The front page of today's Connecticut Post:

(Jim voting this morning at his polling place in Cos Cob.)

The day is finally here. 

30 minutes until polls open.

Find your polling place and remind your friends to vote today here.

Give us any election day reports in the comments below, or email them to blog-at-himesforcongress-dot-com.

It's get out the vote time. Here's your checklist for the next 24 hours:

1. Volunteer on Monday and Tuesday:

The most important place we need you is on the ground Monday, Nov. 3rd and Tuesday, Nov. 4th -- poll standing, phone banking, giving rides to the polls, and getting out the vote for Jim Himes! Click here to volunteer to get out the vote in your town on Monday and Tuesday.

2. Remind your friends and family to vote for Jim Himes:

Remind your friends to vote for change across the ballot on Tuesday. Click here to send a reminder to your email contact list to vote for Jim Himes.

3. Make a last-minute contribution:

If you can't be here with us on the ground, you can still make a contribution to help us keep the campaign going at full speed on the air and on the ground until we hit the finish line. Click here to make a last-minute contribution.

4. Find your polling place:

Make sure you, your friends, and your family members all know where to go vote on Tuesday. Click here to enter your address and find your polling place.

5. Remember to vote!

Polls are open on Tuesday, November 4th from 6AM to 8PM ET in every town in the Fourth Congressional District. Remember to vote!

And the Bridgeport News was at the big Obama-Himes rally last night:

Democrats are hoping for a big turnout in Bridgeport, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by a more than nine-to-one margin. This is particularly important for Democratic congressional candidate Jim Himes, who is locked in a close battle with longtime Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays.

A strong showing by Himes in Bridgeport is considered essential to defeating Shays, a Bridgeport resident who has served since 1987. Some Democratic leaders are worried many first-time or sporadic voters — including in the minority community — will vote for Obama but not bother voting for candidates in other races.

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, a Democrat, said 300,000 new people have registered to vote in Connecticut in the Nov. 4 election. “Barack Obama has inspired thousands and thousands of people” to get involved in the electoral process, Bysiewicz said.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro of New Haven said the election’s “ground zero stretches from Bridgeport to Greenwich,” referring to the eastern and western boundaries of Shays’ district. “Chris Shays has stood with President Bush on Iraq and the economy,” DeLauro said.

Himes, a Greenwich resident, said he would work with Obama to improve health-care and education, and the new president would benefit from having more Democrats in Congress. “Barack Obama will lead a Congress and Senate that will have his back,” Himes predicted.

With less than 90 hours to go until polls open, Rep. Maxine Waters and Jim Himes fired up the crowd at a rally in Norwalk this afternoon. Here are some photos:

Less than 100 hours to go before polls open. Here's this morning's news:

- The AP, the Courant, and the CT Post all lead with the Obama ad for Jim. Here's CT GOP Chair Chris Healy's comment to Ken Dixon:

HARTFORD -- Democratic 4th Congressional District challenger Jim Himes has become one of the few candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives for whom U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has recorded a radio spot.

The Himes campaign will begin airing the political advertisement immediately, in an attempt to counteract a commercial that U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays has used over the past couple of weeks featuring New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

In the radio ad, presidential candidate Obama urges listeners to support Himes, saying he needs their help in electing him to Congress. He adds that he wants to "change the way Washington does business."...

"It's fine. So what?" Healy asked. "I think people understand Chris Shays' record and value. Barack Obama talking about Jim Himes, whom I doubt he's ever met, it won't draw flies."

And CTBob's response to Chris Healy:

I know it's not really a great year to be a Republican, but you have to be completely devoid of common sense to say the things that Chris Healy says on a nearly daily basis.

