The most chilling part of the report: The family that reported the incident say they don’t blame the school district, but, in the words of reporter Nate Eaton, “They just want all parents to be careful what they say to, and teach, their children.”

The third degree: Barack Obama has a few questions for his future employees.

The New York Times has posted a PDF copy of the job application questions facing anyone in line for top posts in the Barack Obama administration. Stretching on for a staggering seven pages, it features 63 questions sorted into eight categories: professional background; publications, writings and speeches; relationships and affiliations; financial information; tax information; legal and administrative proceedings; domestic help; and miscellaneous.

You get the impression they’re erring on the side of caution. Sample question: “Do you know anyone or any organization, either in the private sector or government service, that might take steps, overtly or covertly, to criticize your nomination, including any news organization? If so, please identify and explain the potential basis for criticism.”

Read the application.

Legally and politically, it’s a perfectly legitimate move to ensure that every vote is counted, but Team Franken stepped into a PR nightmare by embellishing the news of their lawsuit with the high-pathos anecdotal case of an 84-year-old Beltrami County woman whose ballot was rejected because a stroke had altered her signature. (MnIndy’s Chris Steller has video of the campaign’s telling of the story.)

But then, Lopez writes, “Beltrami County Auditor Kay Mack… questioned the campaign’s account, saying her office hadn’t rejected any ballots because of mismatched signatures. Mack said there was one instance of an 87-year-old woman in an assisted living center whose ballot was rejected because it bore no signature or mark. The law, Mack said, is ‘very clear’ about not accepting such ballots.

“After being contacted by the Star Tribune with Mack’s account, Franken campaign spokesman Andy Barr said Thursday night that there may have been ’some confusion about our earlier field report,’ adding that the campaign is ’still digging into the facts.’ Barr said the issue does not affect the merits of their lawsuit.”

Strictly speaking, Barr is right. And since the election is likely to be decided in court ultimately, the collateral damage from embarrassments like these may prove to be minimal. But it’s hardly an encouraging sign that the Franken campaign is faltering in foreseeable, preventable ways in the court of public opinion, especially when the Coleman campaign is seizing every opportunity to cast public doubt on the whole process.

In this week’s edition of the Schultz Report, David Schultz examines the looming vote recount in the Minnesota US Senate face-off between Sen. Norm Coleman and Al Franken.

Is the situation here another Florida 2000 cage match, as so many pundits are claiming? “No,” says Schultz, “in the sense that we don’t face the same problems as Florida on several counts. In Florida, we had clear evidence of a secretary of state, Katherine Harris, engaging in vote suppression and purges of voter lists. We have no evidence of that in Minnesota. The secretary of state is trying to figure out how to count every vote, and to encourage people to vote. Second, unlike Florida, where we had multiple different technologies used across the state to vote, Minnesota pretty much has one technology to vote.

David Schultz

“Third, unlike Florida, when they actually started doing the recount in the four counties — where the Supreme Court entered in, for good or for bad, was when it reacted to the problems we all remember, where you had people in one county counting ballots differently [from another county]. Is a dimpled chad counted? A pregnant chad? What if it had two of its corners torn loose? In that state, you had wide variance across the four recount counties regarding what was considered to be the intent of the voter. That’s where the Supreme Court entered in and said you had to have uniform standards.

“Unlike that problem in Florida, Minnesota has a state law that describes how you ascertain voter intent. And what the law first says is that, if at all possible, the intent of the voter should be ascertained. And more importantly, the law says that technical noncompliance with the law in terms of how you cast your vote should not be an obstacle to counting votes. The law says that even if you don’t follow [ballot rules] to a tee — even if, for example, you circle a name as opposed to filling in a bubble dot — if you can figure out how that person meant to vote, you have to do it. So the law is very different in terms of establishing uniform standards.

“For all those reasons, we’re not Florida. Where we are Florida is in terms of the ideological battle that’s being waged by the Republicans to attack Mark Ritchie and to cast doubts on what’s happening in Minnesota — anywhere from claiming that Mark Ritchie is the new Katherine Harris to claiming that votes are being manufactured. To that extent, Minnesota has become a powerful battleground, like Florida. And additionally, while Florida was the state that decided a presidency, it is possible that, depending on what happens in Alaska and Georgia, Minnesota could be the deciding state to determine whether the Democrats get 60 votes in the US Senate. If they get 60 votes in the Senate, that means they have the votes to break a Republican filibuster. So the stakes are enormous, and from that score we’re potentially another Florida in terms of the high stakes going on.”

