Last night’s Democratic presidential candidates debate may prove to be a turning point in the nomination contest.

Hillary Rodham Clinton was the target of an unrelenting attack from the right and left — from John Edwards, standing to her right, and from Barack Obama, standing to her left. The reviews on Clinton’s performance are not kind, and they raise new doubts about how firm her grasp is on the front-runner status.

John Edwards makes a point about Hillary Rodham Clinton during Tuesday’s debate

Without a doubt, John Edwards was more aggressive than Barack Obama in the tag-team attack on Clinton, and it seems to have paid off. Readers of the Daily Kos, voting in an online poll, are giving the win to Edwards by a 3 to 2 margin over Obama (3,077 votes to 1,943 votes out of about 9,000 cast). Clinton falls into third place with about 1,500 votes.

Des Moines Register columnist David Yepsen writes: “Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards emerged as the evening’s most effective and articulate challenger to Clinton, who did not acquit herself well and turned in an uneven, sometimes waffling performance.”

Roger Simon at Politico says the debate revealed something not seen before: “When Hillary Clinton has a bad night, she really has a bad night.”

The debate moderators, Tim Russert and Brian Williams, directed their toughest questions at Clinton, asking her to explain inconsistencies in statements she’s given in recent weeks and months.

The Drudge Report says that a Clinton insider blames the mess on NBC’s Tim Russert, saying he was belligerent.

The Informed Voters blog provides a video recap of the highlights of the debate.

Unless anyone wants to argue that Clinton came out ahead last night, here are the questions: How much damage was done to her? Was Russert belligerent, or was he simply trying, in a direct but professional manner, to get Clinton to answer the questions? Finally, was Edwards the big winner from last night?

Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has some explaining to do, or so it seems. He was elected on the promise that he would depoliticize the office and restore voter confidence in the office’s integrity and impartiality.

Now, the DFLer is under fire for allegedly using his public office to supply his political machine with names and contact information to raise money for his campaign.

Mark Ritchie

The allegation comes from officials of two right-leaning organizations and was detailed Monday on the Minnesota Democrats Exposed blog, followed promptly by two Republican legislators calling for an investigation. Here’s our story about the controversy.

The complainants say that they participated in a “Civic Education” program run by Ritchie’s secretary of state office, and were asked to supply their e-mail addresses to the office. That was in April. Last week, they received an e-mail solicitation from Ritchie’s campaign.

Apparently, the contact info acquired by his taxpayer-funded office ended up in the hands of his political fundraising operation.

Ritchie says he did not authorize the use of the list for political purposes, and said he doesn’t know how it happened. But he goes on to say that the names and e-mail addresses are public information, available to anyone, including political campaigns.

Indeed, Minnesota’s data practices law says that government data is considered to be public, unless it is specifically exempted from the law.

So this information might, in fact, be public information, and would have to be provided to political campaigns if they request it.

Did that happen? Did Ritchie’s campaign request the information from Ritchie’s office? If so, how did Ritchie’s campaign know to ask for this list? Or did it submit a broad request for all names and contact info held by the office?

If that’s the case, even if it’s perfectly legal, wouldn’t it be prudent for Ritchie’s campaign to not ask for such information — to avoid the perception that he’s using his office resources — taxpayer resources — to aid his campaign?

Former Sen. Dean Barkley says a lot of people have been bugging him to run for the Senate seat that he was appointed to five years ago, after Paul Wellstone’s death. You can hear Barkley talk about that and his possible involvment in the presidential race in the Pig’s Eye Podcast we recorded this morning.

You can listen to the podcast here.

Barkley recently started a national political consulting firm, along with Minneapolis adman Bill Hillsman. The firm is called D’Amore, Hillsman, Oliver and Barkley, and here is its website.

And here is Barkley’s bio.

Barkley burst onto the political scene in 1992, winning 16 percent of the vote as an independent in Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District. Republican Rod Grams won that race.

Barkley ran for the Senate twice, winning more than 5 percent of the vote, and qualifying the Independence/Reform parties for public campaign financing, which was a key factor in Jesse Ventura’s election as governor.

Question: Who is the best candidate the Independence Party could put up in the 2008 Minnesota Senate race?

The controversy over open political spying Minnesota, which I wrote about yesterday, is not the first flare-up over “trackers” this campaign season.

