to pass without comment. In the course of hailing Drudge's omnipotence yet again, Cillizza compares Drudge's treatment of three stories yesterday as follows:

In the banner headline spot for most of the day was a picture of entertainer Barbra Streisand touting a Beverly Hills fundraiser for Barack Obama -- not exactly the sort of headline that the Illinois senator wants as chum for the cable channels 49 days before the election.

Two other stories never merited attention from Drudge: a claim by a senior aide to John McCain that the Arizona senator had invented the BlackBerry and a statement by McCain surrogate Carly Fiorina that neither McCain nor Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would be equipped to serve as CEO of a major U.S. company.

This strikes us as an unfortunate example, particularly in a column arguing (as Cillizza does) that the source of Drudge's power lies in his influence over the cable networks. Because one of the stories ignored by Drudge actually got a whole lot more coverage on cable yesterday than the one Drudge pushed all day in that supposedly hypnotic banner headline of his.

We followed cable coverage pretty closely yesterday at TPM World Headquarters. And a quick Nexis search by TPM's own Eric Kleefeld verified our suspicions. As best as we can determine, the Streisand story was only the focus of episodes on Fox. Neither CNN nor MSNBC did episodes focused on it. On those two networks, it only came up in passing when brought up by GOP operatives (a no-brainer) or when subjected to ridicule by a few others.

By contrast, all three networks devoted repeated stand-alone episodes to the Fiorina mess -- even though (Heaven forfend) Drudge ignored it! She appeared on all the nets again and again throughout the day.

Look, far be it from me to question the notion that Drudge has influence over network producers. Of course he does. But if we're really going to devote so much time to flacking Drudge's influence, how about a real and nuanced discussion of it?

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Here's this morning's rundown on the Congressional race: Economic insecurities are taking a greater and greater role in the Congressional races, with candidates giving their responses to corporate malpractice -- or being accused of it themselves.

DCCC Shelling Out Big Money
The DCCC dropped a cool $1.75 million on ads in 15 House races yesterday, flexing their cash advantage over the Republicans. One expenditure seriously stands out: Nearly half a million dollars to defend freshman Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH), who faces a very tough rematch against former Congressman Jeb Bradley.

Gordon Smith Facing More Pressure On Hiring Illegal Immigrants
The Willamette Week has intensified its reporting on the hiring of illegal immigrants by the family business of Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR), which Smith has called a "hatchet-job." Now the paper has upped the ante, with on-the-record testimonials from illegal immigrants who have themselves worked at the Smith Frozen Foods plant.

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Former Hillary adviser Phil Singer has a very nice catch over on his new blog: It seems that Alaska Senator Ted Stevens is by one measure this year's king of the earmarks. Will anti-earmark warriors John McCain and Sarah Palin say word boo about it?

From The Hill...

Stevens has secured the most earmarks in the Senate defense appropriations bill, according to an analysis by The Hill. The Hill reviewed projects requested by individual members that made it into the spending measure.

Stevens's earmark share in the defense bill is more than $200 million.

As Singer notes...

John McCain likes to say he "will use the bully pulpit to make the people who are wasting our tax dollars famous." Is he going to make Ted Stevens famous? Is Sarah Palin -- the supposed arch-enemy of earmarks -- going to weigh in against the Stevens earmarks?

Palin may still endorse Stevens for reelection -- she won't say one way or the other. So I think it's fair to predict that this Joan of Arc of earmarks slayers won't say a peep about her fellow Alaskan's massive earmarks haul.

A group of civil rights lawyers is launching what it bills as the largest voter-protection effort in American history, planning to raise and spend millions of dollars to station hundreds of lawyers and thousands of volunteers at polling places across the country to help voters having trouble with the polls on Election Day.

The non-partisan group, called Election Protection -- to be announced at a press conference later this morning -- is being headed up by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a legal group established in 1963 in the heat of the Civil Rights Movement.

While the group ran a similar effort in 2004, the new effort will be on a far grander scale, reflecting a growing sense that private efforts to combat the bureaucratic ineptitude and premeditated shenanigans that continue to mar the voting process just haven't been up to the task.

"This will be the largest voter protection effort in the history of the country," project head Jonah Goldman, a longtime civil rights and election reform lawyer, insisted in an interview yesterday with Election Central. The backbone of their effort is a hotline, 866-OUR-VOTE, that voters can call to have their questions answered, and to report problems.

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New McCain Ad: I've Taken On Tougher Guys Than Wall St.
John McCain has this new ad out on the economy, saying that he can reform the financial system while Barack Obama is just "talk and taxes," a contrast to Obama's two-minute economic ad from this morning:

"I'll reform Wall St. and fix Washington -- I've taken on tougher guys than this before," McCain says -- an apparent allusion to his war record.

Obama in Nevada, Biden In Ohio
Barack Obama is campaigning today in the Western swing state of Nevada, with stops in Elko and Las Vegas. Joe Biden is campaigning in Ohio, where recent pulling puts the Dems a few points behind, with events in Maumee and Wooster.

McCain And Palin Campaigning Together In Michigan
John McCain and Sarah Palin have another joint campaign appearance today, with a town hall-style event this evening in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This state hasn't voted Republican since 1988 -- but it's always close, and the GOP is targeting it very aggressively this year.

McCain Camp Takes Over Palin's Alaska Press Operation
The Associated Press reports that the McCain campaign has taken over media access to Sarah Palin's record as governor, with Palin's gubernatorial press office referring all questions to the campaign itself. In particular, the campaign is carefully managing any and all press involving the Trooper-Gate scandal, and are managing Palin's own legal maneuvering.

