It looks like generosity towards McCain’s presidential efforts extends into the lower ranks of Hess Corporation personnel.

A Hess “office manager” and her husband, an Amtrak worker, both chipped in $28,500 apiece on the same day that all those Hess execs did.

Late Update: Turns out the two rent their home in middle class Flushing, Queens.

If you’re in Veep try-outs with the McCain camp, the brief seems to be, go on the chat shows and be sure to say “young”, “handsome”, “well-spoken”, “celebrity” and generally anything else you can think of to morph Obama into Sammy Davis, Jr.

Here’s Mitt giving it a try this morning — his big innovation is Obama as “Internet date” (something Mitt knows something about?) …

As I mentioned earlier, Sen. McCain has had quite a few moments this cycle of gaffes, forgotten positions, forgotten things he’s said, etc. We’re trying to put together a list. If you have examples, can you send us an email with the subject heading ‘Summa Gaffica’?

Over at TPMCafe, author Michael Cohen joins us for a Book Club discussion of his new book, Live From The Campaign Trail. Cohen runs through some of the greatest speeches in American history up until the present day and looks at the relative importance of style and substance in capturing the public imagination. Unfortunately, I don’t think he’s going to be discussing John McCain’s Green Screen Masterpiece (GSM). But we can hope.

Truly a Kuhnian moment. John McCain is so honorable and straight-shooting that the only explanation for his campaign’s headlong dive into sleaze, xenophobia and gonzo bamboozlement is that McCain is so out of it and controlled by his advisors that he doesn’t actually know what they’re doing in his name.

(Just the kind of guy who should be president, right?)

That’s the upshot of the brief exchange Andrea Mitchell, Roger Simon and Mike Barnicle just had on Hardball. Special thanks to TPM Reader MC for flagging it for us. We’ll have the video for you shortly.

Late Update: Here’s the video…

Last week Fox News ran a story about how things were going so well in Fallujah that they’ve opened their first KFC franchise to keep the locals hooked up with quality Fried Chicken. They even got ret. Gen. Tommy Franks to comment on the great news. The whole thing sounded a bit iffy to us. So unlike Fox News we decided to ring up KFC World Headquarters to find out if the story was really true.

Afraid not. Things may be going swimmingly in the former insurgent hotspot. But there’s no KFC in town. In fact, KFC tells us they’re now “working with the US Military to warn the troops of this situation”, whatever that means.

Statistically it’s a tie. But at least nominally Zogby’s new phone poll has McCain ahead of Obama 42%-41%. And that’s the second poll today to show McCain with, again, a nominal lead.

From Mike Allen writing in The Politico …

A new book by the author Ron Suskind claims that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein.

Suskind writes in “The Way of the World,” to be published Tuesday, that the alleged forgery – adamantly denied by the White House – was designed to portray a false link between Hussein’s regime and al Qaeda as a justification for the Iraq war.

I couldn’t quite believe my eyes when TPM Reader LD told me that Mark Halperin was telling readers at The Page to read two pieces expressing doubts about Obama. One from the right, and one from the left. That in itself is no surprise. But look at the ‘left’ …

Late Update: As several TPM Readers have noted The Page has now moved Hiatt from the “left” to “center-left”. I’m sorry, but he’s not center-left either. He’s arguably “centrist”, but probably only on domestic policies.

Energy is set to be the big issue of the day, with Barack Obama releasing a new attack ad against John McCain, and McCain visiting a nuclear plant in the swing state of Michigan. That and other political news in today’s Election Central Morning Roundup.

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