Midday Politics Links

As warned, it's a busy kind of week. Here's what I'm reading about:

* Obama returns again to North Carolina tomorrow morning in Raleigh.

* The N&O looks at North Carolina's answer to the butterfly ballot, the straight ticket vote that doesn't vote straight ticket. This is a very foolish way to design a ballot, but it has a long history in North Carolina, and it's fairly well-marked both on the ballot and in the polling place. I'm hopeful this won't be determinative of the outcome here.

* Some three dozen workers at a telemarketing call center in Indiana walked off the job rather than read an incendiary McCain campaign script attacking Barack Obama, according to two workers at the center and one of their parents.

* A PEW Research poll puts Obama up an improbable sixteen points nationally, up 19 among those who have already voted. The RNC has taken to the airwaves in a bid to retain Montana. In Ohio, 22% of the population has already voted, favoring Obama 56%-39%. McCain is only up three points in Arizona. In short, things are looking good.

* Another article looks back to Howard Dean as one of the forces (both before and after "The Scream") who made Barack Obama's candidacy (and, one hopes, landslide victory) possible.

* And another classic for the Palin files: forget "diva," a top McCain adviser says Palin is a "whack job." More at Washington Monthly, which makes the key point: "To blame Palin is to blame McCain. If the campaign is her fault, then the campaign is his fault."