Over the weekend I noted the academic discussion over whether Sarah Palin had underpaid her federal taxes. In the time since, it appears that tax law professors are coming to harder opinions on the issue, and some bastions of the establishment media are beginning to take note.

Lewis and Clark law professor Jack Bogdanski, writing under the headline "There's no debate: Palins owe thousands in back taxes," concludes as follows:

There is no serious debate (at least, none that has been brought to our attention) about the fact that at least the amounts paid for the children's travel -- $24,728.83 in 2007, according to the Washington Post -- are taxable. The campaign's tax lawyer has got at least that much of the law, and perhaps more, wrong. ...  The Palins, who had their tax returns done by HR Block, simply got it wrong. And the fact that the state payroll office got it wrong, too, doesn't erase the Palins' unpaid tax liability.

Per Paul Caron of TaxProf Blog, professor Bryan Camp of Texas Tech University agrees with Bogdanski:

The Palins did not report as income some $43,000 that the State of Alaska paid the Governor as an "allowance" for her husband and children's travel. Can they do that? No, most likely not.

The relevant regulation states that when a taxpayer ascertains that an item (like, for instance, travel allotments for children) should have been included in gross income for the previous taxable year, he or she "should" file an amended return and pay any additional tax. Treas. Reg. § 1.451-1(a). Now "should" means "should," not "must" or "shall," so Palin would be under no legal obligation to make this disclosure to the IRS. But what flies in the world of law doesn't always fly in the world of electoral politics, and trying to continue to exempt these travel benefits from taxable income even in the face of the agreement of scholars that such benefits should be included in taxable income doesn't have tremendously great optics.

And this story is beginning to be picked up by the establishment media. On Saturday, National Public Radio touched on the story, but not in a great deal of depth. Today, The New York Times' Caucus blog covered the controversy, linking to the posts by Bogdanski and Camp, though it remains to see if the story ends up in the dead tree version of the publication. The same goes for The Wall Street Journal, which covered the story online but not yet (to my knowledge) on paper. It's not clear to me that this story will have legs, particularly given how much is going on in the world, and in politics specifically, at present. Yet at the same time, if the story does even have a day in it, which it might, that's one more distraction and wasted opportunity for the McCain campaign, which is flailing to change the course of this election.

Marc Ambinder catches it:

A reporter tries hard to see whether Sen. Norm Coleman's spokesperson will acknowledge that his boss supports Sen. John McCain's health care plan.

It's an obvious question, given that Democratic candidate Al Franken spent the day praising Barack Obama's plan and even sent out a press release asking "With McCain's Health Care Plan Coming Under Scrutiny, Franken Asks: Would Norm Coleman Vote For It?."

Coleman spokesperson Luke Friedrich won't say.  Four times. Turning routine tit-for-tat into something more damaging for Coleman.

It's not an easy question to answer. Today's Wall Street Journal reports that McCain's plan would cut Medicare and Medicaid funding by "$1.3 trillion over 10 years" to pay for its tax credits.

Coleman will have to answer eventually: his race is close. Pollster.com's average shows Norm ahead by just 1.4%, with 3rd party candidate Dean Barkley stealing from both.

This race is winnable. Senator Feingold was just up in Minnesota pitching in - let's join him.

Throw Coleman a heavy $10 anchor over at the MyDD Road to 60 page. Or even a $20 or $50 anchor. They're even more heavy.

Update [2008-10-6 19:48:39 by Todd Beeton]:Does anyone get the sense, as I do, that Coleman's spokesman's evasiveness here is a sign that Coleman perceives McCain as somewhat toxic? It's telling that while Franken embraces Obama's plan, Coleman flees from McCain's. Is McCain the new Bush? Are we going to see other downticket Republicans, especially in blue or purple states, throw McCain under the bus? This could get fun...well, more fun than it already is.

One of the more maddening things for me during the primary was the persistence of the myth that Obama didn't go negative on Hillary Clinton. The reality was that there was an ongoing concerted effort, albeit rather subtle and largely under the radar, to portray Clinton as someone who would "do or say anything to win", the subtext, of course, being "she's a liar." The beauty of the attack from Obama's standpoint was that people already had a pre-conceived notion in their head about Clinton along those lines so it didn't seem like an "attack", it just seemed like he was saying what people thought they already knew to be true.

Obama has been doing the same thing against McCain with the whole "erratic" and "confused" frame. Here, Obama is tapping into people's concerns about McCain's age without actually going there but is basing it on McCain's own behavior, so it doesn't come off as an attack (although the media is certainly acting as though the use of the word "erratic" is somehow equivalent to Palin's use of the word "terrorist.") This is the brilliance of Team Obama's message machine: they subtly amplify a pre-existing narrative (much as Bush did in 00 against Gore and in 04 against Kerry) and let most of the association take place in the mind of the voter or, as with Claire "Best Surrogate Ever" McCaskill on FNS yesterday, out of the mouth of a surrogate.