CTBob also has this great homemade YouTube of the Obama radio ad:

- Todd Beeton on the ad:

This is a particularly big get for Himes for a couple of reasons. First of all, CT-04 -- my old stomping grounds -- is a D+5 district. Obama is absolutely going to crush this district and pairing Obama and Himes is crucial for Jim to win. Shays keeps winning because Democrats and Independents keep voting for him. Obama is sending the signal that that is not an option this year. Also, in 2006, Shays's Democratic challenger went into election day with many polls having her tied or winning but where she lost it was with the anemic turnout among voters in the district's largest city, Bridgeport. We know that won't be a problem this year at the presidential level. Obama is doing his best to make sure that the surge of voters that turns out for him trickles down to Jim. Help Jim keep this ad on my parents' radio by contributing to his campaign HERE.

- The Evans Novak Report rates CT-04 as Leans Dem, joining Larry Sabato and Stuart Rothenberg in predicting a blue wave in CT-04.

- The Hour reports on the increases in Latino registration in Norwalk and Stamford this year:

Telling Latinos "¡Tu Voto Si Cuenta!" -- "Your Vote Does Count!" -- in a multimedia ad campaign led an estimated 21,570 Connecticut Hispanics to register to vote, according to Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz.

In a Wednesday news release, Bysiewicz said the jump in Latino voter registrations included an estimated 599 people in Norwalk and 765 in Stamford.

The increase in registered Latinos was measured from June 10, when the campaign began, until last Tuesday, said spokesman Av Harris.

- GOTV!

Another prognosticator says this race now tilts towards Jim Himes:

TOSS-UP/TILT DEMOCRATIC (12 R, 3 D)

* CO 4 (Musgrave, R)
* CT 4 (Shays, R) #
* FL 8 (Keller, R)
* GA 8 (Marshall, D)
* ID 1 (Sali, R) #
* KS 2 (Boyda, D)
* MN 3 (Open; Ramstad, R)
* MN 6 (Bachmann, R) #
* NV 3 (Porter, R)
* NH 1 (Shea-Porter, D)
* NJ 3 (Open; Saxton, R)
* NM1 (Open; Wilson, R)
* NY 29 (Kuhl, R)
* OH 15 (Open; Pryce, R) #
* PA 3 (English, R)

Rothenberg's reasoning?

...Republican strategists had expected McCain to run far stronger in those districts than he is, and they believe that would have helped the party’s House candidates.

If McCain is doing poorly in those districts, it’s not hard to see the kind of a drag he has become in districts likely to go for Obama even in the best of circumstances.

Connecticut moderate Rep. Christopher Shays was able to squeeze out a 52 percent win in 2004 even as Bush was losing the district with 46 percent of the vote. But this time, with McCain running 20 points behind Obama in the district in two media polls, it is unclear whether Shays can run far enough ahead of McCain to survive.

All the more reason to get out the vote this weekend!

In the wake of another trademark desperation Chris Shays election-year move -- this time throwing the McCain campaign, of which he is a co-chair, under the bus -- both the traditional media and the blogosphere are calling him out today:

Scarce at MLN (with video from Hardball on MSNBC):

I suppose this would be surprising coming from the co-chair McCain's Connecticut campaign if it were anyone else but Chris Shays. But right now survival is the name of the game and it's every man for himself.

CTBob:

So, we have Chris Shays making his characteristic "change of heart" noises the last week before the election. Remember how during the closing days of the 2006 campaign he blathered desperately about wanting all our troops withdrawn from Iraq by December, 2007?

We all know how well that worked out. He forgot about his promise the minute the votes were counted. He forgot his words.

That is, until this year, when he needed to drudge them up once again, to help him hang on.

Words to Chris Shays are exactly that...just words. He did a terrible job as McCain's local co-chair, and then he abandoned the man when he realized McCain might be a political liability in the final days. He used Barack Obama's name and face in his ads in a sleazy attempt to jump on a winner's bandwagon. He will say or do anything in the hopes he'll dupe enough well-meaning voters into giving him another two years to continue George Bush's policies in Washington.

