Twitter/@SamTLevin

As the march toward November 6th intensifies, things might get weird. For example: someone apparently fired a shot into President Barack Obama's campaign headquarters in Denver Colorado on Friday afternoon, shattering a large window.

The Denver Post reports the incident occurred around 3 p.m. There were people in the offices at the time but no injuries were reported.

A reporter for Denver's alt-weekly Westword tweeted a photo of the shattered window and his puzzled comment:

I have zero details about what happened here but Obama 9th and Acoma campaign headquarters window badly smashed twitter.com/SamTLevin/stat…

— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) October 12, 2012

Denver police spokesperson Raquel Lopez told local media that police were searching for a "vehicle of interest" and reviewing any available video surveillance of the scene.

The Obama-Biden campaign has yet to comment on the incident.

Posted to Twitter by Dana Stevens--@thehighsign

It's the kind of mistake that's irresistible to social media wits: an iPhone app for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign misspells the word America. The app lets users take photos and it currently superimposes the legend "A Better Amercia (sic)" over them. While the Romney campaign is seeking to have the app corrected and replaced in the iTunes store as soon as possible, jokes about the screw-up spread like wildfire across Twitter Tuesday night. It is tempting to run down a catalogue of wisecracks but one tweet represents the general tone pretty well:

Won't you join @andybowers' lead and have your dog share @MittRomney's wish for "A Better Amercia"? Here's mine:twitpic.com/9qte94

— Dana Stevens (@thehighsign) May 30, 2012

No one comes away completely clean, though--the Washington Post's blog entry regarding the screw up was titled "Romney app misspells 'Amercia,'"--unintentionally (we guess?) implying Mr. Romney's app had misspelled the misspelling. Or something.

Embarrassing as the foul-up may be for the otherwise tightly organized Romney campaign, at least it's unlikely anyone will lose a foot over it.

Pawlenty, Huntsman, both gone. Newt, not so much.

Jon Huntsman has told advisers that he's done with his 2012 presidential campaign. Politico reports the Republican ex-governor--who many Democrats seemed to think of as 'the nice one' on the other side of the aisle--plans to throw his support behind front runner and fellow Mormon Mitt Romney:

A source said that Huntsman's rationale for backing Romney, who he has criticized for weeks on the campaign trail as lacking a "core," is that he didn't want to block the person best prepared in the field to beat Obama, and then to lead the country and grapple with the economy.

Huntsman campaign manager Matt David confirmed the decision to the New York Times, saying Huntsman felt it was time for Republicans to "rally around a candidate who could beat Barack Obama and turn around the economy."

Huntsman is the fourth candidate to leave the race.

[NYTimes.com]

But that does not mean that the campaign has gotten serious. Not when a character like Michele Bachmann is running around with a claim to be the front-runner for the Republican Party’s nomination.

Such a campaign might be described as pathetic. But serious? Not unless the nation’s Republicans truly are prepared to turn back the clock to a time and a place when gay people were denied dignity and civil rights, when people with foreign-sounding names and backgrounds were considered suspect, and when American policymakers and ordinary citizens conducted their business as though the rest of the world simply didn’t exist—or wasn’t worthy of consideration.

In the aftermath of the congresswoman’s showing in Iowa, some pundits noted that Ms. Bachmann appeals to some Republican voters because she speaks from the heart and believes what she says. And that is precisely why it seems so difficult to describe her success as anything but a sad and tragic farce.

In recent interviews in The New Yorker and on the television talk shows, Ms. Bachmann made many things clear, not the least of which is that she considers gay people to be something less than human. She and her husband are invested in the notion that they can “convert” gay people from their despicable lifestyle (in their view) to good, red-blooded, all-American heterosexuality.

Needless to say, the congresswoman from Minnesota is not a big fan of gay marriage or, indeed, of any efforts to accord gay people the same rights, liberties and freedoms she celebrates in her tiresome rhetoric. This, perhaps, should not come as a surprise, given that she has associated with people who seem to think that African Americans were better off under slavery—because, you see, the gentle, well-meaning, white slaveholders helped keep slave families intact, except, of course, when there was profit to be made in selling off a mother, a father or a few children.

If Michele Bachmann really does believe what she says, if she really does speak from the heart as some observers contend, she is perhaps the most mean-spirited, bigoted presidential aspirant since George Wallace in 1968. Like Wallace did, Ms. Bachmann opposes civil rights (for blacks, in Wallace’s case; for gays, in Ms. Bachmann’s). Like Wallace did, she seeks to capitalize on anger and frustration by pointing the finger of blame at others—the possibly foreign-born black man in the White House; the gays who prey on the innocent and the pure; the secularists who believe in the separation of church and state.

