Kay Barnes, the Democrat running against Scott Graves in Missouri’s 6th Congressional District, got a debate question about the Fairness Doctrine.

I guarantee you she’d be in line to vote for the Fairness Doctrine even though she sure as heck has no idea what it is. Because, you know, it’s fair. Listen to her:

H/t to Insider Online.

This is needed.

Let’s all take a moment out of politics. Enjoy the family. Enjoy the kids. Family first.

Happy Halloween.

Yesterday, The Heritage Foundation formally requested that the Obama campaign stop misrepresenting the organization’s views in ads touting the candidate’s tax plan.  The letter notes that Barack Obama’s economic adviser has known, unequivocally, for more than a month that Heritage analyst Rea Hederman considers the candidate’s tax plan to be far inferior to that of his rival, John McCain.
 
Obama campaign spokesperson Bill Burton has issued a wholly unsatisfactory response to the Heritage letter.  He attempts to justify the campaign’s misrepresentation by arguing:

1. That it’s OK to pick up a line written by New York Sun reporter Russell Berman and present it as a direct quote from Hederman, even though Hederman never said it.  Burton’s “justification”:  “I don’t know of any correction or clarification The Sun ever ran….”  Hey, Burton, before you ”quote” someone secondhand, how about checking with him first — to see if he ever said it or ever would say it?  Otherwise, you’re just putting words in someone’s mouth.

2. That when Hederman called Obama’s climb down from his initial proposal to tax dividends and capital gains at 28% “a great step in the right direction,” this somehow amounts to ”praising” the plan.  As Hederman’s Sept. 16 letter to the Wall Street Journal clearly stated, the climb-down merely made a bad plan less bad.  That’s not praise.

3. That it’s “reasonable for to use [sic] a definition of ‘better off’ as ‘paying less.’  Maybe.  But Hederman never said the middle class would ”pay less” under the Obama plan.  Those are the reporter’s words, not Hederman’s. Burton acknowledges that the comment about paying less is, in fact, “Berman’s reporting,” not Hederman’s words.  Hederman emphatically does not share Berman’s view.  It is definitely not reasonable to suggest that Hederman believes the middle class would be better off under that plan.  He doesn’t.
    
   In fact, Hederman’s analyses show that the middle class would do much better under McCain’s tax plan because it would lead to twice as much job creation and economic growth.  
    
   If somehow the campaign didn’t know their tax ads were deceitful before, they certainly know that to be the case now.  The question now is:  Will they have the honesty and intergrity to pull them, or will they willfully continue misleading the American public?

As Ron noted in the diaries yesterday, the race in GA-08 is close. Congressman Jim Marshall’s internal polling has him up higher than most independent polls are showing. He is also banking on a large black voter turnout for Obama to help put him over the finish line.

But, there is a large undecided vote and the demographics favor General Rick Goddard, the Republican challenger. The undecideds will probably be going with General Goddard. The Goddard campaign has its final ad out, and I like it:

The polls narrow. And the McCain campaign claims ownership of the last 96 hours of this campaign season.

In fact, among undecided voters, the largest portion is now solidifying who will get the vote. And the Obama “spread the wealth” stuff and the LA Times video suppression are just helping ratify minds as the polls narrow.

Here’s what’s fun. Let’s assume the worst case scenario. Just for a minute. Here we have a situation with undecideds breaking for McCain, the media vetting of Obama beginning after the election, and a whole host of people who voted for Obama asking “WTF?” That helps us long term tremendously.

But let’s look at the best case scenario. We can a delight on election day as the undecideds break decisively for McCain, carrying him and Sarah! across the finish line. We’ll have a lot to savor. Good times people.

One way or the other, we know this: the trend has headed toward McCain at the same time the media and the McCain camp have finally gotten around to raising key questions about Barack Obama. Because of the failure to vet Obama early, those questions will continue after the election whether he wins or loses.

And both scenarios are ripe for our advancement as the seeds of doubt get sown. America won’t tolerate an unrepentant lefty in the White House. The Obama camp and media have gone out of their way to cover up who Obama really is. Whether we win or we lose, we’ll make sure the public knows the truth about what the media and Democrats did during this campaign.

How the hell is it news that Sarah Palin spent government money to fix up government property? Seriously.

The lady came in to office needing to fix up the Governor’s Mansion to make it appropriate for small kids and also fix up her office at the Capitol. After having the Murkowski’s there, you’d probably need a bio-hazard team.

