We interrupt these endorsements for some random items of interest

• I always appreciate it when the federal government sees fit to declare my birthday a holiday. That's right; today I turn 29 for the fourth time. How much more famous to I need to be to get on this list? And how can I get into Damon Wayans's party? 'Cause, you know, it's probably better than what I got planned.
  
  
• Some sad news:
  • Lucy the Elephant was euthanized last week.
    
  • The Crocodile Hunter was killed by a stingray earlier today. Crickey.
  
  
• Apparently Mark Green is going to court in an effort to keep a bunch of contributions that would have been illegal at the time had they been made to his state campaign. Instead, they were made to his federal campaign by PACs not registered in Wisconsin, something the elections law requires now--and required when those conrtibutions were made. Tom Barrett seems to have been able to get away with that violation in 2002, and Green's team thinks the double-standard gives them a good case. Bill Christofferson, who was managing Doyle's 2002 campaign, says they should think again:

  Congressman Mark Green's campaign, incensed that the board told him this week to follow state law, keeps complaining that then-Congressman Tom Barrett was allowed to transfer his federal money, and Democrats thought that was fine, the Greenies say.
  
  Actually, a check of the record shows: (1) that George Dunst, the board attorney Green's people now cite as the authoritative source (because he seems to agree with them), said in 2000 exactly what the Elections Board said to Green this week: You can transfer the money, but it has to comply with state law, and that means the PACs have to be registered in Wisconsin. (2) that the Doyle campaign, including yours truly, took the same position about Barrett's money as it has taken about Green's money. [. . .]
  
  It appears that Barrett transferred the money anyway, with no enforcement action against him. That does not change the law.
  
  What has changed is the membership on the Elections Board, which has taken a tougher posture.

  It is true that the governor appoints some of the members of the elections board (though by no means not all). I asked this question of a Republican partisan blogger this morning: What does it mean that the Thompson-McCallum appointees were more lax with the law than the Doyle appointees? How does that fit into your spin of Doyle and the Democrats being corrupt?
  
  Seth at In Effect wonders why Green doesn't just give up the money, arguing it would be win-win:

  The only explanation I can think of is that Green sees this as a way to finally rally the base, which is something his campaign has been largely unable to do thus far. Perhaps they feel taking the position of an abused underdog will help generate support from those who don't want to see a Dem in power, but care even less for a Dem "pushing around" a fellow conservative.

  Personally, I don't see energizing the base as the strategy Green needs right now.
  
  
• Pollster.com--a new site by the old Myster Pollster and the guy behind Politcal Arithmetik--just rocks. This is their page on the Wisconsin governor's race, showing the moving average of all the polls done since April. You can see the graph to the right there, with the trendline firmly up for Doyle and Doyle consistently ahead even in the confidence intervals. The average of the last five polls, including the Strategic Vision poll showing a one-point race, put Doyle up by six. The last ten polls put Doyle up by seven. You can also see how clear it is that the SV polls are outliers, so, my dear R friends, don't pin your hopes to that Republican firm's results.
  
  Chris Bowers at MyDD has a summary of Pollster.com's close US Senate race polls:
  • Washington: Cantwell (D) 51, McGavick 40
    
  • Pennsylvania: Casey (D) 49, Santorum (R) 40
    
  • Minnesota: Klobuchar (D) 49, Kennedy (R) 40
    
  • Ohio: Brown (D) 46, DeWine (R) 40
    
  • Montana: Tester (D) 47, Burns (R) 44
    
  • New Jersey: Menendez (D) 43, Kean (R) 40
    
  • Rhode Island: Whitehouse (D) 42, Chafee (R) 40
    
  • Missouri: Talent (R) 47, McCaskill (D) 45
    
  • Tennessee: Corker (R) 46, Ford (D) 42
    
  • Virginia: Allen (R) 48, Webb (D) 42
    
  • Arizona: Kyl (R) 48, Pederson (D) 37
  I like those numbers, especially given Allen's coming self-destruction.