Akin 44 McCaskill 43  —  Missouri voters strongly disagree with the comments Todd Akin made about abortion over the weekend, but it hasn't moved the numbers a whole lot in the Senate race.  Akin leads Claire McCaskill by a single point, 44-43.  That's basically identical to our last poll …

Mitt Romney: Honor Students Do It All Themselves  —  In his town hall appearance in New Hampshire this morning, Mitt Romney celebrated the individual, who clearly needs no support system to succeed in RepublicanLand.  —  Speaking to a crowd of FreedomWorks devotees and other New Hampshire residents, he said this:

New Obama regulatory chief's Bain consulting tenure goes unmentioned: ‘Bain’ as four-letter word  —  President Obama's campaign just loves to refer to rival Mitt Romney's tenure at Bain Capital.  They've made plenty of hay out of his time with the company ("home of the vulture capitalists!"), bringing it up at every turn possible.

In Praise of Fact-Checkers  —  In the wake of Niall Ferguson's dishonesty, Dylan Byers decided to contact Newsweek to see what controls the magazine had in place to prevent authors from lying to them.  As it turns out, none: … More accurately, Newsweek has unwittingly outsourced its fact-checking to the web.

Romney Gains Huge Cash Advantage Over Obama  —  Mitt Romney's cash advantage over President Obama and the Democrats more than doubled in July, as intense Republican fund-raising and heavy spending by Mr. Obama and his allies left Mr. Romney and the Republican National Committee with $62 million …

Here's Your Beltway Pundit Constituency  —  As part of a series of Pre-Convention Front-Pagers based on a new WaPo-Kaiser Family Foundation survey, Jon Cohen and Dan Balz deliver a solid assessment of political independents that is most impressive for its succinctness.  Here's all you really need to know from the piece:

Romney slightly ahead in Wisconsin  —  PPP's first Wisconsin poll since Mitt Romney announced Paul Ryan as his running mate finds him taking a small lead over Barack Obama in the state, 48-47.  That represents a 7 point shift from PPP's last look at the state in early July, which found Obama ahead 50-44.

GOP Votes Down Civil Unions In Platform  —  A social conservative hard line in Tampa.  —  TAMPA, Florida — The GOP platform committee overwhelmingly voted down an effort to include recognitions of civil unions in the party's manifesto.  —  The measure, offered by Rhode Island delegate Barbara Fenton …

The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy Is on Your Screen  —  Two decades ago, conservative anger against popular culture burned so intensely that it seemed at the time that Hollywood had come to fill the space in the right-wing fear center vacated by the end of Communism.  The anger came out in an endless series of skirmishes.

BET lands President Obama interview  —  BET, the Black Entertainment Television network, will interview President Obama today in Colombus, Ohio, POLITICO has learned.  —  The full interview will air on September 6, and is his first with an African-American television outlet during the 2012 campaign season.

FBI Probing Rep. Michael Grimm, Not Skinny-Dipping  —  The FBI is indeed interested in a trip that House Republicans made to Israel last summer.  But it's not because Kansas Republican Rep. Kevin Yoder took his pants off and jumped into the Sea of Galilee after a night of drinking.