FLORIDIANS FLOCK TO THE POLLS: Florida kicked off early voting Monday, with record crowds heading to the polls and voters waiting hours to cast their ballots. Elections officials said the few reported problems were minor. Final statewide numbers for ballots cast Monday won't be available until today, but counties were reporting record turnouts. The early voting sites will remain open two weeks until the weekend before Election Day. "Lines are a sign of a healthy democracy, and certainly our democracy is healthy today," said Secretary of State Kurt Browning. The state is again a key to this election, with a prize of 27 electoral votes -- 10 percent of the 270 needed to clinch the presidency. Much of the attention on the record amounts of money coursing through the presidential race, including Barack Obama's $150 million fundraising haul in September, has focused on the explosion of small donors. But there has been another proliferation not fully apparent until the latest campaign finance reports were filed last week: people who have given tens of thousands of dollars at a time.
Enabled by the fine print in campaign finance laws, the donors -- headed by people in the securities and investments industry -- have written giant checks to joint fundraising committees that benefit the candidates as well as their parties.
Obama's campaign has leaned on wealthy benefactors to contribute up to $33,100 at a time. More than 600 donors contributed $25,000 or more to him in September alone, roughly three times the number who did the same for John McCain.
And McCain's campaign, which had not disclosed most of these donors until last week, has taken the concept to new levels, encouraging deep-pocketed supporters to write checks of more than $70,000, by adding state parties as beneficiaries of his fundraising. All told, about 2,000 people gave $25,000 or more to each candidate's various joint fundraising committees through September.
MCCAIN MAKES PITCH IN MISSOURI
McCain campaigned Monday in hotly contested Missouri. In a stump speech sharpened for the second week in a row, he defended his running mate. "My friends, it's remarkable the comments of the feminist left about Sarah Palin," he said in the speech in St. Charles, outside St. Louis.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., introduced McCain by declaring him under siege by the "liberal elite media."
McCain also stopped at a barbeque house in Columbia for lunch with small business owners. He labeled them "Joe the Plumbers, writ large," referring to the Ohio plumber McCain has made a focal point for his criticism of Obama's tax proposals.
FOR FEDERAL GAY MARRIAGE BAN
Palin said she supports a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, a break with McCain who has said he believes states should be left to define what marriage is.
In an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network, the Alaska governor said she had voted in 1998 for a state amendment banning same-sex marriage and hoped to see a federal ban on such unions.
"I have voted along with the vast majority of Alaskans who had the opportunity to vote to amend our Constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman. I wish on a federal level that's where we would go. I don't support gay marriage," Palin said.
OBAMA BORROWS A REAGAN LINE
Campaigning in Florida, Obama updated a Ronald Reagan line to criticize Republican handling of the nation's deepening economic distress.
"At this rate, the question isn't just, 'Are you better off than you were four years ago?' It's, 'Are you better off than you were four weeks ago?'" Obama asked a crowd in Tampa.
Obama later teamed up with Hillary Rodham Clinton in Orlando. "Now is the time to close the deal for Barack Obama. ... America will once again rise from the ashes of the Bushes," she said.
MADISON RALLY CALLED OFF
Obama is canceling a rally Thursday in Madison, Wis., to visit his ailing grandmother in Hawaii. Obama's campaign said he is leaving the campaign trail for most of Thursday and Friday to visit grandmother Madelyn Dunham. The campaign said her health has seriously deteriorated in recent days.
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