David Dayen has some breaking news over at Calitics. Turns out Tom McClintock, carpetbagger opponent of Democratic candidate Lt. Col. Charlie Brown in CA-04 who is currently a State Senator in a district that runs from the LA suburbs to Santa Barbara County, is running for congress in a district hundreds of miles away up in the northeast corner of the state and has run for two previous statewide offices unsuccessfully including for governor in the 2003 recall, was actually endorsed for governor 5 years ago by none other than the Ku Klux Klan. Check out this endorsement:

Dateline: September 27, 2003

Ku Klux Klan Announces support for Tom McClintock

The Imperial Klans of America, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (IKA) have announced their full support for Tom
McClintock's bid for the governorship of California. Their support is announced in what they term "the
lesser of all evil candidates."

When interviewed, Mr. Chris Johnson (Grand Dragon or State Director of the IKA's California chapter) had this to say regarding the announcement, "While Mr. McClintock is not the perfect candidate for California Governor, we have more in common with his ideology than any of the other candidates. We are in congruence with his stand on illegal aliens infecting our land and his courage in standing up to the invasion." Mr. Johnson went on to say that, "Mr. McClintock echoes our anti-abortion stand, and our opposition to oppressive taxation."

Haha. Well, this isn't a terribly enthusiastic endorsement, is it? But you gotta love their reasoning behind settling on McClintock: "we have more in common with his ideology than any of the other candidates." Pretty much says it all.

CA-04 is a really red district with a PVI of R+11. Charlie almost took corrupt congressman John Doolittle out last cycle but lost by a mere 3%. Charlie is one of several great 2nd chance candidates we have this year.

At first, the revelation that Doolittle would be retiring after this term was a disappointing turn of events but Brown I think lucked out by getting McClintock, perrenial candidate for whatever office opens up (and in fact he has accounts for two runs for office in 2010 still open) as his opponent. Sure he has name recognition but what he's best known for is being a loser. Also, over these past two cycles Charlie has made a credible case for himself as a Democrat in a red district, so much so that the latest Research 2000/DKos poll has him leading McClintock by 5.

I told my Republican uncle about the poll last night and he was shocked. He lives up in CA-04 and he's been telling me since 06 how Charlie has no shot because the 4th is so reliably red that anyone with an R next to his name will win. It's looking as though he may just be proven wrong.

Let's give Charlie some love so McClintock can be free to focus on his 2010 run for Board of Equalization.

There's a lot of kerfuffle over ACORN this week - but one distinction needs to be made as we have conversations with out friends, family, and neighbors this weekend: the voter registration issues involving ACORN are not the same as voter fraud itself. In Las Vegas, for example, reports surfaced that ACORN submitted voter registrations listing the names of the Dallas Cowboys.

But that doesn't mean someone's going to voting fraudulently even if the right-wing media implies so. It just means there may be faulty registrations that are never touched. Contrary to the implication, the Dallas Cowboys will not be voting in Clark County.

Ari at Oxdown sees a bigger picture:

This campaign is about race, plane and simple. ACORN is helping minorities to vote -- and guess what, that scares Republicans. Politically they fear losing elections, but this is about something much deeper.

Yesterday at Open Left, Chris Bowers had this advice for the opposition in his very upbeat presidential forecast:

When it comes to offering concern troll advice to McCain and Republicans, I would recommend shutting down all paid media, and firing all campaign staff. McCain should take his remaining money, and distribute it to the RNC, NRCC and NRSC. Target a few close House and Senate seats to try and limit the damage, but otherwise save money for 2010 and 2012. When you are beaten, it is probably better to  withdraw, save what troops and resources you can, but live to fight another day.

Crooked Timber reported today on the latest from the rumor mill:

So I hear (via a prominent member of the sane Republican faction) that the word on the right side of the street is that the Republican National Committee is about to pull the plug on its joint ads with the McCain campaign, and devote its resources instead to trying to save a couple of the senators who are at serious risk of losing their seats.

On one level, this strategy makes the most sense for the RNC. McCain is looking more and more unlikely to win 270 electoral votes, so helping him is probably not the best use of resources.

On the other hand, it would be devastating to Republican morale for the media to start reporting that the RNC had given up on McCain. I suspect that would depress GOP turnout in a lot of states, perhaps putting more House seats in play even as the RNC blankets the airwaves in behalf of a few vulnerable senators.

Use this as a thread to discuss anything related to campaign advertising by candidates or outside groups.

Here in Iowa, Republican incumbent Tom Latham is running lots of tv and radio ads in the fourth district (D+0), while 10 worst list honoree Steve King is not up on tv or radio and is barely campaigning in the fifth district (R+8). We could pick up both of these seats if expectations of an Obama landslide depress Republican turnout. (Today SUSA released yet another Iowa poll showing Obama above 50 percent and leading McCain by more than 10 points.)

Big gains over the last two days by Obama, by my tracking, Obama now leads by 6.2 percent, a 49.2 - 43 margin; and I have him slated to win anywhere from 50.5 - 52.6 percent of the vote, with a 2 - 4.2 percent margin over McCain, at the moment.

McCain is letting it all hang out now:

This appears still aimed at McCain supporters, and I've not seen any polling that the Ayers-ACORN attack on Obama is perceived as relevancy to voters that are up for grabs. But it looks like that McCain is going the length with the attack.

