I’m not normally one to tout Al Gore or anything that he does, but today I am—kind of. That’s because Gore is joining a venture capital firm that invests in companies pursuing environmentally-friendly technologies-- a good thing, in my opinion. And, it turns out that Gore is going to take away from his position with the firm-- and keep-- his share of the carried interest that gets paid to partners, and which relates directly to the amount of capital growth experienced in the firm's portfolio (Gore is apparently donating his actual salary to a non-profit group he founded). That's something that leads me back to an old, and favorite, topic—and the real reason I’m talking about Gore, without a blog-evident grimace.

Readers may remember that it's just this kind of payment-- in respect of carried interest-- that congressional Democrats are trying to hike taxes on, and by quite a large amount, too (essentially, based on my understanding, we're talking a minimum of an extra 20% payable to the government in tax). I wonder, were such high rates of tax in place already, back when Gore was approached by the firm (or was approaching the firm) would he have decided to make the move that he has, in joining the firm as a partner? If he had gone ahead, would he (and presumably the other partners) have sought to extract a greater percentage corresponding to growth in the value of the firm's portfolio in order to compensate for higher taxes being levied on carried interest payments?

These are important things to ponder as the debate over hiking taxes on carried interest continues. Had Gore either not joined the firm, or had he and the other partners taken a bigger "cut" corresponding to increases in the portfolio value—both very easily conceivable responses to higher taxes being levied on carried interest payments-- you can bet the ...

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Tomorrow (well, technically today, since it's past midnight now), I'll be appearing on "Meet The New Press" on New Hampshire's WEMJ radio, 1490 AM. I'll be talking Mormon-gate, Clinton vs. Clinton on free trade, and a few other bits and pieces relevant to presidential politics. For those not in New Hampshire, click here for instructions as to how to tune in.

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Well, I thought this story had died a death heading into Thanksgiving. Guess I was wrong.

Last night, Soren Dayton noted the fact that several people who received the Mormon-bashing calls are on the Romney payroll, and one is on a Romney steering committee. I'm no expert on polling, but one of the questions that immediately springs to my mind is, wouldn't you filter out of a call list of this type anyone who was taking money from the campaign, or on a committee associated with it? It would seem to me to be a good idea, if not completely standard practice. But, it wasn't done. Just like Iowa State Rep. Watts, who just so happens to be a Romney endorser (and who definitely should have been filtered out) wasn't.

This story was made for the media, people-- it was not about altering voters' perceptions one little bit. That much is for certain. And it should be borne in mind when conjecturing as to who might be behind this.

Another interesting point arising in Soren's post. It seems that one of the people who received the call (the one who makes $1100 a month off of Romney) can't get her story straight about when she received the call. I say this with virtual certainty since a) Reid Wilson of RCP is a smart guy and doesn't misreport details and b) I don't think McClatchy does, either. This raises the possibility that the the lady is fibbing. People who have actually experienced upsetting things (like getting a call where someone's religion is being bashed) usually remember the day on which it occurred. They also usually remember what was going on at the time. In the McClatchy piece, Rose Kramer (the lady in question) says she was "waiting for the TV show "House" to start at 8 p.m. Tuesday." In...

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