WaPo: McCain Changing Positions On Financial Regulation
The Washington Post goes into detail this morning on how John McCain is embracing positions of financial regulation, but only after he's spent years opposing it. "McCain now condemns the executives at those companies for pursuing the ambitions that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act made possible," the Post says, in reference to legislation that McCain had supported in years past and was written by economic adviser Phil Gramm.

Hillary Cancels Appearance At Anti-Ahmadinejad Rally After Palin Is Invited
Hillary Clinton has cancelled a planned appearance at a protest outside the Iranian embassy in Washington on September 22. The reason: Organizers also invited Sarah Palin to attend, which could have led to a public confrontation between the two.

The Obama campaign goes up with a two-minute ad in which Obama directly addresses the camera as he lays out his plans to rescue the economy:

The Obama campaign seemed caught off-guard by McCain's rather dramatic effort to transform himself into the race's real change agent. But this new spot, coming after days of ratcheted-up attacks on McCain over the economy, suggests that Team Obama is determined not to get outflanked by McCain's newfound effort amid the financial crisis to remake himself as a fire-breathing populist who will take on Wall Street.

The long spot, which doesn't mention McCain, gives Obama a chance to accomplish a bunch of things at once. He alludes to today's financial turmoil, which Dems hope will transform the political environment to ensure that the economy decides the election, while also pointing out that he'd been addressing people's economic concerns far before the real crisis started.

He lays out his plan with more specificity than you ordinarily get in an ad. He gives his call for an economic fix a patriotic cast: "We're Americans. We've met tough challenges before." And, in an effort to use the crisis to rise above the current political battles that have damaged him, he returns to his theme of new, post-partisan politics: "I approved this message because bitter, partisan fights and outworn ideas of the left and the right won't solve the problems we face today."

Full script of the ad, which will air in battleground states around the country, after the jump.

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Here's the rundown on today's Congressional races: The theme for today is ethics -- and how everyone is saying their opponents don't have any.

House Dems Demand DOJ Get Involved In Miss. Senate Race
A group of Congressional Dems led by House Judiciary chairman John Conyers (D-MI) are now demanding Justice Department intervention in the Mississippi Senate race, where GOP officials are tying to bury the race at the bottom of the ballot. "What we have here is a clear intent to confuse voters," said Mississippi Dem Congressman Bennie Thompson, in a press release from the group.

Dem Candidate Ties Himself To McCain In Deep-Red Kentucky
Bruce Lunsford, the Democratic businessman running against Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) has an interesting strategy in his new ad. Since he's running a state that is likely to go to John McCain by a very wide margin, he's tying himself to McCain's own condemnations of Republican corruption:

"John McCain singled out Mitch McConnell on corruption," the announcer says. In a way, this is essentially the mirror image of Republicans like Sen. Gordon Smith and Rep. Christopher Shays, who have tied themselves to Barack Obama in their much bluer states.

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The DNC is up with a new Web ad that pulls together nine -- count 'em -- distinct examples of McCain on video vouching for the strength of the fundamentals of our economy...

The McCain campaign has suffered a string of minor gaffes on the economy of late in what should be a really toxic political environment for such mistakes. But Camp McCain also has worked extremely aggressively to hijack the Dems' "change" message.

We're looking forward to the next batch of polling on who's viewed as the most likely change agent, who's seen as the most in touch with the problems of ordinary folks, and who's viewed as most likely to fix the economy...should tell us a lot.

Terry McAuliffe irked plenty of Obama supporters with his eternally jovial but aggressive advocacy for Hillary during the Dem primary, but now McAuliffe is set to make amends -- he's finalizing plans to put his unique species of garrulousness at Obama's disposal.

McAuliffe has agreed to campaign extensively for Obama in his longtime home state of Virginia -- and he's in discussions with Obama advisers about the possibility of doing as many as two dozen or more events, according to advisers to both men.

McAuliffe's first Virginia event is set for September 24th at a high school in Chesterfield County, where he'll speak on Obama's behalf, Tracy Sefl, a top aide to McAuliffe, confirms. McAuliffe will be a counterweight to former Virginia Senator George Allen, who will speak at the school on John McCain's behalf a week earlier.

Obama advisers say that McAuliffe will be pressed into service to advocate in particular for Obama's health care plan. "Terry clearly has facility with the issue," says Kevin Griffis, Obama's Virginia press rep, adding that the Obama camp is hoping for multiple events from McAuliffe. "People know him from his work with the Clintons, and he's a passionate supporter. We feel like he's someone who can talk to people from all walks of life."

McAuliffe has done extensive media appearances for Obama, especially during the Dem convention, but his planned events in Virginia will be his first actual on-the-trail campaigning for him.

McAuliffe, of course, also has his own reasons for traveling the state: He's considering a run for Governor in 2009.

Late Update: McAuliffe is also hitting the trail in Philly this Saturday.

The McCain campaign has a new national cable campaign ad that ratchets up their duplicity, this time on financial regulations and the credit crisis:

"I'll meet this financial crisis head on," McCain says. "Reform Wall Street. New rules for fairness and honesty. I won't tolerate a system that puts you and your family at risk."

What's missing here, of course, is any discussion of McCain's record when it comes to regulation of Wall St -- with only a few exceptions, the only times he's favored new rules were when they were more lax than the old rules.

It's also worth noting where McCain was during the last major banking panic, the Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980s: He was at the center of the Keating Five scandal, having given aid to a major banker who eventually went to prison for corporate malfeasance.

