memeorandum: Obama campaign goes on attack (Chris Cillizza/Washington Post)

12:40 PM ET, October 3, 2011

Top Items:

‘Niggerhead’ — Ok, then: … In all seriousness, I think this says very little about Rick Perry, and a lot more about the country he seeks to govern. A few choice quotes: … And from the Times: … Surely there are people, in both stories, who find the name offensive.

Discussion: ThinkProgress and Political Mojo

Rick Perry / Washington Post:

At Rick Perry's Texas hunting spot, camp's old racially charged name lingered — The rock was about five feet across and three feet tall, smooth and relatively flat, the word in block letters stretching across its surface, said the former worker from the Hendrick ranch …

Discussion: Wonkette and The Daily Dish

Richard A. Oppel Jr / New York Times:
Perry's Link to N-Word Place Name Puts Campaign on Defensive

Discussion: The Caucus, Gawker, Los Angeles Times and Daily Kos

Washington Post:
At Rick Perry's Texas hunting spot, camp's old racially charged name lingered

Discussion: Michelle Malkin, The Daily Caller, New York Magazine, Hot Air, Crooks and Liars, The Crawdad Hole, Jesus' General, Runnin' Scared and Rumproast

Amy Gardner / Washington Post:
Rick Perry deflects scrutiny over Texas hunting camp, is blasted by Herman Cain

Discussion: Washington Monthly, The Atlantic Online, CNN, The New Republic, Instapundit, Ricochet Conversation Feed, The Right Scoop and Balloon Juice

Kevinliptak / CNN:

BREAKING: South Carolina to hold primary on January 21 — Washington (CNN) - South Carolina's Republican presidential primary will be held on Jan. 21 of next year, two GOP sources tell CNN. — South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Chad Connelly will formally announce the date later this morning.

Discussion: Ben Smith's Blog, Outside the Beltway and The Page

Meghashyam Mali / Ballot Box:

Cain wins straw poll at GOP women's forum — GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain won this weekend's straw poll at the National Federation of Republican Women's Convention reports NBC News. — Cain received 48.9 percent of the vote, well ahead of the second place finisher Texas Gov. Rick Perry at 14.1 percent.

Discussion: CNN, Reuters, Indecision Forever, GOP 12, The Other McCain and Fox News

Chris Cillizza / Washington Post:
Obama campaign goes on attack

Discussion: The Caucus, Washington Monthly, Ballot Box, Weasel Zippers, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Hot Air and Boston Globe

Robin Abcarian / Los Angeles Times:
Rick Santorum stays the course

Discussion: Ballot Box and ThinkProgress

Ann Gerhart / Washington Post:
Ann Romney on campaign trail, helping her husband ‘get through this together’

Discussion: GOP 12 and The Page

Bloomberg:

Koch Brothers Flout Law Getting Richer With Secret Iran Sales — In May 2008, a unit of Koch Industries Inc., one of the world's largest privately held companies, sent Ludmila Egorova-Farines, its newly hired compliance officer and ethics manager, to investigate the management of a subsidiary in Arles in southern France.

Patrick / Politicalgates:
In new bombshell story, “Bloomberg Markets” …

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Firedoglake, Teamster Nation and Booman Tribune

Andrew Breitbart / Big Government:

Shock Photos: Candidate Obama Appeared And Marched With New Black Panther Party in 2007 — New photographs obtained exclusively by BigGovernment.com reveal that Barack Obama appeared and marched with members of the New Black Panther Party as he campaigned for president in Selma, Alabama in March 2007.

Discussion: Michelle Malkin, National Review, Big Journalism, Pajamas Media, The Right Scoop, Atlas Shrugs and Weasel Zippers

Mort Zuckerman / Financial Times:

Why business despairs of Obama — Take a deep breath. The industrialised world, America included, seems stuck in one of those horror movies, where the monster, thought to be slain, morphs into something even more scary. The fear is that a double-dip, or worse, is now upon us.

