One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent “tens of thousands” more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband.

This is great inside baseball stuff from the campaign, though there’s really no reason for McCain campaign officials to reveal it other than to completely discredit Palin. Apparently, she sees it that way, too.

A Palin aide said: “Governor Palin was not directing staffers to put anything on their personal credit cards, and anything that staffers put on their credit cards has been reimbursed, like an expense. Nasty and false accusations following a defeat say more about the person who made them than they do about Governor Palin.”

Is this a 2012 pre-emptive strike from within the Republican party?

- Sarah Palin, 10/17/08, on her upcoming appearance on “Saturday Night Live.”

First, voter fraud occurs when faked or otherwise ineligible votes are actually cast, or when eligible votes aren’t counted. It’s simply wrong to call the registration of ineligible or fictitious voters “voter fraud.” Call it “registration fraud” if you will, but there’s a wide gulf between the two in terms of the impact on the election. Fictitious voters still need to show up at the polls, get past the registration table and somehow cast a ballot to commit voter fraud. Is registration fraud acceptable? Of course not. But, until and unless the fraud results in an actual ballot being cast (unlikely in most states), it has virtually no impact on the election.

Then there’s the threadbare assertion by McCain that “America needs to be fully informed” on the issue of William Ayers. If McCain or America are uncertain of Obama’s relationship to William Ayers, they haven’t been paying attention. The Obama campaign has explained the relationship in a consistent fashion for at least several months.

But, that’s not really the point, is it? McCain’s playing a game with this “relationship.” The game goes like this.

“I understand you ran a stoplight at the corner of Main and Cedar last week. Tell me about that,” I say.

“I didn’t run a red light,” you respond.

“Why won’t you disclose what happened at Main and Cedar last week?” I press.

“I am. I didn’t run a red light.”

“It’s not so much about whether you ran a stupid red light,” I continue. “It’s about your inability to level with us. It’s about your honesty. It’s about your judgment in what you choose to tell people.”

In other words, there’s no correct answer. It’s an old, old political game of forcing your opponent to prove a negative.

Unfortunately, Obama will probably need to spend yet more time answering the question in the next three weeks - maybe tonight, as a matter of fact. Hopefully, he’ll answer concisely then ask why McCain continues to avoid providing a real plan for the American people.

Campaign manager Rick Davis cited Mitchell’s comments on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the Barack Obama campaign had said privately that they believed McCain “may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama. He seemed so well prepared.

Pastor Rick Warren on Saturday sat down first with Obama and asked him the same questions he would later ask McCain.

(Via msnbc.com.)

During a speech on human trafficking and human rights at Oakland University this morning McCain vowed to create an “Inter-Agency Task Force on Human Trafficking” that would be focused “exclusively on the prosecution of human traffickers and the rescue of their victims.”

“I will require the Task Force agencies to report directly to me on the status of the problem and the progress we are making to defeat this stain on the reputation and character of the United States,” McCain said, comparing the need to eliminate human trafficking to the abolition movement of the early 19th century.

Showing one way in which his campaign will be different from either of George Bush’s controlled runs for the White House, after his speech McCain took questions from the audience, several of which were fairly contentious. The topics ranged from his support for the war in Iraq to his failure to vote on a bill addressing equal pay for women, and his first question even came from a 14-year old girl wearing a shirt that read, “McCain doesn’t care about our future.”

In response to a question from a self-described Republican about the issue of his temper, McCain first joked, “How dare you ask that question? Get that microphone away from him.” But then he confessed to being angry about governmental failures.”

“I will confess to you my friend that I get angry,” McCain began. “I get angry when I saw a guy named Abramoff that ripped off Native Americans for millions and millions and millions of dollars and people ended up — including him — in federal prison. I get angry when I see $233 million of your tax dollars going to an island, to a bridge to an island with 50 people on it. And that’s your dollars.

“I get angry when I see corruption to the point where we have former members of Congress residing in federal prison, and you know something, the American people are angry too, and they’re not going to take it anymore, and that’s why they want change. And they’re mad, and they’ve lost their temper.”

The crowd quickly agreed, responding with cheers and applause as McCain challenged his questioner to “ask’em if they’re not mad.”

The two precincts at Broad Ripple Family Center selected Republican Jon Elrod over Democrat Andre Carson in March’s special election for U.S. Congress. But by 9 a.m., just 21 voters in one of those precincts had requested Republican ballots — out of 168 cast.

Amid heavy turnout, Republicans appeared to be crossing over in droves today in Marion County and suburban counties, where fewer Republican voters might impact down-ticket primary races.

At the Broad Ripple center, nearly 400 voters — of 1,800 registered in the two precincts — had turned out in the first few hours of voting. Among them was Meghan Ward-Bopp, 24, who went against family tradition and asked for Democratic ballot so she could vote for Barack Obama; she plans to vote for Republican John McCain in November.

“I’m a hardcore Republican,” she said, “but it’s about who I wanted in second place in case McCain doesn’t make it. … I don’t like the way this country’s been run in the last 20 years. I’m sick of the dynasty (of two families) that’s been running things.”

Ward-Bopp voted for the Democrat she liked, but Jim Adams, 36, voted for Hillary Clinton to keep the race going beyond Indiana. He’s a McCain backer and enjoys watching the Democrats fight.

“In the end, I think McCain is going to win,” Adams said, and then referred to controversial statements by Bill Clinton and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s pastor. “Bill can’t keep his mouth shut, and the reverend can’t keep his mouth shut.”

Full story here.

A heavy turnout was reported this morning at some polling places across North Carolina in the state’s first significant presidential primary election in two decades.

Longtime N.C. political observers say that 1.5 million voters may participate in the historic Democratic primary — the first in which a woman, Hillary Clinton, or an African American, Barack Obama, will represent the party.

A half-million more voters could participate in the Republican primary. John McCain — who campaigned in Charlotte on Monday — is the party’s presumptive nominee for president, but state races will attract GOP voters.

Full story here.

Is Sen. Barack Obama the new Sen. Ted Kennedy, Sen. Hillary Clinton or former House Speaker Newt Gingrich? For Republican candidates and political ad makers, the White House hopeful might very well be.

A review of political television advertising nationwide shows that Obama has played a starring role or has been mentioned in at least 9 GOP-inspired ads designed to undercut a Democratic candidate in recent months.

In previous elections, Republicans have used Kennedy and Clinton — especially in the South, where these two Northeast Democrats might not be as well received — in negative ads targeting congressional or state Democratic candidates.

“We’re starting to see Barack Obama come into play in mostly conservative districts,” said Evan Tracey, chief operating officer of TNSMI/CMAG, CNN’s consultant on television advertising.

Obama’s comments about small-town Pennsylvanians being “bitter” people who “cling to guns and religion” over frustration with the economy, and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s controversial remarks, have provided Republicans with material to try to inflict damage in down-ballot races.

“What they do is they draw on the negative character of a candidate, and they attach them to another candidate in the race,” Tracey said. “The question is, is that negative character believable and defendable? That will be the test that these ads will have to stand up to in a few weeks.”

Far from the Democratic battlefield of Pennsylvania, Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was campaigning where GOP candidates for president rarely go because they don’t have to.

McCain chose Alabama, one of the reddest states on the Electoral College map, to launch a week-long swing through some of the nation’s economically distressed areas.

Even more extraordinary, McCain went to Selma, the site of one of the most notorious episodes of the Civil Rights movement, and talked about that episode.

Instead of a standard stump speech, he used vivid imagery to describe a dark chapter in the city’s racially-divided history. When Republicans running for president campaign in the South, they don’t often raise the uncomfortable subject of its racially segregated and violent past.