Let's just hope that Hillary loans her speechwriters to Bill for tonight.

He has a lot to make up for, and, somehow, I can't see him subsuming his ego enough to get the job done properly. But he saw his wife swallow her pride to do an excellent job on Tuesday, so maybe that will help him be bigger than his ego.

If the democrats want to strike back against the republican charges, I don't see where their ticket has sufficient surrogate spokespeople out there doing it.

About the last people the public will believe are "campaign officials" who are paid to promote the candidate. But those are about the only ones who seem to be really trying to counter the charges and make their own against the other ticket. I think the democrats need Hillary and Bill, Bill Richardson, Russ Feingold and other popular political figures to do the "garbage work" against the republicans, especially if Obama wants to stay positive and above the fray.

The public will listen to them. But how many of the public know who David Axelrod is or pay any attention to what he says?

The message is there; nonpolitical types won't pay attention to the wrong surrogates.

I heard an analyst suggest that this was more a bail-out of foreign investors, who own the bulk of F/F paper. This, he said, was more about foreign policy than about domestic market forces.

Sure, Gov. Palin doesn't understand what F/F does--any more than the average voter. In fact, if Sen. McCain had been asked, I doubt he'd have given a better answer; maybe more evasive, but not more substantive.

The problem this campaign year is that knowledge DOESN'T matter. The Republicans have framed the contest in terms of personal histories, not what the candidates know, not what they want to do, not how they would lead. We're heading back to the old Shrub paradigm: Would you take Barack Obama or John McCain to your watering hole for a beer? Or, failing that, would you prefer to share your table with Biden or Palin?

With global warming, Canada is looking better and better. And they're so polite!

This small-town ex-Navy guy liked the McCain of 2000 and probably would have voted for him in 2008.

His pick of Sarah Palin was reckless and poor judgment, and so I was far less enthusiastic. But it's his ad campaign that moved me into the Obama camp. In a battleground state like Wisconsin, his campaign is advertising heavily, about 6:1 being negative, maybe more.

The lies and distortions are bad enough. What pushes me over the edge is the "uplifting" photo of John at the end with his "I've approved this message" copy. The photo of John's face from below looks like they're preparing him for Mount Rushmore!

McCain in 2000 was an honorable ex-warrior; this is anything but that. He and Cindy should have to watch these commercials from now until November. His dishonesty, coupled with the image of John, is a deal-breaker. I feel like his first wife.

McCain was much like his campaign, well off its mark for the last several months. Too critical, too insulting without any deference to the fact that we're dealing with two U.S. Senators.

On the other hand, Obama was way too deferential and used up way too much time agreeing with McCain to make his points. Obama definitely drew the contrast between someone who could negotiate with a foreign power vs someone who could not do it effectively.

But, when you're dealing with microsecond sound bites, you don't waste time pointing out that you agree with your opponent. It may be gentlemanly and polite, but it's no shot on goal, which is what these debates need to be about.

You may have a slight lead in the polls (although polls never elected any one), but given Iraq and Wall Street, we need tough, we need hard-hitting, we need memorable as much as anything.

My take is that McCain, given all his faults, wanted to win this "debate" more than Obama did. And that's a stinging indictment of the Obama campaign, which wasn't waffling over whether to appear or not.

Just heard an interview with an author who has written about dirty tricks being used to purge registered voters from their precinct lists.

While in most cases voters can cast "provisional" ballots, whether those ballots will be counted is another matter. He said that one million out of three million provisional ballots were never counted from the last election.

He also told of phony "convict lists" to eliminate registration and refuse ballots to many African-American voters. There have also been letters sent to victims of real estate foreclosures, indicating that they won't be allowed to vote from that address.

Other scams include notices with the wrong polling place listed, or even the wrong date for the election. Same with letters indicating that voters with outstanding parking tickets will be arrested if they show up at the polls.

And all of this is before anyone talks about tampering with voting machines.