On MSNBC moments ago, senior McCain economics adviser Carly Fiorina just sought to clarify her remarks earlier today that Sarah Palin isn't qualified to run a major corporation -- but she may have inadvertently given the Obama campaign more ammo to keep hitting him on the economy.

Here's what Fiorina just said:

"I don't think John McCain could run a major corporation. I don't think Barack Obama could run a major corporation. I don't think Joe Biden could run a major corporation.

"But on the other hand, a major corporation is not the same as being the president or the Vice President of the United States. it is a fallacy to suggest that the country is like a company. So of course to run a business you have to have a lifetime of experience in business. But that's not what Sarah Palin John McCain Joe Biden or Barack Obama are doing."

The Obama campaign quickly responded by blasting out video with a truncated version of Fiorina's comments, cutting them off after the comment about McCain, and dismissing the notion that a different skill set is involved. From spokesperson Tommy Vietor:

"If John McCain's top economic advisor doesn't think he can run a corporation, how on Earth can he run the largest economy in the world in the midst of a financial crisis? Apparently even the people who run his campaign agree that the economy is an issue John McCain doesn't understand as well as he should."

Look for a truncated version of Fiorina's quote to end up in an ad and in Obama (or Biden) stump speeches...

Late Update: Here's video...

Here's a wrap-up of the four major national tracking polls for today, with all four of them showing either movement away from John McCain or toward Barack Obama since yesterday:

Gallup: McCain 47%, Obama 46%, with a ±2% margin of error. Yesterday, McCain was up 47%-45%.

Rasmussen: McCain 48%, Obama 47%, with a ±2% margin of error. yesterday, McCain was up 49%-47%.

Research 2000: Obama 48%, McCain 44%, with a ±3% margin of error. Yesterday, Obama was up 48%-45%

Hotline/Diageo: Obama 46%, McCain 42%, with a ±3.3% margin of error. Yesterday, Obama was up 44%-43%.

Adding these polls together and weighting them for larger sample sizes, the race is essentially a tie at Obama's 46.6% to McCain's 46.4% -- an improvement from yesterday, when the same math put McCain up by about a full percentage point.

With friends like these...

McCain surrogate and economic adviser Carly Fiorina made a stunning admission today, the Huffington Post reports. Appearing on the McGraw Milhaven radio show in St. Louis, Fiorina said Palin wouldn't be qualified to run her old company Hewlett Packard -- but that's okay:

Milhaven: Does Sarah Palin -- John McCain obviously thinks she has the experience to become president of the United States. Do you think she has the experience to run a major company like Hewlett Packard?

Fiorina: No, I don't. But you know what, that's not what she's running for. (Laughs) Running a corporation is a different set of things.

It seems worth noting that Sarah Palin is running for an even more important job than CEO of HP.

In Colorado, Obama is currently hammering McCain again for his claim that the "fundamentals of our economy are strong" -- another sign that the Obama team thinks they've got McCain in a serious gaffe that perfectly reinforces the message that McCain is out of touch with the economic distress of most Americans.

From the prepared remarks:

Yesterday, Wall Street suffered its worst losses since just after 9/11. We are in the most serious financial crisis in generations. Yet Senator McCain stood up yesterday and said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong

A few hours later, his campaign sent him back out to clean up his remarks, and he tried to explain himself again this morning by saying that what he meant was that American workers are strong. But we know that Senator McCain meant what he said the first time, because he has said it over and over again throughout this campaign -- no fewer than 16 times, according to one independent count.

Obama is also trying to sharpen up his efforts to tie the financial crisis directly to the conservative anti-regulation philosophy espoused by McCain for so long (pretty much up until yesterday, that is):

Make no mistake: my opponent is running for four more years of policies that will throw the economy further out of balance. His outrage at Wall Street would be more convincing if he wasn't offering them more tax cuts. His call for fiscal responsibility would be believable if he wasn't for more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and more of a trillion dollar war in Iraq paid for with deficit spending and borrowing from foreign creditors like China. His newfound support for regulation bears no resemblance to his scornful attitude towards oversight and enforcement.

John McCain cannot be trusted to reestablish proper oversight of our financial markets for one simple reason: he has shown time and again that he does not believe in it.

Separately, The Times has a good (if overly polite) rundown on the extent to which McCain's newfound populism in response to the crisis is out of whack with his decades-long record. Full transcript of Obama's remarks after the jump.

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A seventh consecutive poll has John McCain with a lead in the key swing state of Ohio, a consistent finding that can only lead one to believe he really is ahead here.

The new numbers from Public Policy Polling (D): McCain 48%, Obama 44%, with a ±3% margin of error.

The key grab from the pollster's analysis: "There is a troubling trend for Barack Obama of undecided white voters in many of the swing states moving into John McCain's camp. He's going to be in trouble if he can't get that turning back in the other direction."

Here's a rundown of the latest developments on the down-ticket races: The Dem party committees are going on offense, hitting the air with a new round of attack ads against the Republican candidates.

Dem Ad Against Coleman: Parents Blame Him For Son's Death In Iraq
The DSCC has this very emotional and hard-hitting new ad up against Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), featurng Nancy and Claremont Anderson, the parents of a Minnesota soldier who was killed in Iraq:

"I don't blame the Army for our son's death," Nancy says. "I just blame the bad policies on President Bush, Norm Coleman, who voted for this."

Dem Ad: Republican House Candidate Is Wacky Cartoon Character
Check out this goofy attack ad from the DCCC in one fo the open GOP-held House seats in New Jersey. The ad depicts GOP nominee Leonard Lane, a state Senator, as a dancing cartoon character:

"Watch Leonard Lance do the old Trenton dance," the announcer says mockingly.