Howie Klein chimes in as well:

Chris Shays is a self-serving hack from a blue district in Connecticut who manages to stay in office by distancing himself from his right-wing voting record at election time. This year, up against an energetic and much smarter opponent, Jim Himes, it looks like Shays' old tactic isn't working. So instead, the Chairman of McCain's campaign committee in Connecticut has come up with an interesting new strategy: attacking McCain, when he's on the ground... and groping for a break.

And Suzy Khimm at TNR gets it exactly right:

The polls for the Presidential race may be tightening once again, but that hasn’t stopped vulnerable Republicans from jumping ship—if not for the Obama camp, than at least as far away from the McCain campaign as possible. In my story in the current issue of TNR, I explain how Chris Shays, the only New England Republican in the House, has imperiled his own chances for survival by openly embracing the McCain-Palin ticket. Well, it looks like Shays himself has realized the hazards of such loyalty in a district where Obama is now leading by 59 percent...

Shays’s harsh appraisal is a real turnaround from the full-throated praise that he has espoused for the GOP ticket up until now. The Connecticut representative is currently running neck and neck with Jim Himes, the Democratic challenger in the 4th district, and his recent comments sound like a last-minute attempt to win over voters who’ve long had faith in Shays’s own version of moderate, independent-minded Republicanism. But, at this point, Shays’s about-face seems like too little, way too late. Whatever the outcome in Connecticut’s 4th, it seems clear that McCain won’t be the only one to have tarnished his maverick brand in this election.

Today's Connecticut Post follows up on Sunday's investigative New York Post story on Chris Shays's support for legislation that would allow for more risky mortgages -- and his $800,000 worth of support from a the National Association of Realtors PAC this year:

The New York Post reported Sunday that Shays' effort to overturn the ban on what the tabloid dubbed "the riskiest type of government-backed mortgages" had "raised a few eyebrows in his district." In July, Congress passed legislation that banned Federal Housing Administration mortgages made with seller-financed down payments to buyers who don't have the cash for a down payment. The Bush administration had argued for the ban saying that these no-money-down mortgages go to foreclosure three times as often as FHA mortgages in which the buyer puts a down payment on the house....

Shays has received the second largest amount of support from the association. They spent nearly $1.3 million helping re-elect Rep. Paul Kanjorsky, D-Pa., a 12-term Democrat who chairs the Financial Services subcommittee that oversees government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Brownsox at Daily Kos also has more:

To wit, witness this 2007 comment from Shays, an avowed member of the blame-homeowners-first crowd:

Shays said he's concerned Democrats want to use taxpayer money to bail out homeowners who should not have bought a house. "I can't imagine helping people who should not have gotten a loan in the first place."

To which the Connecticut Post responded:

But before lawmakers direct all their opprobrium at the subprime recipients, they should remember that there's a reason it's known as "predatory" lending. Unscrupulous lenders take advantage of people's lack of expertise to rope them into damaging arrangements that look agreeable in the short term, but spin out of control thereafter. Most recipients are guilty only of believing the hype that everyone in America deserves, and has the ability, to own a home.

So when Rep. Christopher Shays says, "I can't imagine helping people who should not have gotten a loan in the first place," it's worth wondering who he's taking out his anger on. Is it the people who were defrauded, or the ones who did the defrauding?

The same week that Shays helped get the Financial Services Committee to approve H.R. 6694, the National Association of Realtors PAC dumped over $500,000 into pro-Shays ad buys. Obviously, Shays is also in a hotly contested race with Orange to Blue candidate Jim Himes.

As it happens, Shays has close ties to realtors specializing in loans to low-income families; his brother Tony is just such a realtor.

At the same time, Shays' brother, Tony, is a real-estate broker whose Stamford firm stands to benefit from the reintroduction of the SFDPA program, as it caters to low-income buyers.

So now we know what it takes for Both Ways Shays to be converted from his erstwhile position urging homeowner responsibility, to a staunch defender of no-down-payment lending.

Every man has his price, it seems, and Chris Shays' price is $800,000 in campaign ads, plus a sweet gig for his brother.

Donna Edwards came up from Maryland to campaign for Jim today in Bridgeport. Here are some photos from today: