'Joe Bidenopoulos' Meets Greek Voter At Ohio Campaign Stop

Vice President Joe Biden demonstrated on Friday what a hammy campaigner he can be, greeting voters at the Mocha House in Warren, Ohio. The pool report said:

At the second table he went to, a man put him on the phone with a woman named Charmaine. “Hey Charmaine, this is Joe Biden, Vice President Biden,” the pool heard him say. “Well, I came in here for your husband to buy me a cup of coffee, he’s sitting here working hard.”

He wrapped up the call with “Nice to talk to you, Charmaine.”

Lots of hand shaking, photo posing, two kisses for women, including one on the top of a woman’s head.

One man was introduced to him as “Paul Newman,” which got a laugh from the VP.

Approaching a table of men he knew to be Greek, the VP said, “I’m Joe Bidenopoulos.”

“Ask George,” he said – unclear who George was, maybe someone at the table --“who’s the most Greek Irishman he’s ever known.” Sounded like Biden was suggesting he is.

He moved on to a table of three women, who he briefly sat down with, before moving on to one where two women were sitting.

“Let’s dance,” he said to one, named Jennifer, as she stood up right next to him. They posed for a photo before he turned to her tablemate, who was wearing scrubs, and asked, ‘Are you a nurse?” He then sat down and started speaking to her quietly, presumably about nurses.

As much as it seems like an unvarnished, unscripted look at the campaign, there has been some controversy over Biden's aides editing pool reports that go out to media outlets. Jonathan Martin of Politico, traveling with Biden, reported that Biden's staff ushered out reporters at retail campaign stops and went so far as to try to edit pool reports to avoid headaches from the loquacious and notoriously off-script vice president.

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Al Gore: Electoral College System Should Be Replaced By Popular Vote

Former Vice President Al Gore gave astrong endorsement on Thursday for abandoning the Electoral College and returning to a presidential election system more heavily determined by the popular vote.

In a discussion during Current TV's coverage of the Republican National Convention, Gore and his co-panelists argued that Electoral College system had a corrosive effect on the power of votes and presidential leadership. For voters, casting ballots in a state that is predictably red or blue feels pointless in determining presidential elections. For leaders, visiting a state that is already in the bag for Republicans or Democrats seems unnecessary.

"I really do now think that it's time to change that," Gore said. "It's always tough to amend the Constitution and risky to do so, but there is a very interesting movement under way that takes it state by state, that may really have a chance of succeeding. I hope it does."

Gore and former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) proceeded to bring up a proposal,floated by a California professor, that would change the electoral vote allocation and partially tie it to congressional district outcomes.

Before anyone writes off Gore's proposal as a case of sour grapes, however, the former vice president did say that he continued to support the Electoral College, even after it cost him the presidency in 2000, when he won the popular vote but lost the election after a highly contentious vote count gave Florida to former President George W. Bush.

"The logic is it knits the country together, prevents regional conflicts, and it goes back through our history to some legitimate concerns," Gore said. "But since, I've given a lot of thought to it and I've seen how these states are just written off and ignored. And people are effectively disenfranchised in the presidential race."

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Harry Reid: Mitt Romney Trip To Louisiana 'Height Of Hypocrisy'

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) criticized GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Friday for traveling to Louisiana to survey damage left by Hurricane Isaac, saying his vice presidential pick aimed to block disaster relief last fall as a member of the House of Representatives.

"It is the height of hypocrisy for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to make a pretense of showing sympathy for the victims of Hurricane Isaac when their policies would leave those affected by this disaster stranded and on their own," Reid said in a statement.

Romney visited Lafitte, La., Friday to meet with Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) and first responders to the hurricane. "I'm here to learn and obviously to draw some attention to what's going here,” Romney told Jindal, according to a pool report. "So that people around the country know that people [down] here need help."

But Reid didn't see it that way. He used the visit as an opportunity to bring up Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) budget, which he said would "gut disaster funding, making it much harder to get aid to our fellow Americans in their time of need."