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If McCain gets away with his strategic gamble that he can tell non-stop lies without paying any kind of price for it, it will be because of people like CNN's Candy Crowley.

Crowley's performance last night was astonishing. Asked whether McCain's lies have been worse than Obama's, Crowley says she isn't going to make that call, adds that it's up to voters to sort it out, and -- best of all -- launches into a discussion of Obama's supposed falsehoods in order to argue that both sides do it...

Crowley occupies a very influential position. Her gig is presumably to go on CNN and inform viewers about the presidential race. The central story of the race right now, by any measure, is the very clear calculation by McCain and his advisers that they can essentially fictionalize the McCain-Palin ticket with a nonstop stream of complete falsehoods without being held sufficiently accountable by the press for voters to catch on. What McCain is doing is not remotely comparable to anything Obama is doing.

To his credit, Mark Halperin stepped in and made just this point, noting quite accurately that the lies of the McCain campaign are far more central to his campaign than anything Obama has done.

Halperin isn't some whiny liberal blogger. He's the ultimate D.C. media insider. If he can't persuade both-sides-do-it holdouts like Crowley to inform their viewers, then no one can.

"I'm not going to be the one to tell you whether it's equal or not," Crowley said of the lying on both sides. Really? If CNN reporters don't think this is their role, whose job is it, then?

A new spate of ads suggests that outside groups are finally getting serious about gearing up to assist the Obama and McCain campaigns in a vital task: Attacking the opponent.

Here's an ad from Born Alive Truth, pushing the smear that Obama is pro-infanticide when it comes to babies born in botched abortions:

The ad features a woman born from a failed abortion over 30 years ago: "But if Barack Obama had his way, I wouldn't be here."

And here's a MoveOn ad going after John McCain, revealing who he really means when he talks about "my friends" -- lobbyists:

So when it comes to gas prices, John McCain won't be taking care of you. He'll be taking care of--" the announcer says, followed by footage of McCain saying, "my friends," over and over.

(TV ads via Ben Smith.)

And the RNC has a new pair of radio ads in Nevada, one in English and the other in Spanish, courting voters in this swing state.

Here's the English one, saying that it's Obama who is "more of the same" on earmarks -- and pushing the false idea that Sarah Palin is some kind of fiscal conservative:

"As Governor, Sarah Palin vetoed nearly half a billion dollars in wasteful spending and cut earmark requests by hundreds of millions of dollars," the announcer says. "Barack Obama? In three short years in the Senate, Obama requested nearly a billion dollars in earmarks."

Of course, an examination of per-capita earmark requests shows that Obama is in fact below the national average on earmarks, and Sarah Palin is way, way, way ahead.

And here's the Spanish ad, pitching McCain as the true pro-immigrant candidate against a do-nothing Obama:

"And while the bill didn't pass, only McCain demonstrated a real commitment to reforming immigration in a way that honored our laws as well as our immigrants and traditions," the announcer says, according to the RNC's official translation -- notable in that McCain and Obama voted almost completely alike on the immigration bill, and McCain has since distanced himself from it.

New Obama Ad Lambastes McCain's "Fundamentals" Line
The Obama campaign has this campaign ad out today, set to run in targeted states, targeting John McCain on the economy and ridiculing his line about how "the fundamentals of our economy are strong":

"How can John McCain fix our economy," the on-screen text asks, "if he doesn't understand it's broken?"

Obama Ad Hits McCain On Women's Pay
Obama also has this unannounced attack ad against John McCain, courting women voters by reminding them of John McCain's opposition to legislation that would guarantee equal pay for women:

"A burden on business?" the female announcer says. "How about the burden on our families?"

Obama In Colorado, Biden In Pennsylvania
Barack Obama has a campaign event today in Golden, Colorado -- the same town where Sarah Palin was yesterday -- scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m. ET, and will then head off to Los Angeles for a fundraiser. Joe Biden is campaigning alongside his wife Jill in Media, Pennsylvania, with a campaign event scheduled for 5:30 p.m ET.

McCain In Florida, Then With Palin In Ohio
John McCain has a solo rally today in Tampa, Florida, where he's scheduled to show up at 12:00 p.m. ET. He will then head off to Vienna, Ohio, for a joint rally alongside Sarah Palin, which they are scheduled to join at 4:10 p.m. ET.

Wall St. Journal: Palin Kept Government-Run Creamery Open
The Wall St. Journal reports this morning that despite her self-made image as a small-government conservative, Sarah Palin ordered a state-run creamery that was losing money to be kept open after farmers near her hometown complained about the imminent shut-down. Palin replaced the board with new members -- who ultimately had to close it down anyway.

Colin Powell: I'm Undecided
Colin Powell told an audience at George Washington University yesterday that he remains an undecided voter in this election. Powell says that a win by a black candidate "would be electrifying," but also added that "at the same time [I have to] make a judgment here on which would be best for America."

Feingold: I've Put A "Moratorium" On Praising McCain
Sen. Russ Feingold has worked across party lines with John McCain on campaign finance reform, but now says he has set relationship aside for the moment. "I've had to place something of a moratorium on saying good things about John McCain because I'm trying to get Barack Obama elected president," Feingold told an audience at Georgetown.

The already topsy-turvy race for New York's 13th Congressional District could get even crazier. According to the New York Daily News, incumbent Rep. Vito Fossella, who was forced into retirement by a series of personal scandals, may be trying to maneuver his way back on to the ballot.

