I gotta imagine there are moments when Charlie Melancon thinks to himself: “Jeszzz, If I can’t get my Christian conservative opponent to take on any water for sleeping with hookers, why am I even trying?”

We’re dialing in on the Senate races in Nevada, Colorado, West Virginia and Illinois. Those are the tightest ones. Here’s what the polling in each of those races looks like, 5 days out: Read More

I don’t want to go too far on this seeming trend of Tea Partiers getting arrested for assaulting Dem protesters. What stands out to me though is how each one of these seems to be a nutshell symbolism of the boiled down essence — the precipitate — of blue and red state America, almost to a degree we wouldn’t buy from a writer if we found it in a novel.

We’ve had two high-profile cases in the last couple weeks. And each time it’s middle-aged or retired right wing white guy in violent encounter with early-twenty-something Dem woman with either cropped hair or more or less crunchy appearance.

Aqua Buddhist assaults young Dem woman activist. Cops need to step in to rein in the Aqua Buddhist.

No wonder the Tea Partiers have such a beef with state power.

That whole “read the bill” nonsense from opponents of health care reform has backfired for GOP House candidate Jon Runyan.

The New Jersey Republican favors repeal of heath care reform but was forced to admit in a debate the other night with Rep. John Adler (D-NJ) that he himself hadn’t read the bill.

Then he offered what you might call his “man on the street” test for supporting any bill: “If you’re gonna pass a piece of legislation, you should be able to walk out on the street and hand it to the first person you see. They should be able to read and understand that.”

Fox News sets up special email address: voterfraud@foxnews.com.

You’ve heard all the doom and gloom for Democrats. For good reason. But as things stand now, the expected Democratic losses fall within the historic norms for a midterm election in a President’s first term — with the economy in the crapper. Brian Beutler gets the historical perspective.

We’re under a week to go and we’ve just updated our numbers. So take a look at our snapshot of where the key races stand one week out. We’ve put together a slide show of the trend graphs, as of today, of all the key races. Take a look.

If you want to dig into the numbers yourself rather than take the guided tour, use the interactive map at TPMPolltracker to find any race in the country you want.

The right-wing stacked “US Commission on Civil Rights” has written off the illegal politicized hirings at the Bush DOJ as “ideological conflict,” and blamed the press for not paying attention to purported politicization under the Obama administration.

In the old days we called it breaking the law; now it’s “ideological conflict.”

Gingrich: Obama’s secularist revolution is similar to Poland under communism.

Trailing by 20 points, Dem Senate candidate Fisher turns over his remaining campaign cash to state Dems’ GOTV effort.