A Fine Mess  —  A friend serving in the Bush administration called Sunday to try to talk me out of my doubts about the $700 billion financial bailout the administration was asking Congress to approve.  I picked up the phone, and made the mistake of good-naturedly remarking …

Hope, Change, & Lies: Orchestrated “Grassroots” Smear Campaigns & the People that Run Them  —  Extensive research was conducted by the Jawa Report to determine the source of smears directed toward Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.  Those smears included false allegations …

Loan Titans Paid McCain Adviser Nearly $2 Million  —  Senator John McCain's campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.

Palin on Ahmadinejad: ‘He Must Be Stopped’  —  Governor Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president, was scheduled to speak today at a rally in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza to protest the appearance here of President Ahmadinejad of Iran.  Her appearance was canceled by rally organizers who sought a nonpolitical event.

Radical Shift for Goldman and Morgan  —  Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the last two independent investment banks on Wall Street, will transform themselves into bank holding companies subject to far greater regulation, the Federal Reserve said Sunday night, a move that fundamentally reshapes …

Palin draws crowd of 60,000 in The Villages  —  THE VILLAGES — Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin told wildly cheering, flag-waving, chanting supporters that John McCain is “the only great man in this race” and promised Sunday he will fix the nation's economy if voters give the GOP four more years in the White House.

Obama campaign staff pulling out of ND  —  BISMARCK, N.D.  —  Barack Obama, who has deployed more than 50 staffers in North Dakota in an attempt to become the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since 1964, is pulling out.  —  An Obama spokeswoman, Amy Brundage …

Early voting starts today in some states  —  FAIRFAX, Va. — Voters by the thousands will begin casting ballots for president this week in an early voting process that's expected to set records this year.  —  Residents of Virginia, Kentucky and Georgia are among the first in the nation eligible to vote in person, as well as by mail.

Conservatives Try New Tack on Campuses  —  COLORADO SPRINGS — Acknowledging that 20 years and millions of dollars spent loudly and bitterly attacking the liberal leanings of American campuses have failed to make much of a dent in the way undergraduates are educated, some conservatives have decided to try a new strategy.

Run, Mike, run  —  Michael Bloomberg must stand for reelection to a third term as mayor in 2009.  Run, Mike, run.  —  New York is only beginning to weather the damaging effects of the worst financial crisis to hit the U.S. since the Great Depression.  Severe aftershocks of lost jobs …

Steering the McCain Campaign, a Lot of Old Bush Hands  —  When Gov. Sarah Palin flew home to Alaska for the first time since being named the Republican vice presidential nominee, she brought along at least half a dozen new advisers to conduct briefings, stage-manage her first television interview …