Actor/comedian/”home crafts expert” Steve Martin endorsed Democrat Bob Kerrey in a gloriously nonsensical web video. Kerrey, both a former governor and U.S. senator, is running for Nebraska’s open Senate seat.

Martin didn't mention Kerrey's name once. Instead, he showed us how to create a "beautiful wad of paper to play with around the house." (Make sure you have a stick of chewing gum, a stapler and a hammer ready.)

Off the side of the screen, we see a hand creep into the frame holding up signs promoting why Kerrey should be reelected. The series of messages read:

“My friend, Bob Kerrey, is running for US Senate in Nebraska…He is a principled man whom I have known and respected for many years…Whether you are a Democrat or Republican he deserves your vote, because …he cares about the people of Nebraska…he considers both sides of every issue to determine what is best…and, he has already served Nebraska successfully as your governor and senator for 16 years…But most of all…He is sane. And his ideas are workable….Please consider Bob Kerrey as a wise and thoughtful choice as your senator from Nebraska…Also, please consider me as your home crafts authority.”

During an appearance on The Last Word in April, Kerrey seemed hopeful of his chances. "I have no idea whether I’m to win the election. I think there’s a good chance that I will," he told MSNBC's Lawrence O’Donnell in the exclusive interview.

A boost from Steve Martin can't hurt (though methinks his "home crafts" might). The latest polls show Kerrey's opponent, Republican Deb Fischer, leading by double digits. 

Charlie Neibergall / AP

Tonight, Mitt Romney will challenge incumbent President Obama for 90 minutes on domestic policy issues at the first presidential debate. Jim Lehrer of the PBS NewsHour will be the official moderator, but it seems there are many pundits, journalists, and policy experts who would like to take his seat. Here's a compilation of some of the best "Jim Lehrer should ask this at the debate tonight" questions floating around the web:

Robert Reich, Fmr. Secretary of Labor:
You've said that you have used every legal method to reduce your tax liability. You've also said that as president you would close tax loopholes in order to help finance a major across-the-board tax cut. What specific tax loopholes have you used that you would close?

John Healey, LA Times:
Is there a conflict between trying to get the economy moving again and narrowing the federal budget deficit? If so, where should Washington's focus be -- on growth or the rising debt?

Doyle McManus, LA Times:
Is there anything your opponent has proposed in this campaign that you would support?

John Hudak, Brookings Institution:
Transportation systems and infrastructure in the U.S. support the economic lives of businesses and consumers. Lately, infighting in Congress has changed a formerly bipartisan issue into a highly partisan one, leaving transportation underfunded and in need of assistance. What role do you see for the federal government in the context of transportation and what specific plans do you have to fulfill that role?

Aviva Shen, ThinkProgress:
How will you reconcile the federal government’s War on Drugs with state-level legalization efforts?

David Callahan, Demos:
Do you think economic inequality in America is a problem and, if so, how would you address it?

If you have the urge to back-seat moderate, too, leave your own questions for Jim Lehrer in the comments below.

What does President Obama mean when he "waves the ball?" What is Mitt Romney trying to convey when he does the "tilt and nod?" While millions of American's will be listening to what the candidates say tonight, it may be just as important to watch how they say it.

The New York Times posted a neat guide breaking down the common forms of body language each candidate uses. According to their analysis, Obama's movements tend to be a little more "controlled," which can come off as assertive and at the same time, suggest his path would be a more difficult one. Romney's gestures, however, tend to be more "free-flowing," thereby encouraging the listener to get on board with his ideas.

New York Times

Toni Sandys/AP Photo

Mitt Romney facing off with former rivals Rick Santorum and Ron Paul during a 2011 Republican debate in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Mitt Romney has done a lot of damage to himself over the last month. He didn't receive a convention bump — he can partially blame Clint Eastwood's improv sketch for that. The former Massachusetts governor came under fire for criticizing the president's response to Libya. Then came the infamous "47 percent video" in which he insulted nearly half the country. This Wednesday marks the first presidential debate, and Romney has to do well if he wants to save his candidacy.

Team Romney has reportedly been practicing a handful of "zingers" to throw at President Obama during the debates. A zinger, or "burn," is a quick, witty retort used by both insult comics and presidential candidates alike to knock their opponent off balance. The idea is to make Obama look smug without making Romney look bad himself.

Over the last few weeks both the president's surrogates and Romney's (with the exception of Chris Christie) have downplayed each candidates' debate skills. With a new Washington Post/ABC News poll showing the majority of the country feels President Obama will win the first debate, prompting the president's re-election team to manage expectations. Even Obama himself said at a campaign rally over the weekend that Romney was "a good debater" and that he was only "just okay." Over at the GOP nominee's campaign office, it seems they're following the same playbook. Paul Ryan went on Fox News Sunday this weekend and basically said the same exact thing about Romney. Ryan said, "President Obama is a very gifted speaker...he's an experienced debater. This is Mitt's first time." 