Discussion: Corrente and americanthinker.com

Ben White / The Politico:
(Not so) happy TARP anniversary …

Discussion: DealBook

Joe Battenfeld / Boston Herald:

Warren, Brown in dead heat: UMass Lowell/Herald poll — Joe K, Deval would do better — Democrat Elizabeth Warren's meteoric ascent in Massachusetts politics has landed her in a virtual dead heat with Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, while two Democrats who passed on the race …

Discussion: The Raw Story, The New Republic, The Politico, Business Insider, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Page and msnbc.com

Josh Lederman / Ballot Box:
Rep. Tsongas to endorse Warren for Senate in Mass.

Discussion: CNN

New York Post:

Furiously unraveling — The joke goes that anything named “Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms” ought to be a convenience store instead of an arm of the federal government, but what's going on in Washington these days with the embattled agency is no laughing matter.

Jane Mayer / New Yorker:

STATE FOR SALE … - POLITICS - PROFILES - THE TALK OF THE TOWN - COMMENT - TABLE OF CONTENTS - THE FINANCIAL PAGE - NEWS DESK - THE POLITICAL SCENE

Discussion: Booman Tribune, Outside the Beltway, Ricochet Conversation Feed, Prairie Weather, Taegan Goddard's … and The Progressive Pulse

Fran Tarkenton / Wall Street Journal:

What if the NFL Played by Teachers' Rules? — Imagine a league where players who make it through three seasons could never be cut from the roster. — Imagine the National Football League in an alternate reality. Each player's salary is based on how long he's been in the league.

Discussion: The Politico, Betsy's Page, TheBlaze.com, NewsBusters.org blogs and The Lonely Conservative

Tom Jensen / Public Policy Polling:

West Virginia too close to call — The race for Governor of West Virginia is looking more and more like a toss up, with Democrat Earl Ray Tomblin now leading Republican Bill Maloney only 47-46. Tomblin's lead was 46-40 on a poll conducted at the beginning of September and he had led …

Discussion: Taegan Goddard's …, Daily Kos and Don Surber

Paul Krugman / New York Times:

Holding China to Account — The dire state of the world economy reflects destructive actions on the part of many players. Still, the fact that so many have behaved badly shouldn't stop us from holding individual bad actors to account. — And that's what Senate leaders will be doing this week …

Discussion: Firedoglake, JustOneMinute, Reuters, Washington Post, LewRockwell.com Blog and Paul Krugman

New York Times:

A U.S.-Backed Geothermal Plant Struggles — WASHINGTON — In a remote desert spot in northern Nevada, there is a geothermal plant run by a politically connected clean energy start-up that has relied heavily on an Obama administration loan guarantee and is now facing financial turmoil.

Discussion: Michelle Malkin, americanthinker.com, Right Wing News, RedState and Instapundit

Joe Hagan / New York Magazine:

Tweet Science — Twitter is building a machine to convert 140 characters on Barack Obama, Ashton Kutcher, narcissism, the struggle for human freedom, and Starbucks into cash—and quick, before its moment passes. Is this asking too much of even the world's best technologists?

Discussion: Ben Smith's Blog, more at Techmeme »

NY Daily News:

TWU blasts city for putting handcuffed Occupy Wall Street protesters on buses — The Transport Workers Union will go to court Monday to try to stop the city from forcing bus drivers to transport Wall Street protesters arrested by the NYPD, the Daily News has learned.

Discussion: The New York Observer, City Room, Runnin' Scared, Guardian, New York Times, Daily Kos, New York Post and New York Magazine, more at Mediagazer »

BBC:

British passport forms to get same-sex parents option — The proposals will allow transgender people to opt out of identifying their gender — UK passport forms are being updated to include options for same-sex parents. — New forms including “parent one” and “parent two” alongside …

Discussion: ThinkProgress and Towleroad News #gay

Seema Mehta / Los Angeles Times:

Michele Bachmann's campaign is sputtering in Iowa — Representatives say her campaign is unfolding as planned. But Bachmann has dropped in the polls and asked supporters for ‘emergency’ funding. Some top Republicans say she's squandered opportunities. — Reporting from Des Moines …

Discussion: The Crawdad Hole, GOP 12 and msnbc.com