Via Kos, who has a new Research 2000 Arizona poll (McCain 48, Obama 47) to explain why McCain will be campaigning in Arizona Monday night.

Obama has so much money, he can do an ad blitz in Arizona and make McCain spend part of the day before the election in his home state. Hard to see how a McCain miracle could possibly happen.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Matt Yglesias takes Ed Whelan (Whelan's response to Yglesias) to task for taking Barack Obama to task for his statements on the importance of judicial philosophy:

While his language is over the top (though, upon reflection, Whelan in his response has some evidence that Obama is intentionally making a false statement here, but pols do that) , I think Whelan makes a good point - Obama is clearly avoiding the issue (and 4 days from an election, probably a smart thing.) Obama clearly does intend to discount the importance of judicial philosophy in this interview, and he is wrong when he does so. More.

There is no doubt that Barack Obama is dominating among younger voters. Democracy Corps posits that this will be significant for Democrats over time:

Barack Obama will make history in one week in no small measure due to the enthusiasm and commitment of America’s youth. The Obama campaign awakened a generation. . . . [T]he stability of his support among young people, largely uninterrupted throughout the year, and their growing enthusiasm is nothing short of remarkable and will influence American politics for generations to come.

(Emphasis supplied.) Let's hope it is so. I am curious though if Obama is making his voters Democrats. More . . .

Now that McCain's "tightening" meme has pretty much slipped away, some Republican leaners are grasping at some new straw. Glenn Reynolds writes:

GOP halves Democratic lead in generic ballot. "Democrats now lead by four points, their slimmest lead in more than three years. A week ago, according to the George Washington University poll, their advantage was eight points." Mickey Kaus thinks he knows why.

Any Halloween scares to come in the polling today? Not likely.

DKos/R2000 has Obama up 6, 51-45. Ras has Obama up 4, 51-47 and a good explanation of what has happened in the last week or so:

The tightening comes entirely from McCain solidifying his support. . . . [W]hile McCain has been solidifying support, Obama has not lost ground. This is the 36th straight day that Obama’s support has been between 50% and 52%.

Other polls show similar spreads. Hotline has Obama by 6, 48-42. Gallup Expanded has Obama by 7, 51-44. The race has been static for a week. The spread each pollster shows depends on turnout models but no poll shows McCain closer than 3. And some polls show as much as a 15 point spread. I stick to my months long prediction of a 6 point Obama win.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

This is excellent news for the future of crime policy if it's true:

“The political climate has shifted,” said Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit organization for criminal justice reform. “Democrats and Republicans both embrace a more evidence-based approach to public safety that looks at programs and policies that work.”

It's not so true of John McCain.

In a speech before the National Sheriffs’ Association this year, Mr. McCain ... called for tougher punishment for violent offenders and appeared to disagree with Mr. Obama’s contention that the prison population is too high. ... Mr. McCain also favors tougher sentences for illegal immigrants who commit crimes and more federal money to help local agencies detain them.

The Department of Corrections budget doesn't seem to be one of those McCain wants to cut. [more ...]

They just don't know when to stop. Guantanamo prosecutors wanted a sentence of 30 years to life for Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's driver. A military jury gave him 5 1/2 years, 5 years of which he's already served. The prosecutors should have taken that slap in the face gracefully. Instead, they asked the military judge to reassemble the jury to resentence Hamdan. They argued that the judge should not have instructed the jury that Hamdan would receive credit for time served because the judge has no authority to award that credit to an enemy combatant.

The prosecutors want the five years and one month Hamdan has already served to be "dead time" -- time a prisoner spends in custody that never gets credited to any sentence. They wanted to argue to the jury that Hamdan should serve an additional 5 1/2 years. But the jury already decided that Hamdan should be done with his sentence at the end of the year. There's no reason to put him in jeopardy of a longer sentence. The presiding judge appropriately denied the prosecution's latest shameful effort to save face.

Correction: The defective battery chargers in the nation's missile silos have not all been replaced. But they're working on it.

original post:

A defective battery charger caused a fire at a nuclear missile silo near Cheyenne, Wyoming last spring, a mishap that is only now being reported "because of the complexity of the investigation." The fire burned for about two hours, finding as fuel (among $1 million of other property) a shotgun and a box of shotgun shells.

A shotgun is a standard security weapon at missile silos.

As formidable a security device as a shotgun might be in thwarting the theft of a Minuteman III missile, there was nobody at the launch site to fire the shotgun, or to save it from the fire. The launch site is unmanned. Five days passed before the Air Force noticed (while investigating a trouble light) that there had been a fire. How secure does that make you feel?

[more ...]

After lawyers made their arguments yesterday in federal court in the lawsuit challenging the purging of tens of thousands of Colorado voters from voter registration lists, U.S. Senior District Court Judge John L. Kane, Jr. declared he would take the matter under advisement. Shortly before he returned to rule, the parties reached a settlement. The result is that those who who were purged will be able to vote and their credentials will be checked afterwards. If they are eligible to vote, their vote will count.

Under the agreement, voters removed from the rolls will be permitted to cast provisional ballots, and those ballots will be counted unless election officials can prove the voters were not eligible. To strike such ballots, county election officials must conduct an extensive records review on each one, a decision that must then be reviewed by Mr. Coffman’s office.

More...

Is it true that Barack Obama might want Rahm Emanuel to be his chief of staff? "[O]fficials" told reporters today that Obama's campaign approached Emanuel. Who are these officials? They are "Democrats who ... spoke on condition of anonymity" because "they were not authorized to be quoted by name."

An aide to the congressman, Sarah Feinberg, said in an e-mail that he "has not been contacted to take a job in an administration that does not yet exist. Everyone is focused on Election Day, as they should be."

On the other hand: [more ...]

Among the more notable findings in today's New York Times/CBS News poll is that 59% of voters say Gov. Sarah Palin is not qualified for the job of Vice-President. On October 8, it was 50%.

All told, 59 percent of voters surveyed said that Ms. Palin was not prepared for the job, up 9 percentage points since the beginning of the month. Nearly a third of voters polled said that the vice-presidential selection would be a major factor influencing their vote for president, and those voters broadly favored Senator Barack Obama.

As to how his choice of Palin has damaged McCain's image: [More...]

Their latest poll:

With less than one week until Election Day, Barack Obama maintains a clear lead over John McCain in the presidential race, a new CBS News/New York Times poll suggests. The Democratic nominee now leads his Republican rival by 11 percentage points, 52 percent to 41 percent, among likely voters nationwide.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only