Furthermore, district residents have received polling calls from persons unknown, asking them about the possibility of a Fossella comeback.

Former Rep. Guy Molinari, an elder statesman of the Staten Island GOP, told Election Central that friends of his have gotten these calls. "They asked about the impact of his being arrested of driving while intoxicated, would that -- they asked about the affair he had, would that change your voting," Molinari said.

It's unclear exactly what impact this would have on Dem efforts to pick up this usually-Republican district. Democratic nominee Mike McMahon is favored to defeat Republican Robert Straniere -- but it's simply an unknown as to whether Fossella would be much of an improvement over Straniere.

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In a sign of just how nervous senior Democrats are about Barack Obama's situation, top Democratic Party operatives are privately urging the party's major donors to get serious about putting big money into outside groups looking to attack John McCain in key battleground states.

Several senior Democratic strategists unaffiliated with Obama's campaign convened a private conference call late last week with at least four dozen of the party's most prolific donors to progressive causes and outside groups -- a call designed to instill a sense among donors that things are "pretty damn urgent" right now, one of the organizers of the call tells me.

The call is yet another sign that donors and outside operatives -- who had earlier gotten the message from Obama that he doesn't want such activity -- now recognize that Team Obama is privately hoping for such efforts to gear up in earnest.

On the call, Stan Greenberg, who did polling for Bill Clinton in 1992 and now partners with James Carville to run the Dem polling firm Democracy Corps, gave a presentation to the donors that painted a somewhat bleak picture of the struggles Obama is having with aging white women in battleground states.

Greenberg and other Dem operatives on the call discussed various messages to target this constituency, and batted around various ideas for contrast ads that could be used to pull these voters away from McCain and to Obama. Also on the call: Anna Greenberg, Stan's daughter and a leading Dem operative in her own right. The Greenbergs couldn't immediately be reached.

"The call was organized to let donors know that things are pretty serious and that if something is going to happen, it needs to happen fast," Dem operative Mike Lux, president of the Dem firm Progressive Strategies and one of the call's organizers, tells me.

"The message was that it's pretty damn urgent," continued Lux, who played a key role in raising money for outside groups in 2004. "We said we think that dramatic things need to happen."

Sources familiar with the call say there were more than 50 major donors or their reps on the call, most if not all of whom have a history of writing six-figure checks to Dem party committees or outside efforts.

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The presidential race really could not be closer in the key swing states, according to a new round of Rasmussen polls, with ties in two states and near-ties in three others -- though on balance it's decent news for John McCain:

• In Colorado, McCain has a 48%-46% edge, within the ±4.5% margin of error. Last week, Obama was up 49%-46%, within the margin of error.

• In Florida, McCain is up 49%-44%, with a ±4.5% margin of error. Last week, it was a 48%-48% tie.

• In Ohio, McCain has a narrow 48%-45% lead, within the ±4.5% margin of error. Last week, McCain was ahead 51%-44%. This is the third poll today that gives McCain a lead in Ohio -- so we're inclined to think he's ahead.

• In Pennsylvania, it's a 47%-47% tie. Last week, Obama had a 47%-45% lead, within the margin of error.

• And in Virginia, it's a 48%-48% tie. Last week, Rasmussen had McCain up 49%-47%, within the margin of error.

Only one of these states, Pennsylvania, went for Kerry in 2004. So what we have here is the GOP playing some serious defense in four states they've previously won -- and the Dems having to work just as hard to hold on to a big prize of their own.

Here's this evening's rundown on the Congressional races: We've got a whole lot of ads running in these campaigns, with the GOP mounting a huge negative offensive in an effort to minimize their losses this November.

New Coleman Ad: Here's How Al Franken Will Attack Me
Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) has this new ad out, warning voters of the kind of attack ads they'll be seeing from Al Franken, with unflattering pictures of Coleman and scary music:

The odd part here is that Coleman himself is running just the kind of ad against Franken that he decries here, with video and scary music to depict Franken as a foul-mouthed clown.

NRSC Ad Attacks "Boulder Liberal" Udall In Colorado Race
The NRSC is running this attack ad in the Colorado Senate race, where Dem Congressman Mark Udall is running ahead in the polls. The ad repeatedly attacks Udall for being from Boulder, a liberal stronghold of this Western swing state:

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This just might be the most brutal attack ad we've seen all cycle: Incumbent GOP Senator Gordon Smith, who's locked in a tough reelection fight, has a new spot that accuses Dem opponent Jeff Merkley of conspiring to help a child rapist get released onto the streets.

"Jeff Merkley," the announcer says sternly, "failing to protect our most vulnerable."

Smith's dilemma is that he's a Republican seeking re-election a Democratic-leaning state that is highly likely to vote for Barack Obama. As such, his campaign tactics have veered back and forth between tying himself to Obama, or going extremely negative on Merkley.

And this other ad takes the attack up yet another notch, featuring one of the victims of the rapist in question.

"Jeff Merkley, you should have voted to protect victims," Tiffany Edens says, "not rapists."

Merkley spokesman Matt Canter told Election Central that Merkley had in fact voted for that very bill to extend the statute of limitations on sex offenders that Smith's ad says he voted against -- he just voted once against passing the bill on a procedural ground. "He's (Smith) taking one procedural vote, ripping it out of context," Canter said.

Merkley is up with his own response ads, accusing Smith of running a sleazy and dishonest campaign. Check those out after the jump.

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The new SurveyUSA poll of Ohio gives McCain a four-point lead, corroborating the Suffolk survey today and other polls that have given him the lead in this big swing state.

