Either candidate would be well-served to heed this advice; skip the debates at your peril. Try to buy time to "bone up" in advance of a debate at your peril.

People on the left and right may regard the debates as acts of political theater, but that's precisely why they are so cherished. The voters love them. We love the zingers and the one-upsmanship. But mostly we love the act of communion it brings; in our scatter-shot age, it's one of the few times that all the voters and both of the candidates all gather in the same place to talk and listen. (Mostly talk.) Now that we all can gather our information in disparate places and live in our own little bubbles of self-constructed and self-reinforcing reality (ahem...Salon), the debate provides a welcomed shared forum.

Mess with that, and you WILL incur voter resentment. We are very much creatures of ritual.

Also, lots of us have little kids. We know when a candidate is pulling a favorite 5th-grader ploy; making excuses to postpone the inevitable, in order to buy extra time in which to memorize his notecards.

Puh-leeze.

Do you really believe what you are saying? I mean, are you trying to convince us that what Senator McCain (see, no nicknames) did was NOT a political stunt to change the subject from his culpability in all this mess as a long-time advocate of corporate deregulation?

I'm serious. I really want to know.

Thinkin_Mencken, I have to disagree. John McCain is trying to save his own behind from being lambasted for being a proponent of the deregulation on Wall Street that allowed the investment banks to create their own rules. He applauded the Frankensteinian creation of asset-backed securities built on receivable streams derived from ARMs as a novel way for private enterprise to reap a profit, rather than challenging it as a dangerous way for the American financial system to get addicted to volatile credit.

Remember McCain's own words: "You will never find a bigger deregulator than me."

And don't even get me started on Phil Gramm's role in all this.

Thinkin_Mencken, your candidate is throwing his latest Hail Mary pass since the Palin selection because he's a gambler by nature and he gambles when he senses, as he does now, that his back is against the wall. He is operating from a position of desperation, and as I have said, if he skips the debate, he will pay in the polls.

Yours respectfully,

Diomedes

McCain's refrain that Obama doesn't understand only works if the audience gets the sense that Obama actually doesn't. But if, like last night, he comes across as cool, composed and rational, and his ideas are reasonable, then McCain just sounds crotchety.

White women will probably decide the election. Watching this debate with my fifty-something white mom, who is a registered independent, it was interesting to note that she didn't react well to McCain's repeated chidings. She says he came across as overly mean-spirited.

Who knows though. Lots of slips txixt the lip and the cup.

The reason I think Palin is a lot smarter than Bush is that she is self-aware enough to understand that she IS flailing. Everytime Bush mangles another press conference, he always "seals the deal" by sashaying away with that dumb smirk on his face like he blew the roof off or something.

Palin, at least, understands that she is inadequate. Also, she is apparently articulate and conversant in those issues that she deals with in her role as governor; drilling in ANWR, Inuit issues, picayune budgetary stuff, etc.

But she's also arrogant. For her to stride out, grab the mantle and think that she can go toe-to-toe with Joe Biden on national and international issues when she obviously knows nothing about them, leads me to believe she must have had a moment after McCain asked her to join up when she thought, "Damn, how hard could this be?" Jerk. You're running for back-up President, not Wasilla Ombudsman.

So this is the picture I'm painting; she is self-aware and intelligent enough to know her limitations, to know just how inadequate she is for the task at hand, but she is also arrogant and power-hungry enough to go for it anyway.

This entry was so good (thanks jwr_12) it bears repeating. Everyone READ AND ABSORB!

Two Words: Rope A Dope

Alright people, let's not get cocky. The Americans have elected incurious ignorant nullities before -- hmmm, when did that happen? -- oh yeah, in 2000 and 2004. This is the Republican play: you set the bar low, and when Palin shows up and fails to drool on herself--and then Biden says something 'mean' or 'gotcha' like Hamas is based in Gaza, not Pakistan--then instantly the debate will be about how Palin held her own against the elitist, implicitly queer left.

Mark my words: Palin has at least one comeback left in her. Not simply because of whatever she herself can do, but because of the way the game is played. This cipher did not get picked by accident. She's the perfect platform for the big lie, the perfect instrument to play on the American people's love of mediocrity and hatred of intelligence. It's just a matter of time.

This one won't be over until the next inauguration. If then.

How can something be "over" if it hasn't started yet? Someone please explain that to me.

Look, I am currently a field organizer for Obama in a key swing state. We are being told from HQ in Chicago that the polls can say whatever they want, but we can be assured they WILL tighten as election day approaches, and that it will come DOWN TO THE WIRE.

Complacency kills campaigns. Everyone: donate your money and your time to Obama, as much as you conceivably can.

Thanks.