An even more heated clash occurred in Maine in August, when Republican Sen. Susan Collins’ staff asked the Democratic challenger to get the party to stop tracking her, because her tracker was being intrusive.

Sen. Susan Collins and her “tracker”

That case is especially illuminating because there are photos or video taken by both camps, showing the Democratic tracker at work.

First, here is the Portland newspaper’s account of how the controversy started. And here is the Bangor Daily News story.

Collins’ director of Internet strategy posted pictures of the tracker stalking Collins at a parade — standing a respectful distance at one point, but intruding into the parade and into Collins’ space in others.

Here on YouTube is the Collins’ campaign’s video of the tracker videotaping her. It’s clear that he’s walking between her and the parade-watchers.

And here is the actual video that the Democratic tracker shot, titled “Susan Collins greets her tracker.” MaineDems posted that long version and they posted a short version here.

You can see that Collins doesn’t seem to be bothered. She asks him to be sure to get her good side and says to him, in a friendly way:

“So are you my tracker, Rick?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Ok, well I’ll be seeing you on the campaign trail.”

But Collins’ chief of staff, Steve Abbott, argued that the tracker invaded the privacy of regular citizens who talked with Collins and recorded her from an unacceptably close range. It’s one thing to record her speech, but this tracker crossed the line, Abbott said.

The publisher of a number of area newspapers disagreed. It said in an editorial that Collins’ protestations of being recorded in public “comes from someone who supported the Patriot Act with the attitude, ‘If you’re not doing anything wrong, it shouldn’t bother you.’”

Does this behavior bother you, or is it fair game, protected by the First Amendment? Where do you draw the line in conducting opposition research on rival candidates?

A blog posting about Al Franken campaign appearances offers a peek into the spying that politicos routinely conduct on each other — completely above board.

This headline appears (as of this moment) on the Politically Connected page for Al Franken, where we draw in the latest news stories and blog postings about the candidate: “MN GOP “TRACKER” DENIED ADMISSION TO PUBLIC EVENTS OF AL FRANKEN.”

Al Franken

The post is from Minnesota Democrats Exposed (MDE), and it said that the Republican operative who follows Al Franken around at public events has been “denied access to numerous public events where Al Franken is scheduled to appear.”

The post, by Michael Brodkorb, explains that this is a common practice by both parties. He links to a previous posting he did, noting that “J.D. from Franken’s campaign” attended and videotaped a recent Republican press conference critical of Franken.

The campaigns routinely send operatives — sometimes volunteers, sometimes paid staffers — to their opponent’s events. Videocam in hand, they capture every utterance — and every slip of the tongue — and the “highlights” are sure to show up in TV ads down the road.

The campaigns even get to know the tracker assigned to them.

Franken’s campaign refers to one GOP operative that followed the Democrat this summer as “Tracker Pete.” But Tracker Pete is now back at school in Duluth, said Franken spokesman Andy Barr.

“J.P. is the new guy,” Barr said.

“J.P. and some other people,” Republican Party spokesman Mark Drake added helpfully.

“This is the game, it’s politics. It happens on both sides of the aisle,” agreed Kelly Schwinghammer, the DFL Party communications director.

The GOP’s Drake, asked about the posting on MDE, cited three instances when the GOP tracker was turned away: A labor-union event in which Franken worked alongside a health care worker for a day; a luncheon; and an appearance before the Macalester College Democrats.

Drake acknowledged that the Franken campaign may not have directly organized and controlled all the events. But he said that Franken’s appearance at them was publicly advertised, including in at least one case on Franken’s website, giving it the imprint of a Franken campaign event. He said that if Franken’s campaign is committed to openness, it should have taken “one minute” in advance to “work with the organizers to allow admission to Republicans.”

Sen. Norm Coleman

Barr said he’s not aware of a single time the Franken campaign has turned a tracker away from an event they had control over, and said that trackers are welcome at their events. He said that Drake was setting an “unreasonable standard” in expecting the Franken campaign to instruct organizers to admit trackers to events that Franken is simply invited to himself.

The DFL’s Schwinghammer said that their trackers have been turned away from a handful of events involving Sen. Norm Coleman, since they started tracking him in August.