Michele Bachmann is to 2012 what Wallace was to 1968—a vicious figure whose rhetoric is designed to inflame hatred and resentment. Her rise to prominence shows that the forces of reaction and intolerance remain powerful in certain parts of the country and in certain factions of the Republican Party.

They may yet prevail, but only if the Republican Party as a whole refuses to get serious.

Guy Molinari, the former congressman, borough president and longtime Staten Island political powerbroker called the real estate magnate turned reality television star "a son of a bitch--and you can quote me on that" during a brief interview earlier this week. The Politicker caught up with Molinari before a town hall hosted by Michael Grimm, a Molinari protege who was elected to Congress last fall.

"He is creating so many problems for us and for the legitimate candidates," Molinari said. "He is not qualified."

Molinari said he was holding out hope that his friend Rudy Giuliani would run again.

Of Trump, he said, "It becomes a game to him. He is enjoying the game."

Molinari said he clashed with the developer when he served as Staten Island BP. Molinari however seemed to be unconcerned about the prospects of a President Trump. Or even a candidate Trump, for that matter.

"He will not run," Molinari said. "He will absolutely not run."

In a 20-minute phone interview, Trump talked about the Tea Party, his experience with polling science, and whether he really, actually, could win over social conservatives. Note: Trump is the father in-law of the Observer's publisher, Jared Kushner.

Trump disputed the notion that he lacks the experience to be president, telling The Observer earlier this week that, "I have been in politics all my life. All you have to do is read your paper. I've been supporting people all my life, I've been dealing with foreign countries for the last 20 years."

(Trump was either referring to an article last week on his bipartisan political donations, or perhaps, the fact he was a favorite subject of this newspaper 1980's and 1990's.)

"I've been supporting politicians from the time I came out of the Wharton School of Finance and even before that," Mr. Trump continued. "So I know everybody. It's not like I am not experienced in this. I am probably more experienced in politics then most politicians. And some people understand that. I was actually called by a big senator yesterday and he was laughing because some writer said, 'Oh Trump doesn't have experience in politics' and he said, 'You are more experienced than we are.' And I agree with him."

Mr. Trump expressed surprise about what a phenomenon his campaign had become, and said that he couldn't understand why people are dismissing him.

"I didn't understand why they were dismissing it because I'm one of the highest paid speakers in the world. I have a show that is one of the most successful shows on television and the number one show on NBC," he said. "And I've made billions of dollars and put tens of thousands of people to work, and I didn't understand how did they dismiss somebody like that. Never made sense to me. Now they are starting to say, 'Oh I guess we shouldn't have.'"

Mr. Trump said he was quite proud of the poll numbers that give him an early edge over what most observers consider a lackluster field.

"You know the polls are showing me something very special," he said. "I believe in polls. I studied polls a little bit at the Wharton School of Finance, meaning I took a semester of polling. And it's a pretty great science. Every poll has me leading or tied to for lead. That is very much an honor

Mr. Trump still has a long and checkered history that could drag down any presidential campaign, including multiple marriages and bankruptices.

"They played a much bigger role ten years ago then they do now," he said of social issues generally. "Now I think they really want somebody who is super competent, that is a great businessperson, that knows what is going on."

His would-be advisers hope that voters will forgive him since he does not hail from the political class. Mr. Trump disputed the notion however that he has been given a longer leash by political observers because he is real estate entrepreneur and reality TV television star.

"The establishment hates the fact that I am leading in the polls," he said. "The establishment doesn't understand how a non-politician could be winning. The writers have become friends with all of these politicians over the years. They know them, they dine with them, they develop friendships with them over the years, which is typical and now all of a sudden a party comes in who is leading everything and they don't know him and they don't really, you know, I think they are tougher on me then they are on everybody else."

He said that he is was polling as poorly as some of his rivals for the nomination, he would have second thoughts about running.

"When you see you are leading every poll those results are very gratifying to be honest with you. Lets say I'm doing everything I am doing now and I was [names a presidential contender] who had zero. Zero. Or [names another] who had two, who was at two points instead of 26 points. I'd say well I guess it's not working and I wouldn't be wasting much time," he said.

The names were off the record. "I've got enough enemies," he said.