Reid lost the debate to Angle  —  Let's get the easy part out of the way first:  —  Sharron Angle won The Big Debate.  —  Angle won because she looked relatively credible, appearing not to be the Wicked Witch of the West (Christine O'Donnell is the good witch of the Tea Party) and scoring many more rhetorical points.

The Mortgage Morass  —  American officials used to lecture other countries about their economic failings and tell them that they needed to emulate the U.S. model.  The Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, in particular, led to a lot of self-satisfied moralizing.

Tea Party Set to Win Enough Races for Wide Influence  —  Enough Tea Party-supported candidates are running strongly in competitive and Republican-leaning Congressional races that the movement stands a good chance of establishing a sizable caucus to push its agenda in the House and the Senate, according to a New York Times analysis.

Monetary Policy Objectives and Tools in a Low-Inflation Environment  —  The topic of this conference—the formulation and conduct of monetary policy in a low-inflation environment—is timely indeed.  From the late 1960s until a decade or so ago, bringing inflation under control was viewed …

NPR Poll Offers Sliver Of Hope For Democrats  —  With only 18 days left until Election Day, an NPR survey of likely voters in battleground districts found that while the overall field still tilts to the GOP, Democrats are closing the gap in some places.  —  The good news for Democrats …

FIRST LADY CAMPAIGNS INSIDE POLLING PLACE  —  First lady Michelle Obama appears to have violated Illinois law — when she engaged in political discussion at a polling place!  —  The drama began after Mrs. Obama stopped off at the Martin Luther King Center on the south side of Chicago to cast an early vote.

Social Security benefits will remain flat for 2nd straight year, government says  —  For the second year in a row, the nearly 54 million retirees and other Americans who receive Social Security benefits will not get any cost-of-living increase in 2011 in their monthly checks, government officials announced Friday morning.

From a Maine House, a National Foreclosure Freeze  —  DENMARK, Me.  — The house that set off the national furor over faulty foreclosures is blue-gray and weathered.  The porch is piled with furniture and knickknacks awaiting the next yard sale.  In the driveway is a busted pickup truck.

Murkowski goes up with Stevens ads  —  Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski will start airing the long-awaited campaign ad featuring the late Sen. Ted Stevens this week.  —  In the ad, Stevens, who died in a plane crash earlier this year, tells voters, “We need Lisa,” according to footage of the advertisement obtained exclusively by POLITICO.

Challenging Health Care Law, Suit Advances  —  In a foreboding ruling for the Obama administration, a federal judge in Florida decreed Thursday that a legal challenge to the new health care law by officials from 20 states could move forward and warned that he would have to be persuaded …

Pentagon to comply with court order to end 'don't ask, don't tell'  —  The Pentagon announced Thursday that it will comply with a court order to stop enforcing its “don't ask, don't tell” policy barring gays from serving openly in the military, even as the Obama administration asked a federal judge to delay implementation of the ruling.

The Outlook for November 2nd  —  Larry J. Sabato, Director, U.Va. Center for Politics  —  As alert readers of the Crystal Ball will note, we have not changed our projection of +47 Republican net House seats in many weeks.  We made this prediction prior to Labor Day, and we were the first to say definitively …

Mitch Daniels open to VAT, oil tax hike  —  Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels opened the door Thursday to supporting both a value added tax and a tariff on imported oil, bold proposals that could cause trouble for him with conservatives as he flirts with a long-shot bid for the presidency.

Barack Obama sees rise of ‘tribal attitude’  —  President Barack Obama thinks that the recession has caused a temporary increase in racial tension by stoking “tribal attitude” among people in economic distress.  —  During an hour-long town hall with young people simulcast on MTV …

AMERICAN MORNING  —  Miners Tell Their Story; Debate in the Desert; Is Feingold Finished: Three-Term Democrat Courts Tea Party Supporters; $1 Trillion Plus Deficit; Standing Up for a Friend; The “I'm You” Campaign Strategy; Miners' Rise to Fame; UFO Over Manhattan?  —  THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT.

California NOW President: ‘Meg Whitman Could Be Described As A Political Whore’  —  Last week, the National Organization for Women and the PAC of the California NOW chapter took heat for their endorsement of state Attorney General Jerry Brown (D) over Meg Whitman (R) in the gubernatorial race …