Mind you, the work on her office area was not even for her.

The work on the Anchorage site created new offices for Kelly Goode, Palin’s legislative director, and Roseanne Hughes, director of external communications, McAllister said. The third office is reserved for “traveling staff,” who divide their time between Anchorage and Juneau, which are located 571 miles apart, McAllister said.

A Palin staffer said the Juneau mansion’s new blinds were installed to provide privacy.

“The residence manager determined that the blinds were necessary to prevent observation from the street of the family members,” administrative director Linda J. Perez said in an e-mail.

Mike McBride, past president of the Alaska Voters Organization, did not take issue with the expenses. “It’s not a tremendous amount of money. Things in Alaska cost substantially more than they do in other parts of the country,” McBride said. “It’s not an unreasonable number.”

Yeah, yeah, this can’t be media bias playing into the anti-Palin narrative. This paper endorsed McCain.

Pfffffffft.

If McCain pulls this off, I want media heads piled on the South Lawn of the White House. If he does not pull this off, I’ll take the scalps myself over the next few years in anticipating Governor Palin’s 2012 bid.

Yesterday, I blogged about Romneybots trying to smear Sarah Palin. One of the ones who has been willing to do it on record is former John Boehner spokesman and, more recently, former Mitt Romney spokesman Kevin Madden.

Now Madden was a Hill guy. And he was good. Smooth, polished, a party man.

Then he went to Mitt Romney and was mostly smooth and polished, but not quite as good.

Well, where to go now? Oh . . . the private sector.

Where did Kevin Madden go in the private sector? The Glover Park Group.

The Glover Park Group is a Democrat group. Who is there?

Carter Eskew from Gore 2000; Michael Feldman from the Clinton White House; Gigi Gorges who worked with Hillary; Joel Johnson from Team Daschle; Joe Lockhart from the Clinton White House; Jonathan Sallet from the Clinton White House; Chip Smith from Gore 2000; and Howard Wolfson most recently of the Hillary Campaign.

They are good at what they do. Now they can play both sides having Kevin on board. But how much of the Palin bashing is Kevin trying to fit in and suck up to his new masters? Maybe he’s just killing two birds with one stone: sabotage Palin to help him get back on the Romney train in 2012 if he thinks Obama is going to win and make himself palatable in an all blue Washington. Still, so much for loyalties, etc.

This doesn’t explain the other Romneybots doing the same.

The reporter will not release the tape.

No doubt the reporter thinks you awful simpletons out there will think ill of Obama for cavorting with terrorists and terrorist sympathizers and people who compare Israel to Osama Bin Laden and the Devil.

When I was in St. Paul for the Republican Convention, more than a dozen people told me acolytes of Mitt Romney were feeding all the stories to the media portraying Palin in a negative light.

In fact, I heard that one of the biggest pushers of anti-Palin stories, including encouraging reporters to pursue the “Trooper-gate” story was Romney spokesman Kevin Madden.

I did not blog on it at the time because I perceived it to be people trying to finish off Romney. It likewise seemed clear to me that if this was going on, it was people loyal to Romney who were still hoping for his come back and not Romney himself.

These days it is hard to miss Kathleen Parker’s savage attacks on Sarah Palin. She, along with several others listed here attacking Sarah Palin were also some of the first pundits in bed with the Romney campaign in 2007/8.

Again, it is hard for me to place the finger on Romney. It seems to me that these are people who are still convinced he’s the better nominee and don’t want Palin to be in any position to challenge him in 2012.

At this moment, however, it is absolutely clear — there is an effort, organized or not, by supporters of Mitt Romney to harm the reputation of Governor Sarah Palin.

The American Spectator documented it yesterday.

Former Mitt Romney presidential campaign staffers, some of whom are currently working for Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin’s bid for the White House, have been involved in spreading anti-Palin spin to reporters, seeking to diminish her standing after the election. “Sarah Palin is a lightweight, she won’t be the first, not even the third, person people will think of when it comes to 2012,” says one former Romney aide, now working for McCain-Palin. “The only serious candidate ready to challenge to lead the Republican Party is Mitt Romney. He’s in charge on November 5th.”

Though I initially dismissed the Kevin Madden rumors, Amanda Carpenter has Kevin in his own words going after Sarah Palin.

And it is not just Madden. It may be hard for you to believe, but there are Romney supporters now working on John McCain’s campaign who are, in fact, indisputably out to damage Sarah Palin’s reputation. I am not just convinced of it. I know it to be fact. That there are “conservative pundits” echoing the same talking points makes me deeply suspicious.

