Absentee ballots in Rensselaer County in upstate New York have listed the Democratic presidential nominee as "Barack Osama," reports the Albany Times-Union.
About 300 ballots were sent out. Other ballots have since been fixed.
''No question this is an honest mistake innocently done,'' said Democratic county commissioner Edward McDonough told the newspaper.
One voter who caught the mistake but refused to be named said the ballots were "a little suspicious and at least grossly incompetent.
"If I crossed out the name and wrote in the right spelling my ballot would be invalid," the anonymous voter told the newspaper.
Though retiring Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) expects losses for House Republicans numbering in the double digits this year, he said Friday that races will tighten as Election Day approaches.
"I've seen some races that have swung 25 points in 10 days," said Davis, former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, at the National Press Club.
Davis, appearing with Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen (Md.), also cited difficulties that Democrats face this year.
"They've got some poster people themselves," Davis said.
He said that Democrats, who ran against lobbyist Jack Abramoff's "culture of corruption" in 2006, face their own ethics issues this year. He noted that Democrats up for re-election include Rep. William Jefferson (La.), who awaits trial on federal corruption charges, and House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (N.Y.), who faces House ethics probes for his real-estate deals.
Unlike Davis, Van Hollen stayed away from predicting the number of seats Democrats could win.
"The environment is very turbulent out there," he said, noting a large number of toss-up races.
When asked about specific toss-up races that their respective sides are eyeing, Davis singled out Democratic Reps. Paul Kanjorski (Pa.) and Carol Shea-Porter (N.H.). Van Hollen said that GOP Reps. Randy Kuhl (N.Y.), Marilyn Musgrave (Colo.) and Ric Keller (Fla.) could all lose.
Barack Obama is faring far better among white voters in southern battleground states than Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) did in 2004, according to a Public Policy Polling (PPP) report released Friday.
Obama trails John McCain by an average of 13 percentage points among whites in the battleground states of North Carolina, Virginia, and Florida by an average of 13 percentage point, but the Illinois Democrat has made double-digit gains among whites in those states compared to Kerry's 2004 election-day showing, according to PPP's numbers.
In Virginia, a state that went red in the 2000 and 2004 elections, Obama has made a 16 point gain among white voters. Compared with President Bush
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Retiring Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) is stumping for his potential GOP successor in a new TV ad, despite having endorsed another Republican in the primary race for his seat.
Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) trails Democratic Rep. Tom Udall (N.M.) by an average of 17.7 percentage points in the race for Domenici's seat, according to major polls. Domenici initially endorsed Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) as his successor; Pearce defeated Wilson in the GOP primary.
In the ad, Domenici urges New Mexico voters to join him in passing the torch to Pearce.
"Together we've accomplished a lot for New Mexico. Now I must pass this work to someone who can continue our progress," Domenici says in the ad. "Steve Pearce is that someone."
Cindy McCain, wife of GOP presidential nominee John McCain, will serve as Grand Marshal at NASCAR's Bank of America 500 this Saturday in Concord, North Carolina, the McCain campaign has announced.
This won't be the first attempt the McCain camp has made at winning over NASCAR fans this election: just last month, John and Cindy McCain appeared together at NASCAR's Sylvania 300 in Manchester, New Hampshire, where the Arizona senator greeted drivers as they were announced.
North Carolina, once seen as a safely red state for 2008, is now being discussed as a battleground for McCain and Barack Obama. McCain had led in every major poll taken in the state until late September, when surveys showed Obama taking a slim lead.
An average of major polls in the state now shows the two candidates in a statistical dead heat, with Obama leading by 1.8 percentatge points.
The Connecticut Supreme Court has overturned that state's ban on gay marriage in a 4-3 decision.
Ruling that gay Americans are afforded equal protection to marry, the court said "our conventional understanding of marriage must yield to a more contemporary appreciation of the rights entitled to constitutional protection."
The ruling could have reverberations in presidential and congressional races, where Republicans used a number of ballot initiatives banning gay marriage to boost turnout for their candidates.
Two independent polls released on the horserace between Barack Obama and John McCain in North Carolina were conflicted Friday, one showing Obama in command and the other showing McCain with a small lead.
Obama leads McCain 48-43 percent in a poll from the Civitas Institute, reflecting a tightening margin separating the candidates in a state no Democrat has one since 1976. Two percent supported Libertarian candidate Bob Barr, and seven percent of voters said they were undecided.
McCain leads by two points, though, in an WSOC poll of the Tarheel state. 48 percent of voters said they will support McCain, while 46 percent said they would support Obama. Barr was not included in the poll, and six percent said they were undecided.
The poll reflects a narrow margin between Republicans and Democrats not only in North Carolina's presidential vote, but in also hotly-contested senatorial and gubernatorial races. Incumbent Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R) has struggled to hold off a fierce challenge from Democrat Kay Barnes in the race.
The Civitas poll was conducted October 6-8, and has a 4.2 percent margin of error. The WSOC poll was conducted October 6-7, and has a five percent margin of error.
An appraiser in 2000 said Sen. Ted Stevens's renovated house was worth $270,000, according to testimony Friday during the Alaska Republican's criminal trial.
On Sept. 16, 2000, Gerald Randall, an appraiser for the National Bank of Alaska, broke down the value of the senator's remodeled home. According to Randall, following some of the improvements, the interior value of the home was $194,357, $8,500 was the value of the driveway and $70,000 was the value of the land.
The value is critical because the home renovations are at the center of the senator's criminal trial, now in its third week. Stevens has pleaded not guilty to felony charges of failing to disclose gifts, including $188,000 in home renovations from Bill Allen, the former head of the Veco Corp. oil-services firm. Stevens says he paid a subcontractor some $160,000 for the renovations, which he expected to cover all bills.
Randall served as an expert witness for the defense lawyers, who now will argue that his testimony corroborates their case that the government's $188,000 projection is overblown.
But during cross-examination, Randall acknowledged that he conducted the appraisal months before contractors added a number of expensive renovations, including a steel staircase, a backup power generator, a balcony with an escape ladder and plumbing and electrical-wiring changes.
According to veteran political handicapper Stuart Rothenberg, Republicans are facing the kind of devastating losses this year that they endured in 2006.
Rothenberg wrote on his blog that the electoral landscape has shifted recently toward Democrats because of the financial crisis and Americans' dissatisfaction.
"Republican candidates from presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) down to Congressional hopefuls have less than four weeks to figure out how to avert a repeat of 2006," Rothenberg wrote on his blog. "Increasingly, it appears unlikely that they will."
He said that GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is now in danger in his re-election race, giving Democrats a shot to reach 60 seats in the Senate. He also upped his prediction that House Democrats will gain 20 seats; he wrote that the gain would be closer to 30 seats, due largely to their spending advantage over Republicans.
"Republicans appear to be heading into a disastrous election that will usher in a very bleak period for the party," Rothenberg wrote. "A new generation of party leaders will have to figure out how to pick up the pieces and make their party relevant after November."
William Ibershof, the federal attorney who prosecuted Weather Underground bomber William Ayers, dismissed attempts to try to tie Barack Obama to the former terrorist.
"I am amazed and outraged that Senator Barack Obama is being linked to William Ayers
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