The corp. media is saying that Obama is going 'safe' mode:

This is hilarious. Barefoot and Progressive has all the details. Way to go though, Chuck Schumer, you've clearly gotten under the Minority Leader's skin:

Here's the latest from CQ:

From CNN:

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin abused her power as Alaska's governor in the firing of her former public safety commissioner, but violated no laws, a report for the state Legislature concluded Friday.

A pdf of the report is HERE.

While the report does not recommend any sanctions against Palin, Lawrence O'Donnell nailed the significance of this ruling just now on Countdown:

What this report says specifically is that she engaged in what they call in Alaska a violation of the public trust and those are the terms of the law, the terms of the statute, violation of the public trust. Trust is the issue that Sarah Palin has been pushing on the campaign trail about Barack Obama: you can't trust him. Now here is someone who has formally been found in violation of the public trust in her current governing capacity. She is in no position to try to make that argument legitimate or illegitimate at this stage in the campaign on the heels of this report.

As Josh wrote yesterday, the crowds at McCain/Palin rallies have been getting more and more virulent in their reactions to Barack Obama, a sentiment that has been, to say the least, encouraged by the irresponsible rhetoric of McCain and Palin themselves. With some real pushback against this by Barack Obama, Joe Biden and even many in the media, and perhaps the glimmer of a conscience, John McCain stepped back some of his criticisms on the stump today, even praising and defending Obama at a couple of points.

From The AP:

"If you want a fight, we will fight," McCain said. "But we will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments." When people booed, he cut them off.

"I don't mean that has to reduce your ferocity," he said. "I just mean to say you have to be respectful."

TPM has the video:

At another more dramatic moment,

"I don't trust Obama," a woman said. "I have read about him. He's an Arab."

McCain shook his head in disagreement, and said:

"No, ma'am. He's a decent, family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with (him) on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign is all about."

TPM has yet another moment where he literally said "you don't have to be scared" of Barack as president.

John McCain seems to be realizing the monster he has created and appears to be trying to undo some of the damage. Let's hope this is the first of many campaign events where McCain and Palin walk back some of their irresponsible fearmongering.

As for McCain's motives for doing the right thing, they may not be entirely selfless in nature. Sure it could be out of a hidden store of decency, or it could simply be political expediency. Take a look at the new Newsweek poll of RVs and you see what his shameful attacks on Obama have gotten him: Obama leads McCain by 11 points, up from a tie a month ago.

And then there's the matter of this:

The poll suggests that the McCain campaign's strategy of sharp attacks on Obama's character have not yet had their desired effect and may, in fact, be backfiring. In recent days, McCain's campaign--and, in particular, his running mate, Sarah Palin--have sought to highlight Obama's ties to the '60s radical William Ayers and paint the Democratic nominee as outside of the mainstream. But 60 percent of voters said they have a favorable view of Obama, while 36 percent said they viewed the Democratic candidate unfavorably. That's actually an improvement from a month ago, when Obama's favorable to unfavorable ratio was 57 to 37. In the same period, McCain's favorability rating has decreased, from 57 percent in September to 51 percent today, while his unfavorable percentage have risen, 36 to 45.

Update [2008-10-10 20:25:56 by Todd Beeton]:Just saw more footage of this on Countdown. It's actually even more dramatic because McCain keeps getting booed at his own events for defending Obama. Reap what you sow, my friend.

Yesterday Carnacki highlighted polling from the generally unreliable American Research Group showing Barack Obama leading in West Virginia by a 50 percent to 42 percent margin. While I think there's no way the race actually looks like that -- if you take ARG polling out of the mix, John McCain leads in the state by a 47.5 percent to 40.8 percent margin -- there are some indications that the state is closer than many believed it would be. However, even more important than the polling is the make up of the group believing the state to be in play -- a group that apparently includes the McCain campaign.

n what may be another signal that the troubled economy is forcing John McCain's campaign to play electoral map defense, Sarah Palin has scheduled a bus tour for Sunday through West Virginia, a state that's been leaning red throughout this presidential race.

Palin had already scheduled a bus tour of Pennsylvania on Saturday, but she will now repeat that act on Sunday by making various unannounced stops throughout West Virginia, culminating in a campaign event in southeast Ohio. It's a swing geographically reminiscent of Hillary Clinton's effort during the Democratic primary to court white working class voters in Appalachia. Clinton won the West Virginia primary over Barack Obama by a whopping 67-26 margin.

If you had told me two weeks ago, two months ago, or even two years ago that the Republican Vice Presidential nominee was going to be campaigning in West Virginia three weeks out from election day, I wouldn't have believed you for a second. First of all, if the GOP ticket was hitting the hustings in West Virginia, that would mean that the marginally blue states basically weren't in play, and that even the states that have been close but have swung towards the Republicans in recent years were moving too close to the Democratic column.

But beyond that, there aren't a whole lot of states in the nation that are trending away from the Democrats and towards the Republicans, but West Virginia has sure looked like one of them, going from a comfortable 51.5 percent to 36.8 percent win for Bill Clinton in 1996 to a comfortable 56.0 percent to 43.2 percent win for George W. Bush in 2004. What's more, the chattering class quickly settled on the narrative following Hillary Clinton's big win in the West Virginia primary in May that there was no way that Obama could carry the state in the general election. But it increasingly looks like the conventional wisdom was wrong and West Virginia is in play.