The numbers: McCain 49%, Obama 45%, with a ±3.8% margin of error. In SurveyUSA's last poll here from late June, Obama had a 48%-46% edge.

Key number from the internals: McCain has the solid support of 89% of self-identified Republicans, while Democrats are only voting 77%-19% for Obama -- a possible sign that some of those blue-collar Hillary voters in Ohio haven't quite come back to the Democratic fold.

Obama's Colorado campaign sends over audio of a new radio ad running in the state and in other battlegrounds pushing back on claims that an Obama presidency would be a disaster for gun owners.

The new spot features Ray Schoeneke -- a former Washington Redskins player and current gun rights advocate who's president of the American Hunters and Shooters Association -- promising that Obama will "make sure we can keep our guns."

"But what about our jobs?" the ad asks, shifting the discussion away from hot-button culture-war issues and on to the economy.

Listen to the ad here.

The spot also puts the "McSame" attack in football lingo: "Look, when the coach loses eight years in a row, you don't bring him back for a ninth season!"

According to Politico readers, it's also up in Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia and Ohio. Full script after the jump.

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A new poll from Suffolk University finds McCain leading Obama in Ohio by four-points among likely voters, 46%-42%. The poll finds that McCain's lead is being driven by voter identification with Palin...

More respondents identify with Sarah Palin than with the other candidates. Asked which of the four candidates is "most like you," 31 percent said Palin, followed by Obama (22 percent), McCain (21 percent), and Biden (13 percent).

...and greater trust of McCain:

When asked which candidate they trusted more -- Obama or McCain -- respondents chose McCain over Obama, 49 percent to 41 percent. They also said they believe McCain is more likely to fulfill his pledge to lower taxes than Obama (41 percent to 31 percent).

So far, then, McCain's non-stop lying and adver-sleazements, and the media's coverage of them, doesn't appear to have prevented him from being seen as more trustworthy, at least in Ohio. Nor has Palin's non-stop lying prevented voter identification with her. Of course, the Obama campaign has only just started to sink money into ads hitting the McCain campaign on this front.

(Via the Page.)

In a speech today in Colorado, Barack Obama is seizing on today's financial news -- and McCain's claim today that the "fundamentals of our economy are strong" -- to further paint McCain as out of touch and clueless about the economic realities facing many Americans.

After saying McCain doesn't comprehend the economic distress many are facing, Obama will say (according to advance excepts):

Why else would he say that we've made great progress economically under George Bush? Why else would he say that the economy isn't something he understands as well as he should? Why else would he say, today, of all days - just a few hours ago - that the fundamentals of the economy are still strong?

Senator - what economy are you talking about?

What's more fundamental than the ability to find a job that pays the bills and can raise a family? What's more fundamental than knowing that your life savings is secure, and that you can retire with dignity? What's more fundamental than knowing that you'll have a roof over your head at the end of the day? What's more fundamental than that?

More excerpts after the jump.

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In a sign that maybe the electoral map isn't contracting that much, a new SurveyUSA poll gives Barack Obama the lead in Virginia, one of the historically-red states that he's been aggressively targeting.

The numbers: Obama 50%, McCain 46%, with a ±3.7% margin of error. In their last poll from just a week ago, SurveyUSA gave McCain a 49%-47% edge.

This poll has Obama taking 39% of the white vote, an improvement on John Kerry's 32% of Virginia whites in 2004. Black voters get him the rest of the way, with 88% of their support.

Another day, another fusillade of lies. At a rally today in Colorado, Palin again repeated the falsehood that she said "thanks, but no thanks" to the Bridge to Nowhere.

Only today there was a bit of a twist: Palin suggested she has at least a glimmer of an awareness of all the criticism of her lying. Not that that stopped her from lying again, of course...

Note that Palin seemed a bit defensive about the falsehood this time, saying: "And that infamous Bridge to Nowhere -- I did tell Congress, 'Thanks, but no thanks.'"

Of course, everyone knows she was a staunch proponent of the bridge until it became clear that Congress wouldn't provide additional funding, so she kept the money and used it on other stuff. What's more, Palin herself basically admitted that she Said Yes To Pork in her interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson.

Clearly, the McCain campaign cares what the American press says about as much as it cares what some tiny paper says in the Federated States of Micronesia.

Joe Biden is currently speaking in Michigan, where he seized on John McCain's claim this morning that the "fundamentals of our economy" are strong in order to unleash an extensive populist attack that pulled together just about every questionable McCain comment on the economy from the entire campaign.

Here's a key excerpt (from Biden's prepared remarks):

Senator McCain has confessed, quote, "It's easy for me to go to Washington and frankly, be somewhat divorced from the day-to-day challenges people have." And he's right, if all you do is walk the halls of power, all you hear are the wants of the powerful.

I believe that's why Senator McCain could say with a straight face, as recently as this morning, and I quote "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." That, "We've made great progress economically" during the Bush years. But friends, I could walk from here to Lansing, and I wouldn't run into a single person who thought our economy was doing well, unless I ran into John McCain.

John McCain just doesn't seem to understand what middle class people are going through today. I don't doubt that he cares. He just doesn't think that we have any responsibility to help people who are hurting.

One other thing: Virtually no mentions of Palin. The entire focus here: The economy, McCain's similarities to Bush, and McCain's decision to run a campaign dominated by nonstop lies and adver-sleazements.

Full text of Biden's speech after the jump.

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Here's today's rundown on the Congressional races: The money is flowing like water, as more and more candidates in close races are hitting the airwaves.

