Even though this post is about a House race it doesn't mean that the time isn't now to give to help reach a 60-seat Democratic majority in the Senate, too. So head over to MyDD's Road to 60 ActBlue page and help put us over the top.

For the second time this month, a sitting or former Republican member of Congress has endorsed his would-be Democratic successor.

Former U.S. Rep. Joe Schwarz is endorsing Democratic challenger Mark Schauer in his former south-central Michigan congressional district, even though he's a Republican.

Schwarz told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he decided to endorse Schauer over Republican Rep. Tim Walberg because the anti-tax Club for Growth began running ads critical of Schauer.

The Club for Growth injected more than $1 million into the 2006 primary, helping Walberg defeat Schwarz, then a first-term congressman. The anti-tax group criticized Schwarz's record on taxes and painted him as too moderate for the district.

Schwarz says he couldn't remain neutral in the race once the group got involved. He says it's "the straw that broke the camel's back."

Earlier this month, sitting Republican Congressman Wayne Gilchrest endorsed Democrat Frank Kratovil over state Sen. Andy Harris, who had defeated him in the Republican primary. But while Maryland's first congressional district, which Gilchrest has represented for 9 terms, tends to lean about 10 points more Republican than the nation as a whole in presidential elections, Michigan's seventh, in which Walberg and Schauer are battling, is significantly closer, leaning only about 2 points towards the Republicans. Suffice it to say, then, that in a tight race, which this has always been destined to be since Schauer jumped in, the Schwartz endorsement could make a real difference in swinging independents and moderate Republicans to the Democratic cause. In other words, this is a big deal.

Is it true, as some suggest, that shooting for 60 Democrats in the Senate and shooting to elect "Better Democrats" are mutually exclusive goals? Sure, one might argue that expending resources to elect red state Dem Ronnie Musgrove takes away from the important task of electing true progressive Jeff Merkley, but that formulation, it seems to me, ignores a couple things.

First of all is the idea that we can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Yes, I get that there are limited resources, but as our progressive infrastructure grows and, thanks especially to the presidential race this year, as the online progressive donor base grows, I firmly believe we can have our More and Better Democrats cake and eat it too (yeah, mixed metaphors!)

But it ignores something else as well, which is the psychological impact of 60 seats in the Senate, the psychological impact of winning 30 more seats in the House and the psychological impact of a 300+ electoral vote landslide at the presidential level. It all adds up to a Democratic wave that allows President Obama not only to claim a mandate, but to embolden him to follow through on it. In other words, the more Democrats there are, the better a Democrat President Obama will be.

In his recent MoveOn.org fundraising ask, Al Franken expounded on this:

Here's why this is so important. When Republicans tried to privatize Social Security back in 2005, they ran both houses of Congress and the White House--but they lost. The same thing happened to us with health care reform in 1993.

Now, they were wrong on Social Security, and we were right on health care. But the fact is, big change--for better or worse--takes big majorities and big mandates.

In fact, in the last century, there have been just a couple of truly transformative elections: 1964, when a Democratic landslide paved the way for Medicare, and 1932, when a Democratic landslide opened the door for the New Deal (and enraged generations of right-wingers by creating Social Security in the first place).

That's what we need in 2008: Not just a majority, but a landslide.

So, will you help us deliver 60 votes in the Senate and create a working progressive majority for Barack Obama by donating to our Road To 60 ActBlue page by midnight tonight? On Saturday I set a goal of 120 donors by tonight, which you guys have already reached, so, our new goal -- which isn't nearly as pretty since it's not a multiple of 60 -- is 130 total donors or 10 more by midnight tonight.

Update [2008-9-30 19:21:39 by Todd Beeton]:Three down, Seven to go.

A day after the House shot down the bailout bill, Obama is dropping hints that he may take the reins - and accomplish the "unity" that McCain botched.

First hint? Obama's rhetoric on the bailout in Reno this morning went from first base to rounding second, full speed:

"This is no longer just a Wall Street crisis. It's an American crisis, and it's the American economy that needs this rescue plan," Obama told supporters at a rally at the University of Nevada at Reno.

Obama said Congress should put aside politics and act on the legislation quickly.

"To the Democrats and Republicans who opposed this plan yesterday, I say: Step up to the plate and do what's right for this country," he said.

Second hint? He's started calling House members

Barack Obama began calling individual rank-and-file members Tuesday, the campaign confirmed, in a sign that he is stepping up his advocacy on behalf of the endangered $700 billion financial package, Carrie Budoff Brown reports.

