From TNR's &c blog comes this story about race baiting in the Michigan governor's race. TNR notes that the fairly nasty ad run by trailing Republican Dick Posthumus (ed. note: Oh, the juvenile humor potential in a name like "Dick Posthumus". Good thing this is a Serious Blog.) has backfired, as polls have shown that Democrat Jennifer Granholm's lead expanding to 14 points. Worse, even Republicans such as former Governor William Milliken have blasted Posthumus' ad.

What caught my eye about all this was that &c used this link, to the Detroit News Politics Index page, as their link to the story of Milliken's rebuke. Somewhat amusingly, the lead story on that page right now is this one, which shows that Posthumus is within 8 points of Granholm. Oops.

Never trust an index page when linking to a specific article.

(It should be noted that the more recent poll has a higher margin of error than the previous one, and that the difference appears to come entirely from undecided voters. There's also not a lot of info in either poll about demographics, so as always take them with a grain of salt.)

One reason to root for Granholm to win, by the way: Ted Nugent says he'll run against her in 2006. I can't wait to hear him explain "Cat Scratch Fever" to an assembly of Republican women.