Here's an e-mail that is making the rounds among lawyers today:

How Racism Works:

What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review? What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain were still married to the first woman he said 'I do' to? What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Michelle Obama were a wife who not only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization? What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

More...

CBS News aired another segment of the Katie Couric - Sarah Palin interview tonight.

Twice, Palin described homosexuality as a choice.

But as for homosexuality, I am not going to judge Americans and the decisions that they make in their adult personal relationships. I have one of my absolute best friends for the last 30 years happens to be gay, and I love her dearly. And she is not my "gay friend," she is one of my best friends, who happens to have made a choice that isn't a choice I would have made. But I am not going to judge people.

Other answers: She couldn't or wouldn't name a single publication or magazine she read before becoming the VP candidate. Couric tried three times, and each time she evaded the question.

She is against abortion even for teens who are victims of rape and incest.

More...

I've been writing about Sen. John McCain's intent to attack Barack Obama for his coal position in the battleground states where coal is important.

Sunday, I saw the ad on TV here in Denver.

Newsweek fact checks the ad and finds it false, but I wrote a much longer post over at 5280.com yesterday detailing just how false, based on Obama's coal record since his days as a state legislator in Illinois.

There will be a hearing Thursday before an Alaskan judge to decide whether the legislative ethics investigation of Gov. Sarah Palin may proceed.

The lawsuit was filed by five Republicans who say the legislative investigation is partisan, a false claim in my view. Palin wants the Personnel Board, whose members serve under her in the Executive Branch, to decide.

Washington Monthly and Atrios have some (albeit not much)sympathy for Gov. Sarah Palin if, as rumored, her next gaffe in the upcoming airing of a new Katie Couric interview shows she couldn't name any Supreme Court cases.

Not me. Lawyers, Guns and Money has a better take.

Oh it's all morbidly fascinating, until somebody gets hurt.

Let's call it what it is: In combination with everything else we know about her, Terrifying.

William Arnone, long-time Democratic party activist and the author of the key state series I've quoted many times, has just prepared an update to his preliminary electoral vote preview and again graciously agreed to let me publish it.

His new electoral map analysis of who would win if the election were held today is here. Key findings are below:

DKos/R2000 has Obama up 10, 51-41. Ras has Obama up 6, 51-45. Gallup has Obama up 6, 49-43. Hotline has Obama up 6, 47-41. Even Battleground has Obama up 2, after stubbornly having McCain ahead for the past 2 weeks.

With just over 30 days to go, unless McCain changes the game, the election is over.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Yesterday I engaged in an e-mail spat with a prominent Obama Bot/Clinton hater from the primaries about my criticisms of Barack Obama during the primaries. This Obama Bot of course was so blinded by his Obama worship, that he had no idea that I have been criticizing Obama's post-partisan unity schtick since long before the primaries. My first post in the summer of 2006 was titled What Obama Needs To Learn Hofstadter, Lincoln And FDR and argued for, as I have since I began blogging in 2003, a Politics of Contrast. Krugman was on it in early 2007. The other day I wrote about the fact that Even Doris Kearns Goodwin Is For a Politics of Contrast and wants more FDR from Obama:

[W]hat FDR did was to say this isn‘t just an election between two men. It is between two doctrines. He laid out the difference between the Republican and the Democratic party, one concerned about government favoring the few and the other one wanting the masses to be sound and that would help the country. It seems to me Obama is missing a chance. . . . To not argue about the doctrine of the Democratic party. Yes, he wants independents. Yes, he wants to be post-partisan after wins. But right now is the time when the Republican-Democratic brand is so contrasting and I think he has desired to not be in that fight. It‘s not helping him in a certain sense.

Digby, who has been on this issue as long as I have, wrote about it again yesterday:

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, began at Sundown last night and continues to sundown tomorrow. It marks the beginning of the ten high holy days a year for those of the Jewish Faith. It ends with Yom Kippur, a solemn day of atonement, accompanied by fasting. There's usually a celebratory meal called the break-fast when Yom Kippur ends at sundown. Observant Jews go to temple for both days. Others take the day off from work and think about the holidays or do other things. [More...]

If you have a helmet -- bicycle, motorcycle, military, safety, whatever -- put it on. Markets around the world are falling, at least for the moment.

Asia Stocks Fall in Worst Rout for 21 Years as Bailout Rejected

Australia Stocks Tumble as Bailout Fails, Sparking Credit Fears

The president announced that the administration's "strategy is to continue to address this economic situation head-on." That is sooooo reassuring. President Bush will make "a statement on the financial-rescue package" tomorrow morning. What could he possibly say at this point that anyone would take seriously? [more ...]

Of all the reasons to oppose John McCain, the liberal blogger meme developing that he voted against Joe Biden's 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill is among the silliest and most misinformed.

H.R.3355, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, was one of the worst bills ever passed. The Republicans voted against it largely because it contained the ban on semi-assault weapons and represented a mass and over-federalization of state crimes.

Tucked among the provisions providing for more than 60 new death penalty offenses, $9.7 billion for new prisons, authorization of more prosecution of juveniles as adults, elimination of educational Pell grants to low income prison inmates, limitations on federal funds to states that didn't require offenders to serve 85% of their sentences, creation of a federal three-strikes law, limits on bail for those accused of sex offenses, criminalizing membership in a street gang, ratcheting up drug and other crime penalties and creating 50 new federal crimes, were Joe Biden's Violence Against Women Act and Safe Streets for Women Act. [More...]

Public Policy Polling has a new North Carolina poll out. It's Obama 47, McCain 45 and Bob Barr 2. Full poll results are here.

Independents are moving toward Obama in droves. Where last week he had a 42-39 advantage with them, now he is up 48-37. He also now receives 36% of the white vote, up from 33%. He will likely need 35-38% in that demographic to win the state, depending on how high turnout from black voters is.