"This is yet another example of Mitt Romney's extreme right wing agenda, which asks middle class families to sacrifice in order to protect millionaires and billionaires from paying their fair share," Reid said.

Ryan campaign spokesman Brendan Buck responded with a counterattack.

"Paul Ryan believes providing aid to victims of natural disasters is a critical obligation and should be treated as a high priority within a fiscally responsible budget," he said. "It's sad that some see these heartbreaking events as opportunities to distort his record and play politics."

President Barack Obama plans to visit Louisiana on Monday. Romney adviser Stuart Stevens told reporters he didn't think it was inappropriate to precede Obama's visit, ABC's Emily Friedman tweeted.

When reporters asked White House Press Secretary Jay Carney about Romney's visit, he took a far more diplomatic tone than Reid had.

"I think that it's always important to draw attention to the fact that individuals and families and business owners are profoundly affected ... that's an important thing to do," Carney said.

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Ohio Early Voting Ruling: Court Orders State To Restore 3 Days Of Voting Before Election Day

A federal judge sided with the Obama campaign and ruled Friday to order Ohio to restore three days of early voting before Election Day, a decision that could affect the outcome of the 2012 election in a key battleground state.

Judge Peter C. Economus of the Southern District Court of Ohio granted an injunction in favor of Obama For America, the Democratic National Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party, which sued Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted to restore in-person voting in the last weekend before the election.

"On balance, the right of Ohio voters to vote in person during the last three days prior to Election Day -- a right previously conferred to all voters by the State -- outweighs the State's interest in setting the 6 p.m. Friday deadline," ruled the court. "The burden on Ohio voters' right to participate in the national and statewide election is great, as evidenced by the statistical analysis offered by Plaintiffs and not disputed by Defendants. Moreover, the State fails to articulate a precise, compelling interest in establishing the 6 p.m. Friday deadline as applied to non-UOCAVA [Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act] voters and has failed to evidence any commitment to the 'exception' it rhetorically extended to UOCAVA voters."

The dispute over military voting spilled into the presidential campaign earlier this month, when the Mitt Romney campaign falsely accused the Obama campaign of trying to curtail rights for military voters, characterizing the lawsuit as an "outrage" and an effort to deprive military voters of extra days to vote.

The Obama campaign lawsuit seeks to expand the voting period for all voters, not to deprive military voters of that opportunity. The judge sided with the Obama camp, calling the early voting restrictions "arbitrary."

The Romney campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

After a chaotic 2004 election, Ohio passed a law allowing early in-person voting on the weekend before the election. In 2008, some 93,000 Ohioans cast votes in that period. Those who did so were more likely to be African-American. A study by Northeast Ohio Voter Advocates found blacks accounted for 56 percent of all in-person early votes in Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, while they accounted for 26 percent of votes overall. In Franklin County, which includes Columbus, African Americans cast 31 percent of early votes and 21 percent of votes overall.

The court ruled that the plaintiffs would suffer "irreparable injury" if early voting was not restored in the three days before election day. The judge also noted the plaintiffs' statistical evidence that low-income and minority voters would be disproportionately affected, which the defense did not counter.

Early voting was curtailed in 2011, when Ohio passed H.B. 194, cutting the number of early voting days and disallowing weekend voting except for military voters. (Subsequent legislative actions have left the weekend voting restrictions in place.) Husted ordered all Ohio counties to allow early voting during weekdays until 7 p.m. in the last two days before the election, but not over the preceding weekend. All voters were given the option of sending in an absentee ballot.

The Ohio Secretary of State's office said it was still reviewing the decision, and the Obama campaign has said that it intends to issue a statement.

University of California of Irvine Professor Rick Hasen wrote on his blog that the case could wind up before the Supreme Court.

This post has been updated to include previous comments by the Romney campaign on the lawsuit and further summary of the ruling.

