Every black voter in America will vote for Obama, even the ones in safely red or blue states that normally wouldn't bother. Add in the youth vote, the first time voters, etc. and Obama will win the popular vote by 3%. He will, however, almost certainly lose Ohio, Florida, and possibly Pennsylvania. It will be ugly.

The time has come to set aside politics and put Warren Buffet in charge of cleaning up this mess. If he can't do it. no one can.

Steve Goodman's Go Cubs Go is practically the official song of the Cubs, and it is the best sports song ever. I bet even the opposing team at a home game would have to sing along "Hey, Chicago, what do you say. The Cubs are gonna win today" I can't believe anyone would bother to write another. He also wrote A Dyuing Cubs Fan's Last Request, which is a bit more literary.

Radical Islamists scare me, but in truth, Iran, a theocracy with some democratic tendencies is no less free than an oliarchy such as China. And Ahmadinejad's rhetoric is no more threatening than Bush's speeches. Only the US and Russia have invaded sovereign nations in the last 10 years.

If the US could truly occupy the moral high ground, we would be in a much better place to undercut the rulers of Iran.

Bush said last night that the reason for the credit boom was that the rest of the world saw us as a great place to put their money. They sent so much, it inflated the real estate market. In reality, the rest of the world was and still is holding way too many dollars due to our trade deficit, and they had to invest it back to keep the whole pyramid scheme going. A recession is invevitable, because we can't keep buying more than we sell, and China can't keep selling more than it buys.

So the House republicans want more deregulation to solve a mess caused by dregulation. They want a stronger dollar (how, exactly?) for a problem caused by overvaluation of US assets brought on by a trade deficit that would have been lessened by a weaker dollar. I've heard of fighting fire with fire, but this is ridiculous.

John McCain rolls into Washington like a some sort of white(haired) knight, then refuses to take a position. He has barely said a word. I don't get it. As a leader, you have to take a stand. He is used to being a gadfly, finding pragmatic middle ground on occaision, but he never goes all-in. He folds. Just like 2000, when he addressed Arrianna Huffinton's "Shadow Convention" on Philadelphia and endorsed Bush. This time, he hasn't even folded. He is sitting at the table, and he won't even bet.

The nerve of this guy! He comes to washington with allt his phony grandstanding about "suspending" his campaign, and then refuses to take a stand for or against any aspect of the bailout, or even say a word on what he thinks we should do. Then he has the gall to accuse Obama of posturing for the crime of taking a big risk by comming out in support of the plan democrats hammered out. Does McCain really think he can take credit for sitting on the fence and grandstanding?

You exerpted the whole collumn. Not that that's a bad thing.

If the only change to the electoral map from 2004 is a flip to blue for Colorada, it's a tie. Wouldn't that be exciting.

McCain apparently couldn't be bothered to read the 3-pagee proposal from Paulson. Any wonder representatives didn't read and comprehend all 100+ pages of their bill? They are running for reelection here! Maybe their big contributors will brief them at the next fundraiser.

Will Republicans in tight races be able to say they voted against the bill before they voted for it?

Obama can lose Ohio and Florida if he picks up New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado.

These Repugnantcans are just looking for something - anything -that can temper the fact that Sarah Palin is completely ignorant about everything on the face of the earth.

Can anyone really claim to be surprised that a black, female PBS news show host might just be a Democrat? Fact is, Ifil has been moderating debates for years, and the debate moderator hardly determines the outcome of a debate. The book's topic is not particularly partisan, and in fact probably shows how black politicians are moving beyond the exclusively liberal democrat mold.

I know I'm an elitist from the reality based community and all, but how can anyone suggest that you could end a crisis in confidence over the unknown value of assets by letting financial institutions use their own personal judgement on the value of those assets? How can you react to a problem of lax regulation by loosening a regulation? The mind boggles.

Alaska has about 680,000 residents. That is about the population of Fort Worth, TX, the 17th-largest city in America. Of course, you can't see Mexico from Fort Worth, but you can see it from El Paso, which has 609,000 residents.

Sure, people kill each other in the name of religion but religion is just a convenient cath-all for culture. We are a tribalistic species which eveloved through in-group altruism and out-group competition. Most religions were founded to form a common culture and moral framework that would trancend tribalism and bring about peace, prosperity and cooperation. However, it doesn't take long for peolple to break themselves into factions again.