The Resident Republican Numbers Genius™ refuses to talk specifics on that most socialist of gotcha media outlets, Fox News, this morning. I like that little "heh" he lets out where he stops himself from finishing "I don't have the time." It speaks volumes of exasperation:

The New York Times this morning published a description of the presidential debate prep:

Mr. Romney’s team has concluded that debates are about creating moments and has equipped him with a series of zingers that he has memorized and has been practicing on aides since August. His strategy includes luring the president into appearing smug or evasive about his responsibility for the economy.

Mr. Obama is not particularly fluid in sound bites, so his team is aiming for a workmanlike performance like his speech at the Democratic convention. He is looking to show that Mr. Romney would drive the country in an extreme ideological direction at odds with the interests of the middle class.

Prepping for zingers sounds like a terrible idea. The thing about debate zingers is they happen naturally. If you reach for them, you sound forced and plain weird. The Republicans have been through this before, and recently.

All day, Twitter has been responding to this news with the hashtag #RomneyZingers. Some favorites:

"You're so poor, you only have one house" #RomneyZingers

— Marta Evry (@venice4change) September 29, 2012

"Kenya believe how bad my opponent has wrecked the economy? Kenya?" #RomneyZingers

— Steve Ferra (@AbPow) September 29, 2012

"Mr President, you've left this economy on the roof far too long!" #RomneyZingers

— Greg Pinelo (@gregpinelo) September 29, 2012

"The aristocrats!" #RomneyZingers

— Ian B. (@iboudreau) September 29, 2012

Miami New Times:

A Florida Republican volunteer has been caught on tape calling up senior citizen voters on behalf of Mitt Romney and telling them that President Barack Obama is a secret muslim who wants to take away their Medicare.... "I don't know if you've done any research on Obama or not, but he is a Muslim," the woman says. "If he had his way, we'd be a socialistic country. Ya'll sound like ya'll are seniors citizens, right? You really don't want Obama because he will get rid of your Medicare ... say goodbye to it." Because if there's one thing socialists do its getting rid of "socialistic" programs like Medicare. The woman also informed the voters to "pay attention to Fox News."

Slog tipper and late-night wordsmith Gale—who may have been inspired by the above story—sent this email late last night:

I just made up a word because I couldn't focus my eyes. AND I LOVE MY NEW WORD. It fits this current political climate we are in. Some folks aren't misinformed. They are MALINFORMED. Dare I whisper the demographic... Fox News viewers?

People who pay attention to Fox News—like that Republican volunteer calling to warn seniors that Obama is a secret Muslim socialist who has it in for social programs (?)—aren't just misinformed. They are maliciously misinformed. They are malinformed by malinformers spreading malinformation.

Spread the word.

I kept running into people on the streets of Seattle all day long who were on their way to see Cory Booker speak, and it seemed like all those people were going to see Booker at different events.The mayor of Newark was making appearances all around town. He was the keynote speaker at the Plymouth Housing Group's luncheon at the Westin. After he booked that event, the requests for speeches started flooding in. I caught my Booker speech at the Washington State Democrats office at 901 Rainier Ave S. Dozens of Obama campaign volunteers gathered in the main front room to hear Booker speak about voter fraud, about Election Day numbers, and about the chances that Hillary Clinton will run for president in 2016.

And it's no surprise why all these folks turned out: As I've noted multiple times before on this blog, Booker's a great speaker. He packs his speeches full of corny jokes—every time I've seen him speak, he's made a reference to spending time with his good friends "Ben and Jerry"—and catchy lines, and lots of optimism. "When I get around groups like this," Booker said, gesticulating out to the crowd of Obama volunteers, "I get jazzed up." Patriotism, he told them, is demonstrated by "your actions, not your words," and he admonished the volunteers that everyone alive in America now should know that they "eat lavishly at banquet tables" prepared by "your ancestors." That kind of thing. It was just the kind of energizing talk that a room full of people making calls and knocking on doors in their free time needed to hear; Booker worked them into a lather, and he seemed to feed on their enthusiasm as he went along.

But I always get a little itchy when Booker starts in on his bipartisan talk. It's what got him in trouble earlier this year, this impulse to not mention a flaw in Republican thought without marking an equal flaw on the Democratic side. He gives out compliments in much the same way, too. Today, he said Mitt Romney is a good man, and that "anybody who puts themselves up for that kind of scrutiny" by running a presidential campaign, deserves our respect. (What about the topics, like his tax returns, that Romney refuses to put up for our scrutiny? Is he really such a good man, in light of his 47% speech?) Booker always returns to the rah-rah party talk in a very convincing manner—"We know we have the better candidates," he says, and "we outnumber our opponents by a lot, actually"—but it seems that he always has to make amends with the other side first. But when the other side, as he suggested in his speech today, is so far to the right that the kind of Republicans Booker cites as the good ones—Snowe, Lugar, Kemp—are considered to be too liberal for the party, is that kind of centrism really helpful? Apparently, Booker believes so.

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This is going to be a long one. Slog tipper Sara sent along a conservative e-mail that a relative of hers forwarded around about the nightmare of government-run health care. Sara is a family doctor, and she decided to respond to the e-mail with facts and life experience. After the jump, I've included the conservative e-mail—minus the comic sans—and Sara's thoughtful, well-researched response. This is exactly how you handle those e-mails: Not by getting into a pissing match, but by pointing out the untruths and then providing facts.

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