McCain's southwest Ohio campaign chair steps up voter suppression efforts.

Late Update: The same guy, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, is also friends with the publisher of a local racist website.

McCain's latest: claiming that Obama will turn the IRS "into a giant welfare agency." And this even though McCain's rationale for this claim is Obama's support for a refundable tax credit, something McCain himself supports as a centerpiece of his health care plan. Par for the course, really: if you figure in the robocalls and recent ads, McCain's entire campaign is now comprised of innuendo and lies meant to tie Obama to various stereotypes of African-Americans and of course Arab terrorism. His purported foreign policy experience hasn't been part of the campaign's message in weeks. Just black, black, black, terrorist, terrorist, terrorist.

Big news orgs start getting serious about tracking the magnitude of McCain's robo-slime campaign.

The Obama campaign outspending McCain on TV by four to one, and are expected to announce a recording-setting $100,000,000+ in September fundraising. That and other political news in today's Election Central Saturday Roundup.

If you thought those McCain-Palin crowds were feral inside the auditoriums, they've even more rancid waiting in line to get in ...

McCain's robocalls too sleazy for Sen. Collins (R) of Maine.

We're going to see an avalanche of this stuff over the next two weeks. But it looks like Wisconsin Republicans are going to be going all out in their voter suppression efforts. The Wisconsin GOP is currently recruiting "Milwaukee area veterans, policeman, security personnel and firefighters to work as poll watchers on election day at inner city polling places."

Apparently Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) went on a rabid fear-mongering anti-Obama tear tonight on Hardball. Video excerpts soon ...

Late Update: In all her right-wing madhattery, we present Michele Bachmann:

The company John McCain has hired to make all these sleazy robocalls appears to be the same company that made what McCain called "hate calls" against him in 2000.

A former top voting rights official in the Justice Department tells TPMmuckraker that the current FBI investigation of ACORN is "a continuation of injecting DOJ into what has clearly become a political issue" and violates department policies.

Election Central reports:

In two private conference calls this week with leading fundraisers, surrogates, and prominent supporters, senior Obama advisers expressed genuine worry that his lead in the polls is creating a complacency among supporters that the advisers are afraid will create a serious drag on fundraising and turnout, a person who was on both calls says.

It looks like the big media outlets are starting to catch on to what we've been reporting all week at TPM Election Central -- that the real campaign McCain is running on the ground with mailers and robocalls is even nastier than the stuff McCain is saying publicly and struggling mightily to defend.

Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-FL), responding to the question of how many affairs he's had: "You're asking me over a lifetime? I'm just saying I've been unfaithful and I'm sorry for that."

Vandalized ACORN offices in Boston and Seattle and threats of death or violence in Providence and Cleveland follow in the wake of McCain's bogus "vote fraud" scam.

We've got a new page just posted that is all about tire swinging. The term itself is explained, with a replay of the original, literal tire swinging moment. Then we categorize some of the best known tire swingers as either chronic repeat offenders, struggling to rehab but still tire swinging, or completely broken the tire swinging habit. Take a look.

The General Counsel of the Obama campaign is currently holding a media conference call to "Announce Major Action Taken Today To Address Illegal Conduct and Improprieties in the Sham "Anti-Fraud" Campaign Orchestrated By McCain-Palin and the RNC."

DCCC unfurls a $15 million spinnaker (loan) to try to take full advantage of the wind at Dems' back this cycle.

Did you think you'd ever heard a major party senate candidate caught begging, just before the start of a debate, that it wasn't fair that he wouldn't be allowed to bring in notes? Even though both campaigns had agreed already that that wouldn't be allowed.

It's Colorado senate candidate Bob Schaffer (R-CO), sweatshop supporter and Abramoff water-carrier, leaving all his self-respect on the field ...

A few highlights from last night's annual Al Smith dinner in NYC: