President Obama gave his condolences to those at Fort Hood in the wake of the shootings yesterday – but he came under critique for spending several minutes on national television giving a “shout-out” to a Congressional Medal of Honor winner at the conference he was attending and then name-dropping others before finally commenting on the tragedy. It seemed an awkward transition from light-hearted to serious – see what you think.

On the heels of our discussion of whether the Nov. 3 elections were a referendum on Sarah Palin, chew this over: The former Alaska governor has not yet endorsed the more conservative candidate, Marco Rubio, in the Florida primary for governor.

Palin’s spokeswoman Meg Stapleton said it was “too early” for Palin to endorse either Charlie Crist (who is considered more moderate) or Rubio.

I know, I know, it’s very early to be talking about the 2012 race.

But in case you are interested in how the field might shape up, USA Today and Gallup have put out a new poll showing Mike Huckabee at the top of the field among Republicans.

Huckabee himself brushed off such polls.

It’s like speculating who’s going to be the best actor next year when we don’t even know what the movies are.

Republicans have said that this year’s elections are a referendum on President Obama. That might be the case – I would also ask, might this be a referendum on Sarah Palin?

The two Republican gubernatorial campaigns rebuffed Palin’s offers to stump. They won, and largely on independent voters.

Doug Hoffman, the third party candidate in the NY-23 election who Palin endorsed, is by all appearances losing.

One vote that isn’t grabbing headlines as much as the New Jersey and Virginia governors’ races is in Maine today, where voters will decide whether to strike down the state legislature’s decision this year to legalize gay marriage in the state.

The Maine vote is important because it may be the first time gay marriage supporters prevail in a voter referendum on the issue. The polls have been evenly split on the question.

Right now, traditional marriage advocates point to the fact that the majority of citizens still support traditional marriage, and that voters have always opposed court rulings that legalize gay marriage, as exemplified in Prop 8 in California.

The issue is a hot on Twitter right now – gay marriage supporters have one of the top trending topics marked with the hashtag #VoteNoOn1 – voting “no” means you support the legalization of gay marriage.

Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney have stumped for the Republican candidate for governor in Virginia, Bob McDonnell. Sarah Palin hasn’t.

Palin hasn’t made campaign appearances in either the Virginia race or the more hotly contested New Jersey governor’s race. Palin’s spokeswoman Meg Stapleton told Politico earlier,

The governor offered her assistance in both races.

McDonnell has run a campaign based on issues like creating jobs and  boosting transportation, avoiding fiery conservative rhetoric – and fiery conservatives.

Virginia Faith and Freedom (an arm of the national conservative organization Faith and Freedom headed by Ralph Reed) put out robocalls from Palin in Virginia today encouraging voters to “vote your values.” McDonnell said today that he didn’t know anything about the robocalls. A McDonnell spokesman said the campaign had nothing to do with the calls.

That’s what the White House plans to announce today, that the stimulus has saved or created one million jobs to this point. (the reports show that half of the spending to this point has saved or created 650,000 jobs – therefore, at least one million jobs have been saved or created) House Minority Leader John Boehner said the report was based on “phony statistics.” The AP reported yesterday that initial job estimates from the stimulus were inflated.

Reports yesterday showed the country’s GDP grew by 3.5 percent, but the unemployment rate stands at 9.5 percent, and many economists are predicting a “jobless recovery.” A White House official told Politico:

Analysis by both the Council of Economic Advisers and a wide range of private and public-sector forecasters indicates the Recovery Act contributed between 3 and 4 percentage points to real GDP growth in the third quarter, suggesting that in the absence of the Recovery Act, real GDP would have risen little, if at all, this past quarter.

The AP reports today that the White House has over-reported by “thousands” the number of jobs the stimulus has created:

A Colorado company said it created 4,231 jobs with the help of President Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan. The real number: fewer than 1,000.

The White House has claimed that the stimulus has created about 30,000 jobs, based on early data.

There’s no evidence the White House sought to inflate job numbers in the report, but the administration embraced the flawed figures the moment they were released.

The White House sent a release to the press immediately after the story was published at midnight, countering the AP’s report with the “real facts.” The AP’s data was a sliver of overall data, it said, and mistakes have been corrected. The data errors on thousands of jobs are “not significant” in the context of the overall jobs saved – numbers to be released in a report tomorrow. The AP reporters countered that they reviewed all the data that’s currently available.

The administration has said the stimulus would create or save 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.

Operation Rescue’s founder Randall Terry has never been a wallflower when it comes to the abortion issue. But this week he is promoting a startling campaign: to burn effigies of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi on Halloween because of the healthcare bill.

Terry posted a video on the idea on YouTube, and then another with instructions on how to make your own effigies of the two, get others involved, and inform the press. The videos tell the congressional leaders to “burn in hell.”

An unidentified man declares in the video that the protest follows “our proud American history of burning people in effigy.” He goes on:

No this is not a threat to their body, but it is a threat to their soul.

Since August, when lawmakers experienced town hall meetings, they haven’t had an extended recess from the Capitol to conduct similar ear-bending to their constituents. On a normal legislative calendar (who knows what that looks like exactly?) Congress would be in weeks of recess between now and Christmas, but now Democratic leadership is planning to be in session up until Christmas (perhaps with a few days break for Thanksgiving).

There are these inventions called the telephone and the internet that allow lawmakers to hear from their constituents without conducting a face-to-face town hall. But the fervor over the public option, for example, has subsided since August – Senate Republicans yesterday pointed out almost a dozen Democrats who expressed either opposition to the public option or doubts about its viability for passage in September, many of whom now make up the 60 votes Sen. Harry Reid expects to pass his opt-out government insurance.

Lawmakers also still have obligatory appropriations bills to pass, so that’s part of the reason they aren’t heading back to their districts. Do you buy the idea that Democrats are keeping their caucus inside the Beltway in order to pass healthcare?