Alaska Supreme Court dismisses GOP bid to kill Trooper-Gate investigation.

A possible push-poll in the Oregon Senate race by the same outfit that got so much attention for those calls during the GOP primaries that mentioned Mitt Romney’s Mormonism.

McCain campaign co-chair Fmr. Okla Gov. Frank Keating calls Obama “a guy of the street.”

It’s Sean Hannity’s big moment: the William Ayers story has finally hit the big time. Hannity and friend Greta Van Susteren got to spend their respective shows with John McCain and Sarah Palin. The topic du jour? William Ayers.

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

Edsall …

As two major developments become increasingly likely – a Democratic presidential victory on November 4 and a sustained economic crisis – Barack Obama faces a difficult choice: does he begin now to prepare the electorate for tough times, or does he continue to maintain a politically contrived optimism on the assumption that he can shift gears after election day.

The short-term incentives are all on the side of maintaining a happy face: As things stand, Obama keeps moving ahead in the polls, winning debates and expanding his hold on battleground states. Why junk a winner?

Conversely, Obama and his aides have to calculate how the rhetoric of his campaign will influence his ability to govern. On this score, there is wide disagreement, with political scientists, strategists and political analysts – in responses given to the Huffington Post – all over the map.

In advance of tomorrow’s release of the Alaska legislature’s report on the troopergate investigation, the McCain-Palin campaign has released its own investigative report clearing Palin of any wrongdoing.

McCain lashes out at Frank and Dodd as “willing co-conspirators” in bringing about the banking crisis.

Here’s the exchange between McCain and an audience member today in Wisconsin (courtesy of this diarist at Daily Kos, and confirmed against the original video by me) …

Audience member: Will you assure us that as president you will take immediate action to investigate, prosecute and name the names of the people actually responsible?

McCain: I will. And it is already a matter of record that members, Democrat members of Congress fought against reform and it is a matter of record and hearings that they said everything was fine. Senator Obama a year ago said that these kinds of subprime loans are, quote, fine with him. And the fact is that the same people that are now claiming credit for this rescue are the same ones that were willing co-conspirators in causing this problem that it is. And you know their names. And you will know more of their names. Congressman Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd are two of them.

Yesterday it was a web-only ad tying Obama to Bill Ayers, today McCain takes the Ayers smear on TV with a new ad. That and the day’s other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

From the Journal …

Some McCain campaign officials are becoming concerned about the hostility that attacks against Sen. Obama are whipping up among Republican supporters. During an internal conference call Thursday, campaign officials discussed how the tenor of the crowds has turned on the media and on Sen. Obama.

Borderline criminal incitement will do that. But hey, whatever it takes.

Late Update: Joe Klein is getting concerned too.

(ed.note: This is not a laughing matter. So I want to be clear what I was alluding to when I referred to “borderline criminal incitement.” John McCain has a first amendment right to smear and (at least free of criminal penalties) slander Barack Obama by suggesting he’s in league with terrorists. But as we’ve seen many times, even offhandedly threatening comments directed at a Secret Service protected individual, can earn you a visit from the guys with the earpieces. And McCain and Palin are now routinely holding rallies in which they whip supporters into such a delirium by castigating Obama as a dangerous terrorist-lover that members of the audience shout what can very reasonably be interpreted as threats against Obama’s safety. Am I saying they’re breaking the law? No. But I do think they’re nudging up against the envelope and getting near that line beyond which, if McCain were not a presidential candidate, his rallies would be getting some attention from those charged with protecting Obama’s safety.)

For days the McCain-Palin camp has been saying that Palin didn’t fire Walt Monegan but that he quit as Alaska’s public safety commissioner. But now they claim that the “investigative report” the campaign itself released last night “will prove Walt Monegan’s dismissal was a result of his insubordination and budgetary clashes.”

So hard to keep the story straight.