9:26 PM: So half hour in I think we can say this is a debate between two people who've apparently agreed not to speak in complete sentences. More seriously, I think Reid is doing relatively well, not saying anything totally ridiculous and hitting key points fairly well. Angle is wildly ignorant. But I think most people knew that on the way in.
9:30 PM: Probably the best example so far about how far the DADT debate has come is that not even a crackpot like Angle is willing to defend it.
9:32 PM: Oh man, it's going to be a long two years.
9:34 PM: "Man up, Harry Reid!" This is preceded by a bizarre ramble of lies about Social Security.
9:35 PM: "Phase out" ... Angle hit on the same on Social Security word games Republicans have been using since 2002.
9:36 PM: The Social Security lies get painful after a while. TPM Reader JR writes in to say: "I'm watching Reid-Angle debate on internet and I have to say that you are right that both can't seem to speak english very well but I find it shocking how weak Reid really is. This not so much a debate as rather it's Sharron Angle making up facts as she goes along while smirking and Harry Reid looking ill and stammering fragment sentences. It's really incredible how poorly Reid is prepared to confront a serial liar like Angle." Maybe I'm just grading Reid on a curve. But I really don't feel like he's doing that bad. For Harry Reid I think he's doing it reasonably well ... I'd like to build my own nuclear ractor.
--Josh Marshall
9:00 PM: And here we go. Which is weirder? That Reid has to debate this goof? Or that there's a good chance she'll succeed him? Hard to tell.
9:02 PM: I remember there was an old yarn about Sen. Scoop Jackson, that if he'd given a fireside chat, the fire would have gone out. Reid sorta reminds me of that.
9:04 PM: Angle may be less articulate than Reid. It's a challenge. But I think she's risen to it.
9:07 PM: What? "They allowed 11 foreign countries to join that suit." Foreign countries joined the DOJ's lawsuit? What? Angle just said that. I don't think our system works that way. See where this came from in the rightwing blogosphere.
9:10 PM: Angle: I'm happy to lie about Social Security again.
9:16 PM: The level of dishonesty in Angle's discussion of bad issues of health care economics is breath-taking. And yet totally par for the course for the mainstream of the GOP.
9:17 PM: I must say, I think the moderator here is pretty good. Not a lot of grandstanding or hogging the stage but actually asks pretty pointed questions and then follows up when the debaters ignore him.
9:19 PM: Best moment of the night: Sen. Reid's awkward impromptu discussion of mechanics of colonoscopy.
9:20 PM: Angle says she knows a company that has already laid off 5 employees because of Obamacare? Really? Which one?
--Josh Marshall
8:53 PM: Getting ready for the Reid/Angle debate, which starts at 9 PM. Join me on Twitter where we're discussing it. I'm at @joshtpm.
8:57 PM: Watching Angle ad which says Reid and Pelosi have secret plan to raise taxes on 34 million families right after the election. Hmmm. Might have been a good idea to hold that vote. Sad.
8:59 PM: Wow, Politico says Angle and Reid are equal in terms of being prone to gaffes? Really?
--Josh Marshall
I'll be live blogging tonight's Reid/Angle debate, starting at 9 Eastern.
--Josh Marshall
We'll have more tomorrow on this, but I wanted to flag today's ruling by a federal judge in Florida on the new health care reform law. The government was seeking to dismiss the lawsuit by state attorneys general to declare the law unconstitutional. The judge agreed with the government in part and threw out four of the six claims. But the judge preserved one of the plaintiffs' key claims: that the mandate in the law requiring citizens to purchase health insurance violates the Commerce Clause. In doing so, he went so far as to suggest that he was skeptical of the government's argument that the mandate is constitutional.
Based on the reporting we've done, it looks like the Commerce Clause argument is the best shot the attorneys general have -- but it was still considered a long shot. Now at least one judge seems to be buying it (note: a federal judge in Michigan rejected it last week). He's just a district court judge, and this isn't a ruling on the merits. So there's a long way to go. But today's ruling is a red flag. As I said, more on this tomorrow.
--David Kurtz
DOJ has filed for a stay of the ruling stopping enforcement of DADT pending an appeal.
To sort out the double negative. A federal Judge on Tuesday barred the federal government from enforcing DADT, effective immediately. The DOJ has now filed for a stay to allow the military to continue enforcing the policy while an appeal of her ruling is underway.
--Josh Marshall
The "Conservative Caucus" has launched what it calls the "National Campaign for an Impeachment Inquiry", a new direct mail fund-raising campaign. We got a copy of the flyer.
--Josh Marshall
There's lots to mock and criticize about Christine O'Donnell's candidacy. One of the most egregious and least discussed is her demonstrable penchant for hinting that her male opponents may be gay.
--Josh Marshall
Federal Judge in Florida rules that state AGs' lawsuit to overturn Health Care Reform can proceed.
--Josh Marshall
The NRSC finally admits responsibility for that casting call looking for "hicky" actors to shoot a TV ad for the Senate race in West Virginia.
--David Kurtz
From Politico, Rich Iott's latest argument ...
"Rich Iott doesn't have an anti-Semitic bone in his body," said [Iott spokesman] Parker, who sought to distinguish between a Nazi uniform and an SS uniform, which he said is what Iott is wearing in the now-famous image.The Nazis were Adolf Hitler's party -- and became shorthand for the German military under his rule -- while the SS was an elite squadron of soldiers and law enforcers responsible for a variety of war crimes.
It wasn't a Nazi uniform. It was a uniform of the Nazi paramilitary force!
Next. It was a concentration camp, not a death camp!
#toughdistinctionstorunon
--Josh Marshall
Rich Whitney is the Green party candidate for governor in Illinois this year. But there's been a small matter of a typo on the state's electronic voting machines. On electronic voting machines in 23 wards -- about half of which are predominantly African-American districts -- Whitney's name is set to appear as "Rich Whitey".
Whitney is unhappy about this and is investigating what remedy he has. For whatever reason, the problem can't be fixed, even those these are on electronic machines, rather than on paper ballots.
--Josh Marshall
I've spent the morning trying to come up with the list of Senate races that I think we'll be the real tells on election night and in these last couple weeks before election night. Given the profusion of polling data, it's a relatively straightforward exercise: Nevada & West Virginia & Illinois are looking like the real late-night calls. Then after those California, Washington state, maybe Kentucky. I'm not saying other races aren't in play. And certainly there will be a few that really surprise us. But you can see pretty clearly the half-dozen or more races that the next Senate is going to turn on.
In the House though it's much less clear. Not because we don't know the big picture but because it's very hard to get a read on the small picture.
--Josh Marshall
We've been digging in on this "voter integrity" initiative that Illinois Republican Senate candidate Mark Kirk is undertaking in black areas of the state on Election Day. Ryan Reilly reports on the broader GOP involvement in the voter suppression effort.
--David Kurtz
Wheel turner and card-carrying conservative Pat Sajak asks that question in his debut column in the National Review Online. Should public employees like fireman and cops and teachers be allowed to vote?
Is disenfranchisement of public employees an idea whose time has come?
If you didn't know what a player Sajak is on the right, he's actually a board member of the Claremont Institute, the right-wing think tank where Christine O'Donnell did a one week fellowship she later reported as attending the unaffiliated Claremont Graduate University.
--Josh Marshall
Jon Stewart: Breaking news is to CNN what hemorrhoids are to Preparation H. Watch.
--David Kurtz
A billboard in Colorado shows four cartoon versions of President Obama: terrorist, gangster, bandito and gay man. Take a look.
--David Kurtz
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