Paul Ryan may be attempting to lower expectations, but who is he kidding? This isn't Romney's first time. Yes, this will be the first time Romney has been on stage one-on-one with Obama, but this isn't his first debate, he knows the score. During the GOP primary, Romney participated in 20 debates, some of which he did well, and others...not so much. 

Romney's problem lies in his inability to humanize himself.  Every time he makes a joke, or veers off message to attack his opponent he ends up in a political ditch. Want proof? During one of his exchanges with Rick Perry, the former-Massachusetts Governor offered to make a $10,000 bet to prove the Texas governor wrong. In another debate, Romney tried to crack a joke with CNN's Wolf Blitzer which received silence from the audience. In yet another debate, Romney got flustered and started shouting at Rick Perry to "let me talk."

The Romney campaign is most likely taking every precaution to make sure situations like these don't happen Wednesday night. However, practicing zingers, burns or one-liners alone probably aren't going to beat Obama, who remained pretty calm during the 2008 debates, but it's a lot better than what Donald Trump wants him to do.

Charles Dharapak/AP Photo

Mitt Romney speaking at a campaign fundraising event at the Red Rock Hotel and Casino Friday in Las Vegas.

There you have it…Mitt Romney released his tax returns. Well, at least the ones for 2011, as he previously vowed to do. Mitt Romney’s trustee released this statement.  One paragraph in particular has caught the eye of many Romney tax return junkies:

The Romneys donated $4,020,772 to charity in 2011, amounting to nearly 30% of their income.

The Romneys claimed a deduction for $2.25 million of those charitable contributions.

The Romneys’ generous charitable donations in 2011 would have significantly reduced their tax obligation for the year. The Romneys thus limited their deduction of charitable contributions to conform to the Governor's statement in August, based upon the January estimate of income, that he paid at least 13% in income taxes in each of the last 10 years.

Well that seems nice that they paid more taxes than they owed, right? Well there is one slight problem. In July, Romney told ABC News, "I don't pay more than are legally due and frankly if I had paid more than are legally due I don't think I'd be qualified to become president. I'd think people would want me to follow the law and pay only what the tax code requires."

Once again, look at this quote in today's statement by Romney's trustee, "The Romneys' generous charitable donations in 2011 would have significantly reduced their tax obligation for the year. The Romneys thus limited their deduction of charitable contributions to conform to the Governor's statement in August, based upon the January estimate of income, that he paid at least 13% in income taxes in each of the last 10 years."

The video editing machines in Chicago must be on fire right about now.

Talking Points Memo Brian Beutler has even gone further by actually calculating what Mitt Romney’s effective tax rate would be if he did deduct all of his charitable contributions:

Romney’s 14.1 percent effective federal tax rate in 2011 would’ve been lower if he’d deducted all of his charitable contributions from his nearly $13.7 million in income. But after estimating that he paid at least 13 percent of his income in taxes in each of the last 10 years, Romney opted not to deduct nearly $1.8 million worth of charitable contributions last year to artificially lift his tax liability.

So what would Romney’s effective tax rate have been if he’d deducted all of his charitable donations? About 12.2 percent.

Here’s the math we used, validated by tax experts at the liberal Center for American Progress.

According to the campaign, Romney earned $13,696,951 in 2011, of which he paid $1,935,708 in taxes.

But those figures include $1,770,772 in charitable contributions that he could have deducted, but chose not to. Since the campaign acknowledges that nearly all of Romney’s income came from investments, we assume he paid a 15 percent rate on that $1,770,772 — or $265,615.80 in taxes that he didn’t have to pay.

If you subtract that figure from his total taxes, you’re left with $1,670,092.20 — the amount of tax he would have paid if he’d deducted all of his charitable contributions.

And that’s 12.2 percent of his overall income.

Shannon Stapleton/AP Photo

T-Paw giving a speech last month in front of a giant picture of Mitt Romney's face.

Tim Pawlenty, The Last Word's favorite mild-mannered man from Minnesota, officially ditched his position as co-chair of the Romney campaign Thursday to become a Wall Street lobbyist.

With just 47 days to go until the presidential election, the former Minnesota governor announced his decision to head up the Financial Services Roundtable in a joint statement with the Romney campaign. 

T-Paw said he had to leave because his new job "does not allow me to participate in partisan campaign activities." He continued, "My work with Mitt has been a privilege. Mitt Romney is a truly good man and great leader. As the campaign moves into the home stretch, he has my full support and continued faith in his vision and his policies."