Where Obama excels at this, the McCain team is floundering. Just check out these attacks McCain is trying against Obama. Does any of this ring the least bit true? What world have these guys been living in?

Via Marc Ambinder:

What Senator Obama says today and what he has done in the past are often two different things. He has often changed his positions in this campaign, and the best way to determine where he would really take this country is to examine where he has tried to take it in the past. ....

Even after he refused to lift a finger to prevent this crisis, when the crisis hit, he was missing in action. He didn't start making calls to round up votes until after the rescue bill failed in the House and the markets crashed. We continue to see the price of delay today as the markets continue to fall. Today the DOW has fallen below 10,000. And yet, members of his own party said they felt no pressure to vote for the bill. Why didn't Senator Obama work to pass this bill from the start? Why did he let it fail and drag out this crisis for a full week before doing a thing to help pass it?

Umm, really? Does this seem like anything approaching how the last two weeks went down? And as Ambinder notes, it's fairly absurd to paint Obama as "a mystery, a liar, complicit in the economic crisis and an unaccomplished naïf, at all the same time." Not only does it not ring true but it's unfocused to say the least.

And then there was this, via TPM:

My opponent has invited serious questioning by announcing a few weeks ago that he would quote -- "take off the gloves." Since then, whenever I have questioned his policies or his record, he has called me a liar.

Rather than answer his critics, Senator Obama will try to distract you from noticing that he never answers the serious and legitimate questions he has been asked. But let me reply in the plainest terms I know. I don't need lessons about telling the truth to American people. And were I ever to need any improvement in that regard, I probably wouldn't seek advice from a Chicago politician.

My opponent's touchiness every time he is questioned about his record should make us only more concerned.

Obama is "touchy?" Which Obama is that, exactly? The thrust of the speech is "Who is the real Barack Obama" to portray him as, as Greg Sargent points out, "an alien in our midst," but they never succeeded at framing him as this dangerous other that McCain is now trying to hammer home. The problem for McCain is that his attacks are directly contradicted by what everyone sees and hears from Barack Obama, not coinciding with them as they need to in order to stick.

Update [2008-10-6 21:16:9 by Todd Beeton]:Oh yeah, and don't forget "Barack's angry." More like "not angry enough."

I just got off a bipartisan blogger call with T. Boone Pickens ahead of his post-debate online rally along with Carl Pope of the Sierra Club, and to me the most interesting statement made by the Texas oil man-cum-energy independence advocate was the following: "There's no way we can drill our way out of it."

During the call, I asked Pickens about his focus on the production side rather than the consumption side of the energy market. If, in other words, America consumes between a fifth and a quarter of the world's energy production but produces only a fraction of that amount, can upping our drilling, our creation of wind farms and the like really make a big difference.

Pickens responded by saying that any increase in production will make a difference, in effect that closing the gap between production and consumption is important. Nevertheless, even as Pickens said that the focus of his effort is not on conservation, decreasing consumption is important. And to underscore the point, he did clearly say that "there's no way we can drill our way out of" the energy crisis.

To me, this says wonders. The Republicans are running on a "Drill, baby, drill" platform -- even Sarah Palin used those very words during the Vice Presidential debate -- but even a Texas oil man who has been among the strongest supporter of the GOP and conservative efforts admits that this is not a solution. Perhaps, then, it shouldn't be such a surprise that voters trust Barack Obama over John McCain on the question of handling the issue of energy.

Anyway, the call overall was interesting, and I'm assuming that others will be posting on it as well. For those who want to be a part of the online town hall tomorrow night following the debate, click here.

As Barack Obama has risen in the polls nationally and in much of the state polling, we're seeing some pretty dramatic movement among downticket Democrats as well, particularly Senate candidates in red states.

GA-SEN Today kos alerts us to the remarkable fact that a new Research 2000 poll he commissioned confirms what Survey USA found last week: the Georgia Senate race between Democrat Jim Martin and Republican Saxby Chambliss is currently all tied up.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 9/29-10/1. Likely voters. MoE +/- 4%

Chambliss (R) 45
Martin (D) 44

Being that this is the third poll in a row to show this race within 3 points or less (within the MOE,) I agree with Kos, this is now a top tier race.

TX-SEN Another red state Democrat showing impressive gains is Road to 60 candidate Rick Noriega running against John "Big John" Cornyn of Texas. I've been waiting for this race to tighten and it looks as though it finally is (August numbers in parentheses.)

Rasmussen Reports, September 29, 500 LVs, 2008, MOE +/- 4.5%

Cornyn (R) 50 (48)
Noriega (D) 43 (37)

Rasmussen's pretty much the only pollster in polling this race, so I'd like to see other polls confirm this trend. I'd also like to see Cornyn drop, not rise, especially his favorability rating, which is currently at 57/30. His cheesy black and white ads can't really be helping him, can they? Whatever it is that's driving this race, it's apparent that at the very least Noriega is rising at a faster rate than Cornyn and it could just be a matter of whether Noriega has enough time to get his message out.

