"If I am president of the United States, this rescue plan will not be the end of what we do to strengthen this economy. It will only be the beginning."

Oh yeah? Fine. Before the bailout is resubmitted, I'd like to see an on-the-record roll-call vote in both houses on a "Statement of Intent" for future actions.

I'm not dumb enough to want nitty-gritty details, nor am I naive enough that I think that a Statement of Intent will mean a lot, but it'd be nice to have something to point at next year.

Is there a real economic crisis?

The people who say: "See, there's no crisis, the market went up today!"

aren't much different than the people who say: "See, there's no global warming, it's really cold today!"

I can't speak for anyone else, but in my case it wasn't a denial of the crisis, but a response to the folks -- more elsewhere than here, I admit -- who took yesterday's big drop in the DOW as proof that Congress did the wrong thing. (FWIW, the DOW was +474.54 at 3:33.)

No offense, sir, but I am hoping to read your sincere admission of bone-headedness, come November 5th.

The DOW was going up before the rumors, the statements by the candidates, etc.

The McCain campaign is skeptical on this. "Democrats love to tout voter registration numbers, but that's putting the cart before the horse," said McCain spokesman Gorka.

Yes, the Republican leadership knows that it's not about how many people you register to vote, it's about how many people you can prevent from voting.

If we disagree with Very Serious People, it must be because we Just Don't Understand.

Oh yeah - "lipstick on a pig".

It'll probably work, though.

I'd love to see a landslide, but it seems extremely unlikely. It's somewhat more likely -- at least if one buys Nat Silver's numbers -- that it'll be a big electoral college win for Obama.

I'll be shocked if the popular vote difference is out of single-digit territory. Hell, I'll be surprised if the difference is over 5.

I don't want to go all optimistic, because I've been wrong on this too often before. But I do have a little hope that ratcheting up the slime machine would backfire on the Repubs. The general reaction to -- for example -- the disgustingly dishonest McCain sex-ed ad and to his condescending behavior during the first debate make me suspect that Repubs need to be careful not to go too far.

(While it's tempting to think that there seems to be no such thing as "too far" in US Presidential politics, there really is a limit. See the 1992 Presidential campaign, particularly Buchanan's speech at the Republican convention.)

Their only real chance is to try to drag the Obama campaign down to their level -- or, failing that, to try to portray the Obama campaign as being down at their level. I think they have more of a chance with the latter than the former.

You know, I've been expected to do everything growing up that the boys were doing.

Ah, but were the boys encouraged to enter beauty pageants?

I'm guessing probably not.

Haven't you seen a picture of her?

Only real, white Americans can be unbiased moderators.

(It's worth pointing out that the McCain campaign approved of her as moderator. I guess that means the McCain campaign is biased toward Obama. Or something like that.)

Agreed, and thanks for saying so. When I was growing up, most of my family hunted, and -- thanks to my Dad's influence -- we learned to despise sport hunters. "You kill it, you clean it, you eat it." (It didn't help that most sport hunters were "from The City" and/or used hunting as an excuse to get drunk.)

I buy my meat at the store these days, but I like to think I'm a little less removed from the reality of meat than most folks who have never hunted and/or raised animals for food.

I have respect for people who are honest vegetarians objecting to hunting, but the last blow-hard who mocked me for having hunted was eating a hamburger at the time. Fuckin' spare me.

Good luck selling that to anyone outside of your base, Senator McCain.

Hell, good luck selling it to anyone outside of Governor Palin's base.

Meanwhile, anyone outside that base is going, "You turn to her for advice?"

"Newspapers? We do have cable in Alaska, Katie. I can get Fox News. Why would I need to read newspapers?"

So if abortion is outlawed and a woman obtains one illegally, who has broken the law and who should be prosecuted?

Details, details.

Don't be silly. The answer to that is simple and obvious. The people who fought against outlawing abortion should be prosecuted.

(Oh yes, and the murderer, too, of course. The woman, the poor dear, its just another victim.)

Well, it's possible that the invitations never end up at the correct McCain house in time.

There was even media speculation during the lead up to the first presidential debate last Friday night that Barack Obama would try to goad McCain into losing his temper.

I'm sure Obama knows damn well that he cannot be seen as trying to goad McCain. If he does that, it needs to be completely under the radar. A McCain meltdown would have to be seen -- at least by non-wingers -- as coming completely out of the blue.

A younger black man goading an older white man? It may not literally be suicidal these days -- in most contexts -- but it'd sure be politically suicidal.

@Timothy3

Whom might you be addressing?

Shhh. He's obviously obsessed with "teh gay". These things don't always follow predictable paths, but I think the next stage is when he starts writing fan letters to Mark Foley.

Apologies, I think I mis-aimed my snide.