Thomas Frank has a WSJ article , "Get Your Class War On" urging Dems to recognize the GOP's culture war offensive as a "debased form of class war." Frank urges Dems to stop already with "the same feeble counterattacks that failed them last time, prudishly correcting misleading GOP advertisements and crying for the recess monitor when the other side plays dirty." He calls on Dems to reveal McCain-Palin and the GOP as toadies for the fat cats who are responsible for the current meltdown.

Michael Kinsley has a right-on-time Slate.com article documenting the Democrats' superior record on managing the economy.

Jonathan Haidt attempts to answer a complex question at Alternet.com, "What Makes People Vote Republican?", and he ignites a heated discussion.

The Campaign for America's Future launches a project to mobilize public support for making the upcoming presidential debates substantive. In this audio clip of the press briefing, Robert Borosage, Katrina vanden Heuval, James Rucker and Paul Waldman explain The Campaign's ad series calling for "a debate worthy of a great nation in crisis."

Waldman's article "How to Win a Presidential Debate" in The American Prospect ruminates on what endures in the minds of voters after it's all been said. Hint: It has to do with expectations, zingers and gaffes.

Pollster.com's Mark Blumenthal reports on some nasty message testing and push polls that may provide a glimpse into GOP strategy for the next few weeks.

Open Left has a worrisome post "Why We Have Two Weeks To Win Or Lose This Election: Early Voting " by 'avenged savant,' a former administrator of Arizona's pioneering early voting program, pointing out that voting actually starts on October 1 and John McCain knows how to play the early voting game better than anyone. Hopefully the Obama campaign is on the case. But it may be that voters who make up their mind even before the debates were not persuadable anyway.

Hard to see how David Brooks can credibly endorse McCain after his op-ed yesterday.

Marie Horrigan of CQPolitics reports that recent polls indicate that Sen. Kay Hagan now has an even chance to take Elizabeth Dole's Senate seat. Horrigan points out that Dole is ranked by the nonpartisan website Congress.org "as the 93rd most effective of the current senators." The Swing State Project agrees that Dems have a good shot at a pick-up in NC.

Journalists alert: If you're having trouble crafting some substantive questions for Sarah Palin, The Nation's Katha Pollit has some help right here.

With Michigan shaping up as a major battleground state, Carrie Dann at MSNBC's First Read reports on a Democratic lawsuit against the MI GOP and allegations of an effort to disenfranchise voters whose homes have been foreclosed.

Ruth Marcus's "True Whoppers" in today's WaPo raises questions about McCain's basic integrity and makes an interesting comment on the "lure of false symmetry" for journalists in criticizing campaigns and candidates.