NE-SEN Last but not least, it's great to see some movement in Nebraska. The Scott Kleeb campaign has always said to be patient, as Scott works to get his name ID up, his numbers would rise. Interestingly, the place he's always done the worst simply because they don't know him is Omaha -- ya know, where the Democrats are. Now, we're finally seeing that movement.

Rasmussen Reports, September 30, 2008, 500 LVs MOE +/- 4.5%

Johanns 52 (56)
Kleeb 38 (31)

While 14 points is still a large hurdle to overcome, a 25 point lead dropped down to 14 points is a summer well-spent. And now the great news that Obama is actively competing for Nebraska's second congressional district can only help Scott. Expect this race to get tighter still as Omaha's voters learn they have a progressive Democrat to vote for down ballot as they vote for Obama at the top.

Among these three races we have what potentially could be our 61st, 62nd and 63rd seats in the Senate. Could it be that in shooting for 60 we were being conservative?

Here are today's numbers:

These four polls were all entirely in the field following the Vice Presidential debate, before which Barack Obama's average lead over John McCain stood at 49.75 percent to 42.00 percent -- or nearly the same as it is today. In other words, Sarah Palin did basically nothing to win back voters to the Republican ticket, a genuine missed opportunity.

In other polling news, the Battleground tracker (.pdf) has Obama up 50 percent to 43 percent among likely voters, and the Democracy Corps survey (.pdf), which included Bob Barr, Ralph Nader and Ron Paul as options, shows Obama leading 47 percent to 44 percent among likely voters. When these polls are added into the daily average, Obama's lead is 49.67 percent to 42.33 percent.

Over the weekend we got word that the Virginia GOP is nervous about John McCain's possibly losing Virginia.

Virginia Republicans are warning that John McCain's prospects for winning a state that has been in the GOP column in every presidential election since 1964 could be in jeopardy. With Barack Obama treating the Old Dominion like a battleground state and reliable polls showing a margin-of-error race there, some are cautioning that McCain is making a critical mistake by allowing the Democratic nominee to outpace him in terms of visits and resources committed.

Since June, the Obama campaign has held 12 events in Virginia, the McCain campaign just 1. In addition, Obama has exploited his cash advantage in the state:

Obama is also plowing millions into Virginia, blanketing the airwaves with TV and radio ads, filling up mailboxes with leaflets and, along with the state party, operating 49 campaign offices.

Together, McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, have held just one campaign event in Virginia. And the campaign has taken its ads off the pricey Washington, D.C. network affiliates that reach into the entire swath of the Northern Virginia, the commonwealth's most populous region.

According to two new polls, the VA GOP's worries are well-founded.

Survey USA gives a sense of the trend they've found in Virginia over the past month.

In 4 tracking polls conducted since the Republican Convention, McCain has gone from up by 2 to down by 10.

There is movement among men, where immediately after the GOP convention, McCain led by 10, and where today Obama leads by 11.
There is movement among whites, where McCain's once 22-point lead is today reduced to single digits.
There is movement among the well-to-do, where today for the first time Obama leads.
There is movement among pro-choice voters, where Obama's lead has doubled since August.

McCain no longer leads in any region of the state.

That is nothing short of devastating for the Republican nominee. But hey, at least he's spending time in Iowa!

H/t to Raising Kaine for the alert that today is the registration deadline in Virginia, so if you live in VA, tell everyone you know to register today.

Now this is just plain embarrassing. In 2004, George W. Bush pulled in about 60 percent of the vote in Nebraska's second congressional district, but there have been signs for a while that the districts single electoral vote may be in play. Indeed, just last week the Obama campaign announced that it was adding another office in Omaha to help in the efforts in the second, and news emerged that the Obama campaign had spent $350,000 advertising in the city (the media market of which spills into Iowa as well) while the McCain campaign had not yet made a similar investment.

The McCain campaign, getting skittish about all of these developments, sent Sarah Palin to Omaha this weekend in the hopes of staving off a loss of this single electoral vote. But rather than just let the action stand for itself, or even being forthcoming about the fact that the electoral vote was in play, the McCain campaign trotted out what has to be the lamest excuse I've heard in a while: Palin saying she just wanted to visit Nebraska.

Sarah Palin said at a hastily scheduled Sunday night rally in this solidly red state that the decision to come here was hers alone and was not the defensive move by her campaign to lock up Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District that many pundits have suggested.

[...]

"And you can ask -- and probably the reporters will ask -- the top dogs in our campaign why am I in Nebraska, and it's truly because I asked to come to the heartland of America today," she said.

It's bad enough that the McCain campaign has been forced to defend Nebraska of all places, but to try to spin away this embarrassment by claiming that Palin just wanted to visit Omaha only compounds the problem. With all we have heard about the able press shop of the McCain campaign, you'd think they'd be able to come up with some better spin than that.