Morning Must Reads: Sluggers

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Republican Senate hope Rand Paul announces that he won’t shake hands with Democratic Senate hopeful Jack Conway after their U.S. Senate debate at the University of Louisville on October 17. (Photo by Jamie Rhodes/Getty Images)

–“Aqua Buddha” makes it into the Kentucky Senate debate and one of Jack Conway’s ads:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BCa8xw9yGY]

Rand Paul responds in kind:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOvm0EjW0kI]

How nasty was their debate? Paul wouldn’t shake hands afterward and Conway was hurling zingers like this one:

As the attorney general of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, I’m always amused to get a lecture on constitutional law from a self-certified ophthalmologist.

The New Yorker profiles forever scrappy Harry Reid. A taste:

Reid beat another kid so savagely that he permanently flattened one of his own knuckles. One day, Larry Reid fell off his bike and broke his leg. Although he screamed in pain, Harry thought he was faking it and initially refused to help him. Another time, Reid took a .22 rifle and went out to shoot a rabbit for dinner. With his last bullet, he merely wounded the rabbit, so he gave chase on foot for “what seemed like hours,” he wrote. “I got that rabbit. Took it home. Skinned it. Took it to my grandmother. . . . Best rabbit I ever ate.” At fourteen, Reid had a fistfight with his father (because he was beating Reid’s mother). At nineteen, he had a fistfight with his future father-in-law (because he opposed his daughter’s marriage).

–Despite all the Paladino to-do, Andrew Cuomo is still governor-in-waiting, at least according to the latest New York Times poll.

–The New York Post endorses Cuomo, calling Paladino “Spitzer Lite in an elephant suit.”

–Two good reads on campaign finance: Eric Lichtblau sketches out some relevant history and Gillian Tett touches on visceral reactions elicited by an often opaque system.

–NPR takes a smart look at early voting.

–The St. Pete Times has a great account of the ascent of Jim Greer, the tarnished former head of Florida’s Republican party.

Predictably, Mitch Daniels gets backlash for his VAT talk.

–Ilya Somin does some close reading of a Florida judge’s order to allow several elements of a major challenge to PPACA (AKA ObamaCare) to go forward.

–The Financial Times looks ahead to what a Republican majority in the House might actually do about health care.

–Obama and Michelle pack the house like it’s ’08.

–Joe Miller declines interviews via handcuff.

–And Obama will go on the Discovery Channel’s “Mythbusters.” It’s not yet known whether he’ll bring along his birth certificate.

What did I miss?

E-mail Adam