Palin schedules bus tour of West Virginia  —  CLEVELAND, Ohio (CNN) — In what may be another signal that the troubled economy is forcing John McCain's campaign to play electoral map defense, Sarah Palin has scheduled a bus tour for Sunday through West Virginia, a state that's been leaning red throughout this presidential race.

TRYING TO SNUFF OUT THE FLAME  —  At a rally late today in Minnesota, John McCain addressed the heated comments, including calls to violence, coming from some supporters at his rallies this week: … Here's the (updated longer version) video of a portion of McCain's remarks:

Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama  —  Welcome to The Daily Beast: A Q&A with Tina Brown  —  The son of William F. Buckley has decided—shock!—to vote for a Democrat.  —  Let me be the latest conservative/libertarian/whatever to leap onto the Barack Obama bandwagon.

THE GIST OF THE ACORN STORY  —  The Republican party is grasping on to the ACORN story as a way to delegitimize what now looks like the probable outcome of the November election.  It is also a way to stoke the paranoia of their base, lay the groundwork for legal challenges of close outcomes …

Barack ‘Osama’ on Rensselaer County ballots  —  TROY — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's last name is spelled “Osama” on hundreds of absentee ballots mailed out this week to voters in Rensselaer County.  —  The misspelling, which elections officials on both sides of the aisle insist …

Fox Poll: Nearly Two-Thirds Say Ayers Makes No Difference To Their Vote  —  These numbers, buried in the internals of a new Fox News poll out today, are the first time a national poll has tried to gauge the impact of Barack Obama's association with William Ayers.  And the numbers are pretty bad for McCain:

Memeorandum Colors: Visualizing Political Bias with Greasemonkey  —  Like the rest of the world, I've been completely obsessed with the presidential election and nonstop news coverage.  My drug of choice?  Gabe Rivera's Memeorandum, the political sister site of Techmeme …

Barack Obama's Involvement with ACORN Unearthed, Missing Article Recovered  — Elections - Elections 2008 - News - Politics - Society - U.S. Politics - US News  —  While Barack Obama's connection with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has not gone entirely unreported, it has not been fully explained.

High Court Grants Gay Marriage Rights  —  Beth Kerrigan and Jody Mock sat hunkered down in front of their computer in their West Hartford home Friday morning, sifting through the voluminous Supreme Court decision in their case seeking the right to marry as a same-sex couple.

Not about the financial crisis  —  The crisis isn't the only scary thing going on.  Something very ugly is taking shape on the political scene: as McCain's chances fade, the crowds at his rallies are, by all accounts, increasingly gripped by insane rage.  It's not just a mob phenomenon …

GOLLY, PALIN TO PLAY HERSELF ON ‘SNL’  —  SOCCER moms and Joe Sixpacks, listen up.  Get your beer, mooseburgers and caribou dips ready.  Sarah Palin is doing “Saturday Night Live.”  Not Tina Fey doing Sarah Palin doing “Saturday Night Live.”  But the Sarah Herself.  She has already OK'd it.

Radical Measures May Be In The Wings  —  As the financial crisis threatens to spiral out of control, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is prepared to take extraordinary steps through the extensive authority granted to him under emergency rescue legislation.  —  With the legislation's main mechanism …

Obama tried to sway Iraqis on Bush deal  —  In private conversations on troop presence, candidate pitched delay  —  At the same time the Bush administration was negotiating a still elusive agreement to keep the U.S. military in Iraq, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama tried …

McCain Campaign Now Attacks Michelle Obama Over Ayers  —  The McCain campaign is now broadening their attack on Obama's past association with William Ayers to include Michelle Obama — even though McCain has repeatedly said spouses should be off limits during the campaign.  —  The attack?

McCain's Risky Turn  —  There is a scene early in “Dead Certain,” Robert Draper's book about President Bush, when the Bush campaign, reeling from its loss to John McCain in New Hampshire in the 2000 primary, is plotting its moves for a do-or-die struggle in South Carolina.