The campaign would not disclose names or the number of calls, but said he was coordinating his calls with the congressional leadership.

"He is urging members to take another look at it," spokeswoman Linda Douglass said.

Progressive members just introduced an alternative that SEIU supports; but absent an endorsement from Obama himself, the package that comes up in the next few days will undoubtedly look a whole lot like the one that failed yesterday.

Prospects for a re-vote looked bleak to me this morning. But an effort from the Dem nominee to cast the bill as a patriotic obligation (plus some call time) could wave the plan all the way home.

Obama will vote for it in the Senate, so perhaps he figures he can trump McCain's "unity" ploy in the process. David Brooks will applaud.

Update [2008-9-30 17:33:51 by Josh Orton]: Greg Sargent isn't sure there's a lot of room for Obama. But I think he's in it to win it.

	Obama	McCain
Diageo/Hotline	47	41
Gallup	49	43
Rasmussen Reports	51	45
Research 2000/dKos	51	41
Average:	49.50	42.50

For the first time, Barack Obama's average lead in the 4 daily tracking polls has reached 7 points and remarkably, 3 polls agree that it's a 6 point race. Even more remarkable, perhaps, is that both Research 2000, which has traditionally been most generous toward Obama, and Rasmussen, which has been least, agree: Obama is at 51%. Gallup on the other hand does a bit of concern trolling over Obama's drop from 50% yesterday to 49% today.

Although support for Obama among national registered voters hit the 50% mark in the past two days of Gallup Poll Daily tracking (he initially attained 50% in early September), he has yet to cross that symbolic threshold. The importance of this, however, is unclear. Gallup's historical trial heat trends show that the winners in 1988, 2000 -- both years with minimal third party candidate support suppressing the vote for the major party candidates -- rarely attained 50% or greater support from registered voters prior to Gallup's final pre-election poll.

Voter support for George W. Bush only once exceeded 50% in his 2004 campaign against John Kerry, that being 53% in mid-September. In 1988, George H.W. Bush reached or surpassed the 50% mark once at the very beginning and then not again until the last two weeks of the campaign.

Another interesting note, this one from the Research 2000 poll, for the first time in the history of the poll McCain's favorability rating is in negative territory at 43/46. On the bright side, at least Sarah "40/51" Palin has some company. The difference between the popularity of the Republican ticket and the Democratic ticket is stark: Obama has a net favorability rating of +26 and Biden's is at +16.

Absolutely awesome. Another one comes on the radar, Jerome

We may have a race on our hands for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Republican Saxby Chambliss.

A new WMAZ-TV (Macon) poll conducted by SurveyUSA says that Democrat Jim Martin only trails the Republican by two points.  This latest poll seems to confirm the numbers released by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) yesterday that showed Chambliss leading Martin by just three points [Source:  Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, "New Georgia Poll Shows Martin Within Three Points Of Chambliss", September 29, 2008].

U.S. Senate - Georgia

Saxby Chambliss (R) - 46%

Jim Martin (D) - 44%

Allen Buckley (L) - 5%

Undecided - 5%

[Source:  WMAZ-TV (Macon), "13WMAZ Poll: Obama, Martin Tighten Ga. Races", September 30, 2008]

Twelve days ago, Saxby Chambliss led his Democratic opponent by 17 points in a similar SurveyUSA poll [Source:  Georgia Politics Unfiltered, "SurveyUSA Poll: McCain & Chambliss Hold Big Leads", September 18, 2008]

Wasn't Tom Brokaw supposed to be, umm, neutral or something? I guess that goes out the window once NBC's access to the Republican candidate begins to be threatened, in which case Brokaw is perfectly willing to exert influence in order to mollify the McCain campaign.

But less widely known is that Mr. Brokaw has also played a pivotal role out of public view, both within NBC and in its dealings with the campaign of John McCain in particular.

In an interview here after Sunday's broadcast, Mr. Brokaw said that over the summer he had "advocated" within the executive suite of NBC News to modify the anchor duties of the MSNBC hosts Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews on election night and on nights when there were presidential debates. Their expressions of strong political opinions from the MSNBC anchor desk has run counter to the more traditional role Mr. Brokaw played on "NBC Nightly News" for more than two decades. NBC said earlier this month that the two hosts would mostly relinquish their anchor duties to Mr. Gregory, while being present as analysts.

No, much better to do it behind the scenes, real quiet like.

