The uberconservative Family Research Council has released its voters guide for Catholic voters on the vice presidential candidates, who are … Catholic. No big surprises, but the line on “Torture of Military Prisoners” caught my eye. Who will pin Ryan down on this?

Here’s an interesting wrinkle unfolding in the presidential race. Today Romney told the Des Moines Register that whatever his personal views he has no legislative agenda aimed at limiting abortion rights. Needless to say this is the kind of comment that could have ended his campaign in its tracks last Fall. And it’s the kind of thing that you’d imagine might cause him real turbulence on his right flank even now. Read More

Romney changes position on abortion, now says he has no plans to change anything with respect to abortion. Obama camp fires back.

Mitt Romney climbs in the polls despite competing with a Big Bird ad:

Full size version.

If you thought the Pew poll was bad, check this out. That little shiny object on the Martian surface — which might have been our first contact with intelligent life from another world or at least something shiny — turned out to be a piece of plastic which broke off the Mars lander.

I don’t mean do you like him or not. I mean, are you one of our readers who thinks it’s great that President Obama is out snarking on Mitt Romney for saying he’ll crack down on Big Bird or do you wonder what on earth the President and his advisors are thinking?

I’m not sure what I think.

A TPM investigation has uncovered shocking new evidence of bias by ABC News’ Martha Raddatz, who is scheduled to moderate Thursday’s vice presidential debate: Read More

CNN poll of Ohio: Obama 51, Romney 47.

Need to keep up on the polls? Don’t want to miss anything? Sign up for our PollTracker Daily email or download PollTracker Mobile, the only iPhone that brings all the latest polls to the palm of your hands, with real time notifications every time a poll is released in a race you’re following. Free in the Appstore.

TPM Reader JM is having deja vu …

I’ve long thought that your “bitch slap theory of electoral politics” was the best way to understand so many of our recent political developments.

The reason why the debate performance has been so bad for Obama is precisely because he was attacked and he failed to respond forcefully enough. Re-reading your post, you could substitute Obama’s debate for Kerry and it could read the same eight years later.

Read More