Senate GOP Candidates In Possible Financial Hot Water Over Ad Errors
The FEC and FCC are now examining complaints in four states -- Minnesota, Oregon, Colorado and Virginia -- involving the failure of Republican Senate candidates to have their approval disclaimers run for the appropriate length of time in their ads. If the complaints pan out, these candidates would have to pay a higher rate for their TV advertising for the rest of the campaign -- though it's unlikely that the agencies will actually take such a step over this error.

Millions of Dollars Being Pumped Into New Hampshire Senate Rae
The money is flowing heavily into the New Hampshire Senate race, where first-term GOP Sen. John Sununu has trailed former Dem Gov. Jeanne Shaheen in the polls. Between the candidates themselves, their party committees, and outside groups, over $5.4 million has been spent for TV ads on the state's biggest station, WMUR.

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Robert Greenwald's Brave New PAC goes up on national cable with a new 30-second spot starring fellow McCain POW Phillip Butler, who says he knows from personal experience that a POW background is not desirable in a commander-in-chief.

"John McCain is not somebody that I would like to see with his finger near the red button," Butler says in the spot.

The spot is notable because it's the first paid advertising that directly takes on McCain's war service while suggesting that McCain is temperamentally unfit to be president:

The ad is a shortened version of an earlier Brave New PAC video quoting Butler at length that didn't have any money behind it.

As for the buy itself, it's a modest one. The spot is running on national cable today (and ran yesterday, too). It's funded by Brave New Films and Democracy For America, the independent group run by Jim Dean, who's Howard Dean's brother.

The ad is really a flare -- an effort to see if this controversial line of attack catches the attention of the national media.

"If it takes off and this storyline gets some pickup, then that'll give us some incentive to go raise more money for it," Brave New PAC spokesperson Leighton Woodhouse tells me.

It seems like a media-friendly line of criticism, though presumably not one that the Obama campaign wants out there.

John McCain, on the trail in Florida today -- yes, today -- tells us the fundamentals of our economy are "still" strong...

Here's the full quote:

"You know that there's been tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall St. And it is -- people are frightened by these events. Our economy, I think still -- the fundamentals of our economy are strong. But these are very, very difficult times."

McCain did refer to the big Wall Street events of here, so it isn't like this was an unintentional gaffe; this is what he wanted to say. Arguably, of course, that could make this worse. Not cutting this line out on this morning, of all mornings, is a serious mistake.

More of his remarks here.

It looks like Joe Biden will be playing a lead role in the Obama campaign's ratcheted-up assault on McCain's decision to run a campaign dominated by non-stop lies and adver-sleazements.

"The campaign a person runs says everything about the way they'll govern," Biden will say today in Michigan, according to advance excerpts.

Biden will also compare the McCain of today to the now-enshrined St. McCain of yesteryear:

When Senator McCain was subjected to unconscionable, scurrilous attacks in his 2000 campaign, I called him on the phone to ask what I could do.

And now, some of the very same people and the tactics he once deplored his campaign now employs.

The same campaign that once called for a town hall a week is now launching a low blow a day.

The constant references to McCain-as-victim-in-2000 are meant partly to achieve separation between the one-time maverick and the current not-so-mavericky incarnation, and partly to push the meme that McCain, of all people, should know better than to stoop this low, having been targeted this way himself. More Biden excerpts after the jump.

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Two new polls from over the weekend are showing a very close race in Minnesota, a sign that Barack Obama may have to play on defense in some Dem-leaning states.

The new SurveyUSA poll gives Barack Obama a narrow lead of 49%-47%, within the ±3.7% margin of error. And a Star Tribune poll has the race as a 45%-45% tie.

This state hasn't voted Republican since the Nixon landslide of 1972, but was actually pretty close in 2000 and 2004. Barack Obama used to lead here by a much greater margin, but the polls here and and in other states show that the electoral map is quickly narrowing to a traditional grouping of swing states.

New McCain Ad: Only McCain And Palin Can Fix The Economy
John McCain has a new ad out this morning, touching on the subject of the financial crisis. It probably won't be as memorable as the Obama campaign's new "dishonorable" ad:

"Our economy -- in crisis," the announcer says. "Only proven reformers John McCain and Sarah Palin can fix it."

Obama In Colorado, Biden In Michigan
Barack Obama is campaigning today in the key swing state of Colorado, with a 1 p.m. ET event in Grand Junction and a 6:30 p.m. ET rally in Pueblo. Joe Biden is campaigning in Michigan, with an 11 a.m. rally in St. Clair Shores and a 5 p.m. ET rally in Flat Rock.

McCain In Florida, Palin In Colorado
John McCain and Sarah Palin are finally holding separate campaign events today. McCain has a town hall event scheduled for 12:30 p.m. ET in Jacksonville, Florida, and Palin will be holding a rally in Golden, Colorado, set to begin at 11 a.m. ET.

Biden To Attack McCain's Dishonesty Today
After being shuffled to the background of this campaign for a while, Joe Biden is set to step up his rhetoric against John McCain today, using his speech in St. Clair Shores, Michigan, to go after McCain's campaign tactics. "The campaign a person runs says everything about the way they'll govern," Biden will say, according to pre-released excerpts. "John McCain has decided to bet the house on the politics perfected by Karl Rove."

WaPo: Electoral Map Shrinking Back To Familiar Shape
The Washington Post reports that despite the Obama camp's early optimism that they could expand the electoral map into some very unusual states for a Democrat to compete it, the map now seems to be receding back to some of the same swing states we've watched in the past two cycles. "As in the past two campaigns, four big states -- Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Florida -- are expected to dominate the attention of the candidates," the Post says.

