If the McCain campaign is so short on funds, where did they get the cash to buy the time machine they used to go back to 1994 to get Joe the Plumber?
From the central front in the GOP war on minority voting, from earlier this week …
A judge weighing whether to close down early voting sites in Lake County’s Democratic strongholds questioned local officials about the absentee voting process during visits to the disputed sites.
Lake County Superior Court Judge Diane Kavadias-Schneider toured the Gary, Hammond and East Chicago satellite voting sites Monday and heard hours of testimony and arguments on whether they are legal and fair.
Republicans want to shut down the centers in the largely Democratic county on the grounds that they will increase the likelihood of vote fraud in the Nov. 4 election.
Kavadias-Schneider, who was appointed a special judge in the case by the Indiana Supreme Court, questioned county elections board director Sally LaSota on Monday about the process of early voting and safeguards against vote fraud.
LaSota assured the judge that the elections board staff ensures voters are registered and don’t vote more than once.
When Kavadias-Schneider asked, “What of those who have already voted?” R. Lawrence Steele, a GOP lawyer, replied, “Maybe those votes should be discarded.”
May just toss those votes. Pretty much says it all.
Yesterday, the judge dismissed GOP complaints and ruled that the satellite voting sites would stay open.
New Quinnipiac polls give Obama sizable leads in Pennsylvania (+13) and Ohio (+14) and a clear lead in Florida (+5). That and the day’s other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement from a fellow GOP governor:
Some things are so basic they don’t even bother putting them in the official political playbook — like the rule that dismissing your district as racist could make it harder for you to get re-elected.
Former Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson (R) is endorsing Barack Obama.
Usually when you hear these sorts of stories it’s someone who was governor for like one term in the 1970s or something, when party divisions were very different from today. Carlson, though, was Minnesota Governor for most of the 1990s. My recollection is that he basically got run out by the hard right faction of the GOP in the state. But he was a moderate, but a genuine Republican. He cited Bachmann’s tirade as one thing that pushed him to endorse.
Strikes a personal chord for me, as I suspect it will for many others.
What is it with Austrian Nazis, neo- or otherwise …
The successor of the Austrian far-right leader Jörg Haider was dismissed yesterday after he revealed a “special” relationship “far beyond” friendship with his former mentor.
In emotional interviews with the national broadcaster and a tabloid newspaper Stefan Petzner spoke openly about his affair with Haider, who died at the age of 58 in a high-speed car crash after heavy drinking session at a gay club this month. Haider’s party, the Alliance for the Future of Austria, captured 11 per cent of the vote in national elections last month .
“He was the man of my life. Our relationship went far beyond friendship,” Mr Petzner, 27, said after only a week in the job, adding that Haider’s wife, Claudia, 52, “did not object” to their relationship.
…
Mr Petzner dropped out of university when he met Haider at a party. At that time he was working as a journalist, writing about cosmetic treatments.
…
Local papers said that, on the night of his accident, Haider and Mr Petzner had a row at a magazine launch party. Haider left in a hurry and drove to a gay club in Klagenfurt, his home town, where he drank vodka with male escorts. The reports said that he was hardly able to walk to his car.