As TalkLeft reported here, the Republican candidate in Nevada's gubernatorial race is under investigation for allegedly assaulting a casino waitress. Jim Gibbons claims that surveillance tapes will clear him (a friendly court ordered them released yesterday) but TPM Muckraker explains why the tapes might lack any evidentiary value. This comprehensive AP report discusses the political impact of the accusation.

This is all nice stuff but can we get back to the elections please? So John Kerry, please keep your word:

"I'm coming back to Washington today so that I'm not a distraction, because I don't want to be a distraction to these campaigns." -- Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), on the Imus in the Morning radio show, after canceling several campaign appearances today in the wake of his botched joke.

So we can talk about this:

A classified briefing prepared two weeks ago by the United States Central Command portrays Iraq as edging toward chaos, in a chart that the military is using as a barometer of civil conflict.

. . . The slide includes a color-coded bar chart that is used to illustrate an “Index of Civil Conflict.” It shows a sharp escalation in sectarian violence since the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February, and tracks a further worsening this month despite a concerted American push to tamp down the violence in Baghdad.

. . . The conclusions the Central Command has drawn from these trends are not encouraging, according to a copy of the slide that was obtained by The New York Times. The slide shows Iraq as moving sharply away from “peace,” an ideal on the far left side of the chart, to a point much closer to the right side of the spectrum, a red zone marked “chaos.” As depicted in the command’s chart, the needle has been moving steadily toward the far right of the chart.

I wouldn't label either Brian Williams, Katie Couric or Charles Gibson "rookies," but the Wall St. Journal (free link) offers a preview of the major networks' election night coverage. I'll agree, the stakes are high, but these are all seasoned journalists.

The planned departures from prior election year coverage are interesting.

In a change from the 2002 midterm elections, the networks promise they won't project a winner in any state until after all of that state's polls are scheduled to close. In a first, each network has also agreed to send two representatives to a "quarantine room" at an undisclosed location in New York City to comb through exit-poll data. The goal: to prevent early exit-poll data -- which is often unreliable -- from leaking to the Internet, and to monitor the results in a vacuum, without access to a bank of TV screens tuned to various pundits predicting outcomes.

The New York Times reports that Colorado has become "the new frontier" politically.

Despite a Republican edge in registration, Democrats are discovering the Mountain West — and Colorado in particular — to be a new political frontier as the party benefits from a potent mix of changing demographics, anger over the war in Iraq, resentment toward conservative social initiatives and millions of dollars’ worth of advocacy advertising.

What's behind the shift? Independent voters. We have a lot of them, and due to dissatisfaction with Republican policies, including the war, they are increasingly likely to vote Democratic.

Colorado Democrats could show big gains next Tuesday.

Here is how the NYTimes and the Washington Post reported the Kerry distraction:

For at least a few hours on Tuesday, President Bush had a chance to relive his victorious campaign of 2004, taking a break from a bleak Republican campaign season as he attacked Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts over the war in Iraq.

Mr. Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who was Mr. Bush’s opponent in 2004, is not running for office this year. But the president seized on what he said were Mr. Kerry’s disparaging remarks about the troops — and what Mr. Kerry insisted was a botched joke aimed at Mr. Bush — as he sought to make Mr. Kerry the face of the Democratic Party this fall.

In the process, Mr. Bush brought renewed attention to the war in Iraq, which he defended with vigor while campaigning in Georgia, at the very moment that a number of Republican Congressional candidates, following the advice of party strategists, were stepping up their efforts to distance themselves from the White House on the war as the campaign enters its final days.

Not bad at all for Democrats from the Times. WaPo is a different story.

With a week to go, Republicans are backing out of supporting Bush/Cheney favorite Rick O'Donnell who has been trailing the excellent Ed Perlmutter in Colorado's 7th District for the seat being vacated by Bob Beauprez, who is running a seemingly losing race for Colorado Governor.

The beneficiary of the money that will not be spent on O'Donnell? Marilyn Musgrave, mother of the anti-gay marriage amendment.

The AP reports:

It isn't difficult to find Republicans in Orange County, but finding new, unregistered-to-vote Republicans these days is a struggle, even in a Republican stronghold. Desperate to register new Republican voters, a group of brainiacs hired by the Orange County Republican Party hit upon a scheme to improve their success rate: they tricked Democrats and Greens into registering as Republicans.

The recruiters visited shopping centers and college campuses and were paid $10 a head for newly registered Republicans in a district represented by U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a Democrat, prosecutors said. Voters were asked to sign petitions for lower taxes or stricter sex offender laws, then tricked into signing voter registration cards, Orange County prosecutor Anthony Rackauckas said. ... County Democratic Party officials said they have filed more than 500 verified complaints of fraud in the drive.

A dozen recruiters have been charged with felonies for falsely completing affidavits of registration. The OC Republicans have been up to other dirty tricks in the Sanchez race, as recounted here.

After her incredibly divisive remarks to the New York Times, Ellen Tauscher has the unmitigated gall to say this to the Washington Post:

"I have a lot of respect for Jack Murtha, but I remain shocked that he is talking about making a run for majority leader," said Rep. Ellen Tauscher (Calif.), a Hoyer supporter and a leading Democratic moderate. "I don't understand it. I'm not supportive of it, and it's having a deleterious effect on what I think and hope will be a huge win on November 7."

Some people have no shame. Ellen Tauscher looks to be a budding Joe Lieberman when it comes to hypocrisy and mendacity.

Forget what I think, take a look at the Cook Report. This could be 1994 redux:

With the election just eight days away, there are no signs that this wave is abating. Barring a dramatic event, we are looking at the prospect of GOP losses in the House of at least 20 to 35 seats, possibly more, and at least four in the Senate, with five or six most likely.

If independents vote in fairly low numbers, as is customary in midterm elections, losses in the House will be on the lower end of that range. But if they turn out at a higher than normal level, their strong preference for Democrats in most races would likely push the GOP House losses to or above the upper levels.

On to Congressional Quarterly:

In response to the NYTimes Endorsement of Ned Lamont, Lieberman's team freaks out. Among the lowlights:

The fact is, as the Times itself reported last week, Joe Lieberman has openly and frequently challenged the Bush Administration’s conduct of the war -- just not in the shrill and hateful terms that the Times and the blogger extremists confuse with strong leadership.

Um, does Joe mean the article so poorly written that it required a corrective article the next day?

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut has used the phrase “stay the course” several times in discussing the war in Iraq in recent years, echoing a key phrase of the White House, contrary to an article published Tuesday in The New York Times.

I'll be in Washington, D.C. with a bunch of liberal and conservative bloggers on election night, courtesy of CNN.

CNN’s Internet reporters Jacki Schechner and Abbi Tatton will host the first “CNN E-lection Nite Blog Party” at Tryst, a Washington, D.C. hotspot for young politicos. The party will gather many of the top political bloggers from across the country to blog together. Some of their analysis will appear in segments on-air and in reports online, including on CNN Pipeline, CNN.com’s premium live video news service.

We'll be blogging the results and news tidbits live -- it should be a lot of fun.

Atrios, Christy of Firedoglake, John of Crooks and Liars will also be there.

Republican Rep. Jim Gibbons, running for the governor's seat in Nevada, can't be happy to learn that the police have reopened an investigation into his allegedly assaultive behavior.

[Chrissy] Mazzeo, a Las Vegas Strip casino waitress, accused Gibbons, 61, of pushing her up against a wall Oct. 13 and propositioning her. Mazzeo, 32, said she had been pressured and offered cash from people linked to the Gibbons campaign to drop the charges.

Gibbons claims a videotape will prove his innocence, and is trying to get it released for public viewing.