WSJ: McCain Campaign Expanding, Thanks To Interest In Palin
The Wall St. Journal reports that McCain campaign is boosting its staff presence in key states like Pennsylvania, thanks in large part to the public's interest in Sarah Palin. However, the Journal points out that this poses a "strategic dilemma" -- McCain and Palin have been campaigning together for the most part, which means they cover less ground than if they travelled separately.

We've been waiting for it, and here it is: The Obama campaign launches its first ad hitting McCain for his lying and his mendacious adver-sleazements and slamming his campaign as "disgraceful" and "dishonorable":

The ad will air on national cable and in key battleground states. Though the ad describes McCain's campaign -- not McCain himself -- as "dishonorable," the response, without question, will be POW POW POW.

Wow. This is a bit like being labeled a sleaze merchant by Bob Guccione or Larry Flynt.

The Obama campaign is calling attention to Karl Rove's appearance on Fox News today, in which he actually told Chris Wallace that McCain's lying adver-sleazements have gone too far:

WALLACE: All right, and for fair game, what is McCain doing that goes a step too far?

ROVE: Well, McCain has gone in some of his ads -- similarly gone one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent-truth test.

In fairness, Rove also says Obama has gone too far on occasion, but of course he's going to say that. Plus, Rove doesn't single Obama out for mendacity, merely for the quality of his attacks. The liar in this race is McCain -- according to the Great One himself!

The Obama campaign, not surprisingly, jumped on Rove's remark, emailing out this from spokesperson Tommy Vietor:

"In case anyone was still wondering whether John McCain is running the sleaziest, most dishonest campaign in history, today Karl Rove -- the man who held the previous record -- said McCain's ads have gone too far."

This is an honor indeed.

Late Update: Here's vid...

New Obama Ad: McCain's White House Will Be Run By "Super-Lobbyist"
The Obama campaign has rolled out another ad attacking John McCain's links to Washington lobbyists, set to air on national cable and in targeted states starting tomorrow. This one specifically goes after McCain for tapping corporate "super-lobbyist" Bill Timmons to head up his transition team should he be elected:

DNC Raised $17.3 million In August
A national Democratic source has confirmed to Election Central that the Democratic National Committee raised $17.3 million in August, with $17.5 million cash on hand. Together with the Obama campaign's $77 million cash on hand, this brings the total Democratic war-chest to $94.5 million as of August 31.

Obama Off The Trail, Biden In North Carolina
Barack Obama does not have any scheduled public events for today. Joe Biden is campaigning in Charlotte, North Carolina, with an event scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m.

McCain Attending NASCAR Race In New Hampshire
John McCain is spending the day in New Hampshire, where he's attending a NASCAR race in Loudon.

NYT And WaPo Deconstruct Palin
The New York Times and The Washington Post are both out today with profiles of Sarah Palin, and they are must-reads. The total picture that emerges of Palin is very clear: She is a megalomaniacal, vindictive right-winger who serially uses her offices for her own personal benefit, to harass political opponents, and to pursue personal vendettas against people she dislikes.

Palin Still Lying About Bridge To Nowhere
At her rally yesterday in Carson City, Nevada, Sarah Palin again trotted out the lie that she opposed the Bridge To Nowhere, despite having been forced to admit during her interview with Charlie Gibson that she had supported it. Palin again used the standard line, "I told Congress thanks but no thanks to that Bridge to Nowhere -- that if our state wanted to build that bridge, we would build it ourselves.

McCain Campaign Keeps Lying About Crowd Sizes
Despite a Bloomberg report accusing the McCain campaign of lying about crowd sizes, they're apparently still at it. Nevada Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki boasted at yesterday's Carson City event with Sarah Palin that 10,000 people were in the crowd -- in an arena that only holds 3,500 people.

An Obama aide this morning sent over his fundraising number for August: More than $66 million, topping his previous best month of $55 million by $11 million or more.

The astonishing haul means Obama is more than on track to raise the $300 million or more that the campaign had intended to raise for the general election -- a total that required him to raise over $50 million a month, which he's succeeded in doing.

The total suggests that McCain's gains, and the choice of Sarah Palin, helped galvanize and expand Obama's donor base: The campaign reports adding half a million new donors this month. The haul could also help put to rest lagging questions about the strain that opting out of public financing had put on his fundraising operation.

Among the many startling accusations against Sarah Palin in the new profile of her in The New York Times, this one truly stands out: Not only did Palin want the Wasilla librarian to ban books, but she is alleged to have personally pushed for a particular book to be removed before she became mayor:

Witnesses and contemporary news accounts say Ms. Palin asked the librarian about removing books from the shelves. The McCain-Palin presidential campaign says Ms. Palin never advocated censorship.

But in 1995, Ms. Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues that she had noticed the book "Daddy's Roommate" on the shelves and that it did not belong there, according to Ms. Chase and Mr. Stein. Ms. Chase read the book, which helps children understand homosexuality, and said it was inoffensive; she suggested that Ms. Palin read it.

"Sarah said she didn't need to read that stuff," Ms. Chase said. "It was disturbing that someone would be willing to remove a book from the library and she didn't even read it."

This is not the only accusation that Palin personally targeted a particular book for removal from the library on ideological grounds. It's also worth noting that Rev. Howard Bess, a liberal minister from the nearby town of Palmer, has accused Palin of successfully getting his own book, Pastor I Am Gay, banned from the library while she was mayor.