The MDE posting drew an interesting comment from Jason, who wrote: “I was at a DFL event. A person, from the GOP I guess, was there with a video camera. This person was younger and seemed naive and inexperienced. She was asked nicely to leave and she did. She probably didn’t have to legally but she did anyway. Does this mean she was ‘denied’ access? Or was she simply too timid?”

Barr, from the Franken campaign, extened this courtsey to the GOP’s Drake. The luncheon event that the tracker was denied access to was videotaped, and the Franken website has a link to it on its home page.

“If Mark needs the link, I’ll be happy to send it to him.”

No need for that. Here it is.

What standards should apply to how campaigns handle trackers? Are there otherwise public events that they should be banned from?

The Clintons campaign in Iowa/New York Times photo

The appellation “First Laddie” — used by reporter Bob von Sternberg in his story today about Bill Clinton’s funraising trip to Minneapolis – is one that Clinton himself has jokingly raised. He did so recently on Oprah and earlier this year at the Aspen Institute.

The role that the former president would play if there’s another Clinton administration, and the Bill and Hillary marriage and political partnership, are among the most intriguing story lines of the presidential campaign.

Here are a number of recent stories examining the Bill factor in this race.

This weekend, the British Sunday Observer had this look at the Clintons, including this line: “By now we’ve come to expect experiments in political androgyny from the Clintons.”

Here’s another British media story, from earlier this month, in which Bill talks about being a sort of roving ambassador in his wife’s administration “to help restore America’s standing in the world.”

And here is a story about a story you won’t see: a GQ magazine article that the Clintons reportedly pressured the magazine to kill. Here is the Politico.com’s report.

CBS has this story about a book being released this week about the Clintons’ marriage and working relationship, “For Love of Politics: Bill and Hillary Clinton: The White House Years.” The story is here. The book is written by Vanity Fair’s Sally Bedell Smith.

That book is one of about 40 books by or about the Clintons, more than half written by critics, according to this Wall Street Journal story.

In the current issue of Newsweek, Michael Isikoff reports that Bedell Smith figured she would find a treasure trove of documents about Hillary’s role in Bill’s White House, including the health care fiasco, at Bill Clinton’s presidential library in Little Rock. Not so. Three years after the library opened, “barely one half of 1 percent of the 78 million pages of documents and 20 million e-mail messages at the federally funded facility are public,” he writes.

Meanwhile, Bill Clinton’s appearance in Minnesota meant that he didn’t join five other spouses of presidential candidates at a panel hosted by Maria Shriver in California. Here’s the story about that event.

And finally, in this light-hearted musing by two journalism students from Northwestern’s Medill, titled “Top 10 things Bill Clinton won’t do as First Lady,” they list: “Entertain the wives of visiting Head’s of State…It’s unlikely the former president will be left alone with anyone’s wife as his own hammers out treaties in the Oval Office.”

Which raises a whole host of questions if Hillary is elected:

What role should Bill play in her administration? How about leading health care reform?

What should he be called?

For that matter, what should Hillary be called? Mrs. President? Madam President? Madame President?

Photo credit: Yoichi R. Okamoto

Not this October, of course. But a year from now, we’ll be awash in rumors of an impending 11th-hour action or disclosure that rocks the political landscape.

So, while it’s still October 2007, it’s time to take your best shot at predicting what October surprises may be in store next year.

We’ll put a broad definition on the phrase. It could be a Bush administration maneuver (the traditional definition). It could be a move by the Democratic leaders of Congress. It could be a news media disclosure. Or it could be self-inflicted.

To get the discussion rolling, here are some possibilities:

A massive troop withdrawal from Iraq announced by President Bush. It likely would have to be set up with one or more smaller withdrawals in the spring and summer to be most effective. (Think Johnson’s bombing halt, Oct. 31, 1968; and Nixon’s/Kissinger’s “peace is at hand,” Oct. 26, 1972.)

A national security emergency, such as the arrest of a terrorist cell that was poised to attack, or a small act of war — preferably a muscle-flexing air strike against a small, rogue nation that can’t strike back, at least not before the votes are counted. (Think “Wag the Dog” and Clinton’s strike against Sudan and Afghanistan; not true October Surprises, but from the same bag of tricks.)

The launch of a Congressional investigation into an allegation of constitutionally-serious misdeeds. But in order to perform due diligence and to really, really get at the truth, it won’t, unfortunately, be wrapped up until after Election Day.

Bin Laden suddenly turns up dead.

Bin Laden launches a terrorist attack on New York City and/or Washington.

FOX News reports that Hillary….fill in the blank.

Dan Rather reports that President Bush….fill in the blank.

What do you think will be next year’s October?

We’ve posted a new Pig’s Eye Podcast this morning, which you can listen to here.

Bachmann on Election Night

In this podcast, we discuss:

Mike Ciresi escalating his criticism of Al Franken for being a late convert to opposing the Iraq war. You can read Pat Lopez’s story about this change of tone in the U.S. Senate race here. And you can join a discussion on the issue at The Big Question blog here.

Whether Michele Bachmann made a strategic error by asking TV stations to pull an ad critical of her over the children’s health insurance program. Here’s Kevin Diaz’s story about the flap. Also, there’s been a lively discussion in a posting I did on the controversy last week, asking whether the ad was fair or not. Here’s the post.

Iowa Republicans’ decision to move their caucuses up to Jan. 3, when voters will have barely recovered from New Years Eve celebrations, and when the campaigns will have to find a way to get people’s attention during the holiday season. Here’s our story when the new date was announced.

Mitt and Ann Romney

In a new TV ad that will start running today in Iowa, Ann Romney says: “Mitt says his greatest success is being able to say ‘I have been a good father, and a good husband.’ ”

That message will be heard loud and clear by those attending the Values Voters conference in Washington today. And Rudy Giuliani will take note, too.

Romney and Giuliani, in fact all of the GOP presidential candidates, are scheduled to speak to this gathering of Christian conservatives, sponsored by groups such as the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family.

James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, was among a number of conservative leaders who recently talked openly of splitting from the Republican Party and backing a third-party candidate if Giuliani wins the GOP nomination. Giuliani’s support of abortion rights and gay rights, as well as his un-Romney-like personal life, is causing great unease among many conservatives.

The timing of Romney’s ad, which features his wife and a blur of active, happy Romney kids and grandkids, seemingly more than there are enrolled in SCHIP, is no coincidence. You can see the ad, titled “Our Home,” here.

In his speech tonight, Romney is expected to stress family themes, the Boston Globe reports in this story.

Here are a number of other recent stories and analyses about what’s at stake at the gathering.

The New York Times says in its Caucus blog that Romney and Fred Thompson have the most riding on the conference, because many conservatives have doubts about them, too.

Rudy Giuliani in Minneapolis

The American Prospect’s Adele M. Stan gives Giuliani this much: “the guy’s got moxie.” She also looks back at last years Values Voters Summit.

The Tory Anarchist (Daniel McCarthy, a contributing editor to The American Conservative) says in this posting that the religious right really hasn’t gone after Giuliani in the way they did, for example, in 1995 when they quashed Collin Powell. The reason: “they know they can’t stop him.”

If there is a third-party run, it won’t be John McCain leading the way. He pledged on Thursday to back the nominee. Here’s the AP story on Politically Connected.

Given that this key Republican constituency has deep concerns about Giuliani, can he win the GOP nomination?

Is he the GOP’s strongest candidate, or does a Giuliani nomination ensure a fracture within the party and guarantee a Democratic victory?

Or is there a third-party coalition — and a candidate to lead it — that could win?

The presidential election is more than a year away, but don’t forget that there may be an election barrelling toward you in a matter of weeks.

There are a dozens of municipal and school board races and referenda on the ballot on Nov. 6.

If you live in the Twin Cities metro area, our MyVote feature will help you figure out whether there’s an election in your city. If there is, it will help you learn more about the candidates seeking your vote.

You can find MyVote on the left side of the Politically Connected home page. Or go directly to it here.

All candidates in contested races were invited to submit a photo and information about themselves and their candidacies, including their personal and professional background, their list of endorsements and a statement about the most important issue they would tackle. If a candidate has a website, you’ll be able to click on the link and go directly to his or her site so you can learn more.

Using MyVote is simple. Just type in your zip code, house number and street, and you’ll get all the races that will be on your ballot.

Or you can choose, on the right side, to browse all the races in the metro area.

We’ll soon be adding information about the various school referenda on ballots.

If you live outside the metro area, you can find information about your local elections at the Minnesota Secretary of State’s website here.