I agree with Matt Lewis. I doubt Mitt Romney is responsible or encouraging it. In fact, I suspect he’d be extremely disappointed to find this out. Nonetheless, whether organic or organized, it is happening and it deeply worries me that these people now undermining Sarah Palin view Romney as the logical choice to lead the RNC or be the front runner in 2012. You don’t get to sabotage your own side and then have your guy be the front runner.

We must remember this. Contrary to the quote in the American Spectator, if November 5th ushers in President-elect Obama, I stand with Sarah.

The Politico would have us believe that they are not in the tank for Obama, rather the coverage of McCain sucking is a reflection of the McCain campaign.

The McCain campaign may suck, but the Politico is in the tank for Obama.

The problem is that the Politico has a habit of being lazy and running whatever is fed to them on silver spoons.  And the Obama campaign is in the driver’s seat feeding them premium dog food for their regurgitation.  The Politico’s instinct, like any in the media pack, is to go to its master before going to a stranger, so it feeds from the left more than the right. Likewise, the Politico would rather be first than be accurate. After all, they can correct the story later.

They ran the “Fred Thompson to drop out story” the day before the Iowa Caucus, which was not true.

Posited that Hillary had no lock on Pennsylvania in the primary when the data in their own article showed otherwise.

Claimed the Thompson campaign had few people show up at rallies despite video evidence proving the opposite.

Attacked Jed Babbin of Human Events while screwing up his biography and then not correcting it for days, even though multiple attempts were made to get the error corrected.

Mischaracterized Craig Shirley’s relationship to the McCain campaign to psensationalize his departure therefrom.

Pushed the “Is John McCain old and senile” line against McCain, mimicking Obama’s talking points.

Attacked Sarah Palin pretty openly and unapologetically.

Mischaracterized Sarah Palin’s statements for shock value.

Let’s not forget John Edwards dropping out.

etc, etc, etc.

UPDATED: We know now that the tape has Barack Obama condemning Israel. We know the tape also has Obama in the room with anti-American rhetoric spouted that he did not object to. And the Los Angeles Times will still not release the tape.

What if the Los Angeles Times had video of John McCain toasting a known Islamic terrorist? What would the reaction be if the Los Angeles Times told everyone it had the tape, but refused the release the tape? And what if credible people who had seen the tape reported that other terrorists were in the room?

This is not a hypothetical. This is actually happening. Only it involves Barack Obama. And the Los Angeles Times has admitted it has the tape.

In 2003, Barack Obama lavished praise on Rashid Khalidi, a mouthpiece for Yasser Arafat. In the room were Weather Underground members Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. It was all caught on video. The Los Angeles Times blandly described the tape some time ago, but I’m told there is more to it than that — the tape shows enough sympathy from Barack Obama toward the causes of an Islamic radical that the American public has a right to see the tape.

But the Los Angeles Times will not release the tape. Peter Wallsten, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times has seen the tape. He wrote about the tape.

Email Peter Wallsten. Tell him to release the tape.

Call the Los Angeles Times at (213) 237-5000. Tell the Times the American public has a right to see this for themselves.

There is more of this, much worse, here.

This is brought to you by the people who support Barack Obama. In other places, these people would be clubbing you down in the street. Heck, that’s happening here to some degree.

Also, this comes as more evidence comes out that Democrats in Ohio raided confidential government records to smear Joe the Plumber.

This is the behavior of third world despots, not American Presidential candidates.

Joel Mowbray has a must read column today about a Marine, running for office in Ohio, who is being attacked for serving in the military by his political opponent. Rep. Josh Mandel is a Republican State Legislator in Ohio. His opponent, Bob Belovich, hates both the war and the military in general. Barbara Belovich said Josh “went AWOL” by fighting in Iraq.

Even Mr. Mandel’s motives for serving in Iraq are being questioned. Mrs. Belovich claimed in an interview with this columnist that Mandel “put his personal ambitions ahead of his constituents.” Asked why anyone would enter a war zone out of “personal ambition,” Barbara Belovich replied curtly, “Certainly he wasn’t serving our needs.”

Barbara Belovich also said Mr. Mandel “isn’t serving our country, he’s serving George Bush” and “[Mandel] feels that his obligation to George Bush is stronger than his, you know, his obligation to the people in the 17th District.”

