Ron Paul says Amtrak is fascist. It doesn't even run on time!

Sunday morning politics linkdump. Sorry for all these linkdumps, by the way—it was a busy week. Next week should see a return to a little bit more sustained commentary (including the exciting return of debate liveblogging!).

* There have been some interesting debates about poll biases lately. Ron Fournier (grumble) at the AP covers a study that argues Obama would be further ahead were it not for racial animus, by as many as six points. FiveThirtyEight throws cold water on this, as well as looking closely at the possibility of a "cellphone effect" in the polls. If Obama does 2.8% better in polls that include cellphones, that suggests a shifting map like the one below, turning Virginia light-blue and strengthening small Dem leads in Ohio and Colorado.



* A study from political scientist Alan Abramowitz argues that Obama will win, when all is said and done, with 54% of the popular vote. That he's naively comparing historical models with this year's unprecedentedly diverse tickets in both camps shows how seriously we should take this analysis.

* A new PPP poll shows North Carolina tied. Other recent polls show South Carolina within six, West Virginia within four, and MontanVoteRonPaula within two.

* There's evidence of a "Palin effect" in Florida driving undecided voters to Obama.

* The Spine tries to get a handle on Obama's early-voting advantage, beginning as early as this Friday in Virginia. The second link has some stats of interest for Dukies and Durham residents:

In addition, more early-voting centers are being located at colleges and universities, a change that significantly affects student turnout. Students at the University of North Carolina and N.C. State were able to vote on campus throughout the two weeks leading up to North Carolina's primary contest in April. At Duke University, however, students had to make their way to voting sites in the city of Durham. While turnout for Durham County was 52% in the Democratic primary, only 11% of eligible Duke students voted. This fall, however, Duke will have its own early-voting center, open for business starting Oct. 16.

* The McCain camp has successfully demanded the VP debate rules be changed to protect Sarah Palin.

*Judge orders Cheney not to destroy his VP records.

* SNL mocked McCain this week. He also preemptively mocked himself with an article in Contingencies arguing (for reals) that "Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation." Straight out of the Dept. of Bad Timing. Obama's already taken aim at this.

* Will Obama raise my taxes? A helpful widget.

* And American Stranger has a long post on ideology that seems to take as one starting point my post on Slavoj Žižek, Obama Supporter. Essentially Ryan takes aim at the various binds the Left finds itself in with regard to political action, and I largely agree with what he says—though I certainly hope I wasn't in mind as his example of sell-out "liberal 'pragmatism' a la The New Republic." My point, both in the earlier post and now in this one, is simply that the U.S. President has a tremendous ability to make life better or worse for real people with real lives, all over the world, many of whom (believe it or not!) do not have cushy long-term contracts with elite universities. Naderite "Oh, they're all the same!" negativity only makes sense to people who are inoculated by class and privilege from the consequences of that power.

The mere recognition that the perfect not be the enemy of the good doesn't quite throw my lot in with TNR, I don't think, and certainly not so long as we also keep in mind that the good not be the enemy of the better. Our discomfort with pragmatic compromises—and we should be discomforted by them, every time and in every case—isn't by itself a reason not to be pragmatic.

Morning newsbits.

* The most recent McCain "ad"—I doubt it's actually airing anywhere but on cable news—is truly stunningly dishonest. It could not, in fact, be more dishonest: it concerns a bill Obama neither wrote nor sponsored, that never passed, that didn't do what the ad claims. It's just amazing. John Neffinger is right: Obama should hit back on this, hard, fast, and viscerally. Don't explain, attack.

* Is McCain finally hitting the wall on working the refs? Signs of life from the press.

* This Kos diary runs through the different swing-state permutations to figure out what Obama and McCain each need to win.

* Everyone is talking about this "emotional child abuse" line from the judge in Palin's sister's divorce, but the fact is Troopergate is a massively losing issue for the left. Taser a kid, you don't get to be a cop anymore. You can't put lipstick on that pig.

There are better things for us to talk about—ideally things that don't involve Sarah Palin whatsoever.

* And Ron Paul will make a speech today in Washington, D.C., urging his followers to support third-party candidates. I wholeheartedly endorse that message: Ron Paul supporters should absolutely vote for third-party candidates, starting with Paul himself in Montana.

From small things, Mama, big things one day come: Ron Paul is on the Montana ballot. In the last poll, taken over a month ago, McCain and Obama were tied in the state.

My calendar says it's "Beat on Republicans" Tuesday. Bob Barr announces he's running as a Libertarian. (Josh Marshall speculates on the potential impact.) Ron Paul supporters are planning on humiliating John McCain at his own convention. And a new blog seeks to humiliate John McCain real-time in the present with a list of things that are younger than John McCain. Recent entries include Barack Obama's parents, Alaska, the polio vaccine, Mount Rushmore, Israel, FM radio, and the ballpoint pen.

I'm as burned out on the Democratic primary as I think the rest of you are, but still I find myself drawn to bloviation the subject.

* Barack Obama has won the crucial Tom Hanks vote.

* And Tom Friedman? I hate it when I find myself in agreement with that guy, but it looks like this time it's unavoidable:

Much nonsense has been written about how Hillary Clinton is “toughening up” Barack Obama so he’ll be tough enough to withstand Republican attacks. Sorry, we don’t need a president who is tough enough to withstand the lies of his opponents. We need a president who is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people. Any one of the candidates can answer the Red Phone at 3 a.m. in the White House bedroom. I’m voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people on national TV — at 8 p.m. — from the White House East Room.

Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.

I can answer this: No one is going to tell the people that, even if / especially because it's true.

* Ron Paul all-but-endorses Obama, says we'll see a President Obama in January. I was on this tip back in February: As someone whose friends are growing very tired of hearing about Barack Obama, I recognize something kindred in the fervor of Soutter and his fellow meetup members. There's something more than a little religious about both political movements, as if politics in 2008 has come to function as a surrogate font for inspiration, devotion and purpose in a post-religious age...

* And Carville gets in what may be the line of the primary: If Hillary Gave Obama "One Of Her Cojones, They'd Both Have Two." But wait! What's this? Obama bringing a little bit of fight at last?

My media empire continues its slow takeover of the Research Triangle with an unprecedented two articles in this week's Independent, one reviewing a recent book on civil rights landmarks in the South and the other taking a look inside the Ron Paul Revolution.

While I frantically reload my usual Web sites for any scrap of information about the Democratic caucus, let's give a big congratulations to darling of the netroots Mitt Romney for winning the Nevada primary. It looks like Ron Paul came in second. Here they are together, basking in victory. In the meantime, I'm gratified by this post at Open Left that notes the polls for Nevada were wildly off the mark—though there's always the possibility that they're off the mark in the other direction...

Bold electoral prediction from my father: Fox News's decision to unfairly bar Ron Paul from its debates will be the nail in the coffin that pushes Paul into a third-party run as a Libertarian, as he hinted he might last weekend on Meet the Press. I sure hope he's right; let's have Huckabee running in a fourth, pro-life party while we're at it and kill the unholy Republican coalition once and for all.