Mr. Brokaw said he had also conducted some shuttle diplomacy in recent weeks between NBC and the McCain campaign. His mission, he said, was to assure the candidate's aides that -- despite some negative on-air commentary by Mr. Olbermann in particular -- Mr. McCain could still get a fair shake from NBC News. Mr. Brokaw said he had been told by a senior McCain aide, whom he did not name, that the campaign had been reluctant to accept an NBC representative as one of the moderators of the three presidential debates -- until his name was invoked.

But where does this assistance he's providing to the McCain campaign -- to make sure that they don't think NBC is in the tank for Obama and thus, hurt access -- end? On Sunday, Brokaw brought it into the moderator's chair.

From a MoveOn.org e-mail today.

At the end [of Sunday's MTP], Tom Brokaw did something strange. He opted to give himself the last word and told the audience:

In fairness to everybody here, I'm just going to end on one note. And that is that we continue to poll on who's best equipped to be Commander in Chief, and John McCain continues to lead in that category despite the criticism from Barack Obama by a factor of 53 to 42 percent in our latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

Fairness? Really? Is that what you call using your platform to inject a piece of completely extraneous pro-McCain propaganda into the conversation?  Not to mention the fact that, as with most propaganda, it wasn't true.

MoveOn does the digging:

We checked, and the latest NBC poll actually has no question about Commander in Chief. We contacted NBC about this, and it turns out Brokaw was referring to a poll taken weeks ago--right after the Republican convention and well before Friday's big national security debate. And in each of NBC's last two polls, Americans chose Obama over McCain.

Classic.

Contact Tom Brokaw today and demand that he correct the record and apologize.

Markos and Digby are right on, in my assessment: take the Paulson crap-burger off the table and start over. Yes, of course that makes sense, and it's only because the Republicans didn't deliver their votes that we even can think about this option.

However, its pretty clear to me that both McCain, and Obama, after talking with Bush today, have decided to both back the 'tinker' with the plan, to boost the FDIC insurance cap to $250,000, and that's it. If I'm wrong in my take what's happening, I'll take the lumps and be glad for it, but with adding on this little bit of FDIC coating, they'll look to get the extra 12 votes needed.

I oppose it and hope for something better, because this from Rick Perlstein:

This already tough task won't happen unless it starts now. At its base, this budget-busting 700B - $1T bailout means no money to pay for anything of the sort. Lets see this attitude start right now in Congress, in bucking the bill for something better. And that should start with running on the plan, and not passing it before the election.

Update [2008-9-30 15:34:32 by Jerome Armstrong]: They got the votes, via the FDIC addition, it's pretty clear:

How does a bailout pass? Below, Jerome runs through a handful of scenarios on how to find the missing 12 votes.

But the gap is more - any whip count now must be much weaker than the moment the vote closed yesterday. Reps in both parties likely feel burned after leadership twisted their arm to vote for an unpopular measure, ostensibly out of necessity...and then that measure doesn't even pass. Would you be pleased with a failed Wall Street bailout vote on your record?

Adding to the difficulty, word leaked yesterday that the Treasury Department held a conference call for analysts on the bailout - and took effort to stress the weakness of the accountability provisions (tranching provisions are a formality, CEO compensations limits not retroactive, etc.). These reports only feed the public suspicion that this deal favors the powerful and leaves taxpayers holding the bag.

If we weren't a month away from a Presidential election, it might be easier for more Congressmen to take the Krugman approach: hold their noses and vote "practically." But as we saw yesterday, the House of Representatives wasn't designed for much of that.

So there's no one establishing a narrative for action. Bush and McCain lack capital with their caucus. And as Jerome notes, Obama doesn't seem to be pushing Dems to support the plan. Would Americans go along with a bailout tied to a second stimulus? If passing it meant establishing a new HOLC after the election? But as it stands, I'm rather pessimistic that a second attempt will succeed without major changes or another day or two of trading like Monday. A couple earmarks for Reps on the fence and a kick in the pants from Bush won't cut it.

Update [2008-9-30 12:16:38 by Josh Orton]: Ari catches two totally opposite messages on the bailout coming from the right - McCain favoring bailout passage on TV this morning and an RNC independent expenditure ad criticizing the bill. All on the same morning. Yes, McCain can't coordinate with the IE, but he can certainly demand the ad come down, can't he?

Update [2008-9-30 13:2:2 by Jerome Armstrong]: Here's what they say in the Hotline today:

Well, there's a note of hope then, that this doesn't actually pass.