Less than two months before Election Day, only 13 Senate Republicans have met their fundraising goals for the campaign committee in charge of salvaging their November hopes, according to internal numbers reviewed by The Hill.

Senate Republicans have set goals of raising between $750,000 and $3 million for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and GOP Senate candidates this cycle, but 22 of the 49-member conference are less than 50 percent of the way to meeting their individual targets.

The lack of fundraising has infuriated Sen. John Ensign (Nev.), the head of the NRSC, who criticized his colleagues last month and warned that he would slash money for independent advertisements in key races.

Through the end of July, the NRSC has just $25.4 million in cash on hand, compared to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s (DSCC) $43 million. This comes despite a huge electoral advantage for Democrats, who have to defend just 12 seats compared to the Republicans’ 23.

Face it. Obama got it right. What McCain and Palin have been doing is no different than what the cliche implies, so if they didn’t want the criticism, they shouldn’t be telling all the lies. Stop the lies or wear the lipstick proudly.

In addition to the traveling, while not traveling, expenses, the governor often took her children with her around the state and to conventions in New York, etc. and billed the state for her children’s expenses as well.

One event was in New York City in October 2007, when Bristol [Palin's 17-year-old daughter] accompanied the governor to Newsweek’s third annual Women and Leadership Conference, toured the New York Stock Exchange and met local officials and business executives. The state paid for three nights in a $707-a-day hotel room.

An Obama adviser privy to the campaign’s internal thinking on the matter says that,with less than two months before the election and with the realization that Republicans have achieved financial parity with Democrats, they hope that Democratic allies — what another campaign aide termed “the cavalry” — will come to Obama’s aid.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has decided that Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) — one of Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) top supporters — can no longer attend Democrats’ weekly caucus lunches or the biweekly chairmen’s lunches used to formulate policy, senior Democratic aides said Tuesday.

This is good. TPM takes a hard swipe at Sarah Palin’s claims to be a reformer.

“Jesus was a community organizer; Pontius Pilate was a governor”

“Isn’t Palin supposed to move to Cheney’s undisclosed location after she gets elected, not before?”

Senior officials from the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve on Friday informed top executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage-finance giants, that the government is preparing a plan to seize the two companies and place them in a conservatorship, officials and company executives briefed on the discussions said.

The plan, effectively a government bailout, was outlined in separate meetings that the chief executives were summoned to attend on Friday at the office of the companies’ new regulator. The executives were told that under the plan, they and their boards would be replaced, and their shareholders virtually wiped out, but that the companies would be able to continue functioning with the government generally standing behind their debt, people briefed on the discussions said.

It is not possible to calculate the cost of any government bailout, but the huge potential liabilities of the companies could cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars and make any rescue among the largest in United States history.

Very bad news.

A senior McCain campaign official advises that, despite the gaggle of requests and pressure from the media, Gov. Sarah Palin won’t submit to a formal interview anytime soon. She may take some questions from local news entities in Alaska, but until she’s ready — and until she’s comfortable — which might not be for a long while — the media will have to wait. The campaign believes it can effectively deal with the media’s complaints, and their on-the-record response to all this will be: “Sarah Palin needs to spend time with the voters.”

Today’s Rasmussen number: Obama 48%, McCain 46%, within the ±2% margin of error. Yesterday, when all the sampling predated Palin’s speech, Obama was ahead 50%-45%.

Today’s Gallup number: Obama 48%, McCain 44%, with a ±2% margin of error. Yesterday, Obama was up 49%-42%.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose choice as John McCain’s vice presidential running mate is being touted as a hit with social conservatives and supporters of “family values,” has acknowledged smoking marijuana in the past. Does it matter?

In a word, yes.

On Aug. 6, 2006, the Anchorage Daily News reported, “Palin said she has smoked marijuana — remember, it was legal under state law, she said, even if illegal under U.S. law — but says she didn’t like it and doesn’t smoke it now. “‘I can’t claim a Bill Clinton and say that I never inhaled.’”

The paper quoted Palin as saying she opposed legalization of marijuana because of the “message” that would be sent to her children. Let’s ponder that a bit.

Gov. Palin is one of many millions of Americans who have acknowledged using marijuana and gone on to live productive, wildly successful lives. That list famously includes California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, Sen. Barack Obama, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and astronomer Carl Sagan, and many others. That Palin used marijuana is no big deal. What is a big deal is that she thinks that the 100 million Americans who have done so — presumably including herself — deserve arrest, jail, and a criminal record.

Since I’m showing my age, for those that may not know it, “Don’t Bogart That Joint” is a Little Feat song published in 1969.