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Todd Akin Office Angered By Reported Karl Rove Murder Quip

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Republican strategist Karl Rove has apologized to Congressman Todd Akin after joking about the Missouri Senate candidate being murdered.

Akin campaign adviser Rick Tyler told The Associated Press that Akin accepted Rove's apology during a phone call Friday. A Rove spokesman didn't return messages Friday from the AP.

Bloomberg Businessweek's website had quoted Rove as telling GOP donors in Florida: "We should sink Todd Akin. If he's found mysteriously murdered, don't look for my whereabouts!"

Rove and other top Republicans have urged Akin to drop his challenge to Democratic Sen. McCaskill and let GOP leaders pick a replacement candidate after Akin's remarks about women's bodies being able to avoid pregnancy in cases of what he called "legitimate rape."

Akin has since publicly apologized and vowed to remain in the race.

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Fox News' Sally Kohn: Paul Ryan's RNC Speech 'Was Attempt To Set World Record For Blatant Lies'

Paul Ryan's speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday was full of lies, according to Fox News contributor Sally Kohn.

According to Fox News columnist Sally Kohn, vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan's speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday "was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech."

"On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold," Kohn wrote.

In a surprising move, Fox News joined CNN, The Huffington Post, the Washington Post's Wonkblog, and ThinkProgress in publishing a fact-check of the Republican vice presidential nominee's speech, finding that the speech was full of lies and misleading assertions.

Kohn, who describes herself as a "progressive voice on Fox News," wrote in her Thursday column that though Ryan came off as likable during his speech, his misrepresentations and omissions "caused a much larger problem for himself and his running mate."

In contrast, several Fox News commentators praised Ryan's speech on air after the event, without mentioning his misleading claims, according to Media Matters.

In her column, Kohn called out four lies in Ryan's speech. She critcized Ryan forblaming President Obama for the shutdown of a General Motors plant in Janesville, Wis., that actually was closed during the Bush administration. She also knocked Ryan for pinning the blame for S&P's downgrade of U.S. debt on Obama, when Republicans in Congress helped precipitate the downgrade by threatening to refuse to raise the debt ceiling.

"The good news is that the Romney-Ryan campaign has likely created dozens of new jobs among the legions of additional fact checkers that media outlets are rushing to hire to sift through the mountain of cow dung that flowed from Ryan’s mouth," Kohn wrote.

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Scott Walker: Clint Eastwood Speech Was One GOP Convention Moment 'I Cringed About'

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker speaks during the Republican National Convention at the Tampa Bay Times Forum on August 28, 2012 in Tampa, Florida. Today is the first full session of the RNC after the start was delayed due to Tropical Storm Isaac. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Clint Eastwood did more than make headlines with his bizarre speech at the Republican National Convention -- he managed to make Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker cringe.

Walker called the speech "that one moment, which I cringed about" on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Friday. The GOP governor said he would have rather seen more of Romney's personal story than the 82-year-old actor mumbling and talking to an empty chair representing President Barack Obama.

"You hear some of his [Romney's] opponents how he's a robot, he's mechanical. No, he's just a private person who does amazing things and we saw some of that last night," Walker said. "I just wish, frankly, I would have rather seen that than Clint Eastwood during the prime time."

Eastwood was immediately mocked for his bizarre appearance, sparking severalinternet memes and leading film critic Roger Ebert to tweet the speech was "unworthy of him."

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Sen. Ron Johnson Miffed Democrats Are Crashing Republican Convention

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and other Democrats stopped by the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)

TAMPA, Fla. -- It's common to spot GOP politicians wandering around the Republican National Convention, talking to reporters and doing interviews in the area known as "radio row." South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Florida Sen. Mel Martinez have all stopped by. But on Thursday, a rarer species was turning heads: Democrats.

Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who also happens to be a Florida congresswoman, was on radio row doing several interviews, including with KPCC and WYNC. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) was accompanied by activist Sandra Fluke, who became famous after right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh attacked her for her stance on contraception insurance coverage. The latter two are in town for the day for a women's rights event, at which Wasserman Schultz is also speaking.

Wasserman Schultz is one of the highest-profile Democrats in Congress and something of a villain to Republicans. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee even joked about her in the opening lines of his convention speech on Wednesday night.

She told The Huffington Post that she wasn't too concerned about the attention she was attracting from Republicans at the convention.

"I've seen a lot of folks from Florida here that I know, and I've been in the [state] legislature for 12 years -- before I was elected to Congress for the last eight. So I've had a nice reception. And then some folks who -- I have alligator skin, so I'm basically impervious to the criticism," Wasserman Schultz said, as reporters and other convention-goers rushed to get a glimpse and ask her questions. One woman yelled that she wanted the congresswoman to talk to conservative media outlets.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) was standing nearby as Wasserman Schultz went from radio booth to radio booth. He disparaged her presence at the GOP gathering.

"It shows a certain level of desperation," he said. "Tradition is pretty much that each party holds a convention, and they get their three or four days in the sun."

In the middle of his comments to HuffPost, Wasserman Schultz walked by, followed by a big group of reporters.

"Hi, Congresswoman, how are you doing?" he waved. Wasserman Schultz didn't respond -- in all likelihood because she didn't hear him.

When asked whether he would be going to the Democratic convention, Johnson replied, "I haven't been asked. I am generally happy to do anything I possibly can to help make sure that President Obama's a one-term president. If I were to be asked, somehow I'd change my schedule."

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Rush Limbaugh 'Loved' Clint Eastwood's RNC Speech (AUDIO)

Rush Limbaugh praised Clint Eastwood's surprise appearance on the last day of the 2012 GOP Convention in Tampa, saying that he "loved" the star's speech.

Eastwood took the stage on Thursday night just before Mitt Romney accepted the Republican Party's nomination for president of the United States. He spoke to an empty chair, pretending to have a dialogue with an invisible President Obama.

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow was a loss for words when he finished. CNN's Piers Morgan told The Hollywood Reporter that Eastwood sounded like a "slightly crazy uncle at a Christmas party."

Limbaugh, though, was quite fond of what he called Eastwood's "improv."

"This I loved," Limbaugh said. "I thought this was the essence of simplicity. I thought Eastwood was funny. Brevity is the soul of wit, and Eastwood demonstrated that last night."

Limbaugh added that Clintwood "was perfect" and did exactly what he meant to do, which was "diminish" Obama as a president. "He did ramble some," Limbaugh admitted. "But he eventually got to another point.

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Ann Romney: Clint Eastwood's Speech Was 'Unique'

TAMPA, Fla. -- Ann Romney said she appreciates the support Clint Eastwood gave her husband's presidential bid, even if the actor's bizarre monologue at the GOP convention isn't earning rave reviews.

Romney told "CBS This Morning" she didn't know what to expect when Eastwood came on stage Thursday as a warm up act. Eastwood's rambling conversation with an empty chair representing an imaginary President Barack Obama drew laughs in the convention hall, but has been widely mocked by critics.

She said she wished more people had seen the biographical videos of her husband.

Ann Romney was peppered with questions on morning news shows about whether Eastwood's appearance was a distraction. She said Eastwood is "a unique guy and he did a unique thing last night."

She quickly pivoted into a case for her husband. "Again, you can never take away from the fact that this country's in trouble and people are looking for real leadership, and I know Mitt's the man for this moment."

“I don’t think anyone can go the way Clint Eastwood wants it to go. We were just thrilled, frankly. I was thrilled, for his support," she told NBC's "Today."

On ABC's "Good Morning America," she said of his speech, "I frankly hadn’t given it much thought. I didn’t know he was coming on stage."

Eastwood's routine went on twice as long as planners expected, cutting into the hour of prime time coverage for Republicans.

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