some women, women for whom abortion rights, gay rights, etc. are not at the top of the agenda. She might help with those women especially if they don't know the McCain's positions on taxes, Social Security, and other liberal issues. (The conservate press in criticism and the liberal press in praise have for years painted McCain as a maverick which for some will mean moderate or at least willing to rethink positions.) Even I, despite caring passionately about all of those issues, FOR A MOMENT, thought it would be great to vote for a woman on a ticket that might actually win, that we might actually have a woman in the White House who doesn't type letters or kiss the president goodnight. I won't, but that doesn't mean others won't, women who are Catholic and opposed to abortion rights (Irish or Hispanic or Polish or....), Republican and Republican-leaning women who might have crossed over to vote for Hillary. At the very least, it will be interesting.

not a Gen Xer. Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. Obama was born in 1961.

He has also changed clothes, moving from post-partisan, post-racial, change agent of hope to channeling Hillary Clinton: I will fight for you; I will fight for you; and surrounding himself with all of Bill Clinton's economic advisors--Thank God. He has also scuttled quickly to the center, triangulating without needing to.

She is winning--not because she is right, truthful, or knowledgeable, but because the public is ignorant and ignorant and more ignorant. She thus seems believable and likable. Her lack of facts and statistics makes her like a real person to people who are themselves ignorant. And she winning because she will not seem like an idiot to the vast wasteland of middle America. Maybe she'll stumble before it's over.

Nice balanced, thoughtful response to the debate. Earlier in the evening I feared Palin was winning because she did not look or act the fool, and because I felt the public would find her likable. But her tricks wore thin and Biden didn't wear out his welcome. By the end of the evening I wanted Palin and her husband to go home, and I was ready to make up the guest room so Joe and his wife could stay and not have to drive home late.

will never admit there is no God. They will never admit that Adam Smith's Invisible Hand is really "The Hand" of Jon Lansdale and that, according to Oliver Stone, "It lives. It crawls. And suddenly, it kills."

True Believers keep to the faith no matter what proof appears. Remember when the GOP, to a man, voted against Bill Clinton's 1993 budget, a budget for which a number of Democrats gave their political lives, a budget which put us on the path to fiscal sanity, a surplus, and the best economy for rich and poor, black and white, men and women since statistics were first kept.

"No, No," The True Believers said, "the economy will stagnate and jobs will disappear." They said that as Clinton's economy grew, real wages increased, and 22 million jobs were created.

And now, after 8 years of deficits, again increasing gaps between rich and poor, stagnant wages for the middle class, and anemic job growth under Reaganomics Bush-style prove that "The Hand," visible or invisible, kills, True Believers continue to believe that Adam Smith's hand will, some day, some how save us all.

Right.

It's great that he won, but the truth is that after the Republican Convention John McCain was even or a point or two ahead or behind. Obama pulled into a lead ONLY when the economy tanked, McCain failed to face the problem, and the public sensibly fled to the Democrat. McCain might well have won, probably would have won, if the economy had just continued a slow dance of death or McCain had recognized the imperative of a rapid populist response to the crisis. Obama, the country, were very lucky. We would have been doomed if McCain had had good populist economic instincts or if the economy had staggered on until after the election. Sad that this is the silver lining to the near fatal illness of the economy.

There are many reasons to be happy that Obama won, but seeing the pain on the FOX news faces is a small but real one. Now I fear they will begin the effort to destroy Obama so he can't accomplish his goals. They (conservative Republicans not FOX)did it to Bill Clinton and I'd bet the farm that they are gearing up again. The right will not, can not, allow a Democrat, particularly a liberal one, to succeed at anything. They will go after Obama, and we have to be ready for it.

The Democrats lost Congress because the Republicans manipulated the press and the public into believing that the Clinton universal health care plan was Socialist (sound familiar), because the public was manipulated into believing that the Clinton tax increase (which led to the budget surplus recklessly wasted by Bush) hit the middle class instead of the wealthiest 1.2 percent and the wealthy elite in the media knew their taxes had been raised and hated it, and because of the Jim Wright, D-Tx, book scandal and the House Banking scandal were hyped into major scandals instead the minor ones they were. With the exception of NAFTA, Clinton tried to govern from the left or center-left until the take-over in 1994, and then he was forced to triangulate and go with small incremental changes.