NBC's Kelly O'Donnell reports that when asked about Bush's light public schedule today, aides said it's because Bush will be traveling for the next six days and needs to deal with regular business.  The White House has released the President's schedule for the rest of the week: rallies in Billings, MT and Elko, NV on Thursday; Springfield and Joplin, MO and LeMars, IA on Friday; and in Greeley, CO on Saturday. 

One casualty of Bush hitting the trail has been GOP lawmakers' plans to bang the drum on immigration reform.  As one top House GOP aide tells NBC's Mike Viqueira, House Republicans really want to campaign on a hard line against illegal immigration.  But Bush's softer line on the issue -- he wants a guest-worker plan and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants currently living in the United States -- throws a wrench into their plans.  The best that Bush can do on the stump is tout the border fence bills he has signed, one authorizing the fence and one providing a down payment on it (the whole fence is far from funded).  Indeed, Bush could probably get the bill he wants with a Democrat-run House, since there probably are enough votes for such a bill in the Senate and the House was always the sticking point.

Laura Bush today campaigns in Kentucky for endangered GOP Rep. Ron Lewis and state Republicans, then does the same for the party in Ohio.

USA Today reminds us that the Kerry "dust-up came a day after Rep. Charles Rangel called Vice President Dick Cheney 'a son of a bitch' for saying the New York Democrat doesn't know how the economy works."  Rangel is in line to become Ways and Means chair if Democrats retake the House.  "A year ago, Cheney said Rangel might be 'losing it' after the New York Democrat compared Bush to Bull Connor, the segregationist Alabama official who resisted civil rights in the 1960s.  Rangel, a Korean War veteran, has also accused Cheney of 'sending other people's kids to war'...  Rangel said he tends not to deal with Cheney on policy issues and prefers to work on fiscal matters with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, whom he has praised." 

"...[T]he cost of several big-ticket middle-class basics - housing, health care premiums, energy, college tuition - have vastly outstripped the overall inflation rate in the past two decades," says USA Today in a look at how inflation is affecting the middle class.  "Those rising prices, combined with flat wages, mean that the typical middle-class life - a house, college for the kids, a secure retirement - is fading for many." 

Bloomberg says House Republican strategists "are pouring money into Connecticut and Florida to protect endangered House members while scaling back in Ohio and Pennsylvania," where nine seats are in play, but where candidates "have suffered in the financial chess match." 

House Chief Deputy Whip Eric Cantor (R) tells Roll Call in an interview that "he is advocating a postponement of the scheduled Nov. 15 GOP leadership elections until after the House ethics committee releases its report on its investigation into former Rep. Mark Foley's (R-Fla.) behavior with House pages."   

The Hill reports that "several rank-and-file House Republicans... already are arguing in favor of a post-Election Day leadership shake-up." 

House Democrats borrow a page from the Bush playbook with a "New Direction Radio Day" today, during which Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and others will do GOTV radio interviews on more than 55 shows around the country, per a Pelosi spokesperson.  Some of the radio programs have progressive, national and regional African-American, and national and regional Hispanic audiences.  Others are in key markets such as Portland, Denver, Miami/West Palm Beach, and Buffalo/Albany.

Bloomberg looks at some of the Democratic candidates whose more conservative positions may help them win, but may complicate the party's efforts to pursue a more liberal agenda if they win the majority. 

USA Today looks at how these candidates are getting help from liberal bloggers.  "President Bush's unpopularity, the Iraq war and congressional scandals are making it easier than usual for Democrats to bury their differences for now.  The moderate makeup of contested states and congressional districts also helps." 

The Washington Post examines House Democrats' proposal to "add tens of billions of dollars a year to the federal budget for the military, homeland security and education yet still impose a new budget restraint that would make it harder to widen the annual deficit.  Republicans and budget experts doubt that Democrats could do both simultaneously."  House Democrats' agenda "represents a consensus between the House Democrats' disparate factions," and "contains plenty of pricey measures, including a commitment to 'rebuild a state-of-the-art military capable of projecting power wherever necessary.'  The plan would also double the size of the military's special forces." 

Per Factcheck.org, 91% of all Republican ads and 81% of all Democratic ads have been negative this election cycle.

GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's lead in CALIFORNIA continues to grow, the Sacramento Bee notes.  Per a new Field Poll, he's leading Phil Angelides (D) by 49%-33%, "the widest margin in two decades for a California gubernatorial front-runner in the days before a general election." 

NBC's Tim Russert moderates a FLORIDA Senate debate which will air live tonight on MSNBC.  "Everyone has a favorite Katherine Harris story," writes the Miami Herald, which also runs a more favorable profile of her opponent, Sen. Bill Nelson (D). 

Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean and Sen. Richard Durbin rally College Democrats at DePaul in ILLINOIS.

Profiling MASSACHUSETTS gubernatorial frontrunner Deval Patrick, USA Today says he's "one of a new generation of African-American politicians who are changing old assumptions about what offices black candidates can win.  Unlike senior black members of Congress, they are too young to have joined the civil rights struggles of the 1960s.  They often haven't gone to historically black colleges or launched careers at black churches...  They often advocate pragmatism over ideology and aspire - like white politicians - to the most powerful elected offices in the country." 

Republican National Committee chair Ken Mehlman makes no fewer than six stops in MISSOURI today and another six tomorrow, including some stops with Sen. Jim Talent.

Sen. Bob Menendez campaigns on homeland security with former Sen. Bob Kerrey in NEW JERSEY.

The New York Daily News reports that in December of 2005, the wife of GOP Rep. John Sweeney of NEW YORK, who's facing a tough challenge for re-election, called 911 and told the dispatcher her husband was "knocking her around the house."  The state police arrived and no one was arrested.  The police have refused to release any information about the incident. 

The New York Times front-pages one of the more overlooked contests: the referendum on SOUTH DAKOTA's abortion ban.  "Both sides predict that the outcome of the vote… could send the country's broader debate over abortion rights swerving in new directions, and will set the tone for the fate of similarly strict laws being considered in nearly a dozen other states…  The latest poll shows voters leaning against the ban, but its fate remains uncertain." 

In TENNESSEE, former President Clinton campaigns with Harold Ford in Memphis and Wes Clark campaigns with Ford in Clarksville later in the day.  Pegged to Clinton's appearance, Republican Bob Corker's campaign is up with a new TV ad blasting Ford for not condemning Clinton's pardon of members of the Puerto Rican independence group, FALN.  The ad goes: "Harold Ford, Jr. tough on terrorism?  When Bill Clinton pardoned 16 members of a terrorist group responsible for 150 bombings and 6 U. S. deaths, the Director of the FBI, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and the Tennessee congressional delegation all opposed the pardons. Well, all but one. Guess who? Harold Ford Jr."

With Republicans looking better in their uphill challenge in TEXAS to elect a write-in candidate to succeed former Rep. Tom DeLay, the Houston Chronicle reports that national Democrats are spending $50,000 in a mailing that promotes another GOP write-in candidate.  Gov. Rick Perry (R), on the other hand, is expected to coast to victory: "What looked like an extraordinary race with an unusual combination of candidates has fizzled.  Nothing has dramatically altered the landscape from January - not even the $52 million spent so far by the four major candidates for governor," laments the Dallas Morning News. 

And there's been another dust-up in the VIRGINIA Senate race.  At a campaign stop in Charlottesville yesterday, Sen. George Allen (R) was exiting a ballroom, coming to talk to the media, when a protestor started yelling and asking, "Why did you spit on your first wife?"  The protestor wasn't able to get near Allen because he was tackled by three men wearing Allen stickers, presumed to be staffers.  He was pushed and ended up on the floor, and now says he was abused.  Republicans charge that he was working for Democratic nominee Jim Webb, which Webb's campaign denies.  

Republican Senate campaign committee chair Elizabeth Dole, who was present at the event, issued a statement last night: "I found the entire incident disconcerting and it left me uncomfortable with the level that Webb has sunk to in this campaign."  The committee claimed that the man, liberal blogger Mike Stark, "showed up at Senator Allen's event today with deliberate intent to disturb the peace."

The New York Times covers Sen. Barack Obama barnstorming for Democrats across the country, and gets an interesting response to a question about whether he has enough experience if he runs for president.  He replied that judgment is more important than experience: "'It would be nice to think the more experience we get, the better our judgment is.  But I don't think that's the case.  I mean, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have an awful lot of experience, and yet have engineered what I think is one of the biggest foreign policy failures in our recent history.'"