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In a conference call with reporters a short while ago, Sen. Hillary Clinton said will return to the Granite State next week to campaign for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (details to come). NH was the site of Clinton's comeback win in January's presidential primary. After campaigning with Obama yesterday in Florida, she was in Omaha, Neb. today where one of that Red State's four electoral votes could be up for grabs. Talking in advance of Sen. John McCain's stop in NH tomorrow, she thanked NH Obama campaign volunteers for their work "on the front lines of the election" and encouraged them "don't get complacent and don't read the polls." As for McCain, she said he represented "more of the same failed Bush policies."

The McCain campaign just announced that former N.J. Gov. Christime Todd Whitman will campaign for McCain in Portsmouth Thursday.

The voter fraud con job
This post is for my new comment fan "WhyIsHeraldSoBiased" who accused me of being an "apologist" for ACORN and, we must proceed logically on this, a supporter of widespread voter fraud -- or at least the hysterical apperance of it. See how truly cowardly some Republican operatives are when reporters call their bluff on this. (Of course, this comes from the folks at Talking Points Memo, who no doubt like me, are dangerous liberal "apologists" for voter fraud, Obama socialism and William Ayers.)
RNC On New Mexico "Voter Fraud": Never Mind
By Zachary Roth - October 20, 2008
As if you needed any more evidence that the Republican effort to tout voter fraud is less about legitimate claims and more about a political agenda, consider this sequence of events:
Last week, as we noted at the time, the New Mexico GOP had publicly claimed that 28 people voted fraudulently in the Democratic primary, held in June, for a local race.
Then this morning, the RNC sent out a press release announcing a 3pm conference call with reporters "on the recent developments in New Mexico regarding ACORN."
But at 11am, ACORN -- the community organizing group that Republicans have been trying lately to turn into a voter fraud boogeyman -- held a conference call of its own, asserting that local election officials had confirmed that the 28 people in question, mostly low-income Latinos, were valid voters.
So here at TPMmuckraker, we wondered what the RNC's response to this would be. And on the 3pm call, we asked party spokesman Danny Diaz.
Diaz dodged the question. He talked about an incident with ACORN in Washington state, then referred us to an October 9th Wall Street Journal story, which did not address the allegation made last week by the state GOP about fraudulent voting in the Democratic primary. (Instead, it reported that the FBI had opened a preliminary investigation into thousands of fraudulent registration forms submitted in an area near an ACORN office.)
When we tried to follow up, Diaz cut us off and shifted the discussion toward a general attack on ACORN for submitting fraudulent registrations.
In other words, it looks like the RNC had scheduled a call to tout evidence of voter fraud -- not voter registration fraud, mind you, but actual voter fraud -- being perpetrated by ACORN in New Mexico. But when ACORN appeared to come up with compelling evidence that no such fraud had occurred, the RNC held the call anyway, simply shifting the focus to other vague allegations against ACORN -- then refused to address the New Mexico situation when asked.
Of course this is a joke when put in context but then this has always been about whipping up fear and anxiety about an election being stolen -- and in the same league with the Limbaugh-induced fantasy of Obama as a Communist/terrorist/anti-American in disguise.

Endorsements, awards, and protests
*- The Professional Fire Fighters of New Hampshire, one of the state's most active unions, will formally endorse 1st District Democratic Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter for reelection today and hold events in Manchester, Laconia & Rochester. On Monday, Shea-Porter was in Portsmouth to receive the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard's Metal Trades Council endorsement.
* - NH Republican Sen. John Sununu received the National Association of Manufacturers Award for Manufacturing Legislative Excellence. The NAM Award honors federal lawmakers whose voting records have consistently supported manufacturing in America. Sen. Sununu’s record was an impressive 85 percent, the press release said.
* - In advance of John McCain's visit to Manchester tomorrow, Granite State Progress will lead a coalition of voters and other groups to McCain's campaign office in Concord today to offer, GSP said in a press release, this piece of advice: "Clean Up Your Campaign, John McCain!"
"McCain's decision to use negative robo-calls has drawn the ire of voters across New Hampshire," said Zandra Rice Hawkins, director of Granite State Progress. "But the dirty politics of the McCain campaign have been building steam for some time. These misleading phone calls are only the latest in a long line of dirty attacks, and they have got to stop."