National

Christine O'Donnell, the Delaware manifestation of the nationwide Tea Bagger Freakout over having a black President in 2010, was found guilty of federal election law violations last week in the case the FEC brought against her for using campaign contributions to pay her rent in her Greenville Place apartment home. The FEC is seeking a $25,000 penalty. Yesterday, in an unofficial capacity (i.e. not an official settlement offer in writing), O'Donnell and her campaign committee offered to settle the matter for $10,000. My back of the envelope reveals the following: Her apartment home was used as an "campaign office" for approximately a year, from early 2010 to March 2011. Her rent was $1410 a month. That is $16,920 for twelve months. She supposedly reimbursed her campaign committee $770 a quarter for the premises, or four payments of $770, or a total of $3080. I don't know the rules here about using a residence as a campaign office, like are the campaign and candidate in her personal capacity supposed to split the rent during the relevant time period? Or if the office space is a residence, is the candidate on the hook for the whole thing? From these questions, the she could owe in terms of rent anywhere between $5,380 (assuming a split in rent between the campaign and O'Donnell minus the $3080) or $13,840 (assuming that the campaign is fully on the hook minus $3080). In other words, I think the $10k offer is reasonable, the government should just take it and be done with her (assuming of course my reasoning and math is correct, and it may not be).

According to the News Journal and the Department of Elections, as of September 1, there are 36,518 more voters registered now than there was on Election Day in 2012.

The number of registered voters on Sept. 1 already has surpassed the 2012 totals, with 671,043 registered voters, according to the Department of Elections. The total in 2012 on Election Day was 634,525.

Of that 36,518 number, 17,408 are new registered Democrats. Republicans only registered 6,000 new voters. And those voters who are either unaffiliated or are "Others" increased by 12,687.

As of Sept. 1, there were 318,991 voters registered as Democrats (compared with a total of 301,583 in 2012) and 188,491 voters registered as Republicans (182,491 in 2012). The number of registered voters under “others” has grown significantly – from 150,874 in 2012 to 163,561.

Rick Klein: “Among the ways Donald Trump is breaking with conventional politics? He’s not even really pretending that he won the debate. He is insisting that he won, of course – but he’s also complaining about the moderator, the questions, and even the microphone he used at Hofstra. (As his opponent pointed out, winners don’t complain about the equipment.) And in the debate’s aftermath, he is also adding fuel to a two-decade-old feud with a former Miss Universe whom he attacked for gaining weight. This is the Trump that the Trump campaign had been trying to disappear – and the Trump that Hillary Clinton’s campaign insists is the only true Trump to exist.” “That’s what’s behind Clinton’s masterful strategy from Monday night: She set traps for Trump to fall into – or, rather, she pressed a whole bunch of buttons knowing that something would set him off. Clinton got the result she wanted. Trump’s reaction, meanwhile, took would could have been a partial victory or a split decision and turned it into a solid loss. The Clinton camp got a debate win, and then a parting gift.” First Read: “Trump’s ill-advised feud with Machado fits into a pattern we’ve noticed throughout the campaign: When Trump is in a bad period like this, he makes it worse for himself by refusing to back down. Particularly in the face of poor reviews (remember the Khan fight after his convention message was panned by pundits?), Trump has a tendency to spiral downward for a few days until he’s convinced to stop lashing out or punching down. Our question is: how long does bad stretch for Trump last?”

Donald Trump “beleaguered after an erratic performance in Monday’s debate — with viewership as high as 100 million — retreated to his Fox News and Twitter cocoon. There, he took potshots at debate moderator Lester Holt and cited unscientific Internet surveys to prove he’d outperformed Hillary Clinton. And his advisers hinted that he might consider skipping the next showdown between the candidates, set for Oct. 9 in St. Louis,” Politico reports. “It was a scarcely concealed defensive posture from the Trump camp, which found itself defending Trump against accusations of sexism (even as he redoubled his criticism of a former Miss Universe he had previously called ‘Miss Piggy,’ saying on Tuesday she had gained ‘a massive amount of weight’). His surrogates, too, joined the pile-on against Holt, describing “hostile” questioning about his position on the Iraq War, his role in the birther controversy and his refusal to release his tax returns.”

Reporting on the results of online polls..? How "Fox News" can continue to call itself "news" is beyond me. Online polls declare Trump debate winner, despite media consensus for Clinton…