Former rival Romney referred to T-Paw as a "dear friend" in the press release. "He's brought energy, intelligence and tireless dedication to every enterprise in which he's ever been engaged, and that certainly includes my presidential campaign," Romney said in the written statement. "While I regret he cannot continue as co-chair of my campaign, his new position advancing the integrity of our financial system is vital to the future of our country. I congratulate him on his new position and wish him every success in carrying out his new mission."

Pawlenty became the first Republican candidate to drop out of the 2012 presidential race. And before Paul Ryan came along, he told
The Last Word he wouldn't even consider a VP slot.

It was the widely held belief on The Last Word that T-Paw would ultimately bag the nomination, not Willard M. Romney. Despite his ill-conceived "Google tests" and cheesy attempts to appear "hip" by name-dropping Lady Gaga songs, he was just the nice guy who told dagger jokes on TV. 

Talking Points Memo

Screengrab of Akin's website

Rep. Todd Akin's is far from dropping out of the Missouri Senate race. Despite pressure from the Republican establishment, including Mitt Romney, Akin asked conservative voters to support him and his pro-life stances with a picture of a fetus on his official-real-we-checked-it-out-for-serious campaign website. It also misspelled the word "you're."

The image and spelling mistakes have been scrubbed from the site as of this afternoon. Hats off to Talking Points Memo for taking the screengrab while it lasted. 

Chuck Burton/AP Photo

Advisers to President Obama are reportedly considering featuring some centrist Republicans at the Democratic National Convention this year in Charlotte, North Carolina. The idea is to speak "directly to independents, noting that we are all 'Americans first,'" according to an exclusive report from Politico:  

The plans are spelled out in an early draft of the convention plan, providing an unusual glimpse of presidential advisers’ thought bubble about what viewers will see from the podium — closed captioning of what strategist David Axelrod and other top advisers are thinking about each element of the television spectacle. The detailed plans also offer a preliminary road map of the Obama campaign’s big themes for the fall.

The documents indicate the convention might focus on the notable accomplishments of Obama in his first term — the auto bailout, the Affordable Care Act, the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell — while portraying Mitt Romney as an out of touch person who would destroy the middle class.

Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and a number of GOP big shots came out in force over the last few days to attack President Obama for "stealing" $716 billion from Medicare to fund the Affordable Care Act.

The Republican attack was marvelously uncoordinated, with Romney, Ryan, and a horde of faithful surrogates stumping, interviewing, and appearing on almost every political talk show to toe the line on a chain of talking points. They are as follows:

• President Obama stole, cut, and/or raided $716 billion from Medicare to fund Obamacare.
• Medicare is going broke. By 2014, according to bipartisan estimates, the entitlement program will become insolvent. This problem has to be dealt with now because it will get really ugly if we wait.
• Paul Ryan worked with Ron Wyden, a Democrat, on this Medicare plan, so it's the only truly bipartisan bill on this issue that exists.
• No one 55 years of age or older will be affected by Paul Ryan's Medicare plan.
• Romney/Ryan are running on Romney's plan, not Ryan's.

Watch the video for a rundown of all the Republican arguments on Medicare. 

Protesters interrupted newly-minted Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan on Monday during his first solo stop on the campaign trail.

During a visit to the Iowa State Fair, the Wisconsin congressman tried to keep his cool at the mic as some attendees yelled things like, "Are you going to cut Medicare?"

In a Midwestern nice way, Ryan finally addressed the hecklers: "It's funny because Iowans and Wisconsinites, we like to be respectful of one another and peaceful with one another and listen to each other — these ladies must not be from Iowa or Wisconsin."

"Like I said, she must not be from Iowa,” Ryan added as security teams dragged one woman from the audience after she appeared to rush the stage.

Romney announced Ryan as his VP pick on Saturday. Ryan, a GOP heartthrob among the conservative set (Dick Cheney "worship[s] the ground" he walks on), was the mastermind behind an extreme budget proposal that would turn Medicare into a voucher system.

Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images

Gov. Chris Christie (file)

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie says he is totally open to running for president in 2016. And just to be clear, that still means he is rooting for Governor Mitt Romney to win this November. But just in case that does not happen, he would step up to the plate. The AP reports:

Christie rebuffed an opportunity to seek the GOP nomination this year. He was asked Wednesday at a boardwalk stop in Ocean City about running for the top spot in the next election.

He said: "If there's an opportunity for me to serve in another capacity and I think I have something to add to the mix, I don't think I'd back away from it."

He can practice his stump speech at the upcoming Republican National Convention in Tampa since he's reportedly the keynote speaker.