The man went to Iraq as a Marine and fought for this country. Bob Belovich and his wife, however, condemns him for doing so. Hear the audio here:

Georgia:

Minnesota:

New Hampshire:

A couple of weeks ago, Michael Barone wrote

Obama supporters who found the campuses congenial and Obama himself, who has chosen to live all his adult life in university communities, seem to find it entirely natural to suppress speech that they don’t like and seem utterly oblivious to claims that this violates the letter and spirit of the First Amendment. In this campaign, we have seen the coming of the Obama thugocracy, suppressing free speech, and we may see its flourishing in the four or eight years ahead.

In Missouri, local Democrat sheriffs and prosecutors have planned to use the state’s police power to go after citizens perceived as making false statements about Barack Obama — using the police power to intimidate political opponents.

More troubling, comes a weekend report from the Columbus Dispatch that Obama supporters in government used government computers to access data with which to smear Joe Wurzelbacher a/k/a Joe the Plumber.

Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.

It has not been determined who checked on Wurzelbacher, or why. Direct access to driver’s license and vehicle registration information from BMV computers is restricted to legitimate law enforcement and government business.

We have one case of Obama supporters threatening to use the powers of the state to prosecute Obama’s political opponents and another case of Obama supporters actually abusing the powers of the state to target and smear a guy who was, in reality, an innocent bystander — a man who Obama went to randomly for a photo-op. The guy just happened to do the equivalent of the child in “The Emperor Has No Clothes.” In the fairy tale, the kid and his family were not hounded and smeared by the king. In reality though, Joe the Plumber was.

This is what third world despots in African Kleptocracies do. This is not what we do, or are supposed to do, in the United States of America.

Friends, Bill Russell, who I did not think had a shot in hell, is kicking Murtha all over Pennsylvanian.

I’m delighted to have been wrong about this race. Bill Russell is ahead in the polling and Murtha is about to get some serious beat downs and surprises this week from some angry Marines he slandered.

We can and should help pick off Nancy Pelosi’s consigliere. He has slandered our soldiers. He has slandered his countrymen. He has slandered his own voters calling them racists and rednecks.

Bill Russell is a good man. Bill Russell is a soldier. Bill Russell can win.

Let’s help Bill Russell.

We point out yesterday that Musgrove and Marshall do the same ad set. The NRSC does an ad today on the matter:

That’s awesome turnaround guys.

How desperate is Nick Lampson in TX-22? He sent out an email blast the other day that read

Prosecutors were quick to move on a felony complaint that was filed after evidence was discovered showing Pete Olson (with the same addresses and signature of candidate Olson) voted and maintained voter registration in Connecticut and Virginia. Voter fraud is a felony in both states.

It’s a total lie. A far left group filed a criminal complaint, but their evidence is specious. The group accuses Olson of voting in two different states on the same day. Unfortunately for them, Olson has his plane ticket stub showing he was flying to Texas and there is no way what the lefties are claiming could possibly be true.

Undeterred, Lampson put out a television ad making the same accusation.

According to the Olson campaign:

Today KHOU Channel 11 pulled a misleading television ad by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that falsely smeared Republican Congressional Candidate in Texas’ 22nd congressional district, Pete Olson. **KHOU decided to pull the ad after it was presented with a letter, affidavit by Pete Olson and evidence proving that the DCCC knowingly ignored evidence disproving the false claims.**

Democrat Nick Lampson is desperate. His wife cannot vote for him because she does not live in the district. In fact, Lampson does not live in TX-22 either.

But he’d rather distract from the truth by lying about Pete Olson.

You can contribute to Pete here.

Believe it or not, there is a primary going on. Not a general election race, but a real primary. To be specific, it’s the primary-runoff in Louisiana’s 4th Congressional District.

There are two good men running, Chris Gorman and John Fleming.

Having to choose between the two, let me say I don’t know either one personally, but do have relatives and friends in Louisiana. Of course, the good relatives all live south of Alexandria and not up in Yankee land . . . er . . . North Louisiana. Anyway, I’m partial to Chris Gorman.

Both men in the runoff are conservatives. I think Gorman is probably a bit more pro-life than Fleming and I think he is more likely than not to stand firm on immigration issues. From what I know about Chris, I think he’s not going to be someone to “grow” in office, but will keep being rock solid.

I think between the two we should be supporting Chris Gorman.

Chris Gorman is 100% pro-life. He is in favor of securing our borders. He does want to win the war on terror.

May I kindly suggest we get him into the general election.