Listen: David Schultz discusses the great recount shootout of ‘08 (and Michele Bachmann’s last laugh on the bailout bill) (12:48)

Home values fell 9.7 percent year-over-year in the third quarter to a Zillow Home Value Index of $202,966, according to the third quarter Zillow Real Estate Market Reports, which encompass 163 metropolitan areas.

Home values have dropped a total 12.8 percent since the market peaked in 2006.

Year-over-year declines in the second quarter were 8.8 percent, indicating that price drops continued to accelerate in the third quarter, the reports showed….

Over the past 12 months, 30.2 percent of homes sold were sold for a loss, up from 23.7 percent at the end of the second quarter.

Though it hasn’t happened yet, it is appearing increasingly likely that Senate Democrats — led by Barack Obama (who seems to be playing a much more active role in all of this than his spokesperson yesterday suggested) — are going to choose Joe Lieberman to serve as their Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in the next Congress.  If that happens, there will be one important silver lining:  it will remind many people, who have understandably forgotten due to the euphoria last week, exactly what most Beltway Democrats are, what their priorities and beliefs are, and to whose opinions and concerns they do and do not pay attention.

It is worth remembering that the Democrats who are going to exert dominant political control are the same ones who have provoked so much scorn — rightfully so — over the last several years, and particularly since 2006.  This is the same Democratic Party leadership which funded the Iraq War without conditions (and voted to authorize it in the first place); massively expanded the President’s warrantless eavesdropping powers; immunized lawbreaking telecoms; enacted the Patriot Act and then renewed it with virtually no changes; didn’t even bother to mount a filibuster to stop the Military Commissions Act; refrained from pursuing any meaningful investigations of Bush lawbreaking; confirmed every last extremist Bush nominee, from Michael McConnell to Michael Mukasey; acquiesced to even the worst and most lawless Bush policies when they were briefed on them; and on and on and on.  None of that has changed. That is still who they are.

The Coleman campaign, while promising to “work together to get things done,” has dished most of the dirt, suggesting that normal bounces in the unofficial results are evidence of vote-tampering or worse. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty jumped in this week, saying that the question is whether “ballots from outside the process are going to be allowed in.”

I understand the freak-out factor for the Republican team when the net result of the “unofficial” changes has benefitted Franken, the Democrat. That will be sorted out in the recount. But having our top Republican officials suggest that state and local election officials are crooked is irresponsible and reminiscent of the battle in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Tallahassee in November and December 2000.

Ragsdale then goes on to compare Florida 2000 to Minnesota 2008.

“Their [the Coleman campaign's] goal is to win at any price. They’ve invested millions and millions of dollars. We consider this part of the normal political rhetoric…. We’re used to the political rhetoric being amped up. That’s part of their job — to win at any price.”

Though the last half of Ritchie’s statement augurs against reading “win at any price” as a goal Ritchie attributes only to the Coleman campaign, Politico notes that Coleman spokesman Cullen Sheehan was quick to demand an apology and to assert that Ritchie was not being objective:

“His accusation today that our campaign intends to win ‘at any price’ is offensive, demands an apology and simply underscores our concerns about his ability to act as an unbiased official in this recount. His statement is not reflective of the objective, non-partisan standards Minnesotans expect and deserve, and which Mr. Ritchie as Secretary of State is sworn to uphold. And we are concerned about the pattern we are seeing.”

UPDATE: Here’s the video from MSNBC. In context, it seems clear that Ritchie was not singling out the Coleman campaign for criticism; he was saying controversy and accusations are just part of a process like this. Here’s the lead-in and answer:

ANCHOR: For more now on the recount in Minnesota, let’s talk to Mark Ritchie, who’s the Minnesota Secretary of State…. I know that there is some scrutiny by the Republicans over this recount, because in part Norm Coleman led by 735 votes the morning after election night. Now he just leads by 206. There were some corrections made by local election boards. Do you understand why the Coleman campaign is now questioning the integrity of the vote counting?

RITCHIE: Oh, I think it’s normal campaign — uh, you know, their goal is to win at any price. They’ve invested millions and millions of dollars. So we consider this part of the normal political rhetoric….

Video’s after the jump. The Ritchie interview starts around the 1:40 mark.

“The liberal media attacked Sarah Palin because she did not abort her Down syndrome baby… They wanted her to kill that child. … I’m talking about my media colleagues with whom I’ve worked for 35 years.”

Politico reports that the remarks were roundly jeered by the audience, and that Barone claimed in a subsequent email that he “was attempting to be humorous and, as many in public do, went over the line.”

Here’s the eye-catcher: “Half of McCain voters believe Obama is or was Muslim, with 31.7% saying ‘He used to be Muslim and still has too many connections to Islam.’”

Summary post about the survey is here, a more detailed analysis here.