Happy Hour Roundup: Rand Paul camp flip-flops on returning stomper's campaign cash

* Another turn in the stomping incident. The Louisville Courier Journal reported today that the Rand Paul campaign says it won't be returning nearly $2000 in campaign contributions chipped in by Tim Profitt, the former Bourbon County coordinator who admitted to stomping MoveOn's Lauren Valle.

But last night, less than 24 hours ago, the Paul campaign told Fox News that they would be returning the money, according to video the Jack Conway campaign sent my way:

The Fox anchor noted last night that the Paul campaign said they were disassociating themselves from the stomper, and added: "That disassociation includes returning any campaign donations he made." Seems that's no longer operative. Honestly, should this one really be a tough call?

Paul's campaign has already taken heat from Conway for not initially saying whether it would return campaign contributions from three white separatists or from a donor who ran an adult website.

* Meanwhile, Kentucky cops are considering charges against two more Paul supporters.

* Smoking gun of the day: Conservative bloggers unearth video proof that Lauren Valle got stomped after...protesting. Wow, what a great scoop!

* More enthusiasm gap madness: A new New York Times poll finds that fewer than four in 10 Dems still aren't paying a lot of attention to the elections, versus more than half of Republicans who are. Hey, what's the rush?

* Nice take by Steve Benen on the larger meaning of the $100 million in attack ads foes of health reform have run since it passed.

* New batch of CNN Senate polls: Sharron Angle leads Harry Reid, 49-45. Rand Paul leads Jack Conway, 50-43. And Colorado remains deadlocked.

* With Senate dysfunction likely to get far worse, Terry McAuliffe says the future of energy reform may lie with the states.

* Silver lining of the day: Nate Silver explains why the Dem loss of the House is "not inevitable."

* With spending on this election on track to top $4 billion, Dan Eggen notes an important trend:

Donations from Wall Street, medical and insurance firms, energy conglomerates and other corporations have shifted decisively toward Republicans over the past year in the wake of congressional battles over health-care reform, financial regulations and other issues.

* Obama held his first sit-down with activist-type liberal bloggers today, and Sam Stein notes it seems like an effort to script in advance the online narrative about the election fallout.

* Joe Sudbay, who was there, reports that Obama told the bloggers that he likes constructive criticism. Clip and save for future reference!

* And Oliver Willis, who was also there, says Obama told him he's a progressive, too.

What else is happening?

