It’s amazing that Rep. Curt Weldon is still even in this race (Philly Daily News) …

Sestak described how he’d gone to elementary school at St. Kevin’s, right next door, and to Cardinal O’Hara High School, just down the road, before signing up for the Naval Academy during the Vietnam War.

“Unlike others, I decided I did want to serve my country,” Sestak said.

That was apparently a bit too pointed for Weldon, who got a teaching deferment to avoid the Vietnam draft and never served in the military. Weldon said he had put himself in harm’s way as a volunteer fireman, stuck between an oil tanker and a refinery fire.

“Have you ever faced a similar situation, Joe, or are you always in the admiral’s quarters, drinking out of your wine goblets and being waited on by your sailor servants?” Weldon asked.

Most officers in the Navy get their first commission as an admiral, right?

So Weldon, private searches for WMD in Iraq, Mr. Able Danger, attacks his opponent for going outside the state to treat his daughter’s brain tumor, revealer of the DOJ-liberal conspiracy. How is this goof still in Congress?

You don’t have to watch the GOP ads around the country too closely to see what their focus group research and polling is telling them is their only winning issue: Mexicans.

All over the country — Democratic candidate X wants to raise your taxes to give Social Security to illegals. Check out the Duckworth-Roskam race in Illinois and about a hundred others around the country.

Roskam: Crazy Arab Terrorists Want My Opponent Tammy Duckworth to Win (ChiTrib)…

Roskam told the crowd at the GOP’s campaign headquarters that the “entire world is watching this campaign” against Democrat Tammy Duckworth for the west suburban seat being given up by retiring Rep. Henry Hyde.

As proof, he said a radio producer told him that Al Jazeera–the Arabic language news network–had covered his debate with Duckworth last week. The crowd gasped.

“Now that’s a real interesting group that would come out and cover the 6th Congressional District,” Roskam observed. “Al Jazeera has an interest in who wins in the 6th Congressional District? I’m telling ya, let’s send them an answer, whaddya say?” The crowd cheered.

Roskam is a former Tom DeLay aide who’s repeatedly lied about his relationship with DeLay.

Not one of the good ones.

TPM Reader SR calls in with the latest on the GOP campaign against Mexicans …

I live in Northern Virginia and I recently answered a telephone “survey”. All the questions were pretty “normal” EXCEPT for one question about how George Allen did not believe illegal immigrants should receive Social Security benefits and other benefits, while Webb “believed” your taxes should be raised so that illegal immigrants could receive these benefits.

Pretty funny, eh?

Newsweek:

If the elections for Congress were held today, according to the new NEWSWEEK poll, 60 percent of white Evangelicals would support the Republican candidate in their district, compared to just 31 percent who would back the Democrat. To the uninitiated, that may sound like heartening news for Republicans in the autumn of their discontent. But if you’re a pundit, a pol, or a preacher, you know better. White Evangelicals are a cornerstone of the GOP’s base; in 2004, exit polls found Republicans carried white Evangelicals 3 to 1 over Democrats, winning 74 percent of their votes. In turn, Evangelicals carried the GOP to victory. But with a little more than two weeks before the crucial midterms, the Republican base may be cracking.

Whatever you do today, watch this ad. I initially thought it was a joke, but, no, it appears to be an actual ad the RNC is running against Democrat Harold Ford in the Tennessee Senate race.

My, oh, my.

Late Update: Here’s more on the ad and Republican Senate candidate Bob Corker’s attempt to distance himself from the RNC’s pitch.

Matt Yglesias, in response to an earlier post today, uses my reference to Republican attack ads against Max Cleland in the 2002 Senate campaign as a jumping off point to harangue Democrats for whining instead of playing hardball politics in return.

While I don’t disagree with the underlying point that whining is an ineffective political response to political attacks, especially on national security issues, Matt’s assertion that the 2002 attack ads didn’t question Cleland’s personal bravery is simply not correct.

Go look at the ad that I linked to. It begins and ends with courage. Personal courage is the entire theme of the ad. The sarcastic narrator concludes by saying, “Max Cleland says he has the courage to lead, but the record proves Max Cleland is just misleading.”

Matt asks “what does Cleland’s triple-amputee status have to do with it?” I’d say everything. I mean that quite literally. While attacking the personal courage of a triple amputee wounded in combat who perseveres to become a U.S. senator was a disgrace, it is the very fact of his courage that led to the GOP attack. Personal courage was perhaps Cleland’s greatest political strength, hence the attack. In the same way, John Kerry was swiftboated specifically because of his stellar swiftboat record.

I agree that a good biography ought not immunize a candidate from attack on the issues. But Matt is being blindingly naive when he says the ads merely offered a “seriously distorted and underhanded view of the issues at hand.” These ads weren’t about the issues; they were about the person. They seriously distorted Max Cleland. That is not how it should work.

Reading the tea leaves on whether the Bush Administration is considering a partition of Iraq:

[T]here are signs—slightly cryptic, but still worth noting—that the Bush Administration may be leaning towards partitioning Iraq. The main exhibit is an October 6 AP photograph of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President of Iraqi Kurdistan Massoud Barzani meeting in Irbil, the provincial seat. Rice and Barzani stood at a podium, flanked by a red, white, and green Kurdish tricolor flag. Neither the Iraqi flag, nor any other indication that the Secretary of State was in Iraq, was in view.

. . .

Given that in September, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issued a declaration that the Iraqi flag must be flown in all regions (Kurdish nationalists call the Iraqi flag “the flag of Ba’ath”), it’s hard to believe that Rice’s protocol people could let this one slip by accidentally. Imagine a foreign prime minister visiting America in 1861 and giving a speech while standing in front of a confederate flag—it’s hard to imagine a Secretary of State could have missed such symbolism—and the Kurdish press certainly didn’t.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) opens up a lead on Republican Tom Kean, Jr.

For TPM readers who enjoy an occasional dose of snark, TPM’s Election Central offers “Midterm Roundup,” a daily early morning jolt of political caffeine. It’s as frothy as steamed milk, as referential as Dennis Miller, and speaks of itself in the third person as often as a pro athlete. Today, Midterm Roundup makes a special weekend appearance.